GotMMOG?

As much as I’m looking forward to APB from Realtime Worlds (and anticipating doing the same thing over and over again, no matter how custom I can make my car will lose its luster pretty quick), I’m not sure what to make of the hourly scheme they’re trying to use for this game. According to the article from Joystiq, you’ll get an initial block of 50 hours to play when you get the game and can buy:

- 20 hours for $7

- 30 days of unlimited access for $10

- 90-day and 180-day discounted packs

Plus you can get playtime by achieving certain goals in the game. Uh, I’ve got to ask: did someone with any sort of business acumen come up with this? Did someone do any market research?

Think about it. Which would you rather do (assuming you actually want to play the game): Pay $7 for 20 hours or $10 for 720 hours. Right.

“You know, I really can’t afford $10. I’d rather pay $7 for 20 hours of time. I mean, if I ‘m playing an MMO, I’m not going to invest more than 2 hours a day…”

Huh? If you’re playing an MMO (or even a shooter), you’re going to play for anywhere between 1 and 4 hours per session on average unless you’re jobless or a student or an addict. So, if you play most days of the week (let’s say 5) and average about 2.5 hours per session, you’re talking about 12.5 hours per week. At that rate, you’re going to be shelling out $17.50 a month at the $7 rate.

Or you could just pay $10 for the 30-days of unlimited action (of which, you’re using effectively 2 days worth at 12.5 hours a week). Why would you want to pay more?

The only reason to pay $7 for 20 hours is if you really aren’t going to play more than 20 hours at a time or in a given month. But then, that’s still $3 short of UNLIMITED hours.

I’m not trying to get them to charge us all more but realistically, what’s the point? Wouldn’t it be better to just offer the following?

- $0.50/hour flat rate no matter how many hours you play

- $12/month for unlimited access (typical monthly sub)

- $33/90 days (effectively $11/month) and $60/180 (effectively $10/month)

Done. Now, if you play all of 20 hours a month, you’re going to pay $10 a month at the hourly rate. Good deal for you but you’re also not exactly hogging a slot on a server at 20 hours a month.

Meanwhile, if you’re one of the aforementioned MMO-jockeys, you’re going for the subs so you can play 24/7 until you die of exhaustion.

As for the developer, they get the higher rate for the infrequent player (the hourly rate) and get a rate similar to other MMOs (even if this really isn’t a traditional MMO) where they’re getting pre-paid for a month of access, regardless of whether the player uses that access or not.

It seems MMO devs are trying a bit too hard to find a new model when they don’t need to…and when they do try, they seem to be trying really hard to NOT screw up the standard subscription model while also trying that “something new”.  Just figure out the economics of it based on typical economies of scale (well, it’s sort of weird because it’s about the customer’s economies of scale, not yours). The more you pay to play, the better the discount. Then throw in microtransactions if they make sense.

In this case, the whole customization thing is perfect for microtransactions. You’ve got to make sure the paying customers still get their own stuff of course but you can assign a few designers to creating individual and packs of skins, designs, car variants, weapon variants and the like that don’t affect game play. You charge $0.50 here, $1.00 there and end up giving those people without artistic talent (right here!) nab some cool designs so we can show it off to the cool kids. Then those cool kids go and grab their own (unless they’re artists). Soon, you’ve sold $10-20 in virtual merchandise from a single sale. Multiply that by thousands of players and you’re golden.

The MMO industry is pretty damned mature at this point (it’s been almost 13 YEARS since UO launched!). There’s no excuse for this nonsense. This sort of thing is leaving the door open for someone to come in with an innovative business model and bank a nice chunk of the market. Stay tuned…

g

Pun intended.

I know this is relatively old news by Internet standards but Cryptic announced that it had 1 million characters created on Champions Online. I’m sorry. “characters created”?!? As anyone knows, just about everyone eventually creates at least one more character. Sure they might not create it that early after the release of a game. But, then again, this is a game where the best part of it is creating that character.

Knowing that, it makes that statistic (and whoever their marketing person at Cryptic is) look stupid. It’s like when Funcom went nuts about its subscriber count when they were barely two months out from release. Now, how’s that subscriber count, Funcom? Well, they won’t say because they’re afraid to screw their stock prices. Funny that. You’d think that if they had a good number to throw back the conversation would’ve definitely included some numbers or better wording like “100k? That’s ridiculously low. I can’t go into details but I can tell you it’s well above that number.”

If you look at their quarterly numbers, you can guesstimate a range at least of potential subscriber numbers. First, you have to remember that Funcom has published a couple of adventure games (The Longest Journey)–which might be the inspiration for the upcoming Secret World MMO–and is still (yes, still) running Anarchy Online.

But, let’s take it to extremes for a sec. Their Q1 2009 revenue was $7.7 million. If we just take that and assume that’s 100% subscriber fees (no other games, no box sales), you’re looking at a max of 513k subscribers (assuming everyone’s paying the $14.99 subscriber fee).

Now, none of Funcom’s games were on the radar for retail PC game sales in January of 2009 (which I’ll assume continues into March). Also, you can grab a box for $9.99 or less these days so it’s doubtful box sales amount to much.

So, let’s ignore box sales revenue as negligible (remember, Eidos published the boxed game so they’re retaining some of those pennies from box sales).

Anarchy Online subs are in there but they’re using a tiered model for subscriptions (free for basic content, $5/mo for two of the expansions and $19.95/mo for the full content). However, if you look at Q1 2008′s revenue it’s at $928k. Q1 2008 was before AoC was launched and while AO was still running. And, since it’s doubtful AO saw a dramatic increase in revenue since then, we’ll just take that $928k out of the revenue figure.

That still leaves $6.7 million on the books for AoC. There’s also a note about $800k in royalties that are being applied in Q1 2009 but were carried over from 2008.  That brings us to a final figure of $5.9 million. There’s the potential that some of this revenue is deferred revenue resulting from the recognition of pre-paid subscriptions (quarterly, yearly or lifetime subs) but in the interests of simplicity, let’s just make that an asterisk on the final sub count.

That gives us a final sub count of 398k. Or a general range of 400-500k. Pretty sizable for an MMO that’s “dying” by some accounts.

Still, I can’t help but think that’s high for an MMO that gained initial popularity but had a slew of problems that took over a year to fix. The fact that they had their free weekend to entice people in tells me they’re not happy with their numbers either. If the 100k number that’s been thrown around is anywhere near true, their revenue numbers would be closer to $2 million.

So, unless they’re cooking their books some how or doing something a bit shady like recognizing box sales as deferred revenue over time, it looks like they’re holding on to a sizable subscriber base. Mind you, there is probably a portion of that revenue that represents “inertia” subscriptions like mine that I only recently canceled despite not playing the game for almost a year.  It’s the gym model: you lock in that monthly/recurring subscription in the hopes that the subscriber will hold on for a while before they realize they’re wasting $14.99 a month on a game they aren’t playing.

And, by the way, I realize I’ve been working on Q1 numbers despite Q2 numbers being available. All this does, though, is just show the trend and adjust the current subscriber numbers. Assuming $1.6 million is purely subscriber revenue, you’re talking about a 100k drop in subscribers. Ouch. Now, our estimates are at 300-400k subscribers.

In addition, you can see a significant drop in EBITA which is due to increased operating expenses. This is most likely from them ramping up The Secret World MMO development and marketing. Bad timing though. Your revenue is decreasing due to subscriber losses and while The Secret World sounds intriguing it’s likely to be a niche MMO like all your others.

Oh, and don’t forget that WoW Cataclysm is going to be coming out sometime in 2010 around the time your new MMO is coming out. Fubar sounds like the best way to describe it.

Good luck!

g afk

Evening folks – it’s a sad day for 41 people, a.k.a 5% of SoE workforce, as Sony has announced job cuts! As a fan of the SoE title EverQuest I have to say I saw this one coming. You can’t stay relevant and, more importantly, profitable on the heels of your 10 year old project with a PEEK of 400,000 subscribers. SoE’s statement to online mag Massively.com is below:

“In a move to increase operational efficiency and reduce costs, Sony Online Entertainment has eliminated 5% of its full-time workforce, equaling 41 people. SOE looks forward to continuing its leadership role in the online games industry as it celebrates the highly successful launch of Free Realms, the 10-year commemoration of its ground-breaking EverQuest franchise, and the continued performance of the company’s other games.”

(source: Massively)

 Is this the sign of the end for SoE’s gaming days or will Sony produce a hot fix for this one? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

-=Sanister=-

So in recent MMO news the Chinese Government has BANNED gold farming – well gold, items and pre-paid game cards. Say goodbye to all the annoying in game spam and about half of the WAR late night guilds!

It’s possible that the Chinese Government has gone overboard with the pre-paid game card thing, or perhaps they had to ban that also in order to close the loop. Read the full story and let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

Check out the full story!

-=Sanister=-

Gamsutra’s reporting that Champions Online has been delayed from July to September. Cryptic says they want to polish the game and who are we to deny them the ability to bring a more solid game to market so we don’t have to wait for game update 27 to finally have a game we’d like to play. As long as they don’t get Duke Nukem Syndrome, we should be fine…

After all, with the new build your own adventure functionality in CoH/CoV, die-hard comic book MMO fans will still have plenty to do while they wait.

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No surprise here: Funcom’s reporting its revenues are matching its subscriber base as both level off and stabilize for the long haul. Of course, it’s what you’d expect (though I expected them to be on a slippery slope to closure). While they didn’t share the same popularity (or rather addiction) as EverQuest, they still managed to hold on. The question is, why? What’s so compelling about game play at this point with all the alternatives out there beyond naked breasts and an M rating? The next question is how long will devotees hold out and pay Funcom’s bills?

The scary thing? The company’s started working on a new MMO, The Secret World. I’m sorry guys but if you take your track record with Anarchy Online and this one, what’s the point? You’re gonna take a few years to get that new one out the door, it’ll cost you everything you’ve got, it’ll be more buggy than a rotting corpse and you’ll end up firing your CFO again. Maybe you should look at what you’re doing WRONG first and make it right? Just a thought…

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GigaOm had a post on a new company trying to hock their virtual currency, called Zeev, for both social net sites and gaming. Supposedly, the killer app here is the fact that you can trade currency on their site.

They say they’ve got seven games interested in the currency but I’m sorry, why are we supposed to care? Something tells me those seven games are going to be all miscellaneous Korean or Chinese MMOs that are free-to-play microtrans games that already have established ways to get money in and out of the game.

Maybe instead of trying to find games, they should be working on relevancy. Why can’t these idiots just partner with Visa or something and create a real friggin virtual currency card that you can use at a bricks and mortar store and also transfer to a bank account? Now, you’d be talking.

Here’s how it’ll work:

You start with a gift card like the ones you can find EVERY-FRIGGIN-WHERE, at Starbucks, Target, wherever. Next, you tie it into a virtual currency exchange you manage on the Web. Buy a card and it carries whatever you paid ($5, 10, 25, 50, 100). Go to the site and enter the code on the back when you register with the site to get a real-time display of the card balance (in dollars and in virtual units) and recent transactions. You can even maintain an exchange rate that you control but that can fluctuate against the dollar or whatever currency you want.

Meanwhile, you tie into player auction sites and games that want a part of it. Want to buy gold in a game? That’s 500 GMD (GotMMOG Dollars…I mean, c’mon, we invented the system right here, right?). PayPal it or whatever and bam, your gift card now has 500 more GMDs which at the current exchange rate of 10 GMDs to USD 1 gives you $50. Now, you can go use that gift card, because you partnered with VISA or MasterCard, into ANY friggin store–even GameStop if you’ve courageous enough–and buy a new game or buy a t-shirt or buy some prons. Your choice.

Sure this isn’t something that Jim and Joe can do in their garage but neither is creating something called Zeev and trying to hock it at your local street corner while dodging apartment for rent sign throwers and bums. Someone make it happen so we can get past this stupid stage in the MMO timeline and move on to something better (cross game character transfers?!?).

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At 12am CST, the admins pulled the plug on the final server, Hydra, which was the only US server left. I missed the final attack event that was advertised for 8pm CST but I can’t say there was much to see. This wasn’t the same as the end of beta in AC where they actually changed the world, destroyed cities, etc.

Still, it was sad to see it go…despite the minimal hours I’d spent running through its hallowed halls. I FRAPSed the last minutes but there isn’t much to see. General chat was spammed to hell with people saying good bye amongst other things. The handful of players in each zone gathered in different places, emoting, shooting, and otherwise screwing around until the end. As you’d expect, the people who were there really loved the game but obviously, per NCSoft’s decision to close the game down, they didn’t add up to a lot of profit.

And, so, it’s the end of another era. Or maybe the beginning of one. This likely will mark the beginning of the end for some of those MMOs that have been hanging on to what little remained of their player base. I’m curious to see how SOE handles it’s catalog of left over games (EQ, SWG, and Planetside). They are alive due to a small but dedicated group of people but in these economic times, is that going to be enough? Some games really ought to go (Vanguard, I’m looking at you) mainly because they failed to do what they set out to do and because they’re already looking like failures, pure and simple.

Funcom’s not having a good time so it’ll be interesting to see if their games (Anarchy Online, Age of Conan) survive this year.

It’ll be an interesting year. It may be a recession but look at it another way: if a game sucks, it’s not going to survive long. Think of this as a filter for crap so that ideally when all is said and done, the better games will have survived for your MMOGing pleasure.

g afk

Kotaku and Gamasutra are reporting that Nexon is shutting down its Humanature Studios dev studio based in Vancouver, BC.

Not that I’m a fan of cartoony free-to-play MMOs from Korea but given how well Nexon’s been doing, it’s a sign of the times. It looks like we’re going to see a lot of MMOs that were on the brink shut down. Could be a good thing but it could also be bad…think the movie industry where they squeeze out shit that sells (cookie-cutter films and sequels) and you have to rely on some hardy souls at the bottom end to churn out something more substantial on the indie scene.

Here’s hoping they don’t shut down anything good this year…

g afk

Alas MMO fans it has been awhile but I promise we are back and in force….here is some aged but useful MMO news.

Not too long back there was this little company called Napster that got sued and the music sharing world as we know it changed. Could this be the fate also of the MMO World? Well Worlds.com, thats right that company from the 90′s, is sueing NcSoft for patent infringement…for what you ask? Maybe for copying some super secret mob killing technology or something like awesome npc aggro algorythms? Fuck No! For the obvious they patented the method of allowing players to interact with others in a virtual space……ummmm WTF patent office do you not have any ability to see 5 feet down the road? This is almost as bad as the guy who patented E-Commerce!

NcSoft is being hit for the following titles: City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dungeon Runners, Exteel, Guild Wars, Lineage, Lineage II, and Tablula Rasa….the sad part is at least one of these titles was Free To Play and at least one didnt make hardly any money…is there no justice!

Well while I side with NcSoft the question becomes if this suit succeeds could it be even more difficult for non-major companies to launch an MMO as Worlds.com will then have the right to force the company to pay out for rights to make a fucking MMO – I’m sorry a virtual space.

If you would like to read the actual complaint it is located here…

SEE I fucking told you it was real..