Hell hath no fury
Tesh dug up this guest article from Penny Arcade and I thought it was worth relinking. It’s written by Daniel James (aka Captain Cleaver), CEO and designer for Three Rings Design (Puzzle Pirates).
The paraphrasing quote hits home like a hammer:
“Money can’t buy you love, but love can bring you money. In software the only sustainable way to earn money is by first creating love, and then hoping that some folks want to demonstrate that love with their dollars.”
Free to Play hasn’t grabbed onto my heart as it should. Most of the publishers are so busy seeing dollar signs and trying to leverage the word “free”, that I often sum up the whole business model as a bait-and-switch ploy.
There are some notable exceptions and that’s what this quote above is all about. How to do it right.
In that same article Mr. James slams the “expectations of vast profit” of traditional media and I’d say that has plenty of overlap into the games industry. All of the major publishers (and minor ones, see: gPotato’s faux pas with Allods Online) are salivating over what it means (in dollars) to be the gatekeepers.
When the developer’s love of their game gets superseded by the publisher’s love of money, the gamer’s love dwindles accordingly. On this topic, balance is everything. Love can be a fickle thing. Expose your hand with motivations of pure greed and, well– Hell hath no fury like a gamer scorned.
Too many of these games are trying to design themselves around a supposed addiction and not enough around joy.
The Cost of Convenience
I don’t really want to get into another argument with Keen again, but when the nature of Allods Online’s cash shop came up within one of his post threads, I couldn’t help but give my $0.02.
Let me start by saying I think Allods Online is a fine game. It’s very polished and delivers on a lot of features other MMOs have failed on. Although it’s way too much cute-on-cute for me, I can see the appeal. I hope it does well.
One of the reasons I won’t be playing however, is because I’m expecting some serious burns down the road with the cash shop.
It’s cool to sell convenience items on your cash shop. It’s not cool to directly inconvenience your players to send them to the cash shop.
Allods Online has introduced a “Fear of Death” debuff, reducing stats by 25% after leaving Purgatory (already a delay on your death). You can remove the debuff via gold or via a cash shop item (perfume). The perfume can also be obtained in-game via a daily quest. The debuff isn’t much different than the sort you may find in any MMORPG, except for one key difference: It’s really long (scales by level, 45 minutes at lvl 40). Stacking it is exceptionally nasty.
In WoW the death debuff is a decision pivot: “Do I go back to my body, or do I take the debuff and go somewhere else?” If you decide to accept the debuff, it will likely dissipate during your travel time, since it’s only 10 minutes. Players suffer with the death debuff in WoW. In Allods Online, it’s an imperative to remove if you reasonably wish to keep playing (at least at the higher levels).
It’s a clear push of inconvenience to get you into the cash shop and not a good indication for this game down the road. Players can decide if it’s a big deal to them or not. I generally agree with Keen’s summation that a death penalty is a good thing, but clearly this is a case of business model directing the gameplay.
That’s the idea of microtransactions isn’t it? To make the cash choice seem small and then add more later. A little bit here, a little bit there. Already players are calculating that only ~$22 would keep you lush in perfume per month, which makes me do a double-take, because there’s no coincidence that’s just slightly higher than a normal subscription fee.
That’s my $0.02. Or maybe that $0.02 is getting paid to gPotato?
. . .
If you’re curious to try Allods Online for yourself, they’ve opened up closed beta for a few extra days to everyone that signs up. See allods.gPotato.com. Just do me a favour and don’t send me screenshots of your gerbils, okay?
