Massively Multiplayer Online Games

[Mithrandir]

Still, there is a huge profit left once the sales reach the 400,000-500,000 mark or more. Sales over 1,000,000 grant immense profits, provided the monthly fees are about 10-15$.

Everquest, the biggest MMOG in the United States, has taken over 4 years to get 430,000 subscribers. DAoC is the second largest, coming in at ~250,000 accounts over 2 years. No MMOG in history has ever sold 500,000 boxes relatively quickly after the game has been released. None have even been on the same stratosphere as 1 million boxes.

The fact is that MMOGs *need* the quick cash that is the box sales. They have longer development cycles than most games because they have to integrate actual game code with network code with the patching service with the billing service, etc. So when these MMOGs finally do hit the market, the company is sapped and needs to pay a lot of bills :) The fast cash that the box provides helps to mitigate that pressure, whereas the monthly payments are more of a long-term goal.

Bolty has put the catch of MMOG's nicely in the intro to his UXO Event article, and here is the quote again

Now, no offense to Bolty or anything (<3 Bolty :) ) but he admits to having never played a MMOG before and then makes a broad sweeping statement about how all MMOGs "work" a few sentences later :unsure: I think you guys have fallen prey to the media :) You've read all these stories on CNN.com, etc. about how MMOGs are the devil because this one guy in Korea played 72 hours staright and died because of it, or how MMOGs ruined this guy's life and his wife divorced him, and so on. The fact is, that's hardly the norm. Only about 2% of the EQ population is actually the "Raid 10 Hours a Day For Great Justice" type - and even the vast majority of those people are completely fine in their daily lives. MMOG/Internet addiction is an incredibly rare occurance, but that's still pretty much all you hear about MMOGs from people and websites not involved with them. Because of this, MMOGs get painted as these evil things "out to get you", addict you, and then turn you into some half-starved monkey work slave donating his unused brain power to the greater collective. Or something like that.

MMOG/Internet addiction occurs in people that already have certain, for whatever reason, tendencies to become addicted to various activities. I believe the figure was that 90% of all definied cases of MMOG/Internet addiction were in people that were already alcoholics, had OCD, were addicted to various drugs, and so on. For whatever reason, there is just some innate brain chemical imbalance which causes some people to become addicted to certain things more easily. I actually wrote a rather long paper on this subject in high school, so I know a little bit about the sbject and am not just pulling numbers out of the sky here either :)

But, I'm getting off-track here... Basically, MMOGs are depicted as tools for getting you addicted by those that have no knowledge on the subject (i.e. the media) and it seems a lot of this people have taken it hook line and sinker :)

The first problem seems to be the paying twice thing. People don't like paying for the product in the store and then again in order to actually play it. So how about if some play time is included with the purchase?

Erm, I am unaware of any MMOG that doesn't offer the first month free.

The first problem seems to be the paying twice thing. People don't like paying for the product in the store and then again in order to actually play it. So how about if some play time is included with the purchase?

Charging by play time is a horrible idea. Lots and lots and lots of people go afk for significant amounts of time in-game rather than just logging out so if people need them they can just leave messages, so they can come back and read /gu later, or whatever. The point is: it is utterly ridiculous to make people quit out of the game every single time they leave their computer in an effort to save money... it discourages everything that a MMOG is about.

Easy: Dynamic monthly fees. Adapt the fees according to the copies sold, or the paying active customers. More customers = lower fees, fewer customers = higher fees.

Oh my, this is bad. Let's think this through here: What's a good idea to get ALL of your customers to quit your game? It's like a contest! Yay! The answer is, of course, dynamic monthly fees.

Do you really think it's a good idea that if a bunch of people leave your game to make the people who still enjoy it pay even more just because the people who ended up not liking it left? I can't even describe in words how pissed I would be if by DAoC bill fluctuated every month just because people were entering/leaving the game. All a fluctuating bill does is makes people suspicious and pissed - which is a good way to get even more to quit and pissed which makes those still there pay EVEN MORE. A "dynamic monthly fee" would be the worst of business practices.

I mean, if MMORPGs are such cash cows, do 'they' really need a box fee on top of a subscription?

They're not cash cows. That's the misconception that is being perpetuated across the internet. Microsoft regularly makes over an 80% profit margin on their latest OS. The two most succesful MMOGs (DAoC and EQ) have a 15-25% profit margin each year. 15-25% is "good", but it's hardly breaking the bank here folks.

even if you really can't use CSRs as an excuse since so many of the new MMORPGs are going to automated systems - again, the companies are greedy and don't want to put up with stuff like the UO Guide lawsuits and Tweety/Lum nonsense

DAoC is still 100% CSRs. Even with automated systems, it's not like people aren't handling the in-game questions, bug reports, etc. - it's just the appeals go through a bit more filtration before being handled.

charge-me-twice thing just grates on me

I guess I have to ask... why? People put money upfront for cars and then pay "monthly fees" for them for a long time after that. Except that MMOGs are like cars that have little mechanics inside constantly running around fixing stuff and adding new features :)

They could also sell the box with CD's/DVD, manuals etc for ~50$, but offer 3 months of free playing time then.

I think you guys don't really understand how expensive bandwdith is when you're paying for 250,000 people across 13 servers playing a game. Box prices take a decent chunk out of the bills a company has piled up during the development process, but it doesn't cover all of them. You can't expect a company to run on empty for 3 months unless you want to grind it into the ground.