Column: Is The Bell Really Tolling for Subscription Based Games?

Having been a regular MMO player for ten years now, I’ve paid my fair share of monthly fees for the hobby. I still remember when they announced that EverQuest 1 was getting a price increase from $9.89 to $12.99, and from there to where it has been sitting for a while, at $14.99. This was never an alien thing to me as I spent my years hopping from one game to the next. It was just a fact of life if you were into the MMO scene.

I stumbled across this article on The World of Warcraft Warcry Network this past week, and felt that it was a very interesting take on what seems to be the next step in the evolution of the MMO genre. And while I personally wouldn’t go out and say that last year was the swan’s call for subscription based models, I do think that pretty soon here companies are going to have to start looking at different models to support their games.

A number of companies in the East, Korea, China and the like, have been pushing micro-transaction business models for a number of their games. What that means, is that instead of having one base fee that you pay every month, you can opt to use real money to purchase special in game currency, such as Gala-Nets gpotatos, which can then be used to purchase things in game that help do things like level faster, get better equipment, or even help with trade skills. And while a lot of us Westerners see this as a certain group of people being able to get a “leg up” based on their lot in real life, I’m not so sure that I agree.

While it’s true that those players who opt to purchase things like “experience potions” and ” weapon upgrades” with real life cash will be at a certain advantage over those that don’t, a lot of games out there with this business model do allow trading of those “Cash Shop” bought items to be traded between players who do purchase in game currency, and those who do not. That way if you can’t afford the uber sword of Cha-Ching, you know that you still have access to it if you have enough normal in game currency.

While that business model has taken off over in the East, in the West it has been very slow to catch on. Arguably Sony Online Entertainment was the first to step into the micro-transaction ring, with their Station Exchange servers in EverQuest 2, where players can purchase items from other players using an eBay like system, as well as purchase in game gold with real life dollars and wholly leveled characters themselves. They are also currently developing The Agency, in which they have stated that they are going to try to use micro-transactions, and possibly a “Velvet Rope” model, wherein players who want to, for a nominal fee, are granted access to items and areas that players who don’t choose to upgrade their account level cannot.

Other companies that are trying to bring this model to the Western shores, are companies like Acclaim and Flagship studios. Acclaim, with its Acclaim Coins system allows you to use real life currency to buy items in game (I’ve seen Acclaim Coins cards at my local Target), while Flagship uses a “Velvet Rope” model for its Hellgate London game. In fact, Flagship Seattle is also working on Mythos, which is being developed as a free-to-play, cash shop title. It was originally created as a net code test for Hellgate London, and has turned into one of the best action RPGs since D2 and Titan’s Quest.

The problem is, is that besides Hellgate, whose rope model hasn’t been playing out all that well from what I hear, is that a lot of the games using them are brought to our shores, and not developed here. And while I don’t have a problem with that, we haven’t really seen a Western developed title that was designed to use this system from the ground up. And frankly, most MMO players see the free-to-play games coming over from the East as nothing other than grindfests. Which a lot of times they are. Cubizone’s Perfect World is one the best Free-to-play with cash shop games that I have seen around, and is closest to what a Western developed game would be like. It is currently in open beta.

While I do feel that down the road the micro-transaction market is going to be the next big thing, until we actually see a big name, western develop title hit the pipes, most of us are just going to write it off. But with systems like the afore mentioned Acclaim coins, and heck, even Xbox Live and the Playstation Network, you better bet on seeing something within the next 5 years. Maybe The Agency will be it, but I think that a free or bargain bin MMO utilizing the Xbox Live Marketplace is what it is going to take for everyone to finally stand at attention.