GotMMOG?

Gamasutra’s reporting that Turbine has chosen a third party company to handle its microtransactions platform as it moves to a F2P model for Dungeons and Dragons Online. Supposedly, the switch to F2P was a “planned” transition over the course of a year. Uh, but I think your subs were pretty lackluster for that year and earlier. Long enough that Penny Arcade had a little fun when you tried to push content to bring people in. That was January 2008. 18 months ago.

Anyway, you go, girl. I guess LOTRO must be bringing in enough money for them to spend money and time testing out F2P on DDO…and to give DDO another chance before they pull the plug. It could also be helped by the recent round of funding they collected.

Honestly, from a business perspective, cool. Let’s see if F2P will save a game (along with the updates they’ve put together for the expansion that will bring the game into F2P mode)…Of course, from a game design/gamer perspective, just because it’s free doesn’t mean people will swarm. Still, they might actually see a bump in income as people opt to toss money away in microtrans and as some people who want to keep their WoW (or even Aion?) subscriptions running while trying another MMO.

But, with Guild Wars out there, is it worth it? Guild Wars is prettier and has a ton of content. GW2 is coming out some day and Aion’s about to launch. Oh, and we can’t forget Cataclysm’s going to pop it’s head out there sometime soon (I can’t imagine Activision Blizzard won’t want to take advantage of the coming holiday season to release that baby…especially if they’re already demoing it at PAX in September.

Again, we’ll see but I’m not holding my breath. Might be worth it to consider new MMO IP…maybe in a non-Fantasy genre?? Hmm?? Hey, Turbine, if you’re interested in licensing a new IP, call my people…

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=-

Gamasutra’s reporting that Turbine’s taking that MMOG everyone forgot, Dungeons and Dragons Online, and making it free to play with microtransactions and a VIP program (that is essentially like a traditional MMOG subscription).

The big question is will it make them any more money? Sure people will be more likely to sign up to try and play the game if they haven’t already but is it going to be worth the effort and time if you’re getting chainmail while the guy next to you throws down some bills and gets plate +2?

They’re going to be using a sort of in-game currency so we’ll have to see. If they make it possible for you to earn enough money to unlock the stuff that the rich guy next to you (in-game since that rich guy obviously doesn’t live near you) bought six months ago, then MAYBE they’ll have something.

I guess my problem with it is they’re ignoring the main issue. People aren’t playing the game because of the price. People aren’t playing the game because there are other games they’d rather play.

g afk

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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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

So, Linden Labs decided to enter the virtual goods fray by buying two sites that hawk their wares. Time and again, virtual world and MMO publishers have avoided the potential profits from virtual goods, instead sticking to lobbing their EULA grenades around. I’ve said it time and again, what better way to control game balance AND make some money (Second Life’s aftermarket generated $360 million? Drop your virtual linen and start your grinnin’) than to offer up a venue for virtual goods commerce?

Think about it. Players are already doing it. Why not take a rake and make it “legal”? Better yet, you can even control it a bit. Don’t want epic items accumulating on a single shard or world? Fine, set a limit? Tag an item as available for certain worlds.

WoW and others have been offering up more and more character transfers (though it’s been a bumpy ride.). They charge a fee so why not let someone sell their level 60 hunter they’re bored with, charge them a larger fee if they want to transfer it to another world and take your cut. Will players gripe at first at that “service fee” you tagged to their item? Sure, but if it’s not huge (you’ve to 11 million subscribers you’re already making huge money on, don’t gouge…leave that to rogues), they’ll get used to it. Especially if you make it 100x easier to do the transaction. Selling a sword? CC clears and BAM it’s in someone’s in-game mail in hours. Gold? Even easier…it’s just a number.

Funny thing is, you might even up your PR and make your players happier.

So, to all those publishers gripping the purse strings so tight they’re losing gold left and right, take the cork out and relax. Money’s out there to be made…gold in thar virtual hills.

grieger afk

It seems the global financial meltdown is starting to dig its teeth into game companies a bit more.

CCP, the developer behind EVE Online, that cold, dark space MMO where spacings are a daily ritual, is hinting that it might have to move out of Iceland for warmer climes. The article popped up on Gamasutra.

This is in contrast to the dollar signs in Sony’s eyes after they discovered that selling virtual items is maybe a business they should’ve been in from the beginning.

Of course, it might be because they never realized their demographics weren’t as straightforward as they thought.

Meanwhile, I got to enjoy some fun trying to buy cheap leather on WoW the other day…20 Thick Leather was being sold by some guy (he had something like 10 up there) on the AH at under 2g. Can you say farmer? Every time I bid some ass was outbidding me…can you say digger? What a pain. It reminds me of my early days in WoW when I’d look for Short auctions and keep bidding to grab it at the last minute (otherwise, don’t bother since you’d be outbid). Can’t we all just share? :p

grieger