Microtransactions and the splits in philosophy

I think that this is simply one of those cases where for every MMO player drawing the line there will be another willing and happy to pay extra cash for what used to be part of the basic subscription model. Companies would not introduce RMT models if they knew it wouldn't sell, they have clearly done the research beforehand, and now know how far they can push the playerbase.

This is probably a sloppy analogy but I'll use it anyway: I foresee the basic subscription model becoming akin to an economic class flight, it will get you from A to B without much fuss but if you want the bells and whistles and extra service you are going to need to open that wallet and get spending extra.

This is simply how businesses work: they don't exist to be fair, or to do what's right, or to even provide the best gaming experience (if they can afford not to), it is completely and wholly about the Bottom Line. Capitalism at it's finest, ladies and gentlemen. Make of it what you will.

I'm firmly on the "cannot be gotten in-game" side of that divide; I do respect what DoD are doing to the contrary as a last-roll-of-the-dice gamble, but I wouldn't approve of it in a new game and I wouldn't actually spend money on DoD's offerings.

It's just too murky an area for me - charging real money to the studio to bypass the in-game costs or efforts... that the studio set and maintains?
For instance, personally I don't consider Cryptic have an ethical leg to stand on charging sizeable sums of real money for respecs to bypass the exorbitant sums of virtual money that they're charging and could alleviate with a few keystrokes.

I know all MMOs exist to prosper and make money, but part of MMO fandom should be able to empathize with your chosen game's devs to take on the big ol' world: it's easy to feel comradeship with legacy game teams and innovators like Anet and the Free Realms team, but kinda hard to get behind developers when they're putting hurdles & toll booths in your path 30 days from release.

AC2 for me, I'd be back instantly. I really regret not giving it more time while I had the chance. It lacked many essential things, but it also had tons of atmosphere not least in the vaults.

Given the chance I'd also merge Earth and Beyond (space-based) with pre-NGE SWG (ground-based) and have a stunning all-round sci-fi MMO.

Unfortunatly RMT has proven that some players WILL buy microtransactions.

I would bet money that if most games allowed you to BUY levels or gold directly from the developers/publishers, there would be a market for it.

Personally, I don't care about MT or RMT. The spam doesn't even bother me either.

I'm one of those players that simply play, and if something annoys me enough I just unsub. No need to complain about something that has existed.

I really don't know why the new focus on MT is just coming about, when MT has been in existence for AGES in f2p (many Chinese mmos) and p2p games (SONY).

Also in some of these games (Champions Online) there are waaaay more problems in terms of lack of content, polish, and server stability, than for players to be complaining about MT. But that's just IMO.

I'm a completionist that likes the mmorpgs to stay pure where everyone is done with in game mechanics. I'm not rich so as soon as theres like a TCG where you can only get those items via paying loads of money for them then I wont play the game anymore. WoW, EQ2, SWG are all examples of MT selling stuff you can't do in the game from character customization to pets and houses and stuff like that.

Then you have the people that say they want to buy potions to make themselves level faster... well isn't that pointing out a flaw in the game design that needs to be fixed?

EVE Online has kept it's online world pure and everything is done within the game and thats how you handle an mmorpg. They also don't have the silly leveling system where you have to grind 80 levels to play with your friends and they don't keep adding crap that bloats the game and breaks it. I mean WoW has added so much crap that nothing is special anymore.

CCP have proven so far they're the only ones who can run an online world and the rest are running them like single player games. Thats why I loved Vanilla WoW because everything was pure and you knew where you stood and what was special. Mounts were special and purple armour sets were special. Now it's a big mess of items that everyone and their mum can get and the only special things are given to people who go to Blizzcon that noone else can get unless they have enough money to travel halfway around the world. They're given by achievements you can't get anymore so if you're a new player then you're screwed right away.


This is why I doubt I'll play another mmorpg ever again because the age of the purists is over and it's all about how they can please everyone and all the casuals while milking money outta all of us.

Its simply giving the customer what they want, IMO.

Two things people need to consider is A) Available Playtime and B) Player real money income. Everyone has varying amounts of the two and its usually inversely related. People either have lots of A but little B or vice versa.

Most gear/items in this game is gotten thru having a good amount of time. So having microtransactions for gear is simply giving those with lots of money the option to use it to get to somewhat the same level of gear as those with lots of time. Is that so bad? I am in the boat where I have a good amount of money but not as much time. Should my ability to play the game with a level of gear that I'm happy with be penalized simply because I can't spend the requisite grinding time in game to gather up the gear. Example, I enjoy PVP but I don't have the time to spend grinding out all the honor to get the honor gear before the it becomes obsolete. What if I could drop $50 to get a full set of honor gear? I would do so without hesitation since it would save me hours of grinding and allow me to pvp at a level I enjoy (not getting one shotted).

My only caveat is that the best gear in the current game should still only be attainable via in game time, ie current progression raid gear, current season arena gear. But everything else like prior arena season gear, prior raid tier gear, should be fair game. Also everything purchasable with money should attainable in game as well. This way, balance is retained and the simple difference will be, those with no time but lots of money can play at a non-gimped gear level in comparison to the population with too much time on their hands. It gives the player the options of trading one resource (money) at their disposal for another (time).

The whole subscription can not have micro transactions. Both can be worked into the same game as long as money does not unbalance the game. Those who have the time will simply keep grinding and can attain the best gear, while those with money will simply decide their own time is more valuable and will spend the fraction of money their time is truely worth to get mroe out of what little time they get to play. Everyone wins IMO. Who loses? Those with no time and no money? They really shouldn't be playing in the first place!

Unfortunately, corporate structure is not designed to be ethical. A corporation bottom line is to make more profit.

Until, you the player, vote with your spending dollar by canceling games you think operate with crappy business ethics, then they will keep doing what they are doing.

Blizzard is a company that make soooooo much money from their game and yet they still want more. Shareholders demand more. So now they sell some pets. People complain, but I doubt they are quitting over it. If they sell 1,000 of them, earned far more than they spent to develop the art. If they sell 100k of them, they increased game revenue by over a million.

Conversely, if only 10% of the WoW playerbase were to unsubscribe and report the microtransactions (or macro-transactions in WoW's case, heh) are the cause - I guarantee you that Blizzard would instantly reduce or remove the price on the majority of them.

That's the thing about corporations. The way you make them do what you want is to threaten their income. 10% is all it takes to scare a corporation into change.

I actually just started playing my first MMO that I seem to be staying with for more than a couple months, Dungeons and Dragons Online. I played (and still play, and GM) a MUD for the past 13 years now, so I'm no stranger to MMO-like games and even feel a little proud having played a MUD while I'm inside DDO (like I'm in touch with my roots or something :P).

I'm a fairly avid gamer, having played console and PC games my whole life, but I always said I wouldn't ever pay a subscription for a game, because I always felt like I wouldn't be getting my money's worth if I became busy and didn't play for a month or two.

Well, I still don't pay a subscription fee, but DDO is the first MMO-like game I've ever spent money on (I bought some adventure packs from the cash shop) and I decided I like the DDO shop a lot. I played Runes of Magic for a bit and that game's cash shop always stressed me out, knowing full well that if I wanted to have a successful campaign, I'd need various things from the cash shop. In DDO, you specifically don't need things from the cash shop. Adventure packs are the one thing I'm interested in and they're totally optional (my friend and I have been leveling just fine without them, but we decided to support the developers a little).

So, for me, I guess the cash shop stigma really varies from game to game. I'm too casual an MMO player (oxymoron? :P) to pay a subscription fee, but I'm too much of a gamer not to be bothered by missing content. I guess that's why I like DDO's business model so much. Yeah, I'd prefer to just have all of the adventure packs from the start, but when I think about it, buying them whenever I'd actually be playing them is cheaper in the long run compared to paying a subscription fee for months and months and never getting around to said quest lines.

I guess a cash shop doesn't bother me when not having the products offered isn't hampering my game play in any way. However, I'm pretty sure if I were paying a monthly subscription, I'd be pretty annoyed that I'd also need to buy stuff from a cash shop (WoW's new pet shop, for example).

Anyone who thinks this stuff will stay benign is kidding themselves.

1) Companies will do anything they can to make a few bucks more. They do not care about game design, quality or customer satisfaction, those things are only factors that can be ignored if you're still making money.

2) Humans are dumb. They will accept anything if it's couched right. Example, Slap a 'It's for charity LOL!' sticker on it, and we'll eat it up and ask for more.

3) If you introduce change slowly enough, there is never a line to cross that will suddenly lose you vast amounts of money. The idiots will keep grumbling, but they'll keep paying you. 20 years down the line when gaming is a commercialized mess of gaudy advertising, trite button-mashing gameplay and loads of DLC nickle and diming us to death, we'll still not get it. We'll think that's normal.


This sadly, was the opportunity for consumers to make a stand and keep the quality of games high. Except we'll ignore it. We'll go on with a million excuses because we're too damned stupid and short sighted to see the far reaching effects. Besides, it's nice to wave your e-peen around showing everyone else you're one of the cool people who has a 'real life job' and lots of disposable income like Zorom above.