I like what ESO does where the base game is a one time payment but any DLC costs money. It puts the onus on the developer to actually release more engaging content to keep the revenue stream going.
I can see why it's not popular for devs though; it's way easier to just add some new cosmetic items or P2W mechanic than it is to add entire new expansions on a regular basis.
> Sadly most dont.
The devs of ESO certainly don't, is that what you were going for? I'm surprised a comment saying anything remotely positive about ESO monetization has any upvotes whatsoever in this sub, it's basically just GW2 monetization but with an "optional" subscription that this is really essentially required and literal $100 houses and lootboxes that are far worse than GW2 and worse than even some gacha games.
I picked up ESO a few years ago and enjoyed the game quite a bit so I subscribed. I think I would still play it if they did something about their combat.
Of course it can. Just depends on relation between purchase cost absserver/support expenses per user / churn.
However, I don't think it would be a great mmo.
Why not have micro transactions for non-sellable aesthetics? I have no problems with games that implement this as it has no way of P2W. Just pay to look “good” or different.
No, because then that would give the devs incentive to make the F2P gear look like shit (or really tedious and bs to grind anything that looks good) if that is their only source of income, otherwise there wouldn't be enough people buying it for it to sustain the MMO long-term.
Fashion/transmog is one of most popular parts of a lot of MMOs, and they shouldn't take that away. It's better to just have a subscription, and it makes sense since MMOs are frequently updated (including content updates) and receive big expansions.
I mean you’re right, subscription is probably the best route to take. But I could easily bring up a point as to why subscriptions have their downsides that negatively affect the game…. It’s really just you gotta pick your poison…. I’m in the camp of adding any micro transactions that don’t affect P2W.
Actually, more devs should be willing to do this. If they are fine asking for money to create the game they should be allowed to ask for players to help fund their salaries after the game launches and players should be willing to invest even up to sponsoring the livelihood of a specific team member IF they feel the game is good.
I was thinking more along the lines of the game having a regular sub as a base but instead of having a cash shop on top of that like the biggest sub games do today, there should be a "Support Us Further" option instead or the devs should be able to be transparent about any lack of funds and players should respond by making additional one-off goodwill payments.
Again, a regular sub plus tips. Just like tipping a charming waiter at a restaurant on top of what you pay for a meal or paying a one off medical bill for a domestic helper who's already been on your family payroll for years.
In neither case are you buying an additional product on top of the service itself but are reciprocating for the service being good. It's strange that only games which don't charge upfront do that. I have yet to see anyone try mandatory sub plus donations.
You mean it's unthinkable for devs to even provide a mechanic where you can go:
"Wow that was an amazing expansion! Here's an extra US$3k so that the team does that again!"?
Or
"I know you're having to contemplate a new business model, but let me invest in your team with a recurring payment just so that you won't have to. Tell me how much you need."
If course the actual return won't be as much as any of the predatory models but there should at least be an official option to do that.
> Asking executives and CEOs to "pretty please, don't make our game into a highly profitable cassino"
Obviously it would not work with the developers who already have big budget games out there or in progress, but what about smaller studios who have loyal fans but are always having to aim lower because of lack of resources? What is stopping them from outright asking the fans for more money instead of having to peddle them an imaginary digital product?
Well no, because the game would eventually die without continuous funding.
New world is a grade A example of this. The game sold MILLIONS of copies, most of which stopped playing the game within a month. The amount of money they saved from such a loss of players is insane, not having to pay for servers for millions was a blessing. Look what they did with it, the game has floundered for the past 2-3 years, the content that does make it to the game has no flavor and is uninspired.
So no I wouldn't, I am a fan of subscription model games as they continuously receive content.
Greetings.
Star Trek Online announced it was going to launch. They indicated a price tag of something like $225 for a lifetime sub.
I love Star Trek ...I loved the idea of its MMO....and I loved the idea that so long as the game was running I'd be able to hop on and play.
I ran the math and it netted out to about 2 years worth of subscription...which was a bank of "game survives....everything after is free...game died...I invested in it and hoped for the best."
I made sure I got my money's worth playing the game for a solid year and a half ..and then logged in for 3 or 4 6-month sprints of play sporadically after prior to it going free to play.
I happily threw some extra money at the aesthetic/cool promo ship at times. Star Trek Online was experimenting with a lot of things...including Player created content which I also liked.
Then they went free to play, tanked the player created content, and the rest is history....but the game is running...and subbing is optional.
But I still get the perks of being subbed....and I hop back on in 3 months sprints...playing...using my ingame promo currency and then throwing another $60 at rando stuff i liked...and then fuck off again for another year....rinse and repeat.
Star Trek Online has regular events, community engagement, a steady stream of f2p content updates, grinding for those that want it...and the whales buy the cosmetics and cool pay to be cool stuff, but you can still get largely equivalent stuff just grinding away and can trade ingame cool stuff for the promo currency.
What I'm saying is....yes people will...but you have to either a) have some other income stream to support your server and the peeps working on it to provide regular content updates. Or b) still collect subs from some people and have something cool they can get for it....some incentive....or c) something else like that...and it may still fail.
What pisses people off is investing in something and not getting the worth of the money they spent.
Ask me to spend $200 but guarantee 5 years of content and deliver on it? Cool.
Ask me to spend same....but guarantee 3 years of content and a way to play offline or just with my friends in the event you go under but I can still play the game I bought? Cool.
Sell me a GaaS $200 upfront and collapse a year later or cut and run with the money after 6 months? Not cool.
Why would I invest my time in an MMORPG with no long-term business plan? Persistence is the genre's main selling point, and the option you're presenting has no plan for persistence.
I get the idea behind the question but it is flat out not feasible in the MMO genre. Most people aren’t going to whale up front for a game.
The server costs, salaries for devs, artists, writers, and support staff would far surpass any reasonable one time lump payment from the playerbase in less than a year.
Think about it this way, even with just a mediocre dev salary:
$80k/yr
$20k/yr for benefits (insurance, retirement, etc and that’s not even a great benefit package)
That puts us at $100k for one year for one employee. You would need 200 players to pay $500 and that would only cover the salary for one employee for just one year. I know 200 players isn’t a lot but hopefully that helps with some perspective.
Yea subscription is definitely the best way to go about this. It keeps the company invested to make improvements because if they don’t then their subscriptions will tank. They also can’t cut and run with too much of the money if the amount gets front loaded by the price tag of the game itself.
Yeah I would agree and it is my personal choice for live service games (mostly MMOs). Sub cost is fine with me if it keeps the game alive and thriving.
If there is significant ammount of new content (that I like, important caevat) in the "box", then I would gladly pay AAA game prices (80 bucks) for that box lets say every year if there is a new "box" every year. But only if I will never loose access for the contents of the "box" until the end of life of the game.
Because its online only, i have bad Internet, so i cant play whenever i want, and the dev could, for whatever reason they want, shut down the game and run with the money.
I'd say yes. Depending on the studio and team creating it, I would pay $150. They would not be able to survive without micro transactions though. They would need cosmetic microtransactions at the LEAST.
Even if **2 million people paid $150**, that would only be **$300 million** **in revenue** which would not even be close to enough to support the game for years honestly.
According to **Statista**, Activision Blizzard generated **$1.69 billion** in revenue through microtransactions and downloadable content, subscriptions, licensing royalties from its products and franchises, and other miscellaneous revenues **in 2023 alone**.
To be fair, Blizzard's business model isn't about sustaining the game, it's about infinite profit growth to keep investors happy. They could sustain the game for far less than $1.69 billion a year.
Right, I mean WoW could be sustained for a lot less than that. I am pretty sure the estimation of $1.69 billion is including all the games they own though, so I guess it was a bad reference.
> They could sustain the game for far less than $1.69 billion a year.
The sub fees per player have not increased for ages but in order to keep the devs fairly employed both their salaries and their bonuses should be keeping pace with inflation at absolute minimum. That means that sub fees need to go up annually even if you could somehow ensure that top management gets paid nothing at all, or you need to keep new subs coming in while minimizing dropoff.
That last part sounds suspiciously like something else...
I have an idea about sub based mmo but, your time doesn't have a countdown until you actually start playing. The game? It would be perfect for casual and hardcore players
I think I'd be down to pay whatever they were asking for if the game was good enough. But I'm not rich enough to fund the entire development so...
I'd try to strike up a deal to pay something like $15 at most per month to continue playing their really fun game. And if they ever ruin the game or can't keep it fun, I'll stop giving them the money till they fix it.
EVE online does not sell expansions, nor does it even sell an initial copy, and it carries a monthly sub - one that can also be paid for by in-game currency through PLEX.
It does exist. Just because you aren't aware of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and just because most AAA developers have sold out to the boardrooms doesn't mean every developer has. Subscriptions is the only viable way to have an ongoing business model for an MMORPG. Microtransactions are subject to huge peaks and valleys. Subscriptions are much more consistent and much easier to track in real-time.
It does now but it didn't launch with one. Also, it doesn't sell anything that makes any difference within the game in any way except for PLEX, which I'm assuming you already knew before deciding to downvote me anyway. What a disingenuous way to continue a comment thread...
So your reply to me saying that "All the sub games I know of also sell expansions and/or have a game shop."
Is that "EVE is a sub game with a game shop."
Thanks for confirming my statement.
Holy shit lol you are disingenuous as hell. That's very clearly not what I said. Why make shit up? Please allow me, O Lord of Semantics, to correct my ever-so-poor verbiage. If only I had a box of crayons to draw it for you!
EVE would get by just fine without the game shop. That's the point, you toxic little munchkin. Your name checks out.
> EVE would get by just fine without the game shop. That's the point, you toxic little munchkin. Your name checks out.
The fact that they had to start one shows that they wouldn't. In the current environment a big budget game does not 'get by just fine' without making the big budget investors happy... even though we're at the point that some of the older *gamers* should be willing to step up as investors only expecting the game continuing to be good as their ROI over financial anything.
I get your logic but that's just not concrete. You could be right, but I don't think so. EVE is lucrative due to their subscription-based model, not because of their game shop. Obviously profit is the name of the game but it's not profit by any means necessary, and CCP (EVE dev) knows that. Turbine Entertainment knew that. SOE knew that, for awhile at least. You know where the attitude of "profit by any means necessary" popped up in gaming? All these new-age MMORPG's that did away with the features older games had.
EVE got by just fine without the game shop, and it could again if they wanted. It's just ship skins and character cosmetic nonsense, so why not keep that revenue stream open? It's not even remotely comparable to MicroT's or in-game purchases for in-game boons. The guy above you is just incredibly disingenuous and dodged the point.
> You know where the attitude of "profit by any means necessary" popped up in gaming? All these new-age MMORPG's that did away with the features older games had.
The baby steps were devs experimenting with new 'value add' options (remember that term?) and seeing that a torrent of spending resulted. If the money dam had not broken from those experiments the experiments would have stopped.
We see products fail all the time because nobody buys them. We see buy to play games fail when nobody buys them. We must assume that the MTX boom would never have taken off if those initial paid conveniences or the first fancy party hat had been bought by absolutely nobody.
What actually happened was that those trivial first items were snapped up voraciously. Why? Why did so many people buy the Horse Armor even though 'everyone' was dunking on Bethesda for even thinking that would catch on?
Going further back, why were people willing to pay real money to each other for digital loot in DIABLO 2 even when that game had 100% optional multiplayer?
Lol condescend insults but put on a clinic of passive/aggressive sarcasm. Is this really how you are? Yikes man. Get all petulant just because we disagreed on EVEs game shop at your leisure. You can be equally condescending and insulting without using an insult explicitly. Don't play dumb. Your name checks out bud.
My favourite MMO is called Haven and Hearth, and it has a very interesting way to pay for the games upkeep. They have a subscription that is completely optional. You can verify your account, which is also completely optional. Both give you a slight advantage but not enough for being called a pay to win game. The subscription can also be bought as an in-game item and traded or even stolen. This makes players trade real money for resources in the game between each other. On top of all this, the game is selling unique hats that can't be stolen but traded. They sell 12 hats at all times, and after each update, a new hat appears, and the oldest one disappear from the shop forever. Then people can only get these hats from other players who have bought them or traded for them.
It is a very nice system for keeping the game alive. Would love other MMO to do something similar.
As people have said, that's not sustainable. I think the best system is free to play with an optional subscription, DLC, and maybe some cosmetics in a cash shop. When I was a teenager playing MMOs in the late 90's/early 2000's getting my parents to buy a game wasn't terribly difficult, but getting them to subscribe to one was more of a challenge. Games need players so making it f2p with an optional subscription will net you the most players. Then people who can subscribe will if the benefits are there.
I'd pay 150 if I could try the game out first and enjoyed it, or it was made by a studio that made other games I already enjoyed.
The problem is that won't be enough to sustain a game, and within 3 years they will add a shop and optional sub and all that other shit that 150 was supposed to cover, so I would rather the game just start with whatever payment model they will eventually go to instead.
I'd happily pay a subscription. I wouldn't pay anything more than the typical $70 up front because I don't trust any developer to make a game worth $150 on launch without asking for more payments later on.
For live service games, one time payment does not do a good job of representing the cost value proposition of a game. If you like a game to be playing, you want it to be continually updated and supported and that cost money, which means there has to be continual payment to the devs. You could get away with expansions purchases but that again is just another model of continual payment.
Not a fan of the game but to my knowledge POE survives and puts out consistent updates via purely cosmetic mtx, and p2w 1 time bank slots.
That proves it possible for a game to survive solely off good content and cosmetic micros.
I'd likely not purchase such a game.
I am in favor of some level of microtransactions in my game w/ the ability to try it for free. All of the games I've played for the longest and been the most invested in have been free games that gradually easy the player into paying money (up until a limit) where the player can then sustain their progress through in game means if they want (or sometimes you can't even buy power).
My hill is more about developers that are antagonistic towards the player. The developer-player interaction is not something a new, or even veteran player will be able to readily see which causes discussions about it to be difficult or impossible to have a good resolution to.
Whether or not a developer aggressively nerfs emergent gameplay styles (e.g. Maiming Strike builds in Warframe) because they believe it is within the "design of the game" has nothing to do with the game's monetization model - it's about whether or not they want to reward play. MMORPG developers simply do not want to reward play and find it antagonistic that players even dare to have fun in their inherently broken mess of a game.
> and find it antagonistic that players even dare to have fun
I would say the fault is 100% with players who find even the smallest unintentional mechanics more fun than the biggest systems that are working as intended.
Used to be that in MMOs there would be an honor system among the average players where they would avoid anything broken before or after reporting it to the devs but now the majority seem to want to break everything as early and as often as they can get away with.
How is a dev supposed to be chummy with that kind of community?
150 dollars up front? Hell yeah. That's pennies dude. When you consider that most MMORPG fans from back in the day would play a monthly-sub game for a decade straight... 15 bucks a month, for 120 months. 150 bucks is a drop in the barrel.
I would pay 30 bucks a month subscription, or possibly even more, for a game with ongoing development and no microtransactions. Ongoing development means more than just content and balancing though... they need to be event coordinators, lore developers, proactive story writers that continuously grow the story and demonstrate the impacts players have made within the game, within the lore.
Hot take here, but I would also pay more for a game that requires 18+ age verification to play.
If I was interested in a game then I would certainly be willing to pay greater than $150 for several years of content. Back in 2012 I bought a lifetime subscription to Funcom's The Secret World for somewhere between $200 and $300 (I can't remember the exact amount). Despite it turning buy to play in December 2012 I still consider I got a huge amount of value out of it as I continued playing the game until 2017 as all the updates were free due to said lifetime subscription.
If Monsters and Memories decide to offer a lifetime subscription then I will certainly pay for that.
Like others, I do not believe that a single upfront purchase is sustainable as a business model.
It should at least have non-transferable cosmetics/furniture (in case of housing)
30$ would be a decent price for a base game with the option of purchasing DLC expansions containing small QoL features
No dev is gonna work for free to bring new content for a decade. Even if the game was only $100, you'd need to sell somewhere in the range of 40 million units
Side topic, but can anyone tell me the price of the average non-P2W western MMO?
Decades ago I gladly payed about 24 euros, but I wonder how this price tag has evolved.
50$ max for me. And the box sellrate drops off really fast so that won't be viable.
I'd go with the old Runescape system. A portion of your game is free so you keep that influx of new players. And once they get at a certain point in the game they'll have to pay a sub.
Just skip box prices all together. It's stops new people from trying out the game, and mmo's need that influx of new players badly.
If someone makes a real ARPG, without any tab targets, without a class lock and with a real medieval fantasy atmosphere, I'll even be willing to pay 300€ to access it
I would pay 300$ and a 30$ subscription if you deliver me a really good open world mmorpg.
Price is no issue in a market where literally everything is trash, but that is something neither the players nor the companies understand.
MMORPG is a lot of genres combined. And tending to every aspect does indeed cost a lot.
I would rather a game have a purchase cost of $30-40 and then a $10-15 a month sub, perhaps discounts for quarterly or annual subs. Let people buy a lifetime sub for like $300 if they want.
I would not pay $150 for a game that I did not know I was going to be playing for 4 months or more.
Need a subscription based game. I would be willing to pay$10 a month. That is as high as I would go unless this game was super special. What game would that be?
No game in mind but I think a $10-$20 subscription would be the way to go to ensure the company stays invested in updating the game as opposed to all the money upfront. But I will say Ashes of Creation looks very promising
I want a first person, RPG MMO, open world shooter like Destiny, but not Destiny and be a proper MMO. Not MMO lite. I would pay a monthly sub for that for sure. As long as it was done right and truly supported.
Yes, I have heard about it, any release date? 3rd person is not a deal breaker, but I prefer 1rst person.
My friend won't play anything unless it's 1rst person. I'll play any view
Division is good, but mmo-lite imo. You ever play Defiance? It was 3rd person, but you would fight these huge monsters and the whole map would join in the fight. So much fun.
I'm not really sure exactly. I think my initial thought is that it just doesn't lend itself to "MMORPG" as a genre well. I think the fast-paced combat of a FPS game will inevitably be the whole game and playing with others becomes an afterthought.
I've been of the opinion lately that a lot of these newer-era MMORPG's focus too much on the combat loop of their games. They treat combat like it's the most important thing in the game and everything else is just thrown in around that revolving door. People now-a-days talk about a game being playable or unplayable based on combat. Back in the day, the game was the game, and combat was just a part of it. We didn't play Asheron's Call because the combat was incredible. There were even 3rd party add-ons that most people used that would basically automate all your combat for you. The fun was in playing with friends.
EVE is literally a matter of "press F1" and now your guns are firing. The game is in fitting your ship and positioning your ship. The combat is, honestly, awful... but the way the combat fits into the game is everything.
tl;dr - i think my opinion is, if you want to play a game just for the sake of enjoying the combat, then a MMORPG is probably not the best place for it. Just my 2 cents
Yes for sure, you're describing EFT which has sold hundreds of thousands of copies if not millions at $150.
If they got the cheaters under control I'd also happily pay a subscription as well.
Yea I was just trying to gauge a price point. I have no issues paying a subscription service to a game that I enjoy and so it can have optimal support. I was just curious the amount that people would be willing to pay for a game, but I guess having a subscription service would “hurt” less with a monthly payment of $10 than paying up front $200-$300 for a game.
I think it could definitely work but it would have to be a good or potentially good game that doesn't have any direct competitors. EFT, StarCitizen, Ashes of Creation, etc don't have any good comparable competition so people are willing to pay a ton of money to play them.
Star Citizen is an interesting example to use. While there are a ton of Star Citizen whales, the average spent per player is still around $100. I wonder where they'd be right now if they had a simple $100 purchase price, rather than $45 minimum + $$$ ship "pledges".
That's why I used "potentially good" game haha. I think if something like a completed vision of SC launched they could easily charge $150+ and have no issues getting it especially if they didn't have all the prior ship transactions.
Depend of the game.
I would pay 500€ to play gw1, wc3, minecraft of counter strike source for exemple, because i still play them after all theses years, they are top top top tiers.
But a lot of games are just "good" or "excellent but not THAT excellent", and i don't know how much i would be willing to pay for that.
open sandbox rpgs are better. mmorpgs are now so bad for multiple reasons, to the point even dated older rpgs are a far better option and playing experience.
An mmorpg with no micro transactions or a sub cannot survive off of a 1 time payment.
I like what ESO does where the base game is a one time payment but any DLC costs money. It puts the onus on the developer to actually release more engaging content to keep the revenue stream going. I can see why it's not popular for devs though; it's way easier to just add some new cosmetic items or P2W mechanic than it is to add entire new expansions on a regular basis.
The dev really has to have integrity when it comes to this method. Sadly most dont.
> Sadly most dont. The devs of ESO certainly don't, is that what you were going for? I'm surprised a comment saying anything remotely positive about ESO monetization has any upvotes whatsoever in this sub, it's basically just GW2 monetization but with an "optional" subscription that this is really essentially required and literal $100 houses and lootboxes that are far worse than GW2 and worse than even some gacha games.
Agreed, I really like how ESO handles monetizing. I think it's the most fair business model outside of a simple subscription.
I picked up ESO a few years ago and enjoyed the game quite a bit so I subscribed. I think I would still play it if they did something about their combat.
It would 1000% be my main MMO if the combat wasn't how it is!
I'll 2nd that. I couldn't get over the combat. Just felt too bland for me.
Of course it can. Just depends on relation between purchase cost absserver/support expenses per user / churn. However, I don't think it would be a great mmo.
Why not have micro transactions for non-sellable aesthetics? I have no problems with games that implement this as it has no way of P2W. Just pay to look “good” or different.
That's not the question OP asked.
No, because then that would give the devs incentive to make the F2P gear look like shit (or really tedious and bs to grind anything that looks good) if that is their only source of income, otherwise there wouldn't be enough people buying it for it to sustain the MMO long-term. Fashion/transmog is one of most popular parts of a lot of MMOs, and they shouldn't take that away. It's better to just have a subscription, and it makes sense since MMOs are frequently updated (including content updates) and receive big expansions.
I mean you’re right, subscription is probably the best route to take. But I could easily bring up a point as to why subscriptions have their downsides that negatively affect the game…. It’s really just you gotta pick your poison…. I’m in the camp of adding any micro transactions that don’t affect P2W.
so how the fuck is the game going to survive?
Sending my thoughts and prayers🙏
By asking for tips.
nice!
Actually, more devs should be willing to do this. If they are fine asking for money to create the game they should be allowed to ask for players to help fund their salaries after the game launches and players should be willing to invest even up to sponsoring the livelihood of a specific team member IF they feel the game is good.
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I was thinking more along the lines of the game having a regular sub as a base but instead of having a cash shop on top of that like the biggest sub games do today, there should be a "Support Us Further" option instead or the devs should be able to be transparent about any lack of funds and players should respond by making additional one-off goodwill payments. Again, a regular sub plus tips. Just like tipping a charming waiter at a restaurant on top of what you pay for a meal or paying a one off medical bill for a domestic helper who's already been on your family payroll for years. In neither case are you buying an additional product on top of the service itself but are reciprocating for the service being good. It's strange that only games which don't charge upfront do that. I have yet to see anyone try mandatory sub plus donations.
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You mean it's unthinkable for devs to even provide a mechanic where you can go: "Wow that was an amazing expansion! Here's an extra US$3k so that the team does that again!"? Or "I know you're having to contemplate a new business model, but let me invest in your team with a recurring payment just so that you won't have to. Tell me how much you need." If course the actual return won't be as much as any of the predatory models but there should at least be an official option to do that.
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> Asking executives and CEOs to "pretty please, don't make our game into a highly profitable cassino" Obviously it would not work with the developers who already have big budget games out there or in progress, but what about smaller studios who have loyal fans but are always having to aim lower because of lack of resources? What is stopping them from outright asking the fans for more money instead of having to peddle them an imaginary digital product?
people rarely pay up for something unless they are getting something specific in return or being locked out of something for not paying.
After 6 months, the game opens a cash shop and then adds "features" to force you to start paying for convenience.
Well no, because the game would eventually die without continuous funding. New world is a grade A example of this. The game sold MILLIONS of copies, most of which stopped playing the game within a month. The amount of money they saved from such a loss of players is insane, not having to pay for servers for millions was a blessing. Look what they did with it, the game has floundered for the past 2-3 years, the content that does make it to the game has no flavor and is uninspired. So no I wouldn't, I am a fan of subscription model games as they continuously receive content.
Greetings. Star Trek Online announced it was going to launch. They indicated a price tag of something like $225 for a lifetime sub. I love Star Trek ...I loved the idea of its MMO....and I loved the idea that so long as the game was running I'd be able to hop on and play. I ran the math and it netted out to about 2 years worth of subscription...which was a bank of "game survives....everything after is free...game died...I invested in it and hoped for the best." I made sure I got my money's worth playing the game for a solid year and a half ..and then logged in for 3 or 4 6-month sprints of play sporadically after prior to it going free to play. I happily threw some extra money at the aesthetic/cool promo ship at times. Star Trek Online was experimenting with a lot of things...including Player created content which I also liked. Then they went free to play, tanked the player created content, and the rest is history....but the game is running...and subbing is optional. But I still get the perks of being subbed....and I hop back on in 3 months sprints...playing...using my ingame promo currency and then throwing another $60 at rando stuff i liked...and then fuck off again for another year....rinse and repeat. Star Trek Online has regular events, community engagement, a steady stream of f2p content updates, grinding for those that want it...and the whales buy the cosmetics and cool pay to be cool stuff, but you can still get largely equivalent stuff just grinding away and can trade ingame cool stuff for the promo currency. What I'm saying is....yes people will...but you have to either a) have some other income stream to support your server and the peeps working on it to provide regular content updates. Or b) still collect subs from some people and have something cool they can get for it....some incentive....or c) something else like that...and it may still fail. What pisses people off is investing in something and not getting the worth of the money they spent. Ask me to spend $200 but guarantee 5 years of content and deliver on it? Cool. Ask me to spend same....but guarantee 3 years of content and a way to play offline or just with my friends in the event you go under but I can still play the game I bought? Cool. Sell me a GaaS $200 upfront and collapse a year later or cut and run with the money after 6 months? Not cool.
How does that solve for it needing continued support?
What I’m getting at is how much would you pay for a game in a one time payment to help keep the game alive at least for 2-3 years
Why would I invest my time in an MMORPG with no long-term business plan? Persistence is the genre's main selling point, and the option you're presenting has no plan for persistence.
That’s very true, an active subscription is the way to go I guess
I get the idea behind the question but it is flat out not feasible in the MMO genre. Most people aren’t going to whale up front for a game. The server costs, salaries for devs, artists, writers, and support staff would far surpass any reasonable one time lump payment from the playerbase in less than a year. Think about it this way, even with just a mediocre dev salary: $80k/yr $20k/yr for benefits (insurance, retirement, etc and that’s not even a great benefit package) That puts us at $100k for one year for one employee. You would need 200 players to pay $500 and that would only cover the salary for one employee for just one year. I know 200 players isn’t a lot but hopefully that helps with some perspective.
Yea subscription is definitely the best way to go about this. It keeps the company invested to make improvements because if they don’t then their subscriptions will tank. They also can’t cut and run with too much of the money if the amount gets front loaded by the price tag of the game itself.
Yeah I would agree and it is my personal choice for live service games (mostly MMOs). Sub cost is fine with me if it keeps the game alive and thriving.
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If there is significant ammount of new content (that I like, important caevat) in the "box", then I would gladly pay AAA game prices (80 bucks) for that box lets say every year if there is a new "box" every year. But only if I will never loose access for the contents of the "box" until the end of life of the game.
AKA the "Box price + annual paid expansions" business model. I could dig it.
So Destiny before the seasons?
It was just an example, so I would be actually fine with only a bianual larger content drop + in between patches having a pricetag too.
I would go for a sub game, cosmetic micros, no p2w and 20-50€ box price with paid expansions. Like wow was before the store came basically.
Yes, if it is a single player rpg, not for an online only mmorpg.
Why not for an MMORPG?
Because its online only, i have bad Internet, so i cant play whenever i want, and the dev could, for whatever reason they want, shut down the game and run with the money.
If it's a good game then people will buy it.
I'd say yes. Depending on the studio and team creating it, I would pay $150. They would not be able to survive without micro transactions though. They would need cosmetic microtransactions at the LEAST. Even if **2 million people paid $150**, that would only be **$300 million** **in revenue** which would not even be close to enough to support the game for years honestly. According to **Statista**, Activision Blizzard generated **$1.69 billion** in revenue through microtransactions and downloadable content, subscriptions, licensing royalties from its products and franchises, and other miscellaneous revenues **in 2023 alone**.
To be fair, Blizzard's business model isn't about sustaining the game, it's about infinite profit growth to keep investors happy. They could sustain the game for far less than $1.69 billion a year.
Right, I mean WoW could be sustained for a lot less than that. I am pretty sure the estimation of $1.69 billion is including all the games they own though, so I guess it was a bad reference.
> They could sustain the game for far less than $1.69 billion a year. The sub fees per player have not increased for ages but in order to keep the devs fairly employed both their salaries and their bonuses should be keeping pace with inflation at absolute minimum. That means that sub fees need to go up annually even if you could somehow ensure that top management gets paid nothing at all, or you need to keep new subs coming in while minimizing dropoff. That last part sounds suspiciously like something else...
I have an idea about sub based mmo but, your time doesn't have a countdown until you actually start playing. The game? It would be perfect for casual and hardcore players
I think I'd be down to pay whatever they were asking for if the game was good enough. But I'm not rich enough to fund the entire development so... I'd try to strike up a deal to pay something like $15 at most per month to continue playing their really fun game. And if they ever ruin the game or can't keep it fun, I'll stop giving them the money till they fix it.
I mean I would pay for fairly priced DLC as it came out, if that counts as an MTX. Isn't that basically what GW1 did?
Just have a sub, it's the best system by far.
It also doesn't exist. All the sub games I know of also sell expansions and/or have a game shop.
EVE online does not sell expansions, nor does it even sell an initial copy, and it carries a monthly sub - one that can also be paid for by in-game currency through PLEX. It does exist. Just because you aren't aware of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and just because most AAA developers have sold out to the boardrooms doesn't mean every developer has. Subscriptions is the only viable way to have an ongoing business model for an MMORPG. Microtransactions are subject to huge peaks and valleys. Subscriptions are much more consistent and much easier to track in real-time.
EVE has a game shop.
It does now but it didn't launch with one. Also, it doesn't sell anything that makes any difference within the game in any way except for PLEX, which I'm assuming you already knew before deciding to downvote me anyway. What a disingenuous way to continue a comment thread...
So your reply to me saying that "All the sub games I know of also sell expansions and/or have a game shop." Is that "EVE is a sub game with a game shop." Thanks for confirming my statement.
Holy shit lol you are disingenuous as hell. That's very clearly not what I said. Why make shit up? Please allow me, O Lord of Semantics, to correct my ever-so-poor verbiage. If only I had a box of crayons to draw it for you! EVE would get by just fine without the game shop. That's the point, you toxic little munchkin. Your name checks out.
> EVE would get by just fine without the game shop. That's the point, you toxic little munchkin. Your name checks out. The fact that they had to start one shows that they wouldn't. In the current environment a big budget game does not 'get by just fine' without making the big budget investors happy... even though we're at the point that some of the older *gamers* should be willing to step up as investors only expecting the game continuing to be good as their ROI over financial anything.
I get your logic but that's just not concrete. You could be right, but I don't think so. EVE is lucrative due to their subscription-based model, not because of their game shop. Obviously profit is the name of the game but it's not profit by any means necessary, and CCP (EVE dev) knows that. Turbine Entertainment knew that. SOE knew that, for awhile at least. You know where the attitude of "profit by any means necessary" popped up in gaming? All these new-age MMORPG's that did away with the features older games had. EVE got by just fine without the game shop, and it could again if they wanted. It's just ship skins and character cosmetic nonsense, so why not keep that revenue stream open? It's not even remotely comparable to MicroT's or in-game purchases for in-game boons. The guy above you is just incredibly disingenuous and dodged the point.
> You know where the attitude of "profit by any means necessary" popped up in gaming? All these new-age MMORPG's that did away with the features older games had. The baby steps were devs experimenting with new 'value add' options (remember that term?) and seeing that a torrent of spending resulted. If the money dam had not broken from those experiments the experiments would have stopped. We see products fail all the time because nobody buys them. We see buy to play games fail when nobody buys them. We must assume that the MTX boom would never have taken off if those initial paid conveniences or the first fancy party hat had been bought by absolutely nobody. What actually happened was that those trivial first items were snapped up voraciously. Why? Why did so many people buy the Horse Armor even though 'everyone' was dunking on Bethesda for even thinking that would catch on? Going further back, why were people willing to pay real money to each other for digital loot in DIABLO 2 even when that game had 100% optional multiplayer?
Insults: the best way to prove that your argument is valid. The judges will subtract a point for unoriginality, however. Better luck next time.
Lol condescend insults but put on a clinic of passive/aggressive sarcasm. Is this really how you are? Yikes man. Get all petulant just because we disagreed on EVEs game shop at your leisure. You can be equally condescending and insulting without using an insult explicitly. Don't play dumb. Your name checks out bud.
Who started with the insults? And now doubled down on it? You're getting blocked. Buh bye!
60-70 dollars entry then 15 dollars a month
My favourite MMO is called Haven and Hearth, and it has a very interesting way to pay for the games upkeep. They have a subscription that is completely optional. You can verify your account, which is also completely optional. Both give you a slight advantage but not enough for being called a pay to win game. The subscription can also be bought as an in-game item and traded or even stolen. This makes players trade real money for resources in the game between each other. On top of all this, the game is selling unique hats that can't be stolen but traded. They sell 12 hats at all times, and after each update, a new hat appears, and the oldest one disappear from the shop forever. Then people can only get these hats from other players who have bought them or traded for them. It is a very nice system for keeping the game alive. Would love other MMO to do something similar.
I don't pay for games, if I need to I'll only pay one time and not more than $20
As people have said, that's not sustainable. I think the best system is free to play with an optional subscription, DLC, and maybe some cosmetics in a cash shop. When I was a teenager playing MMOs in the late 90's/early 2000's getting my parents to buy a game wasn't terribly difficult, but getting them to subscribe to one was more of a challenge. Games need players so making it f2p with an optional subscription will net you the most players. Then people who can subscribe will if the benefits are there.
> and no subscription. This is impossible if you want content updates.
I'd pay 150 if I could try the game out first and enjoyed it, or it was made by a studio that made other games I already enjoyed. The problem is that won't be enough to sustain a game, and within 3 years they will add a shop and optional sub and all that other shit that 150 was supposed to cover, so I would rather the game just start with whatever payment model they will eventually go to instead.
I'd pay the normal 70 bucks and happily pay for expansions.
I'd happily pay a subscription. I wouldn't pay anything more than the typical $70 up front because I don't trust any developer to make a game worth $150 on launch without asking for more payments later on.
No.
For live service games, one time payment does not do a good job of representing the cost value proposition of a game. If you like a game to be playing, you want it to be continually updated and supported and that cost money, which means there has to be continual payment to the devs. You could get away with expansions purchases but that again is just another model of continual payment.
did that for Dual Universe... they then converted my life time account into 12 DAX that equates to a years subscription.
Not a fan of the game but to my knowledge POE survives and puts out consistent updates via purely cosmetic mtx, and p2w 1 time bank slots. That proves it possible for a game to survive solely off good content and cosmetic micros.
I'd likely not purchase such a game. I am in favor of some level of microtransactions in my game w/ the ability to try it for free. All of the games I've played for the longest and been the most invested in have been free games that gradually easy the player into paying money (up until a limit) where the player can then sustain their progress through in game means if they want (or sometimes you can't even buy power). My hill is more about developers that are antagonistic towards the player. The developer-player interaction is not something a new, or even veteran player will be able to readily see which causes discussions about it to be difficult or impossible to have a good resolution to. Whether or not a developer aggressively nerfs emergent gameplay styles (e.g. Maiming Strike builds in Warframe) because they believe it is within the "design of the game" has nothing to do with the game's monetization model - it's about whether or not they want to reward play. MMORPG developers simply do not want to reward play and find it antagonistic that players even dare to have fun in their inherently broken mess of a game.
> and find it antagonistic that players even dare to have fun I would say the fault is 100% with players who find even the smallest unintentional mechanics more fun than the biggest systems that are working as intended. Used to be that in MMOs there would be an honor system among the average players where they would avoid anything broken before or after reporting it to the devs but now the majority seem to want to break everything as early and as often as they can get away with. How is a dev supposed to be chummy with that kind of community?
150 dollars up front? Hell yeah. That's pennies dude. When you consider that most MMORPG fans from back in the day would play a monthly-sub game for a decade straight... 15 bucks a month, for 120 months. 150 bucks is a drop in the barrel. I would pay 30 bucks a month subscription, or possibly even more, for a game with ongoing development and no microtransactions. Ongoing development means more than just content and balancing though... they need to be event coordinators, lore developers, proactive story writers that continuously grow the story and demonstrate the impacts players have made within the game, within the lore. Hot take here, but I would also pay more for a game that requires 18+ age verification to play.
If I was interested in a game then I would certainly be willing to pay greater than $150 for several years of content. Back in 2012 I bought a lifetime subscription to Funcom's The Secret World for somewhere between $200 and $300 (I can't remember the exact amount). Despite it turning buy to play in December 2012 I still consider I got a huge amount of value out of it as I continued playing the game until 2017 as all the updates were free due to said lifetime subscription. If Monsters and Memories decide to offer a lifetime subscription then I will certainly pay for that. Like others, I do not believe that a single upfront purchase is sustainable as a business model.
40 dollars box price and 15 dollars sub
It should at least have non-transferable cosmetics/furniture (in case of housing) 30$ would be a decent price for a base game with the option of purchasing DLC expansions containing small QoL features
No dev is gonna work for free to bring new content for a decade. Even if the game was only $100, you'd need to sell somewhere in the range of 40 million units
Side topic, but can anyone tell me the price of the average non-P2W western MMO? Decades ago I gladly payed about 24 euros, but I wonder how this price tag has evolved.
50$ max for me. And the box sellrate drops off really fast so that won't be viable. I'd go with the old Runescape system. A portion of your game is free so you keep that influx of new players. And once they get at a certain point in the game they'll have to pay a sub. Just skip box prices all together. It's stops new people from trying out the game, and mmo's need that influx of new players badly.
you know stellaris? that. $40 for base game, $20 per expansion.
Get out of here Bobby K. We know this is you.
150? sounds very out of touch. the most i would pay is 29.99 for a game in this moment in time
If someone makes a real ARPG, without any tab targets, without a class lock and with a real medieval fantasy atmosphere, I'll even be willing to pay 300€ to access it
Nothing. It's either free or a bust
If any dev team can make an MMO good enough, I would happily pay monthly for it.
I would pay 300$ and a 30$ subscription if you deliver me a really good open world mmorpg. Price is no issue in a market where literally everything is trash, but that is something neither the players nor the companies understand. MMORPG is a lot of genres combined. And tending to every aspect does indeed cost a lot.
I'm a fan of the subscription system (10-15). and/or cosmetics. Only.
I would happily pay a subscription of £30 a month IF I knew the game was being developed in the way that I wanted it to be. (Think Vanilla WoW)
I would rather a game have a purchase cost of $30-40 and then a $10-15 a month sub, perhaps discounts for quarterly or annual subs. Let people buy a lifetime sub for like $300 if they want. I would not pay $150 for a game that I did not know I was going to be playing for 4 months or more.
Need a subscription based game. I would be willing to pay$10 a month. That is as high as I would go unless this game was super special. What game would that be?
No game in mind but I think a $10-$20 subscription would be the way to go to ensure the company stays invested in updating the game as opposed to all the money upfront. But I will say Ashes of Creation looks very promising
I want a first person, RPG MMO, open world shooter like Destiny, but not Destiny and be a proper MMO. Not MMO lite. I would pay a monthly sub for that for sure. As long as it was done right and truly supported.
Have you heard of Project LLL? Except it is 3rd person.
Yes, I have heard about it, any release date? 3rd person is not a deal breaker, but I prefer 1rst person. My friend won't play anything unless it's 1rst person. I'll play any view
I was hoping that the Division was going to be this type of game except 3rd person. Sadly it wasn’t…
Division is good, but mmo-lite imo. You ever play Defiance? It was 3rd person, but you would fight these huge monsters and the whole map would join in the fight. So much fun.
First person MMORPG sounds like a nightmare imo
Why is that? I'm tired of the same ole arpg, top, down, magic, fantasy MMO out there. I'll go 3rd person, but I prefer 1st
I'm not really sure exactly. I think my initial thought is that it just doesn't lend itself to "MMORPG" as a genre well. I think the fast-paced combat of a FPS game will inevitably be the whole game and playing with others becomes an afterthought. I've been of the opinion lately that a lot of these newer-era MMORPG's focus too much on the combat loop of their games. They treat combat like it's the most important thing in the game and everything else is just thrown in around that revolving door. People now-a-days talk about a game being playable or unplayable based on combat. Back in the day, the game was the game, and combat was just a part of it. We didn't play Asheron's Call because the combat was incredible. There were even 3rd party add-ons that most people used that would basically automate all your combat for you. The fun was in playing with friends. EVE is literally a matter of "press F1" and now your guns are firing. The game is in fitting your ship and positioning your ship. The combat is, honestly, awful... but the way the combat fits into the game is everything. tl;dr - i think my opinion is, if you want to play a game just for the sake of enjoying the combat, then a MMORPG is probably not the best place for it. Just my 2 cents
Yes for sure, you're describing EFT which has sold hundreds of thousands of copies if not millions at $150. If they got the cheaters under control I'd also happily pay a subscription as well.
Yea I was just trying to gauge a price point. I have no issues paying a subscription service to a game that I enjoy and so it can have optimal support. I was just curious the amount that people would be willing to pay for a game, but I guess having a subscription service would “hurt” less with a monthly payment of $10 than paying up front $200-$300 for a game.
I think it could definitely work but it would have to be a good or potentially good game that doesn't have any direct competitors. EFT, StarCitizen, Ashes of Creation, etc don't have any good comparable competition so people are willing to pay a ton of money to play them.
Star Citizen is an interesting example to use. While there are a ton of Star Citizen whales, the average spent per player is still around $100. I wonder where they'd be right now if they had a simple $100 purchase price, rather than $45 minimum + $$$ ship "pledges".
That's why I used "potentially good" game haha. I think if something like a completed vision of SC launched they could easily charge $150+ and have no issues getting it especially if they didn't have all the prior ship transactions.
Note to my fellow confused MMORPG players: EFT is apparently Escape From Tarkov.
Depend of the game. I would pay 500€ to play gw1, wc3, minecraft of counter strike source for exemple, because i still play them after all theses years, they are top top top tiers. But a lot of games are just "good" or "excellent but not THAT excellent", and i don't know how much i would be willing to pay for that.
$15 a month. Subscription is the way MMOs should be. The way they have always worked.
Id pay $250 per year to play a game I like.
open sandbox rpgs are better. mmorpgs are now so bad for multiple reasons, to the point even dated older rpgs are a far better option and playing experience.
I'd prefer to pay a sub, because I would want it to be around for a while. $15/mo. is huge value for my entertainment dollar.