John: Exactly. The most controversial part of what we did, I think, is put it into an existing game. I knew that would be controversial, but I do believe there isn't as big an outcry as you might see on some websites. I think the world is changing, and I think more and more these kinds of options are going to appeal to players.
I also believe firmly that this will eventually get rid of farming and those things. Or at least it will drastically decrease it. Here's a good example why: Instead of paying some power leveler, buying an experience potion lets you do it yourself a lot faster. Where's the harm in that? That's our thought on it.
"I think the MMO community as a whole is ready for this, as long as it's treated with respect." |
One of the things it seems like people are reacting to is the speed with which this service was rolled out. As we were reading the press release we were logging into the game to check out the in-game store. Why did the announcement and the rollout happen on the same day?
John: We decided in this case that the best move was to let people see it for themselves. It was a decision we made to do, and we wanted to let people see it in action. We knew it was going to be controversial, but it wasn't meant to be a stealth thing. It had more to do with wanting people to just actually try it.
Just to let everyone know, we're listening. We're watching the forums, we're paying attention. If we put in an item that's unbalanced, we can get rid of it. We can react to feedback.
Plus, there's something else here. This is, after all, a business. We have competitors out there, and we didn't really want them to know we'd even been working on this.
From a metrics perspective, from behind the scenes, how have players taken to the system?
John: I can't really share anything on that front, unfortunately. We feel like the reaction has been what we expected, and we feel like it's been mostly positive. The reason I say that is, most people are just in-game and playing.
I've gotten emails that said, "If you go any further I'll quit. I feel like you've walked up to the line and we don't want to see you cross it into game unbalancing items." That's an opinion I both respect and agree with.
Moving forward with the Station Cash service, what are some kinds of items we might expect to see in the future?
"At this point we're now going to be working very heavily with the playerbase to figure out what is and isn't appropriate." |
John: Where do we go from here? I think at this point we're now going to be working very heavily with the playerbase to figure out what is and isn't appropriate. I do want to telegraph new additions to the service ahead of time, anything that we think is going to be controversial, ahead of time. That way players can give us feedback on our choices. I think as long as the players don't think we're messing with the games themselves, they'll be okay with what we do.
That's one piece of this I want to make sure to stress: Our game developers are not now in the business of making microtransaction items. They're still making the games, first and foremost. They're still making free items, all the game updates, that's their primary job. We have a couple people that will be focusing on this, and I think this service is actually probably going to help to fund additional developers. That's one of the reasons we did this.
I think the MMO community as a whole is ready for this, as long as it's treated with respect.
That you're planning to add extra developers as a result of this content is interesting; that's exactly what we understand happened with the City of Heroes development team after they began selling the costume packs.
John: That's exactly our intent. We can add more cool new stuff. Some people might be saying, "shouldn't I be getting that as part of my monthly fee anyway", and they're absolutely right. I think we give a lot of value for that. This money will really let us go over and above with some additional resources.
As a last question, do you have a sense of how much of an impact this kind of business model will have on future SOE games? We know you have plans to make Free Realms entirely based around this ...
John: Well, not entirely. There is a subscription option for that game, and it's a part of the Station Access.
Indeed. For the more 'traditional' games – Agency and DCUO – how much of an impact will microtransactions have?John: I think it will be a mixture. We're going to offer ways for people to play these games for less money than traditional subscriptions. That's important to us. Up to and including free, at times. We are going to reserve judgement on that for a bit ... but at some point we're going to have to pull the trigger on these things.
We're now going to understand this system better because of the rollout of Station Cash. It's enormously complicated to build a digital wallet and all the implications of that; we're going to have that behind us by the time Free Realms launches. With Agency and DC, I think it's too early to tell what the business model for those games will be. I think microtransactions will be a component of that. Do I think subscriptions will be a part of that? I honestly don't know yet. It's too early to tell.
A pleasure as always, sir. Thank you for your time.
