MMO Subs are a dead model - John Smedley

[Mrbloodworth]

Well, I was only attempting to clarify what I was saying to Pezzle.

[Sky]

We never burned out on it, but we had also moved into music at 14. Most of my gaming friends moved into other things, which is how I got exposed to Star Frontiers, Villains & Vigilantes, James Bond, Toon, etc. Although my main gaming group did dabble in a few things like gamma world and gurps, it was mostly just ad&d for us.

V&V did give me a lot of fodder for my comic panels when I was still drawing, though.

[Evildrider]

I have more gaming books then I know what to do with.  It's rather ridiculous actually.

[Surlyboi]

We never burned out on it, but we had also moved into music at 14. Most of my gaming friends moved into other things, which is how I got exposed to Star Frontiers, Villains & Vigilantes, James Bond, Toon, etc. Although my main gaming group did dabble in a few things like gamma world and gurps, it was mostly just ad&d for us.

V&V did give me a lot of fodder for my comic panels when I was still drawing, though.

I had such high hopes for Star Frontiers, but it was never all that fleshed out.

[Evildrider]

TSR really had a hard time expanding on anything but D&D.

[Lantyssa]

I suppose the worst part pf my example is the fact the DnD books don't magically bust into flames when a new version comes out :)  But i bet this little bit of DnD talk has you guys thinking about it again. 

We talk about SWG all the time.  You don't see any of us actually playing it.

[Pezzle]

I suppose the worst part pf my example is the fact the DnD books don't magically bust into flames when a new version comes out :)  But i bet this little bit of DnD talk has you guys thinking about it again. 

We talk about SWG all the time.  You don't see any of us actually playing it.

That last bit is the important part.  None of it matters if the subs fall.

[Mrbloodworth]

I suppose the worst part pf my example is the fact the DnD books don't magically bust into flames when a new version comes out :)  But i bet this little bit of DnD talk has you guys thinking about it again. 

We talk about SWG all the time.  You don't see any of us actually playing it.

Different beast, different level of severity and starting point.

[Count Nerfedalot]

I suppose the worst part pf my example is the fact the DnD books don't magically bust into flames when a new version comes out :) 

Yeah, that and the fact that you can't house rule things you don't like in a video game (barring mods in single player games, but that's not what we're talking about).

Um, I guess that makes Minecraft the exception that proves the rule! 

[koro]

And to bring it all back around to the MMO subscription talk, you can get access to all the D&D 4th Edition stuff on the D&D Insider site for $15 a month, no books needed. 

[Fordel]

You probably want a PHB1 or a Rules Compendium.

[Ingmar]

$5.95 a month if you pay yearly, actually! But you actually only get all the rules stuff + the magazine content and the insider tools like the character builder, you don't get full text PDFs of the books or anything like that. So stuff like fluff from the hardcovers, published adventures, etc., is not part of the subscription.

[Simond]

We never burned out on it, but we had also moved into music at 14. Most of my gaming friends moved into other things, which is how I got exposed to Star Frontiers, Villains & Vigilantes, James Bond, Toon, etc. Although my main gaming group did dabble in a few things like gamma world and gurps, it was mostly just ad&d for us.

V&V did give me a lot of fodder for my comic panels when I was still drawing, though.

I had such high hopes for Star Frontiers, but it was never all that fleshed out.

Sure it was! They just made it more awesome and called it "Spelljammer".
(Still the best campaign setting TSR ever released).

[koro]

$5.95 a month if you pay yearly, actually! But you actually only get all the rules stuff + the magazine content and the insider tools like the character builder, you don't get full text PDFs of the books or anything like that. So stuff like fluff from the hardcovers, published adventures, etc., is not part of the subscription.

I guess I'm That Guy, since I don't find the fluff content that interesting to read beyond a once-over anyway (and none of it's really as interesting as the old 90s White Wolf fluff or the Warhammer fluff, despite my deep undying hatred for anything Warhammer). And I've never known anyone who's used a published adventure. But I do totally see the draw of the hardcover books. But, since I can only mostly play D&D over the internet nowadays due to everyone I used to play with being hundreds or thousands of miles apart, it's pretty great for me.

And unless they changed it, you can share an Insider account with a few people as well, without Wizards getting bent out of shape about it.

[Ingmar]

We never burned out on it, but we had also moved into music at 14. Most of my gaming friends moved into other things, which is how I got exposed to Star Frontiers, Villains & Vigilantes, James Bond, Toon, etc. Although my main gaming group did dabble in a few things like gamma world and gurps, it was mostly just ad&d for us.

V&V did give me a lot of fodder for my comic panels when I was still drawing, though.

I had such high hopes for Star Frontiers, but it was never all that fleshed out.

Sure it was! They just made it more awesome and called it "Spelljammer".
(Still the best campaign setting TSR ever released).

I'm going to note that down for the next time you express liking something. 

[Simond]

Because it's a guarantee that anything I like is awesome? 

[Evildrider]

Spelljammer was horrible.   

[Soukyan]

F2P + virtual goods sales will be the new standard because there are gobs of idiots with wallets who cannot perform basic mathematical calculations to determine that they are spending well over $15 USD per month on "free to play" games. True, there may be a population who never go beyond the restrictions of a free account, but I am inclined to think that studios are making more money with free to play, otherwise, why would the actuaries suggest switching?

Yes, there may still be some with subscriptions models who stick around. More likely to happen is that the AAA+ titles and bigger studios will charge a subscription fee and have a virtual goods shop as well. Look at LotRO for example. Yes, you can be premium with a purchase from the shop, but the VIP players are the ones who pay a monthly fee and get a set amount of points to spend. Just enough to get you browsing the shop, but not enough to bankroll every tempting virtual good that the game funnels you toward. Suddenly, you've spent well over the standard subscription fee.

I have friends who play World of Tanks who are spending upwards of $50-$100 USD per month. That's a base $15 premium account plus a bunch of virtual goods purchases. Guess where the new monthly average fee for MMOGs is headed? Hint: it's not free.

[Simond]

Spelljammer was horrible.   

Look how wrong you are.

[shiznitz]

I have friends who play World of Tanks who are spending upwards of $50-$100 USD per month. That's a base $15 premium account plus a bunch of virtual goods purchases. Guess where the new monthly average fee for MMOGs is headed? Hint: it's not free.

Spending money to get an advantage/status/whatever it gets you is more attractive than spending money to be like everyone else.  This industry will end up like most, 80% of the money will be made off 20% of the customers.  That doesn't make the 20% stupid. 

[Soukyan]

I have friends who play World of Tanks who are spending upwards of $50-$100 USD per month. That's a base $15 premium account plus a bunch of virtual goods purchases. Guess where the new monthly average fee for MMOGs is headed? Hint: it's not free.

Spending money to get an advantage/status/whatever it gets you is more attractive than spending money to be like everyone else.  This industry will end up like most, 80% of the money will be made off 20% of the customers.  That doesn't make the 20% stupid. 

While it doesn't make the 20% stupid, it does price me right out of those types of games. While I realize I don't need to spend money to play the games, if money buys better whatever, then it becomes a matter of how much ownage you are willing to tolerate before hanging up your hat. It's not that the model is horrible, it's just not something that I like. I suppose it's a good thing that I've grown exceptionally bored with MMOGs and have really turned to single-player and other multiplayer games as of late. (Yay, Skyrim!) Then again, on the single-player front, it appears as though the DLC model is really getting a deathgrip on gamers' wallets now... but that's another gripe for another thread.

[Merusk]

Doesn't matter what we think of it, it's where everything is headed.  Shorter or non-existent SP games w/ DLC for the next chapter while MP is P2win.

[Soukyan]

Doesn't matter what we think of it, it's where everything is headed.  Shorter or non-existent SP games w/ DLC for the next chapter while MP is P2win.

Right. But shouldn't the consumer drive the markets? I know, I know. The United States doesn't work that way because people are far too willing to pay for stupid shit. But again, that's just my old man rant. Kids these days...

[Merusk]

One could very validly argue that the consume IS driving the market.

People have paid for cheats since games moved beyond 4bit pong. Hell, there was a bug in pong that let people cheat it by slowing the puck.  The difference is the game companies are getting the cash instead of the cheat companies.

As for the DLC bandwagon, the price of games had to go up.  They've been $50-$60 since I first bought X-com in 1994.  No inflation in 18 years despite the huge increase in budgets and manpower? Hardly.  But what to do? Companies saw the backlash for raising prices even $10 and had to find another way of making more money. 

This is the solution they happened upon that met the consumer's want for more content along with their need for more profit.  It's only recently that it's begun to be "cut the game down to the minimum the consumer will still pay $50 for then churn out what used to be a full game for the new price point."  Which shouldn't be surprising seeing as businessmen run game companies now, not geeks with funny ideas about IP and enjoying your work. 

[Kageru]

As for the DLC bandwagon, the price of games had to go up.  They've been $50-$60 since I first bought X-com in 1994.  No inflation in 18 years despite the huge increase in budgets and manpower? Hardly.  But what to do? Companies saw the backlash for raising prices even $10 and had to find another way of making more money. 

Arguable. X-com was probably selling to a fairly small market. The big budget games are moving a lot more boxes to a mainstream market which is what is funding the much larger development budgets.

Irrelevant any way. If there's a "more money" and "less money" way then the outcome actually isn't really too complex. The trick is working out which revenue model is the more money answer since you have to assume aggressive DLC is going to cost you some box sales. And it becomes much harder in the subscription versus micro-transactions case.

[Azazel]

I have more gaming books then I know what to do with.  It's rather ridiculous actually.

Hrm. I have boxes of RPG books that I'll never read or use again. Many that never got read or used in the first place. All in storage at my parents'. When we move next, the plan is to take all the shit out of storage, including those. Which, I'd guess, will just fill a bookshelf and never be used, since the old groups are fractured and gone, and the remainder of us play MMOGs instead now.

I wonder what I'll do with them all?

[tgr]

Sit in a creaky rocking chair and complain about how, back in the old days, you walked uphill, both ways, in the snow, to the RPG sessions, and you calculated your own THAC0 god damn it.

[Ingmar]

I have more gaming books then I know what to do with.  It's rather ridiculous actually.

Hrm. I have boxes of RPG books that I'll never read or use again. Many that never got read or used in the first place. All in storage at my parents'. When we move next, the plan is to take all the shit out of storage, including those. Which, I'd guess, will just fill a bookshelf and never be used, since the old groups are fractured and gone, and the remainder of us play MMOGs instead now.

I wonder what I'll do with them all?

Get the band back together and run a game!

[Ratman_tf]

I have more gaming books then I know what to do with.  It's rather ridiculous actually.

Hrm. I have boxes of RPG books that I'll never read or use again. Many that never got read or used in the first place. All in storage at my parents'. When we move next, the plan is to take all the shit out of storage, including those. Which, I'd guess, will just fill a bookshelf and never be used, since the old groups are fractured and gone, and the remainder of us play MMOGs instead now.

I wonder what I'll do with them all?

Get the band back together and run a game!

I play Pathfinder over Skype with my old crew who are in different parts of the country now.

[Modern Angel]

If you use Google+ for nothing else, their Hangouts are made for gaming. They enabled screen and doc sharing over their system recently, to boot. It's the next best thing to sitting around a table.

[Azazel]

I just set up a Google+ account, but since I declined to add Kim Kardashian and Sasha Grey et al, I have no friends, since my friends and I don't do the whole Facebook thing, and I don't much care to look up people I haven't seen in 20 years from High School (who I dropped off my FB a year or so ago anyway). 

[Modern Angel]

Which is totally cool. I'm just saying that if you have a bunch of old gamer farts looking to do a TT game and they're scattered to the four winds, G+ is made for you. Just get those guys together, make your accounts, friend nobody but each other and check Hangouts.

[ghost]

Hrm. I have boxes of RPG books that I'll never read or use again. Many that never got read or used in the first place. All in storage at my parents'. When we move next, the plan is to take all the shit out of storage, including those. Which, I'd guess, will just fill a bookshelf and never be used, since the old groups are fractured and gone, and the remainder of us play MMOGs instead now.

I wonder what I'll do with them all?

They'll look pretty damned cool on a bookshelf. 

[Sky]

I love the memories of my old AD&D bookshelf. Paging through the monster manual and remembering different times and people.

[ghost]

I've still got all my old D&D shit upstairs in a bookshelf.  I wish I could find my gammaworld set.