The pretense needs to stop. It is what it is. I'd have more respect for a company to just open a Paypal account and tell it's customer base that if they wanted to donate a little extra to the company because they enjoy the game they can send it to their (company's) Paypal account.

I wrote that in another thread. Got me to thinking. What do some of you think about MMO companys not choosing the "free to play route with item mall" or "subscription with item mall" and instead, as I wrote above, just opening a Paypal account "Tip Jar" and accepting tips from customers who think the game was done well. They could of course link it on their website and spend as much effort making it visible as possible on their website (maybe have it on the login screen so that all customers were aware).

I don't have any issue with the idea and in fact I'd give more respect to the company that did. I don't want to pay extra for sprinkles on my cupcake. I want to order a cupcake and have you so outdo my expectations that I pay the price for the cupcake plus I slap a tip down that is worth anothe 3/4 to 1 whole additional cupcake.

Any, I think I want a cupcake now.

I think it's a good idea, but it wouldn't be too profitable. It would end up just having a bunch of people who never even donate 1 penny to the company, and I doubt it would cover server costs, that's why so many companies have the pay to win cash shop model, because the few people who actually spend the thousands to wreck in pvp fuel the game companies income. There would be hardly any incentive for people to donate to a company, unless it had the best community in the entire game market.

I would think that most of these f2p games get money from kids that use their parents credit cards which well takes quite a bit of convincing I would say so when they can play for free, why bother? Not to mention that a very very small portion of the playerbase would even donate without getting anything in return.

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

The pretense needs to stop. It is what it is. I'd have more respect for a company to just open a Paypal account and tell it's customer base that if they wanted to donate a little extra to the company because they enjoy the game they can send it to their (company's) Paypal account.

 

I wrote that in another thread. Got me to thinking. What do some of you think about MMO companys not choosing the "free to play route with item mall" or "subscription with item mall" and instead, as I wrote above, just opening a Paypal account "Tip Jar" and accepting tips from customers who think the game was done well. They could of course link it on their website and spend as much effort making it visible as possible on their website (maybe have it on the login screen so that all customers were aware).

I don't have any issue with the idea and in fact I'd give more respect to the company that did. I don't want to pay extra for sprinkles on my cupcake. I want to order a cupcake and have you so outdo my expectations that I pay the price for the cupcake plus I slap a tip down that is worth anothe 3/4 to 1 whole additional cupcake.

Any, I think I want a cupcake now.

 

 Unfortunately ive always noticed tip jars are usually almost empty when I see them. What you really need is jars IRL that say "Help retarded kids play WoW"

I think it's obvious for f2p games, they'll make alot less money.  Some of which wont' make enough to keep the game running.

Take NDoors for example.  they make around 4 million a month last year.  But out of that they spend 2 million dollar a month to keep the company running.  And I doubt NDoors will make more than 2 million dollar a month just from donation.

Tip Jar for subscription games probably works.  But most likely won't work for high bugdget f2p games.

It works incredibly well for some indie developers. The drawback of course, is that this concept only really works for very niche games, where the playerbase is extremely dedicated and loyal, despite being rather small in number.

The moment such a game garners any notion of 'mainstream', then it gets flooded with people who are just looking for free entertainment, and inevitably bog down both the game servers, and the community.

^ how you know it works really well.  which MMO actually have tip jar.

I havn't actually see a developed MMO with tip jar.

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

... just opening a Paypal account "Tip Jar" and accepting tips from customers who think the game was done well.

Any, I think I want a cupcake now.

 

I LOVE it K!

Fantastic straightforward idea.

Problem is, then Devs would have to set out to make good solid (complete) games.

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

The pretense needs to stop. It is what it is. I'd have more respect for a company to just open a Paypal account and tell it's customer base that if they wanted to donate a little extra to the company because they enjoy the game they can send it to their (company's) Paypal account.

 

I wrote that in another thread. Got me to thinking. What do some of you think about MMO companys not choosing the "free to play route with item mall" or "subscription with item mall" and instead, as I wrote above, just opening a Paypal account "Tip Jar" and accepting tips from customers who think the game was done well. They could of course link it on their website and spend as much effort making it visible as possible on their website (maybe have it on the login screen so that all customers were aware).

I don't have any issue with the idea and in fact I'd give more respect to the company that did. I don't want to pay extra for sprinkles on my cupcake. I want to order a cupcake and have you so outdo my expectations that I pay the price for the cupcake plus I slap a tip down that is worth anothe 3/4 to 1 whole additional cupcake.

Any, I think I want a cupcake now.

 

SoE is doing it.

The thing is, RMT is not just a tip jar, donations can't replace RMT. It's a huge jar. Once certain people are addicted they are willing to spend a few hundred $ each month to get their "RMT crack". It's kinda like someone who is gambling on a slot machine, they will spend a lot of money and they're just on crack and can't stop spending until someone rips them away from the machine.

SoE knew it's more profitable for their games which don't have much players left to throw over the jar and get every penny out of it. I know a few people who spent over 100$ and one who spent almost 1000$ on silly stuff.

I'm really hoping RIFT doesn't have a cash shop, or I consider to stop MMO altogether for Dibalo III.

Originally posted by laokoko

^ how you know it works really well.  which MMO actually have tip jar.

I havn't actually see a developed MMO with tip jar.

Like I said, they're not mainstream MMOs. I'm refering to more than just MMOs as well, inclusive to other indie games.

Rubies of Eventide was a 'tip jar' MMO that ran for a while, but unfortunately fell under the weight of the fact that the original developers had long since lost interest, and the current people running the game didn't have a full understanding of it, so they couldn't do much with it.

Dwarf Fortress, which isn't an MMO, but a single player game, is a cult classic of a game that's considered still in alpha, yet is free to download and still loved by it's followers. The two guys that work on it work based off tips, and from what I understand they get quite a few donations.

Keep in mind as well that many of these indie games don't sport the best graphics, but they do have fairly deep gameplay associated to them. Which is a large part of what keeps them out of mainstream.

And of course when I say "work extremely well", I mean that in the context of what the developers of those games are aiming for, which pretty much means enough to keep the game running, because they're being made/run more as hobbies than anything else.

Item shops ARE tip jars.

The devs don't put it there for fun or whatever, otherwise they would accept money for them. You give them money, they give you a digital item in the game for that money. I understand the whole not wanting to spend money on things, but you can't expect a company to be a company without trying to make a profit and progress so they can make better games. With server costs and having to pay employees while still in the negatives long after the game has been released, item shops are needed in free games. Advertisers wont pay that much (or enough rather) to show their ads in games so that option is somewhat useless. So the company needs money somehow. For a p2p game, they usually only give out cosmetic stuff and non-game breaking things.

Usually when you get older and have a job, you either see no problem paying, or you just don't pay and move on to something else. A ton of game companies like nexon and many others have surveys and offers that let you earn cash shop items, so everyone, including those with no money have a fair chance of getting cashshop money or items.

Originally posted by jinxxed0

With server costs and having to pay employees while still in the negatives long after the game has been released, item shops are needed in free games.

I can somewhat agree with that. The issue for me is that item shops are creeping into P2P games too now while servers costs have actually went down (thanks to hardware becoming much cheaper).

How could such a system support a game like WoW's development.

IMO the Runescape method is best.

Give subs and F2P.

Originally posted by Gabby-air

I would think that most of these f2p games get money from kids that use their parents credit cards which well takes quite a bit of convincing I would say so when they can play for free, why bother? Not to mention that a very very small portion of the playerbase would even donate without getting anything in return.

Gabby, and this is my fault as I probably didn't state it clearly, but I was coming from the angle of a Subscription based company/game that for whatever reason is "feeling the pressure" to incorporate an Item Mall. In truth I really wasn't thinking about F2P model games but I suppose the idea could apply to them.

Why not just use the non-suck version of F2P payment?  League of Legends-style item shops are the future, far as I'm concerned (and DDO's item shop is quite similar.)  They don't sell outright performance stuff, and yet the playstyles they sell are so appealing that they're able to do extremely well for themselves.

I eagerly await more MMOs to use this style of item shop (which sacrifices neither gameplay nor profitability, so it's a win-win for all involved.)

The viability of Tip Jar seems very shaky to me (but naturally appealing to customers in general, since you're essentially saying "Who wants free games!?")

I'd be interested in hearing how much money was made on recent musicians who've released albums for free (pay what you want or whatever), and how that compares to the money they made on normal albums.  I think that would provide insight (but not the full story, since the two industries aren't identical) into the viability of a tip jar system -- it might also point out flaws like if it only works on extremely small projects (like Love) or with extremely well-known companies (and the musicians who've tried Tip Jar systems have fit both these criteria.)

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

... just opening a Paypal account "Tip Jar" and accepting tips from customers who think the game was done well.

Any, I think I want a cupcake now.

 

 

I LOVE it K!

Fantastic straightforward idea.

Problem is, then Devs would have to set out to make good solid (complete) games.

There is that part of it Bob. I certainly agree there.

@bastionix

I don't know that I would agree that SOE is doing what I have in mind with their RMT. That looks like a whole different entity than going to a webpage, entering a monetary amount and putting in a comments field "Hey, I really loved that new dungeon you guys added last patch. Here's $30 for a job well done!"

See, that to me would seem to motivate the right group of developers into creating better and better content. Could be internal company competitions to see who could bring in the most tips.

Wouldn't work

I own a tf2 server that has an active community of 250+ people, growing about 10 per week.

Its been running for the past year and while it isn't exactly on the scale of an MMO we do ask for donations to cover the majorly expensive server costs and effort that goes into running a server... I think we've gotten a total of 4 donations.

Gamers, especially under age gamers, don't tend to "give money out".

Its quite ironic, the people who do not donate are the same people who would moan and complain endlessly if the server ever did go down, or when it has issues.

Originally posted by jinxxed0

Item shops ARE tip jars.

The devs don't put it there for fun or whatever, otherwise they would accept money for them. You give them money, they give you a digital item in the game for that money. I understand the whole not wanting to spend money on things, but you can't expect a company to be a company without trying to make a profit and progress so they can make better games. With server costs and having to pay employees while still in the negatives long after the game has been released, item shops are needed in free games. Advertisers wont pay that much (or enough rather) to show their ads in games so that option is somewhat useless. So the company needs money somehow. For a p2p game, they usually only give out cosmetic stuff and non-game breaking things.

 

Usually when you get older and have a job, you either see no problem paying, or you just don't pay and move on to something else. A ton of game companies like nexon and many others have surveys and offers that let you earn cash shop items, so everyone, including those with no money have a fair chance of getting cashshop money or items.

No, they aren't. You don't tip for an item. You don't add a tip to your receipt and then expect the waiter to come back out and give you another food item. You tip because you already received great service and you are giving an extra thank you for it.

It ok, you had no idea what I was talking about (since you try to allude to that I'm asking for a MMO that you don't pay a sub and they only have a tip jar) and that's ok. Reread it again.

And since you tried to throw the "when you get older" jab in, why don't you go serve in a military for 8 years, see some combat up close, and then we can talk as adult men. Um'kay?

Originally posted by Axehilt

Why not just use the non-suck version of F2P payment?  League of Legends-style item shops are the future, far as I'm concerned (and DDO's item shop is quite similar.)  They don't sell outright performance stuff, and yet the playstyles they sell are so appealing that they're able to do extremely well for themselves.

I eagerly await more MMOs to use this style of item shop (which sacrifices neither gameplay nor profitability, so it's a win-win for all involved.)

The viability of Tip Jar seems very shaky to me (but naturally appealing to customers in general, since you're essentially saying "Who wants free games!?")

I'd be interested in hearing how much money was made on recent musicians who've released albums for free (pay what you want or whatever), and how that compares to the money they made on normal albums.  I think that would provide insight (but not the full story, since the two industries aren't identical) into the viability of a tip jar system -- it might also point out flaws like if it only works on extremely small projects (like Love) or with extremely well-known companies (and the musicians who've tried Tip Jar systems have fit both these criteria.)

Because I was using this with the idea of a Subscription based game/company in mind Axe. Not worried about F2Ps. Currently with most F2P companies you can't really "pay them extra, or a tip" with your monthly setup. I'm not stating that a company only uses a "tip jar". I'm stating why not have it in addition to the monthly subscription.

Originally posted by Skillzeroo

Wouldn't work

 

I own a tf2 server that has an active community of 250+ people, growing about 10 per week.

 

Its been running for the past year and while it isn't exactly on the scale of an MMO we do ask for donations to cover the majorly expensive server costs and effort that goes into running a server... I think we've gotten a total of 4 donations.

Gamers, especially under age gamers, don't tend to "give money out".

 

Its quite ironic, the people who do not donate are the same people who would moan and complain endlessly if the server ever did go down, or when it has issues.

I see your point on a free server. But as I said to Axe, I'm not suggesting this in lieu of anything. This is an addition to type thing. So for your example to apply you'd have to be charging a monthly access fee in the first place. That in itself is more prone to draw in people who would leave a tip in my opinion.