Surprised it took this long (NCcoin)

[Krakrok]

It's in operation even before that, actually. Opening the package for many videogames is enough to bind you.

No it isn't.

[Merusk]

I can't wait for the lawsuits.
"I paid 10,000 Ncoin for this sword."
"You nerfed it's stats the next day."
"I want my $100 back."

EULA.

The thing that says we can't buy gold or items or use 3rd party software? 

The thing thats says you have no rights.

EULA doesn't magically make your consumer rights disappear, no matter how hard MMO companies might want them to.   If you sign a contract saying 'You can't sue Honda if your engine blows up within 500 meters of the lot' and then they blow it up, do you really think you're helpless?

[sinij]

I just don't see how can you design good game where your entire goal becomes inventing new ways to frustrate the user so they micropay to skip unpleasant parts.

My personal philosophy wouldn't be about selling short cuts or designing the game to have unpleasant bits needing to be skipped.  The base game should be solid and offer an enjoyable game as is.

The extras are for fluff, like Xan suggested.  New emotes, new clothing styles, more decorative options, etc.  If there is item customization like EQ2's appearance slots (more games need this!), sell cool items to wear in them.

Then real life happens. Suit comes into office and decides that he needs Porsche upgrade, and that he overspent money on hookers... he then talks to game designers and sets goal to increase revenue by 5%. As a designer you are now forced to increase appeal of micro-payments or push expansion release that it ships before it is ready. This keeps going on in vicious cycle until micro-payments is all but mandatory due to artificial cock-blocks put into place. Worst part of it - typical mmorpgs have enough lag that while doing this might cripple it, effects won't be visible for long time making it Someone Else's Problem.

Micro-payments will bring unbelievable level of SUCK into mmorpgs. Imagine what developers that actually *trying* to be annoying can come up with.

You need to look into how both systems will work in ideal case - subscription based model ideally will keep you entertained that you stay subscribed perpetually, micropayment model ideally will get you frustrated just enough to pay maximum amount in shortest possible time. Once system entertains, other frustrates. Why do you want to pay money to be frustrated?

[HaemishM]

Micro-payments will bring unbelievable level of SUCK into mmorpgs.

Have you been paying attention? MMOG's already have unbelievable levels of suck just out of the box. Micro-payments will just mean suck you get to pay extra for.

[Venkman]

The level of suck only needs to break the barrier of common perception. That's when MMOs become vertical casinos all the way, with a whole new league of middle-management.

[Ratman_tf]

I'm suggesting a time OR money gated model for most in-game things (you'll actually have to play the game, even having bought everything). If someone wants to buy a max level, fully kitted out character, that's great, but they won't have the experience to use that character correctly.

Most don't after having played them "Normally".

As it stands, pretty much all MMO content is time gated, so the time rich benefit the most. I'd personally like to have the option of buying things from the MMO directly so that my full-time working self can feel like they are keeping up.

So when the next wave of people who aren't time or money rich can bitch?

I'd rather see the content limited by timers. Like the transmutes in WoW, applied to advancement. (They kinda sorta dipped their toes in with the rest xp bonus.)

[Venkman]

They tried that with UO. It was only ok there because advancing a characters stats wasn't the only thing you were trying to do there.

And the Chinese government instituted this as policy for any games that operate there, including WoW.

Take yer pick

I find that desire to limit time is like permadeath: it works for everyone else. I personally don't want my time dictated at all. There'll be weeks I can play 20 hours. There'll be weeks I can't play at all. It's the ebb and flow of life that should be the determining factor, and then self-motivation*, not some arbitrary fascist rule.

* which works for microtrans games too. Some people are motivated to spend more cash on dress up accessories. I am not, but that's mostly because none of the microtrans games features themes and mechanics I have any interest in.

[CharlieMopps]

I can't wait for the lawsuits.
"I paid 10,000 Ncoin for this sword."
"You nerfed it's stats the next day."
"I want my $100 back."

EULA.

a 16 year old can't sign a contract and half their players are underage.

I know the lure of $$$ is hard for MMO developers to resist, but assigning a dollar value to virtual items is a HUGE mistake on their part. Some court somewhere will eventually equate this to gambling (if the swords worth $100 and there's a random chance it drops off a mob... etc...) The only reason it hasn't blow up in their face yet is that only the smaller MMO's are doing it. If WOW started something like this, it'd be on CNN the next day.

[Grimwell]

The only reason it hasn't blow up in their face yet is that only the smaller MMO's are doing it. If WOW started something like this, it'd be on CNN the next day.

Yeah, only the smaller MMO's are doing it. You know, the ones with more customers than WoW that havetheir game currency cards available at mass market retailers all across North America. Good thing that only happens in Asia, we still have a purely subscription dominated model here in the States.

Oh wait, we don't.

Future.

[Ratman_tf]

Future.

Jeepers. Everyone jump on the microtrans bandwagon. Because what works for one game obviously will work for all games. Look at what going MMO did for Sims!  Or charging a monthly sub did for Hellgate London! 

[UnSub]

Future.

Jeepers. Everyone jump on the microtrans bandwagon. Because what works for one game obviously will work for all games. Look at what going MMO did for Sims!  Or charging a monthly sub did for Hellgate London! 

Both those games failed for reasons outside of just becoming a MMO or just having a monthly sub fee and you know it.

Microtrans has a definite future in MMOs. The sub model will also continue to work well for some MMOs and is technically a 'safer' revenue source, but I can't see people willing to fork out more than $19.99 a month, which kind of limits how much revenue a MMO can generate off a given playerbase.

[Ratman_tf]

Both those games failed for reasons outside of just becoming a MMO or just having a monthly sub fee and you know it.

My point, which most game companies seems to miss a lot of the time, is that there are considerations beyond "How much money can we get for X?" Like how applicable is a microtransaction... or a monthly fee?

[CharlieMopps]

The only reason it hasn't blow up in their face yet is that only the smaller MMO's are doing it. If WOW started something like this, it'd be on CNN the next day.

Yeah, only the smaller MMO's are doing it. You know, the ones with more customers than WoW that havetheir game currency cards available at mass market retailers all across North America. Good thing that only happens in Asia, we still have a purely subscription dominated model here in the States.

Oh wait, we don't.

Future.

Lol, not even remotely similar and you know it. Buying appearances and fluff items from some vendor is not the same as putting a direct real world dollar value on your games currency.

What you guys are doing over on the Exchange servers is exactly what is going to get the MMO industry in trouble. What happens when some 10 year old steals their parents Credit card, logs into your game, buys $1000 worth of plat and then blows it all on that Gibbering Goblin slot machine you guys have? You're going to get slapped with a huge lawsuit, and then nailed for letting a minor gamble. It IS going to happen. Just because it hasn't yet is simply luck on your part.

[Grimwell]

The other side of the point that you are missing Ratman is that revenue model does not have to impact gameplay.

There are many free to play MMO's that drive revenue from microtransactions, advertising revenue, velvet rope subscriptions (think Runescape) and more that are KICKING WOW IN THE NUTS ON A DAILY BASIS. Sure, some of them really do things with their game design to support the notion of paying; but not all do -- and even the ones where you are only able to buy a hat make good money.

Why are game companies looking at this model more and more? Because it beats the crap out of the subscription model on a global basis, and you don't have to sacrifice game quality to be free to play. I reference WoW not because it's some 'enemy' game from another company, it's a raging success -- wildly so; and everyone wants to point to it as an example for subscriptions working. Thing is, the bulk of WoW customers don't pay traditional subs either... and it's the top dog (I have a sub too, I'm not complaining). Finding more ways to get more customers in the door and still make a profit is a good thing.

Free to play is the future. It gets more people to try the game, and that's a good way to profit.

[Grimwell]

What you guys are doing over on the Exchange servers is exactly what is going to get the MMO industry in trouble. What happens when some 10 year old steals their parents Credit card, logs into your game, buys $1000 worth of plat and then blows it all on that Gibbering Goblin slot machine you guys have? You're going to get slapped with a huge lawsuit, and then nailed for letting a minor gamble. It IS going to happen. Just because it hasn't yet is simply luck on your part.

1. We no longer have Exchange servers (it's a technicality, but now they are LiveGamer servers).
2. Just because you say it will happen does not mean it will happen. 

In the example you make, I'd imagine that the parents would call their credit card company and deny the charges, resulting in a charge back to the game company. Then they would likely punish the kid some and find better places to hide their plastic.

I don't have internal evidence to prove it, but I bet your example has happened and was resolved more how I envision it. I suppose I could ask someone, but what would that prove? :)

[Ratman_tf]

The other side of the point that you are missing Ratman is that revenue model does not have to impact gameplay.

There are many free to play MMO's that drive revenue from microtransactions, advertising revenue, velvet rope subscriptions (think Runescape) and more that are KICKING WOW IN THE NUTS ON A DAILY BASIS. Sure, some of them really do things with their game design to support the notion of paying; but not all do -- and even the ones where you are only able to buy a hat make good money.

Why are game companies looking at this model more and more? Because it beats the crap out of the subscription model on a global basis, and you don't have to sacrifice game quality to be free to play. I reference WoW not because it's some 'enemy' game from another company, it's a raging success -- wildly so; and everyone wants to point to it as an example for subscriptions working. Thing is, the bulk of WoW customers don't pay traditional subs either... and it's the top dog (I have a sub too, I'm not complaining). Finding more ways to get more customers in the door and still make a profit is a good thing.

Free to play is the future. It gets more people to try the game, and that's a good way to profit.

I' won't hide the fact that I have a personal aversion to it all. I have no interest in Maple Story or Exteel or whatever free MMOGs use the microtrans model. And I can't imagine what I'd want from microtrans in the MMOGs I do play. I can imagine game companies getting it "wrong", since that seems to be the M.O., and managing to find a way to junk what enjoyment I do get out of these games through a poorly implemented microtransaction system.

Oh, and just because it came up on another board today...

[Mrbloodworth]

Micro transactions are like PvP. The game has to be built around it FIRST, or it sucks. You won't see many games retrofitted for Micro transactions, however.

[Grimwell]

I agree!

[CharlieMopps]

1. We no longer have Exchange servers (it's a technicality, but now they are LiveGamer servers).

Point taken   

2. Just because you say it will happen does not mean it will happen. 

In the example you make, I'd imagine that the parents would call their credit card company and deny the charges, resulting in a charge back to the game company. Then they would likely punish the kid some and find better places to hide their plastic.

I don't have internal evidence to prove it, but I bet your example has happened and was resolved more how I envision it. I suppose I could ask someone, but what would that prove? :)

It most cases you're prolly right. But eventually the kid doing it will be the "right kid" (like maybe his parents are fundamentalist Christians or some other strict religion) and maybe the kid does well for a while... "Mom, I won $5k before I lost it all! It was a wize investment!" That's the story that's going to get into the news.

And I'd also like to point out that you didn't dispute the fact that your company is allowing people to gamble on your servers with what are basically poker chips. It's not "Sort of" gabling... it's a regular old slot machine, that people can buy tokens through you... then gamble away, loosing all their chips... or better yet, actually win and sell all your money back on the exchange!

My guess is the only age check you guys have is Credit card validation. So you have little to no proof that any of the people using the service aren't minors.

ALL of that is against federal law. Without question. Some of what the other MMOs are doing is pretty iffy, but that Slot machine you guys have is cut and dry. If it gets in front of a judge, you're going to be up a creek. You take a cut when they buy the money, you take a cut when they sell the money. If they win, suddenly lots of new chips are created for you to make more money off of. It's practically like printing your own cash!

[Venkman]

I know the lure of $$$ is hard for MMO developers to resist, but assigning a dollar value to virtual items is a HUGE mistake on their part. Some court somewhere will eventually equate this to gambling (if the swords worth $100 and there's a random chance it drops off a mob... etc...) The only reason it hasn't blow up in their face yet is that only the smaller MMO's are doing it. If WOW started something like this, it'd be on CNN the next day.

It won't be the gambling aspect that screws things up for a company legally, it'd be the other thing you mentioned, the nerfing of items.

Which, of course, is why for the most part, the very-hugely-popular-but-ignored-anyway MMOs that feature xtrans do so mainly for fluff items  . They can do that because enough people want that nonsense anyway. But they also went that route because it allows them to keep the sanctity of the real game development choices in the hands of the developers, so they can buff, nerf, and add/remove content as needed.

So you don't need to design the game around xtrans. You really just need to bracket it into a very specific class of goods.

[Trippy]

There are many free to play MMO's that drive revenue from microtransactions, advertising revenue, velvet rope subscriptions (think Runescape) and more that are KICKING WOW IN THE NUTS ON A DAILY BASIS.

No they are not. None of those games are making nearly as much money as WoW is. In fact WoW is making ~2.5x what MapleStory is in profits.

[Numtini]

The other reason for only selling fluff is that if you sell items and money, you will end up competing on price with the gold farmers. You don't want to be there. You'll lose and it'll rip your game apart.

Playing Grenado, you need to buy a card to upgrade your character to heroic when you hit 100. If you've hit 100, you're hardcore. You can get some potions, which make life a little bit easier, but you can buy much the same on the auction house. Other than that, it's all fluff really. I didn't notice any real difference when they went to cash shop.

[Merusk]

The other reason for only selling fluff is that if you sell items and money, you will end up competing on price with the gold farmers. You don't want to be there. You'll lose and it'll rip your game apart.

Uh... no.  You CONTROL supply, ergo, price.  You can create gold from thin air.  POOF.. i just gave you a hundred billion WoW gold and every item you could want.  Now go try and farm that in the same timeframe. As the guy with access to the server and creation commands I'll beat you every time.

Now if you want to say they'll lose because items/ gold become "worthless."  Well, that's a completly different arguement alltogether.  How much are your hard-earned EQ or UO items worth nowadays?

[Grimwell]

And I'd also like to point out that you didn't dispute the fact that your company is allowing people to gamble on your servers with what are basically poker chips. It's not "Sort of" gabling... it's a regular old slot machine, that people can buy tokens through you... then gamble away, loosing all their chips... or better yet, actually win and sell all your money back on the exchange!

You are correct, I didn't dispute it. I also didn't validate it. I'm choosing to not agree, or bother trying to convince you differently. It's not gambling and there aren't any poker chips. YMMV. :)

On your question about age verification, we do everything the law requires and more. You can also bet your bottom dollar that Free Realms is causing us to visit the topic quite heavliy (yup, thats obvious but worth saying).

No they are not. None of those games are making nearly as much money as WoW is. In fact WoW is making ~2.5x what MapleStory is in profits.

Hmm, neither of us are right. I tried to find numbers that match, and here's what I got. In 2005 WoW and Nexon tied.
NY Times article projecting $250 million for WoW (page two).
Business Week article putting Nexon at $230 million

Well, not quite a tie, but a close call that shows both games are making insane money, and that you can't discredit the model that Nexon is using. Further, it costs a lot less to make Maple Story work than WoW. Team size, technology, the whole nine yards. So I'm still quite comfortable in saying that people who ignore the free to play games are putting their heads in the sand.

Every model is viable; and quite so. Ignoring a model when you have the business ability to create a credible game for that model is foolish.

[Venkman]

Last year WoW posted profit of over $425mil, on income over $1bn. And as you know, Nexon is more than one title

In the pure statistical sense, Trippy is correct. WoW is making more actual revenue.

However, whenever I've gotten into a similar debate, it's always been about the larger investment and return ratio.

Blizzard is making money hand over fist. However, they are mostly doing so because they invested way the heck more than any other MMO company before them, since, or likely. Their operating profit percentage is about the only relevant number to most other companies looking at this space, because almost nobody else has the will nor confidence to make that much of an upfront investment to achieve anywhere near a similar actual revenue return.

But even then, 40% operating margin is approaching the impossible for everyone else when you look at WoW itself. There's a certain soft cap achieved in a game where there's only two codebases duplicated innumerable times. Each new server is not the same additional cost. It's similar to mass production ammortization. And heck, they could have actually hit the point where adding more realms requires zero additional investment resources.

[Grimwell]

Yeah, yer right. Better research, as of last fall Maple Story is making $16 million/month. Not as much as WoW; but more than enough to consider it staggering in my book. :)

[Hartsman]

What you guys are doing over on the Exchange servers is exactly what is going to get the MMO industry in trouble. What happens when some 10 year old steals their parents Credit card, logs into your game, buys $1000 worth of plat and then blows it all on that Gibbering Goblin slot machine you guys have? You're going to get slapped with a huge lawsuit, and then nailed for letting a minor gamble. It IS going to happen. Just because it hasn't yet is simply luck on your part.

It's an academic statement at this point, but none of the "gambling" type mini games have ever spawned on the Exchange/LG/etc servers exactly because of the cash-out potential.

I'm assuming, of course, that this hasn't changed in the months since I left. ;)

- Scott

[Venkman]

Yeah, yer right. Better research, as of last fall Maple Story is making $16 million/month. Not as much as WoW; but more than enough to consider it staggering in my book. :)

Exactly. For a game that cost, by some estimates, a mere $8mil to make (no idea what their operating budget is). Add that to Club Penguin costing maybe $7mil and yet getting a cool $350mil+$350mil from Disney in a total buyout.

There's a LOT of money flowing out there. Some of it is going to people making much more smaller investments. They're making less ROI percentage than WoW, but able to spread that money around a lot more too. This is one of the many things that makes WoW irrelevant to the newer-age MMO developers: it's too vertical to be of much relevance to IP owners hiring out or licensing in tech from one person, design work from another, O&M from a third, and hardware/servers from a fourth, and so on.

[Trippy]

Last year WoW posted profit of over $425mil, on income over $1bn. And as you know, Nexon is more than one title

In the pure statistical sense, Trippy is correct. WoW is making more actual revenue.

They are making more profit too *and* have higher margins (most likely).

However, whenever I've gotten into a similar debate, it's always been about the larger investment and return ratio.

Blizzard is making money hand over fist. However, they are mostly doing so because they invested way the heck more than any other MMO company before them, since, or likely. Their operating profit percentage is about the only relevant number to most other companies looking at this space, because almost nobody else has the will nor confidence to make that much of an upfront investment to achieve anywhere near a similar actual revenue return.

But even then, 40% operating margin is approaching the impossible for everyone else when you look at WoW itself. There's a certain soft cap achieved in a game where there's only two codebases duplicated innumerable times. Each new server is not the same additional cost. It's similar to mass production ammortization. And heck, they could have actually hit the point where adding more realms requires zero additional investment resources.

You keep saying that but have no facts to support your claim. In 2005 Nexon's made $75 million on $230 million revenue. That's no better than what Blizzard is making on WoW. In fact Blizzard's margins were quite a bit higher than that in 2007, though we don't know Nexon's 2007 figures since they aren't public. In 2007 Blizzard (as a whole but really it's almost all WoW) had revenues of 814 Euros and an EIBTA of 345 Euros. That's a 42% profit margin.

[Venkman]

I think you are too used to saying "You keep saying that but have (provided)* no facts to support your claim". I am not proclaiming what I've proclaimed in the past. It was Grimwell's turn. 

What I have said here is stuff we already know:

• Blizzard has spent more money than anyone else the upfront development of an MMO. I invite you to find someone who spent more, even adjusted for inflation. Heck, I'd invite anyone to offer up any company that would ever spend more. This leads to:
  
• Nobody else has the will nor confidence to spend that much upfront on a single game like Blizzard did. I'll be the first to fall over dead of shock if anyone else ever does.
  
• 40% operating margin is likely higher than anyone else (based on guesstimates prior to WoW. It probably still is). Fine, it's 42%. You could me in my wildly inaccurate ramblings again. I added the part of as the soft cap argument because I think there's a correlation. I have no proof and did not offer it up as unarguable fact (though I suppose how I wrote it could be seen that way, this is the intertube. We all insert "imho" in front of every sentence,don't we?).

Tell me where that's wrong. That would be a nice change.

* I added "provided" to make the sentence accurate.

[Trippy]

You are right, I misunderstood what you were saying in the second part. My 42% figure wasn't meant as a correction for your 40% one. It was a rebuttal to your constant claims that the microtrans games are cheaper to operate. Also it's very likely that NCsoft came close to what Blizzard spent on WoW in developing TR.

[sinij]

As someone closely familiar with psychology, gambling and mmorpgs have A LOT in common. It will be trivially easy to draw parallels in court. Trying to squeeze extra dollar slot-machine style going to blow up spectacularly... probably ending up with level of protection/legislation/taxation currently 'enjoyed' only by Casinos.

[Mrbloodworth]

As someone closely familiar with psychology, gambling and mmorpgs have A LOT in common. It will be trivially easy to draw parallels in court. Trying to squeeze extra dollar slot-machine style going to blow up spectacularly... probably ending up with level of protection/legislation/taxation currently 'enjoyed' only by Casinos.

Entropia Universe

Listed as a an online casino.

[Merusk]

It is?  Interesting, wonder how they get around the ban of online casinos in the US now.

[Kejjan]

It is?  Interesting, wonder how they get around the ban of online casinos in the US now.

As a note only:
Entropia is run by a Swedish company, http://www.mindark.se/.
I have no idea in what way they might have been marketing their online world in the US.

Sidenote:
US ban on online gaming? How do they do that on gambling in other countries?
The Chines version, filtering internet?