Company-sanctioned RMT hits single-player games
As is all over the gaming news, you can now acquire armor for your horse in Oblivion for Xbox 360.
It’ll just cost you real money.
As has been pointed out before, XBox Live has a lot of the same characteristics as a virtual world, particularly a modern MMORPG with its explorations of alternate business models. Until now, the sort of stuff that you could buy with the embedded microtransaction system was limited to graphical customization features and downloadable games. With this, however, Microsoft and Bethesda may have set foot on a bridge labelled either Pangya or Magic: The Gathering, depending on who you ask. After all, negligible as it may be, I presume this armor actually affects stats.
Right now, there’s no real reason to object on the same sorts of grounds as players object to the style of game-altering direct sales found in Pangya. (That would be a golf MMO where your opponent can spend a quick buck to straighten out his shot if he hooks it). Other players aren’t showing up in your Oblivion game. But it’s easy to see that in a context of leaderboards and achievements, some may still cry foul; their ranking matters to them, and if the folks with the higher rankings get there because they paid extra to get some advantage, well, folks will be unhappy.
M:TG was carefully designed to be an expandable game, where it was known that people would be participating in trading money for increased (or more varied) abilities. Most matchmaking-and-leaderboard services are not. Pangya’s players didn’t care. Will Microsoft and Bethesda’s? The gamer response seems to be mixed to negative over the idea that they might be repeatedly dinged in the wallet for minor content additions, but I haven’t seen discussion of the idea that player capabilities may be affected by this.
Instead, I see discussion of an interesting alternate notion: that player mods may overtake and surpass this sort of thing anyhow, on the PC platform at any rate. A common sentiment: “Don’t buy it, there will be better horse armor provided by player mods within a week.” Can developer-provided microtransaction content co-exist with open platforms? I guess we’re about to find out.
41 Responses to “Company-sanctioned RMT hits single-player games”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Have you played Oblivion yet, Raph? I think the Bethesda-driven hype was far less honest than I expected.
Among the heap of crashes related to VSync and/or HDR, I’m discovering many “stupid AI” issues rather than being awed by the many toted “smart AI” features. For example, Innkeepers could care less if you trash their establishment; Skooma-addicted NPCs will do nothing without available skooma; Skooma-addicted NPCs will somehow commit suicide by Guard given certain conditions; Skooma-addicted NPCs will run in circles; NPCs do not respond unkindly when you deliberately manipulate them to “walk the plank”; Guards are oblivious to being removed of their belongings (including their armor and weaponry) the previous night; shopkeepers are oblivious to being removed of their inventory the previous night; being observed using the Grab function to interact with a non-player-owned item will result in some charge of theft; casting an offensive spell or attacking a Guard will result in a dialogue providing the player options (i.e., Go to Jail, Resist Arrest, Pay a Fine) instead of simply allowing the AI to decide what to do; and many other “stupid AI” issues.
Radiant AI was hyped to the point where I honestly believed Oblivion would provide a world unparalleled by other titles; however, Radiant AI appears in the Construction Set to be simply an englamoured script-and-trigger system. From the developer interviews and other promotions from Bethesda, I expected an immersively rich memetic world where the non-player entities interact and react to the environment given certain logic. Instead, the non-player entities appear to be triggered by the passage of time and use event-based paths.
I’m immensely disappointed, but I’m still entertained… even if only to find all the bugs. 😉
A tangential note: Pangya has been released over here with the assistance of Lycos. However it is instead known as Albatross18 (link to the site in English – > http://www.albatross18.com/new/new_index.asp).
Albatross18 seems like an odd name. 🙂
Morgan, I have heard some impressive player stories about their time in Oblivion and encounters with the AI. Can’t say I am surprised, though, that they boil down to triggers. 🙂
My 360 version copy is arriving in the next day or two, so I’ll finally get to try it out.
AI – It’s half a step better than Morrowind, which is itself a full step better than any MMORPG. It’s not all it’s hyped up to be, but nothing ever is.
Armor for horses – On the PC there will be mods, but not on the X-box. And horses have a way of getting killed. interesting up-sell technique.
Overall – I’m impressed by Oblivion. I think they did a very good job. It’s far from perfect.
Hard as it may be, I make it a point to read almost nothing about games that I intend to play. They never live up to expectations otherwise.
Oh right but on topic!
To implement this business model effectively, it would seem that you would have to build a needlessly difficult game to mod. With the proven effectiveness of player mods on game sales/longevity, I doubt this experiment will result in an amazing new business model.
You might want to get a hold of the PC version too; that is, if your computer can handle the power… 🙂
Ultimately, I find myself testing the games I ‘play’. The urge to report issues is almost uncontrollable! Several times, I’ve nearly registered an Bethesda Softworks forum account; fortunately, the usernames I desired were already in use… I think my experience in quality assurance has raised my expectations of every game to a AAA console-quality gold standard and disrupted by ability to have ‘fun’ the ‘normal’ way. 😉
Everyone I’ve seen talking about the addition indicates that it has no effect on stats or gameplay. In the game you can’t even fight while on your horse, and I don’t know if it makes the horse live longer, travel faster, or anything else.
Complaints I’ve seen have been “$2.50 for a new skin?!” And if that’s the case, I agree.
[…] Comments […]
And if they get something like added armor rating? This is a dangerous precedent. I warn you all now….Bill Gates will own you virtually too! 😀
[…] via Raph […]
New Ways to Pay Your Way
Two interesting payment models to note where virtual worlds, both single- and multi-player, are concerned: First, SL resident Glitchy Gumshoe at the SL Future Salon flags a post by Raph Koster in which the legendary MMO developer talks about “com…
Well, that’s why I said “may have” and “I presume” — carefully covering that very contingency!
That said — I still consider this a sign of things to come. The big publishers have all been talking about selling new cars in the racing games, new gear in the shooters, new players in the sports games, and so on. Someone will cross this bridge, not just set a toe on it.
I wouldnt mind paying a nickel for some more textures. But 2.50$ for a single horse piece? Not worth it. People spend that on some 3d modeling sites to own and use commercially models. Why would anyone buy this for a single game and a single player game to boot?
I think the Asian videogame industry has probably already crossed that bridge (although, maybe “setting a toe” is still more accurate). Many of those games seem to have a big “tchotchke” factor in that there’s an emphasis on “buying” items in game that have, ostensibly, no effect on anything in the game. You see it in Mortal Kombat 4 and Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball. These, of course, are not RMT, but it’s definitely that “toe touch”.
I’m not someone who is likely to take advantage of such offerings if they involve real cash. After all, I probably spent $50 – $60 on the game (or, in the case of MMO’s, $180-$200 a year, plus the initial $50 product purchase).
I realize that some of the pricing models are evolving (Guild Wars, et al.) but we’re still paying out the nose for videogames. I’m not much for spending MORE money on virtual trinkets, ESPECIALLY if they don’t buy me any added advantage in terms of player stats. Not spending real cash on virtual decorations, thanks.
About bloody time. I’ve been waiting since MS first revealed their MarketPlace.
wrt to $2.50 skins, I think people might be surprised at how much people shell out. The old gaming guard might resist; recalling the good old days of free, plentiful skins for games like Quake. But those days have largely passed afaic. Head over to Polycount and you’ll see the most popular skins are still from old games like Quake 3. So depending on quality, I expect important skins (e.g. avatar, horse) could easily fetch that amount. Just look at some of the stories out of South Korea where kids are running up their parents’ credit card with charges. I expect we’ll see free skins as well… but used as loss-leader to get people to buy matching items.
I’ve not seen quality 3D models being sold for that amount. Link please? The one’s I’ve seen that are good quality are being modeled in places like Russia and are sold for US$100.
I see it as all about expectation and allowance.
These types of RPGs and FPSses–especially on PC–we all expect them to be mod-able. In fact, watch a game release that isn’t mod-able and see them get ding’d in reviews. I recall the initial BF1942 release that had what was considered “sub-standard” support for modding initially.
For a decade now, we’ve been modding our FPS games, and sharing that on the net. The Sims gave folks unprecedented mod-ability. NwN built their premise around that mod-engine. In fact, hasn’t it only been the last two or three years that companies have started using their “mod editor” as an advertising bullet point on the box? (excepting games expressly designed for creation – SimCity, Racing Destruction set, etc…)
So, now, just like we believe we should be able to send email without a per-transaction charge, the gaming community has an expectation that they can have downloadable mods for free. I think there are only about two ways that companies will be able to transition to a “pay for content” model, given the glut of talented modders who willingly give away their work….
“Open platforms” is the first possibility. If a dev closes the ability to public mods, then charges for it, some people will probably pay for new content. I think this model makes a lot of scary assumptions, though. We’re assuming the players will tolerate the “closed content” model, and not view it with disdain and suspiscion. We’re assuming that the dev content pipeline will meet the demand of players to sustain the model. (One advantage of openness is that LOTS of modders jump on a successful game, offering a wide variety of choice, which I contend increases the appeal to mod-philes.) We’re assuming that the core game is good enough and fun enough at it’s core to even keep and attract folks, and that it’s got qualities it’s competetion (with open mod-content) doesn’t have. And so on.
I think the second possibility is more capitalistic, and doesn’t de facto involve the devs. The Sims games are one of the few game-level mod content that I’ve seen pay-for-content transactions work. Tons and tons and tons of modders out there, but the best ones eventually realize they can charge some for their better work. And even they seem to move to a “subscription” model over a true pay-per-content model. I think Second Life also has supported a player-created pay-for-content model with some success.
The key is, though, that the modding is open. What makes folks pay for content is the quality. Good content providers can charge because their work is really great, compared to the mass. I, as a player, will end up downloading a LOT of free content…some of it pretty good. And after a while, I might pay for a few pieces, once I see how nicely done they are.
Still, though, I don’t know of anyone paying for WoW mods, and some of those are pretty intense little pieces of software. Not necessarily the same as a nice shirt, visible in game, but I think within the same “open content” space for discussion.
So, we’re back to Raph’s question — can microtransactions work in an open-content model?
If so, the summary, I think, is this:
1) The devs invest in a pipeline to streamline these transactions. Let players sell content through your pipeline. Huge, huge investment here, obviously, but I think this is a key starting point for it to work.
2) Empower player modding. Put community and tool support behind the community, feature good content. Make the mod community blossom.
3) Add expert, quality content to the stream. The devs ability to profit from microtransaction, then, competes with the players content. Ideally, the dev team can provide well-designed quality content that some folks will purchase.
4) Find a way to secure the open content. If you’re selling content, you’re going to have to figure out some way to let folks “lock” content mods, so that they can’t be easily bought once and re-distributed 10000 times. Might require certification against a server (which makes a MMO more of a fertile ground for this type of thing).
So, I think it could happen. The big question, for the devs, still remains: is the investment into making it feasible worth the cost of implementation?
Guess that’s always the question, isn’t it? 🙂
Oh, I wasn’t trying to insinuate that you knew otherwise. Just informing. 😀 And it actually is a new model, to be technical. But it still has no effect on gameplay. I was just a little offput by it, but it’s really the pricepoint that bothers me.
But yeah, I actually look forward to the day this happens. I, like most, expect it to first come with sports games. People will likely upgrade their rosters with a small subscription fee (say, $20 for a seasons worth of updates,) but the big break will come when either a developer decides not to publish a sports title every year, and instead issues updates for multiple seasons. A small ‘update team’ can easily keep a steady stream of income going while your development team worked on a completely seperate project.
Just sitting here thinking about this. This seems to be only the begining. Since we all know that the community will be making content for free, When will someone come up with a system of microtransactions where these people can sell their mods using an “official system”. Think about being able to use the Xbox live system to download player made content at a fration of the cost that the current system seems to be heading too ($2.50 for 2 “looks” from what I hear). True it is not a simple thing. There would need to be some type of review process to assure that the Mods do not have serious bugs as well as all kinds of legal issues I am sure I cannot even imagine. However the amount of resources within the player community is so high that the amount of possible content for the system is far greater than the company could produce. The question is, would the modders be willing to do this?
I should note I am only talking about the XBOX live system since rightnow you cannot download player content with it. This gets even more complex when talking about the PC version. 🙂
To move slightly sideways on content policing:
How feasible is that type of action on custom content? Pretty much requires a small permanent team dedicated to checking out all incoming content on the pipe before redistribution, right?
I know this has been one of the big community requests from MMO devs for years–the wish for custom content like guild logos, shop signs, textures on shirts, etc.
Who’s done that type of thing? Second Life? EQ with guild names?
I’d be curious to find out how difficult maintainig that type of quality filter is. That would be one of the first inhibitive factors for dev implementation of a purchase pipe.
Jythri –
It is not just about quality. I think the largest concerns are more from a legal standpoint. The need to make sure no copyrighted content makes it into the system is a very big task.
The problem also is things like guild logos are not hard to filter since all it is is an image and does not take long to check. Something like a total conversion mod for Oblivion would require a large amount of testing and would require many man hours to make sure it is high quality. So the QA cost involved would scale based on the complexity of the content as it does with any change made 🙂
This is not to say that even QA work could not be left up to the players. For a while UO had a volunteer QA group made up of a select group of players who happen to get enough attention by the dev’s to warrent an invite (by submitting bugs or uummm like I did by being VERY vocal in the community). However these practices were very dangerous for companies. I know EQ was sued by the very people who were volunteering as a kind of 1st tier support in the game. After that started to happen, most companies started doing away with any programs that had players doing the work paided employees should have been doing. This alone shows that the legal part of a player based content download system would be a major undertaking just to protect the company itself let alone the commmunity which it would depend on.
Jythri, lots of folks have done it with textual content, usually on a “we vet it when it’s reported” basis. There.com employs people to vet uploaded graphical content. I don’t know how much it costs them, of course.
Here’s a content “issue” from SL a while back regarding some copyright issues.
Of course, in this case, it’s a matter of recognizable brand.
For real-world violations, there’s legal system in place, but for anything happening in a virtual world, the provider would always tangle up in legal process. Even if they are always completely uninvolved, it still puts considerable stress on them, if merely by identifying the violators (privacy issues again), and the extra workload resulting from correcting the violations.
Intellectual property is just not to be taken lightly, it can get messy real quick. Especially if the provider is known to make large sums of money off their virtual world, many people will soon try to use any kind of excuse to claim a few breadcrumbs for themselves.
JesDer – Yeah, by “quality filter” I meant a broader set of issues, including legal, copyright, and IP…which you eloquated quite well. 😉
The Player Submitted model, for RMT, seems scary-scary to allow then. IP, Legal, Viral, and such…that sounds like more trouble than it would be worth in most cases, if the company was offering the sale “through their systems”. Unless, of course, you want to start an eBay-sized org who actively policed violators.
Sad, though, this is so bothersome. I think the ability to exercise creativity within virtual space is greatly needed, even if that creativity has to be limited to materials available within that space. Give a bit more teeth to “crafting”, eh?
So, back to Raph’s REAL original question — can the devs charge when there’s an open-content model (you can make it, but we don’t guarantee it)…I’d guess yes, but only in the case of exceptional content, or content that is released with new game features, which players couldn’t mod. For example, The Sims pulls off this trick now and then when they release an item with new core abilities on it (not just an appearance mod). Then again, that only lasts until the first group comes along and hacks that format to make their own…
As it turns out, SL happens to be a nice petri dish. Aside from real world trademark and copyright violations (which are everywhere), there is also the increasing internal problem of virtual world piracy of original, user-generated content. Although capturing streaming data (geometry, textures, aso) is nothing new, the recent highly-publicized release of the OGLE tool is of concern… not just to virtual product vendors, but to others as well.
In this case the problem with users supplying content is that quite a bit of it can be easily pirated, slightly modified, and then claimed as original and uploaded for sale (to some other game dev perhaps). This then forces the developer to act as a policeman; an unenviable role at best. Add to this the increasingly realistic quality of videogame content, plus the time necessary to create such content, and ready availability becomes questionable in my mind.
Can developer-provided microtransaction content co-exist with open platforms? I guess we’re about to find out.
Think about that.
What’s the difference, in terms of all things pertinent (i.e. not “developers are sanctioned”), between a player mod-writer and a developer writer?
Well, players are more likely to play the games they’re writing for, since they’re players. Developers will if they’re good devs; they won’t if they’re not.
Beyond that, players very rarely have access to tools and knowledge developers don’t. Developers are pretty much assumed to have things the players don’t. Ergo, developers are just as capable of delivering the same content with the same competence, etc., as players are.
That’s Web 2.0, after all.
“What’s the difference, in terms of all things pertinent, between a player mod-writer and a developer writer?” and …. “developers are just as capable of delivering the same content with the same competence, etc., as players are.”
The problem here is that the total resources of the community it much greater than the resources of the developers. I am not talking tools or access to the source code. Here the real resource is creativity. The modders also have an advantage of being able to see the game from a different point of view and also have much more freedom to do what they want. Rarely would you see a company release a total conversion style mod, but given enough time, a group of players will. (look at Desert Combat for BF1942 .. this type of mod would not fit within the gamespace and if this was to be done inhouse, it would be released as a new game).
As far as tools used to make the game, most of this ends up being released anyway to support the mod community. True some things are not given to the public, however there is always someone out there who will find a way to supply the community with what it needs to get the job done.
This is all sort of the “million monkeys with a million typewriters” thing, isn’t it? Get enough doing it, and some are guaranteed to do something worthwhile.
Hehe. Million Monkeys would be a great mod group name.
Hehe .. actually the million monkeys is just a example to illistrate highly unlikely events. The Infinite Monkeys example is used to illistrate the nature of infinity 🙂
I think my main point is that a large group of motivated people working without being confined to single idea has a good chance of being more creative than a select few who must also work with “mostly” defined rules about what they can create (they have to fit the “story” of the game”
What is going to motivate this large(?) group other than working on a demo reel to get into the industry? I’ve been a member of a mod team. It’s not easy organizing a worthwhile effort and increasingly difficult to create realistic content; the level of talent to make a Doom3 model is a long way from making a Quake model.
And how many mods turn out to be thinly-disguised rips of real world franchises (Aliens being one of the ones I see gamers wanting to copy most often). And where are all the mods and add-ons? Has anyone taken a look lately? I’ve gone looking for quality models for games like HL2 and Doom3 – I’m finding precious little. Polycount doesn’t even bother posting links to next gen games under “New Models” in its menu. If there’s some place where all these people are gathering and posting their work, can someone post a link please? I’m not seeing it.
[…] Meanwhile, now former-Sony Online Entertainment videogame guru, Raph Koster, has posted an entry, “Company-sanctioned RMT hits single-player games” (Link), discussing RMT (Real Money Trade) coming to a videogame on an XBox 360 near you. What’s most interesting to me are the comments. For some reason plenty of people seem to think consumers won’t spend a couple bucks for a virtual product. I think they’re wrong. I think the ones making those comments are mostly old-time gamers used to getting free mods. I also think that they’ve not been watching the mod community wither under the weight of increasingly realistic games. I’ve discussed that issue before, so I won’t go into it again now. Let’s just wait and see what happens. […]
[…] “Many of you students have forsaken your MMOG of choice in order (temporarily) to play Oblivion. Oblivion now allows you to buy armor kits for your horse using real world currencies, in a way that is almost exactly the same as real money trades (RMTs) which have been occuring in MMOGs for years. In 1000 words or less, discuss whether either of these types of assets are property for the purposes of any legal systems, paying particular attention to why few people would think that the Oblivion armor kits are property, but the same is not true for virtual assets.” […]
I thought I’d point out that Penny Arcade did a comic and newspost about this particular topic. (Or, one might say that the comic was specifically not about this topic… Tycho starts to wax philosophical about MMOs, and Gabe promptly starts talking about pancakes.)
More relevant to you: they mention you (and your controversial statement that “single player games are an abberation”) in their latest podcast. (Their “podcast” is actually just a recording of them chatting as they talk about game news to write a comic.) You might find it interesting aside from that – two hardcore gamers talking very enthusiastically, and thoughtfully, about the differences between single-player experiences and massively-multiplayer experiences, and how the latter has spoiled the former for them.
[…] “Many of you students have forsaken your MMOG of choice in order (temporarily) to play Oblivion. Oblivion now allows you to buy armor kits for your horse using real world currencies, in a way that is almost exactly the same as real money trades (RMTs) which have been occuring in MMOGs for years. In 1000 words or less, discuss whether either of these types of assets are property for the purposes of any legal systems, paying particular attention to why few people would think that the Oblivion armor kits are property, but the same is not true for virtual assets.” JURIST – Paper Chase (Law) flag all up to this item […]
[…] Gets Some Lionhead>> Xbox Live Marketplace Expands Offerings written by Tony Walsh | posted on April 6, 2006 @ 11:19 am tagged Business Consoles Gaming Mixeddel.icio.us digg furl spurl reddit newsvine tailrank ma.gnolia.com 0 Trackbacks referencing Xbox Live Marketplace Expands Offerings Trackback link to this entry 1 Comments on Xbox Live Marketplace Expands Offerings Add acomment of your own. “stimulated”? Interesting word. There was a discussion about the horse armour over on Koster’s site ( Link). It appears to have died though. Bummer. I actually did want an answer. Comment posted by csven on April 6, 2006 @ 4:04 pm about the entry Xbox Live Marketplace Expands Offerings […]
[…] The virtual “property” promise I don’t play MMO’s. Hate’em. I’ve tried and tried, but just doesn’t do it for me.However, I do follow the goings-on in and around them, as it’s facinating stuff.Terra Nova had a question posted, spawned by the Oblivion “buy yerself some horse armor” thing:Oblivion now allows you to buy armor kits for your horse using real world currencies, in a way that is almost exactly the same as real money trades (RMTs) which have been occuring in MMOGs for years. In 1000 words or less, discuss whether either of these types of assets are property for the purposes of any legal systems, paying particular attention to why few people would think that the Oblivion armor kits are property, but the same is not true for virtual assetsI posted an answer I am rather fond of and would like readers to tear apart for the sake of good bloggy discussion. Here it is:I do not think they are property. It’s a purchase of a promisory note of sorts. A promise of a service that will be delivered, in a certain way, under certain conditions.At the end of the day, there are bits on a server somewhere, on a hard drive. And the hard drive still belongs to the owner of the physical device.However, by offering a service (an MMO, virtual world, whatever) the provider has made a contract with the player. That service agreement had obligations from both sides. Part of the terms of which might include some detail about how people may or may not exchange such promisory notes with one another. The note is a negotiable instrument.In other words, player 1 says to player 2 “you give me 100 of those ‘gold coin’ promises, and I’ll give you 1 of these ‘horse armor’ promises.”Just as a dollar bill in the real world is promise from an institution that it will provide a certain value or perform a certain function, so to is the case here. In this case, the service provider (game owner) has an understanding of what functionality it will provide in the game software for a “gold coin promise” or a “horse armor promise”.That’s my two cents worth (where ‘cent’ here is a promise of a very amateurish attempt at a legal point of view on the subject :-)OK. comments? […]
Armor for horses? Why the hell would I want horse armor? My horse steers like a damn schoolbus. I prefer to run. Or — being an Agent — engage in expedient skulking.
This is another great example of how the console experience is way below the PC experience. XBox users are totally at the mercy of the vendor for a mod, whereas the PC users can make it themselves. What I find sort of amusing is that it’s a free download for the PC, but XBox users have to pay for it. There’s something sort of not right there.
This is why I resist consoles largely. Even though it’s nice to sit on the couch and play, I prefer the relative freedom of a computer that I and others can tinker with to our hearts content.
PS – just “finished” Oblivion (main quest) at level 24 with a Witch Hunter. I sort of regret the class, but in the end I feel kind of done. Much “doner” than I felt at the end of the main quest in Morrowind. Does anyone else feel like this game is somehow less replayable? I think my problem is I feel like through the main quest and the mage’s guild quest line (I made arch-mage before starting the main) plus the local city quests and some of the shrine quests that I have experienced everything this game has to offer, whereas in my memory Morrowind seemed like I played for months after finishing the main quest.
ilovich: I haven’t even started the main quest…
[…] The Orrery, too pretty to blame Submitted by Abalieno on April 20, 2006 – 09:04. I wanted to comment Oblivion’s downloadable add-ons since when Raph give it some weight. This week even Lum added his opinion and I was going to back up those points. […]
[…] Oblivion: RMT hits single-player games on Raph Koster Company-sanctioned RMT hits single-player games on Raph Koster Quote: […]