Gamasutra on free to play MMOs
Gamasutra has an article up — “What Are The Rewards Of ‘Free-To-Play’ MMOs?” — that I was interviewed for. During the interview it became clear that many in the traditional AAA games community still have questions around whether this model is viable financially, and the article is centrally about the fact that yes, it can be.
Yes, good money can actually be made in the rapidly-growing world of free-to-play massive multiplayer online games (MMOs), but just how much can micro-transactions actually generate? Unfortunately, average revenue per user information is often concealed behind the fog of competition by privately held game makers reluctant to report either very high or very low results.
To add to the confusion, some developers choose to report their “average revenue per paying user” (ARPPU) which, by definition, is always more impressive than their “average revenue per user” (ARPU). (Both of these statistics relate to monthly logged-in users, and the amount of monthly logged-in users cited in ARPU is often a fraction of total registered users — a common metric used in press releases.)
17 Responses to “Gamasutra on free to play MMOs”
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Looks like Turbine just announced that Dungeons and Dragons Online is going FFP. What was that distinction between “FFP” and “AAA” again?
Great article, and interview! Thanks for the piece!
[…] Free to Play MMOs […]
Technically speaking, there’s nothing stopping a company from making a free-to-play game with a huge budget and expensive marketing behind it if they really wanted to.
Of course there isn’t. And in fact, in Asia, that is now quite common. But you do have to realign expectations in that case to a different profit margin.
So what are the implications of the DDO announcement? Here’s a game developed and released in the triple-A mode, based around a solid license and built by a top-tier MMO developer, that’s moving into the FFP space (or at least hybrid/freemium; you can still subscribe to the VIP package).
Is it a “hail mary” play to boost a game that never gelled as a top contender? Will it generate enough revenue to continue funding development of AAA content? And if it does succeed in this space, and other low-ranking subscription-based games follow suit, what’s the prognosis for independents?
Or am I wildly overestimating the significance of this?
Its a hail-mary for a product whose earnings were never up to expectations.
The history tells us that.
Turbine’s decision to alter the DDO subscription scheme deffintely has merit even though it also appears to be a “hail marry”. This has been one of those games that suffered terribaly at launch and of which the current state of the gameplay isn’t representative of that intial blunder.
On the downside, what Turbine did to it’s subscriber base is nothing less then purposed deception. They had paraded new content as if it were going to be released on their games anniversary knowing full well it would never intended to be. That content was in fact schedualed for the DDO Unlimited (Free/ViP) scheme that’s set for sometime “later this summer”.
Carroting content updates as a means to keep players subscribing when said content was never purposed for the timeline is not how you treat your loyal fan base. In this regards it’s very similar to what SOE did when they labled New Creature HAndler Items in a module that was never intended to have such items. Is it fraudulent, unscrupulous or simply legitmate business?
I played for about a month after launch and cancelled. I wouldn’t normally feel compelled to give it a second chance, but for free? Sure, why not? And I think if they pick up enough “sure, why nots”, Turbine can take the hail mary in for a touchdown.
It may have been an internal communications breakdown. Sometimes management has plans of which the dev team is blissfully unaware, and priorities can shift drastically overnight. It’s possible they were deliberately deceptive, but in the absence of evidence, I’d be inclined to give them the benefit of a doubt.
At any rate, I hope it works out for them. But I also hope that the entry of Sony and now Turbine into the FFP space doesn’t spell the beginning of the end for the little guys.
Different from Shadowbane… how?
Free for all PvP…..
or…..
“There must be 50 ways to kill your lover”
The most obvious difference is that Shadowbane tried to sustain itself with ad revenues, while DDO is implementing a microtransaction/premium model.
Beyond that… let’s just say that Shadowbane was a niche product, they were proud of being a niche product, and they’ll be buried in their niche. DDO’s not a niche product, and they’ve got the potential to upset the applecart for both the subscription and FFP worlds. But unless they pull this manuever off successfully, they’ll be buried with their potential and you won’t be able to tell the bones from those of Shadowbane.
Heh. Niche product. I couldn’t even remember what DDO stood for until I looked it up.
It was a sincere question, despite the phrasing. Thanks.
I did a quick check on Bruce Harlick’s site to check my impressions. It looks like Shadowbane peaked at around 50k subscribers shortly after launch, and then dropped off steadily over the life of the game. DDO peaked at 90K, then dropped to the Shadowbane peak of 50K, plateaued there for about six months, dropped to about 45K, and then… no data.
In comparison to the blockbusters… well, no comparison for either title. They were outperformed even by the canceled Motor City Online and, I’m sorry to say, Toontown.
So you could support the argument that they’re both niche titles. If that’s the case, at least DDO has a bigger niche to work with.
And who knows? If the DDO model succeeds, maybe it will be an opportunity to resurrect Shadowbane, Tabla Rasa, The Matrix, et al, or move forward on titles in development limbo. If you can sustain a title on freemium, that’s got to be better than dumping years of development into the trash can, right?
I think you mean Bruce Woodcock. 🙂 Bruce Harlick is a game designer…
This is what happens when people use their real names, DD. Chaos ensues.
Bruce Harlick was one of the authors of the original Champions tabletop RP game and is currently a Senior Designer on City of Heroes. I’m a fan of his work, apparently to the extent that his name is autocompleting in my brain whenever I type “Bruce”.
Apologies to Bruce (Sir Bruce) Woodcock, whose data compilation and analysis have been an invaluable resource for the industry and the community. Something I never realized is that he contributed to Grimtooth’s Traps Too, a wicked compilation of really unpleasant things to do to an adventuring party.
All we need now is for Bruce Sterling to chime in with a comment about Bruce Banner, and my antiquated wetware will fuse into a gelatinous mass.
I still wish they’d just give away the source (or put it up for sale) when they give up on these titles. 🙁 I mean, I know there’s a lot more to it, like proprietary engines and libraries and all that stuff, but still. Gray shards ftw. I’d play more MMOs if they were free. ^_^