Blizzard Zoomerang Survey

[Fat Tire]

I would probably start with an subscription fee increase first. I wonder how people would feel about 29.99/month

[Ualaa]

Well, haven't really played all that much over the summer... with seasonal work and all. A few days here or there, but nothing like the rest of the year.

If the subscription doubled, not sure that it is worth it. I mean, compared to other forms of entertainment, on a per hour basis over the course of a month, even a much higher number is good compared to most other hobbies.

But, I'd probably just find something else, if Blizzard were to double their subscription rates overnight.

[Toned]

I use the remote auction house and im very happy with it. I don't mind stuff like that, but if you can start paying $$ for gear buh bye my accounts that is when the game is broken and retarded.

[Harrypott]

Didn't Eve put game time tradable in game? Would be handy to farm gold to trade for game time without going against the TOC.

[jinkobi]

WOW will go free to play without a doubt. It isn't going to happen today or this year- maybe not even next year but it will happen.

When they sold that Celestial Steed they were like WOAH WTF we just pulled in an entire months worth of profits from selling 1 digital item. An item with no manufacturing costs, packaging, anything.

Then real ID fiasco- just another sign of going FTP- the entire design just think about it and how other games are doing similar things with Farcebook.

Anyway they'll release Cataclysm and what I think is their attempt at repackaging WOW. Future expansions will just be DLC in smaller installments than a full blown expansion. FTP is the future of MMO's a sad but true fact.

Not that I want to pay sub. I'd rather pay a sub than have to buy my way into top tier content and such... Or the many other bad things that usually go along with FTP.

[zenga]

FTP is the future of MMO's a sad but true fact..

Until the point where a decent game decides to not jump on the band wagon of ftp and gets in all the players that are tired of ftp. The reason why I believe that ftp is not 'the future' is because many players are going to burn way too much cash on it, ending up in bad family situations and what not. And a new demand will rise to have a game where you just pay a sub and thats it.

[Bigfish]

Until the point where a decent game decides to not jump on the band wagon of ftp and gets in all the players that are tired of ftp. The reason why I believe that ftp is not 'the future' is because many players are going to burn way too much cash on it, ending up in bad family situations and what not. And a new demand will rise to have a game where you just pay a sub and thats it.

I doubt disposable income will really ever become a factor in these types of games. Time and again consumers have shown that they have the cash to throw around. The only real question is if the game is worth throwing more money at. Hence the rise of micro transactions and collector's editions: as consumers, we KNOW what games we want to play and what games we don't. Its all just a matter of figuring out how to milk us.

Of course, that's a moderately poor business model as invariably companies will start producing core games that have crap for content thinking they can milk the micro-transactions. But I digress.

I don't think subscription MMOs will ever really make a comeback. There's not much room for more, and I think as a society we're pushing past the second life status people held themselves to back during the early generation MMOs.

[Daeri]

IMO the ftp concept sucks. I don't want to see my expenses for a game depend of factors I cannot control or perfectly plan ahead. I mean, in free to play games, the price you have to pay depends on your pace of advancement in the game, right ? obviously considering you're not going to be stopped because of money issues. So, as new content is added regularly, you cannot tell in advance what will the price be of the non-free portion of what will be added in the future. Doesn't the 'monthly fee' go up as you come near end game content ?

[Souca]

The market will adjust. In it's current incarnation, F2P will not be the future because there are enough people that find it sleazy. There will be a business that sees anti-F2P as it's target audience and will produce a game for them. It may not be mainstream, but demand is more likely to create a supply than the other way around.

The thing that I find so interesting about this whole thing is that a player's subconscious feelings about the business practices of a game company transfer over into their enjoyment of a game. If you feel like you are getting screwed, you are more like to view your play time in the fashion of an addiction than a hobby. Smart game companies realize that the entire experience from purchase, install, to actual play all impact the enjoyment/experience of the game. It seems as though Blizzard knew this, but Activision simply doesn't care.

Another thing that is happening right now is that gaming is truly becoming mainstream. Games like FarmVille have opened up the industry to unheard of numbers and traditional game companies are finding themselves on the wrong side of the social gaming race. They are in a time of transition as they try and figure out how to get a part of this new demographic that they have never had before. In some ways, it's similar to the transition that the movie industry had to undergo when TVs started appearing in peoples homes. At the time, some people thought it meant the end of the movie industry, but in retrospect it was merely the beginning of the TV industry. The next 5 years will be a very interesting time for games.

These tangential ramblings brought to you by sleep deprivation and caffeine.

- Souca -

[Bigfish]

I don't think F2P is particularly sleazy, but it does illuminate the relationship between time and money far more than a simple subscription, particularly for farmable goods that can be bought. I think the bigger concern for an MMO operator would be the difference in consumer behavior; namely, it seems to me that F2P systems tend to be subscribed to for only a few months, during which time people pay equivelent to, or perhaps more, than a standard subscription fee, but the spending doesn't last as people invariably start wondering where their money is going - more so when disciplinary measures start to be taken and people find themselves losing 400$ worth of star ponies and tiny robots because they dropped a few f-bombs.

I suppose the quality implications are of more concern, in so much that they don't have to provide quality patches or additional content under the guise of players not paying for the game. And then there is the potential lack of rule enforcement when banning players is frowned upon because of the short term revenue generation model of F2P.