Goblin Squad Member
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I can guarantee you, I will NEVER be at a point where I am satisfied with my character enough to quit training. Even if I am maxed out in my preferred role, I am still going to want to train other skills for either synergy with my main skills or the the ability to switch roles if needed.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Here's today's world. Not last year, but today.
With the exception of World of Warcraft and EVE, every MMO worth discussing is now driven by Microtransactions. Star Wars, Rift, Lord of the Rings, Neverwinter, etc. etc. etc.
If you came through the transition from subscription only to Microtransactions, especially if you skipped games that transitioned in place, it may seem to you that what we are going to do with Pathfinder Online is bizarre. But if you start in the present, what we are going to do seems totally normal.
I will give you $100 to $1 odds that WildStar and Elder Scrolls Online will mix subscriptions and Microtransactions within six months of their releases (frankly I think Elder Scrolls will launch with an MTX system). We are going to do exactly what they are going to do, we are just telling you up front.
This is the world as it is. The customers have spoken in overwhelming numbers that this is how they want to pay to play MMOs. We'd be incredibly foolish to disregard their wishes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here's today's world. Not last year, but today.
With the exception of World of Warcraft and EVE, every MMO worth discussing is now driven by Microtransactions. Star Wars, Rift, Lord of the Rings, Neverwinter, etc. etc. etc.
If you came through the transition from subscription only to Microtransactions, especially if you skipped games that transitioned in place, it may seem to you that what we are going to do with Pathfinder Online is bizarre. But if you start in the present, what we are going to do seems totally normal.
I will give you $100 to $1 odds that WildStar and Elder Scrolls Online will mix subscriptions and Microtransactions within six months of their releases (frankly I think Elder Scrolls will launch with an MTX system). We are going to do exactly what they are going to do, we are just telling you up front.
This is the world as it is. The customers have spoken in overwhelming numbers that this is how they want to pay to play MMOs. We'd be incredibly foolish to disregard their wishes.
And I can tell you when a game goes to MTX, I quit. I vote with my wallet. If your MTX is anything other than cosmetic, I will vote with my wallet and vocally encourage my friends to do the same. I've watched the flavor of the month come and go and I've paid into most of them. City of Heroes, DDO, WoW, Rift, Guild Wars, SWToR. As MTX comes in, they do get a cash bump, but memberships drop off. This causes entire guilds to quit and wait for the next game. I go back to my single player games and maintain my table top gaming and watch it die. Slowly, but die none the less. I quit Neverwinter before it even was born based on the micro transactions system. Just because companies see micro transactions and generating more revenue per player than subscription doesn't mean it's what players want.
I don't play Eve and quit WoW based on the lack of content development, however, I've since gone back. I'd rather pay my monthly fee and get access to the content then MTX based models. Most of the people I know would rather work that way as well.
Please focus on a good product rather than a money grab. That way lies WoTC.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not demanding I'm putting up concerns...
My apologies for not being clearer. I was not at all referring to those of you (like Lifedragn above) who were expressing concerns about the pricing model when I talked about folks making demands on the host. I was referencing an old and recurring thought, but it was a complete change of subject in this thread and created the wrong impression.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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This is my current state of thought about playing for free.
In the classic theme park model, free players provide valuable content to paying players. They fill the world, create more opportunities for grouping, provide social cohesion, let people stay engaged through real-world money problems, etc.
For a theme park game, all of the free players have a very low cost. These are sharded games, and servers can be spun up, and consolidated as population ebbs and flows. Today, I expect that many of those servers are virtual running on cloud-based infrastructure that has no sunk cost.
Our game is different. Because everyone plays on one server, we don't have the need to expand or contract server shards. We also expect that the customer service load from a paying player is going to be the same as a free player. So every player, free or paying, has the same cost to us.
Since we expect to always have critical mass in terms of having a population large enough to make the server feel "populated" (the business is a failure if we don't), there's not an intrinsic value to us, or our paying customers, to the presence of non-paying players. Since one of our funadamental value propositions is that players are each other's content, free players are consuming content generated by other people without providing compensation in kind.
Theme park games have another problem. People finish them. After finishing a theme park, the value provided to the player diminishes rapidly. An option to play for free is a recognition on the part of the developers that the player has become more valuable than the game. Sand box games should never reach that point, or they fail. For Pathfinder Online there should never come a time when the mere presence of a player is more valuable than the provision of the game service itself to that player.
We therefore need to think about ways to let people pay an amount roughly proportionate to the value they are receiving. And that value should never be "zero".
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Goblin Squad Member
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The better analogy here is being used to going on all-inclusive vacations at a certain price. And then you sign up for a new vacation at similar price, get all excited about it, and then discover it isn't actually all-inclusive...Taking up your analogy if it is more comfortable, if the prospective vacationer has been informed up front that it isn't Sandals, and drinks, gambling, and scuba diving are extra, then hyperbolic complaints about vampirish greed thrown at the proprietor should rightly be turned back on the complainant. If the player wants something for nothing it isn't GW's greed but the player's that should be faulted.
I do not believe I am being understood properly here, and it appears my comments are being taken as more hostile than I intended and I apologize. But it is not important enough for me to continue putting effort into it. My judgement will be reserved for how the cash shop actually plays out. I can be disappointed about some aspects and still enjoy the larger game and fully intend to do so.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We therefore need to think about ways to let people pay an amount roughly proportionate to the value they are receiving. And that value should never be "zero".
On this I can agree. I would favor avoiding F2P logins if possible, but can understand having to go there if a subscription member base cannot hold and keep critical mass. With the start small (minimum viable) and grow big mentality, I believe it is safe to say that they won't be needed.
As for the world yesterday vs. the world today and tomorrow, you have a point. I never stated that I didn't agree with that logic, just that I do not like the direction it is headed in. Telling us up front is probably just getting some of us grumpy because the alarm went off at 2 AM to let us know ;)
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CEO, Goblinworks
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| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Every MMO you have ever played, if it was more than a tiny niche, had a cash shop.
The cash shop, until the current era, was provided outside the game. All the way back to Meridian 59, people were buying and selling items and in-game currency on markets.
The purveyors of those markets are often criminals. They are engaged in fraud and identity theft. They seek to install malware and add people's computers unknowingly to bot nets. And one of the worst things they did (from the standpoint of the game design) was over-supply in-game currency by paying farmers to play the game in irrational ways far outside the assumptions of what "real players" would do.
Pretending that this activity wasn't happening is just pulling the wool over your eyes. And if you do some research, you'll discover that the revenue being earned by these markets was, in some cases, as large as the revenue generated by the publisher of the game.
Of the many good things that came from moving the cash shop into the game itself, seriously degrading the value of the game as a host for criminal parasites was one of the more socially beneficial. The upside to the publishers in the switch has funded a lot of content (and new games) that might not have ever otherwise been possible to fund.
So I tend to take a lot of the teeth gnashing about cash shops as the result of either utopianism, or ignorance of the truth.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If players are buying an item for $5 that is the equivalent of a craft able item, and a 1-month goblin ball is $20, then four of the crafted equivalent will sell for about enough coin to buy a goblin ball.
That's not a result of price-fixing, that's basic economics.
Will people be willing to invest the time in becoming a tier 3 crafter even when players can go to a cash shop and buy equivalent gear and all sorts of shinies with Goblin Balls? That's basic human nature.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Will people be willing to invest the time in becoming a tier 3 crafter even when players can go to a cash shop and buy equivalent gear and all sorts of shinies with Goblin Balls?
The Cash Shop will likely never have a complete set of anything. I would expect it to only offer a few items at a time of gear like weapons or armor, and I would expect those items to be different each month or so.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Every MMO you have ever played, if it was more than a tiny niche, had a cash shop.
The cash shop, until the current era, was provided outside the game. All the way back to Meridian 59, people were buying and selling items and in-game currency on markets.
The purveyors of those markets are often criminals. They are engaged in fraud and identity theft. They seek to install malware and add people's computers unknowingly to bot nets. And one of the worst things they did (from the standpoint of the game design) was over-supply in-game currency by paying farmers to play the game in irrational ways far outside the assumptions of what "real players" would do.
Pretending that this activity wasn't happening is just pulling the wool over your eyes. And if you do some research, you'll discover that the revenue being earned by these markets was, in some cases, as large as the revenue generated by the publisher of the game.
Of the many good things that came from moving the cash shop into the game itself, seriously degrading the value of the game as a host for criminal parasites was one of the more socially beneficial. The upside to the publishers in the switch has funded a lot of content (and new games) that might not have ever otherwise been possible to fund.
So I tend to take a lot of the teeth gnashing about cash shops as the result of either utopianism, or ignorance of the truth.
Thank you for informing me of my ignorance of THE TRUTH. My thinking that Blizzard is doing a good job of battling it by making alternate currencies bound to account was a great way of handling this is clearly in error. Their system of making gold obsolete to "catch up" using the Timeless Isle is also nothing new or creative to handle gold farmers. Or having a system like EVE where you can pay in game money for real money or vice versa in a controlled environment.
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Goblin Squad Member
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City of Heroes, DDO, WoW, Rift, Guild Wars, SWToR [Neverwinter]. As MTX comes in, they do get a cash bump, but memberships drop off.
The big difference here is ALL of the games you have listed are Theme Parks. MTX vs Sub has nothing to do with dorp-off, it's the lack of content that does. As the end-game becomes stale people leave regardless of the shineys they can buy because at it core it's still about raiding and grinding.
As a sandbox, PFO will not have that problem.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Er, Blizzard ? D'you want to see my collection of mounts from the Cashshop ?
Anyway. EvE PLEX system IS, the PFO choice.
And mate. Blizzard's fight against GS is just a smoke-screen.
You can believe me. XD
All right, I have to admit, I don't understand all of your post.
I'm all for this succeeding, I've invested more in this than I have in my entire time playing any MMO other than WoW and PFO was given this benefit sight unseen.
I have come to understand and accept that cash shops are the way most systems are going, but what I'm speaking out against is a cash shop that is basically required to access content or that gives players a pay to win solution. If all your talking about is the mount you have or a special skin, I won't rail against that. But mechanical benefits or content only being through a cash shop is where I rail against any company. That is also where I personally see people leaving. I'm already paying a monthly sub and you want more cash above and beyond that to access races or content. In my humble opinion, at that point, you're just bending your players over a barrel.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Wraith - Blizzard still has a cash-shop, in the form of pets and mounts.
As far as old Theme Park MTX, many of them did not add cash shops, at least not in any significant sense, until after they discovered that subs were not retaining well enough to hold them afloat.
SWTOR is the only one I have seen from the Sub angle after the addition of MTX / F2P. I appreciated the approach they took, providing credits towards the cash shop to subscribers, as well as freely granting automatic perks. It is something of a compromise between the all-you-can-eat and the delayed subscriber delivery mentioned earlier. The sub could consume whatever they wanted, but they had a budget to do it on unless they wanted to pay out extra. Anything was within their reach, but they might have to wait a couple months for the granted Cartel Coins to add up or shell out some cash to avoid the wait. What I wasn't so fond of was some of the ways they broke the game down to be F2P, such as locking out UI options and such.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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All right, I have to admit, I don't understand all of your post.
I'm all for this succeeding, I've invested more in this than I have in my entire time playing any MMO other than WoW and PFO was given this benefit sight unseen.
I have come to understand and accept that cash shops are the way most systems are going, but what I'm speaking out against is a cash shop that is basically required to access content or that gives players a pay to win solution. If all your talking about is the mount you have or a special skin, I won't rail against that. But mechanical benefits or content only being through a cash shop is where I rail against any company. That is also where I personally see people leaving. I'm already paying a monthly sub and you want more cash above and beyond that to access races or content. In my humble opinion, at that point, you're just bending your players over a barrel.
Sorry mate, my english sucks sometimes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Will people be willing to invest the time in becoming a tier 3 crafter even when players can go to a cash shop and buy equivalent gear and all sorts of shinies with Goblin Balls?The Cash Shop will likely never have a complete set of anything. I would expect it to only offer a few items at a time of gear like weapons or armor, and I would expect those items to be different each month or so.
Hope so. I'm not against the cash shop as a means for the game to make extra money and undercut the inevitable gold farming, attempted fraud, etc. I'm not a utopian or an ignorant person. Not sure if that's as bad as calling someone a carebear or a griefer or a moron (this refers to Mr. Dancey's comment, above). I don't see an entire guild of PCs being able to match the selection and convenience of a cash shop that has consummables, novelty items and the highest available tiers of stuff in one spot. Hey, pay $ for an alternative race? Go for it. Cash for a special looking mount? You betcha! Building skins? Armor dyes? Count me in! How about a beginner's pack of tier 1 consummables, rope and a basic harvesting tool? For players just trying the game for a weekend? Nice! I think most people know the cash shop is inevitable and are worried what it will offer; mine is a pay-to-win argument, not a cash-shop-is-a-dealbreaker argument.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sorry mate, my english sucks sometimes.
My English sucks sometimes as well, I think I followed most of your post though. I appreciate both of your responsiveness. I understand you're trying to guide expectations and give a positive spin on this. As a backer, I thought I was entitled to at least voice my opinion and don't often exercise this right. However, a cash shop with mechanical benefits is something I'm very strongly against. I'm not attacking nor judging yet, I'm just giving my feedback from past experience.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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My English sucks sometimes as well, I think I followed most of your post though. I appreciate both of your responsiveness. I understand you're trying to guide expectations and give a positive spin on this. As a backer, I thought I was entitled to at least voice my opinion and don't often exercise this right. However, a cash shop with mechanical benefits is something I'm very strongly against. I'm not attacking nor judging yet, I'm just giving my feedback from past experience.
Sorry mate, my english sucks sometimes.
I think it won't be different as EvE's PLEX.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...next thing you know the Devs spend all their time working on the MTX shop and letting the rest of the game slide.In what game(s) has this happened, please? I've not heard that before.
SWTOR for one
They put out an update that was pure Cartel Market. They received massive blow back and then put out an update for other things. They had a 6 month gap of no updates then threw out that Cartel Market Update.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The way I see it, GW can use an MTX option. Just be sure to keep developing and working on the actual game and not make more and more content to provide more and more ways for players to be consumers instead of players. I think that's what makes MTX suck the life out of a game.
But Ryan's right, you have to expand the way you allow players to buy stuff that is good for the game, good for the players and good for GW.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here's today's world. Not last year, but today.
With the exception of World of Warcraft and EVE, every MMO worth discussing is now driven by Microtransactions. Star Wars, Rift, Lord of the Rings, Neverwinter, etc. etc. etc.
If you came through the transition from subscription only to Microtransactions, especially if you skipped games that transitioned in place, it may seem to you that what we are going to do with Pathfinder Online is bizarre. But if you start in the present, what we are going to do seems totally normal.
I will give you $100 to $1 odds that WildStar and Elder Scrolls Online will mix subscriptions and Microtransactions within six months of their releases (frankly I think Elder Scrolls will launch with an MTX system). We are going to do exactly what they are going to do, we are just telling you up front.
This is the world as it is. The customers have spoken in overwhelming numbers that this is how they want to pay to play MMOs. We'd be incredibly foolish to disregard their wishes.
And in all honesty the only games worth discussing are WoW and Eve. The rest are either garbage or copies. You knew this when you started down the PFO road, reread your early dev blogs.
Just because the new games coming out have MTX does not make it right. It also does not mean the game will last.
And I disagree completely, players have not spoken in overwhelming numbers in support of MTX. My guess is that the study (as most studies do) disregard one factor that shows the opposite.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Every MMO you have ever played, if it was more than a tiny niche, had a cash shop.
The cash shop, until the current era, was provided outside the game. All the way back to Meridian 59, people were buying and selling items and in-game currency on markets.
The purveyors of those markets are often criminals. They are engaged in fraud and identity theft. They seek to install malware and add people's computers unknowingly to bot nets. And one of the worst things they did (from the standpoint of the game design) was over-supply in-game currency by paying farmers to play the game in irrational ways far outside the assumptions of what "real players" would do.
Pretending that this activity wasn't happening is just pulling the wool over your eyes. And if you do some research, you'll discover that the revenue being earned by these markets was, in some cases, as large as the revenue generated by the publisher of the game.
Of the many good things that came from moving the cash shop into the game itself, seriously degrading the value of the game as a host for criminal parasites was one of the more socially beneficial. The upside to the publishers in the switch has funded a lot of content (and new games) that might not have ever otherwise been possible to fund.
So I tend to take a lot of the teeth gnashing about cash shops as the result of either utopianism, or ignorance of the truth.
Eve does not have a cash shop, they do have PLEX and you know that is different.
You were also there and saw exactly what happened when CCP wanted to introduce the NEX shop. Massive subscription cancellations...
You also know as well as anyone else that the PLEX shop in Eve has lowered the RMT problem. You also know that any cash shop will not stop RMT in any way. It will just be cheaper to buy from the RMT people.
Allowing people to sell characters will help stop RMT. Which is why I applaud you for doing it. That does not bother me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Will there be a subscription level that that is 'Vegas style all you can eat buffet'?no
I'm not entirely sure how to read that.I expect average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) to be more than $15/mo. Without having a subscription option priced higher than $15/mo.
You can expect the revenue per player to be more then $15/month... And you can get it easily just through subscriptions.
Again, you know as well as I do that people playing time based training games will have multiple characters they pay to train.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Will there be a subscription level that that is 'Vegas style all you can eat buffet'?no
I'm not entirely sure how to read that.I expect average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) to be more than $15/mo. Without having a subscription option priced higher than $15/mo.
I cant help but get back to this.......
As a subscriber I will not have access to the whole game?
Dont you think thats being a bit greedy?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The way I see it, GW can use an MTX option. Just be sure to keep developing and working on the actual game and not make more and more content to provide more and more ways for players to be consumers instead of players. I think that's what makes MTX suck the life out of a game.
But Ryan's right, you have to expand the way you allow players to buy stuff that is good for the game, good for the players and good for GW.
They can do that just fine through Goblin Balls and Subscriptions.
If there isnt an MTX shop then I will have many characters... With an MTX shop I wont waste my time because they always go down the wrong road and then Ill just leave the game so no need to have multiple characters.
Wraithkin has it right about that. MTX does suck the life out of the game in the long run.
I dont care how many games you look at. The only one to sustain its number growth is Eve... and there is nothing other then PLEX.
MTX is for themepark games.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Funny, I started playing Rift last night... Not much different then SWTOR so far.
Well you can't make a comparison with WoW. WoW was a one of a kind & the first " Large Audience " MMORPG with a legendary IP making GREAT publicity.
And EvE ... The only reason it has kinda a lot of subscriptions is because you're at an advantage if you have multiple accounts. If Rift or SWTOR forced you to get a second account for each reroll with XP over time like EvE or PFO, I guess they'd have a lot more subs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I notice there are many people who don't cite significant personal inside-the-industry experience when they contradict statements made by the one person on these boards with that experience. I don't see how it is that any of us can claim to know the financial and psychological dynamics at greater depth than he; certainly none of us is basing our careers and livelihoods on that knowledge to the extent he and his colleagues are.
I believe in data when I can evaluate the source(s) of that data. I think almost none of us has paid for, done, or read enough rigourous game-industry statistical analysis to have informed opinions reliably contradictory to Goblinworks'.
The previous says nothing about our ability to express opinions, nor our right to do so.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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Thank you for informing me of my ignorance of THE TRUTH. My thinking that Blizzard is doing a good job of battling it by making alternate currencies bound to account was a great way of handling this is clearly in error. Their system of making gold obsolete to "catch up" using the Timeless Isle is also nothing new or creative to handle gold farmers.
Blizzard is successful at many things. It's failure to kill the RMT business in World of Warcraft by co-opting that market is not one of them. Untold number of their customers have unnecessarily suffered due to their obstinancy on that issue.
Or having a system like EVE where you can pay in game money for real money or vice versa in a controlled environment.
That's exactly what we're going to do.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here is my issue; from everything I read when I backed this I understood that this was not another theme park game. Instead it was a hybrid Theme-park and Sandbox MMO. I also understood that players mattered.
From the first kickstarter:
Pathfinder Online's robust trading system puts players in control of the world's economy with player-created items, consumables, fortifications, and settlements. Character-controlled settlements can grow into full-fledged kingdoms that compete for resources as they seek to become the dominant force in the land, raising vast armies to hold their territory against the depredations of monstrous creatures, NPC factions, and other player characters.
Again from the first kickstarter:
From the very beginning of Pathfinder Online, we've had a firm goal: we want a very close symbiosis with our customers, getting their feedback on our design ideas and, once the game is launched, iteratively adding content to the game based on their feedback.
From the second kickstarter:
6. Trade is Meaningful- In Pathfinder Online players must manually transport items to their intended destination. Most shops are player-run, and there will be goods more abundant in or even exclusive to certain regions. Merchants, traders, and even auctioneers are all viable professions.
From the blog:
Some players will opt to have a recurring monthly subscription. Subscribers will have a predefined package of benefits that will remain available as long as their subscriptions are paid, without needing to buy and spend Skymetal Bits for those benefits. If they choose to stop their subscription payments, they can still buy Skymetal Bits to continue to apply those benefits. In general, though, the subscription price will be lower than the price of the Skymetal Bits you'd need to acquire all of the things that subscribers get, so if you want a lot of those benefits, you'll likely want to subscribe.
Finally, so far I'm trying to mostly limit my direct comparisions to WoW and Eve based on your posts.
We began by explaining what made Pathfinder Online a different kind of game from the WoW clones that you've been playing for the past 10 years.
The EVE Model
Based on all this, what I'm voicing is a concern.
The two systems you yourselves have invited comparison to are also the two systems where it is not a pay to win game. All of the systems that could be labeled as pay to win I have not enjoyed, nor have the people I have played with. I know in WoW you gain access to mounts with real money, but this provides no real in game benefit, with EVE I must confess less knowledge but I've seen no mechanical advantage by having PLEX. The MTX is inconsequential in both cases to the best of my knowledge.
If a monthly subscription is not enough to fund your development of content and grant me access to it, I don't want to play. No matter how much I've already paid out and I have paid out to both Kickstarters is no small sum, at least to me.
Self edited. My own post sounded very harsh. I'm not trying to do that. I'd like a conversation about where you're going with your MTX model.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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You were also there and saw exactly what happened when CCP wanted to introduce the NEX shop. Massive subscription cancellations...
I don't know why this misinformation persists. I left CCP in November of 2010. There was no plan for the Arum store when I left that I was aware of. There wasn't even a thing called Arum when I left; the concept was still known internally as "microPLEX". I had no part in the decisions or implementation of EVE's cash shop.
This link shows you the stats on account creation and peak concurrent users for Tranquility, EVE's primary server. From looking at this chart, can you detect when the chaos around EVE's cash shop occurred? And can you identify the effects it had on subscriptions?
Here's a hint. The last big surge in PCU before the flatline is the release of Apocrypha in March 2009. EVE's "monoclegate" was in July of 2011.
You also know that any cash shop will not stop RMT in any way. It will just be cheaper to buy from the RMT people.
PLEX dealt a mortal blow to RMT for ISK. Since ISK can be used to buy everything in the game, there is virtually no market left for RMT for items. It was a massive blow to the RMT parasites sucking on EVE's community. Their rapid liquidation of their holdings and exit from the business was obvious virtually from the first release of PLEX, and I have no reason to doubt it continued after I left and continues to this day. Buying ISK from RMT resellers today is a suicide purchase, in my opinion.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As a subscriber I will not have access to the whole game?
Dont you think thats being a bit greedy?
No. In fact, I often wonder if we should have subscriptions at all, because of the false impression they give to people like you who think a subscription implies unlimited access. It may do more harm than good.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I notice there are many people who don't cite significant personal inside-the-industry experience when they contradict statements made by the one person on these boards with that experience. I don't see how it is that any of us can claim to know the financial and psychological dynamics at greater depth than he; certainly none of us is basing our careers and livelihoods on that knowledge to the extent he and his colleagues are.
I believe in data when I can evaluate the source(s) of that data. I think almost none of us has paid for, done, or read enough rigourous game-industry statistical analysis to have informed opinions reliably contradictory to Goblinworks'.
The previous says nothing about our ability to express opinions, nor our right to do so.
I have not done in depth research, that is correct. I'm only providing personal evidence, which is highly anecdotal. And I know that MTX models can be successful. Games like LoL have proven that.
All of that said, my personal experience tells me that MTX market places that encourage pay to win do not encourage social guilds. I've watched guilds crumble with this system implementation multiple times and so will not support a community driven game that abuses MTX. That is why I am here, to give feedback and have a conversation about how exactly this will be progressing.
I've put a lot of money and would not like this game to go the way of SWtoR, TSW, GW2 or any other game that dissolved for my guilds before they could even really gain traction. I'd personally *really* like PFO to succeed and maybe even convert some of my MMO friends into my PFS friends. I'm tired of the two fighting for my time. =D
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CEO, Goblinworks
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| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Text deleted
Perhaps we're just very disconnected.
99% of what players will craft will not be sold in the cash shop. Nothing sold in the cash shop will be meaningfully better than things crafted by characters. Nothing in the cash shop will represent advanced crafted items; we're talking about selling simple convenience items and low-powered disposable consumables.
As we've said before, most of the things sold in the cash store will be cosmetic, not mechanical.
I don't know how to be more clear. The cash store is not a substitute for the player economy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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No. In fact, I often wonder if we should have subscriptions at all, because of the false impression they give to people like you who think a subscription implies unlimited access. It may do more harm than good.As a subscriber I will not have access to the whole game?
Dont you think thats being a bit greedy?
I'm curious about this statement.
What does a subscription suggest or mean to you as the CEO of a company coming out with an MMO?
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CEO, Goblinworks
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It should be noted that except for Neverwinter, the major western MMOs that have added Microtransactions did so after their basic subscription models failed. The MTX switch was a response to revenue falling below the level needed to hit the financial goals of the business. They were, in a sense, a last ditch effort to save a failed business.
Now those games may overemphasize Microtransactins because subscriptions failed. They're trying to back-fill a business model designed for subs with revenue from the cash store. These games are seeing "traditional" MTX performance. Those metrics are Weill known: eight to ten percent of the players spend any money. When you are only getting 10% of your customers to pay you! you need to get ten times as much money from each of them to make up for all the non-paying players. Obviously, you'll feel like you're in an environment that rapidly shifts to cater to the 10% who are paying to the detriment of those who aren't.
The solution? Have a much, much higher percentage of people pay. Collect a much much smaller amount of money from those who pay.
So, that's what we'll do.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Though I'm not Ryan:
A subscription is a regular automatic Goblin Ball purchase. You get a few extra benefits for subscribing, which are things that can be purchased in the cash shop (see: not massively game-changing) as a thank you for your continued purchase. That's it, as far as we've been told.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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What does a subscription suggest or mean to you as the CEO of a company coming out with an MMO?
I think that like most sandboxes, we'll have an average age of 30+. And I think those people have credit cards and are used to and comfortable with automatically billed recurring charges. Subscriptions are a convenience for these people, so as customer serivce, I want to offer them.
Like other subscriptions that they pay for, like cable TV, cell phones, fitness centers, etc., I believe these people are unfazed by the idea that "subscription" doesn't mean "unlimited value". They're used to PayPerView. They're used to roaming and excessive data charges. They're used to paying for Pilates classes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Text deletedPerhaps we're just very disconnected.
99% of what players will craft will not be sold in the cash shop. Nothing sold in the cash shop will be meaningfully better than things crafted by characters. Nothing in the cash shop will represent advanced crafted items; we're talking about selling simple convenience items and low-powered disposable consumables.
As we've said before, most of the things sold in the cash store will be cosmetic, not mechanical.
I don't know how to be more clear. The cash store is not a substitute for the player economy.
Well, there it is. Time for this bozo (me) to move on to the next topic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Text deletedPerhaps we're just very disconnected.
99% of what players will craft will not be sold in the cash shop. Nothing sold in the cash shop will be meaningfully better than things crafted by characters. Nothing in the cash shop will represent advanced crafted items; we're talking about selling simple convenience items and low-powered disposable consumables.
As we've said before, most of the things sold in the cash store will be cosmetic, not mechanical.
I don't know how to be more clear. The cash store is not a substitute for the player economy.
Again, I did delete the text, it was a little too harsh IMO. I understand and appreciate how hard this must be from the stand point that you're creating something, trying to remain transparent, and can't point people to the finished product. I missed where you've said that there isn't mechanical benefits to the MTX market, probably reading too quickly or not in the right spot. I'm sorry for that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It should be noted that except for Neverwinter, the major western MMOs that have added Microtransactions did so after their basic subscription models failed. The MTX switch was a response to revenue falling below the level needed to hit the financial goals of the business. They were, in a sense, a last ditch effort to save a failed business.
Now those games may overemphasize Microtransactins because subscriptions failed. They're trying to back-fill a business model designed for subs with revenue from the cash store. These games are seeing "traditional" MTX performance. Those metrics are Weill known: eight to ten percent of the players spend any money. When you are only getting 10% of your customers to pay you! you need to get ten times as much money from each of them to make up for all the non-paying players. Obviously, you'll feel like you're in an environment that rapidly shifts to cater to the 10% who are paying to the detriment of those who aren't.
The solution? Have a much, much higher percentage of people pay. Collect a much much smaller amount of money from those who pay.
So, that's what we'll do.
Thank you for posting this.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What does a subscription suggest or mean to you as the CEO of a company coming out with an MMO?I think that like most sandboxes, we'll have an average age of 30+. And I think those people have credit cards and are used to and comfortable with automatically billed recurring charges. Subscriptions are a convenience for these people, so as customer serivce, I want to offer them.
Like other subscriptions that they pay for, like cable TV, cell phones, fitness centers, etc., I believe these people are unfazed by the idea that "subscription" doesn't mean "unlimited value". They're used to PayPerView. They're used to roaming and excessive data charges. They're used to paying for Pilates classes.
So, if I have a subscription, what can I expect to be "up sold" on?