The Carefully Choreographed Dance of Free to Play MMO’s

There is a well-established and heated debate among gamers when it comes to the funding source of Massive Multiplayer Online RPG’s. The trope goes something like this: a game launches with a pay to play monthly subscription. Inevitably, subscription numbers begin to dwindle and the company eventually moves to a free to play model. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily, but it can be.

The developers over at Blizzard really know what they’re doing. Never shying away from innovation, it’s almost as if the development team anticipated the MMO market moving towards a free to play model. Blizzard’s unique approach to implementing microtransactions was seamlessly integrated into a large and traditional consumer base with very little reverberations.

The problem of the free to play model is relatively complex. Naoki Yoshida (producer of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn) was asked about the possibility of FFXIV moving to a free to play model. He adamantly refused to even consider the possibility, saying that the day FFXIV goes free to play is the day the game ends. His rationale behind this stance is one of content production.

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For a studio to produce content (a new patch, expansion, etc.) a business proposal is required. With the pay to play based model, an investor can easily look at past, present, and future revenue projections and justify giving the studio money for payroll. With micro transactions, revenue projection is trickier. How can you accurately gauge your consumer base in terms that can be communicated to investors or large publisher? There may be some months in which players spend an absurd amount of money on microtransactions and other months in which spending is greatly reduced. This can make it difficult to secure funding, and the time between content is greatly increased.

Blizzard, interestingly, didn’t fight the increasing trend of MMO’s going free to play. They released a hybrid model, in which players can use in-game currency in lieu of actual dollars to pay their monthly subscription. The cost of this service (the last time I checked) was around 30,000 gold. I would say this takes on average about 25-30 hours to attain. The intrinsic value of this free to play transition depends on the opportunity cost of each individual player. To the 30-something no lifer that has no employment, but an abundance of free time, this is a no brainer. Typically players that invest large amounts of time have no problem massing large quantities of gold. To the other players that have full time jobs or other commitments, it may be more advantageous to save that 30,000 gold, and instead pony up the 10.99 for a monthly subscription.

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The true brilliance behind this is that it completely REKT the gold selling market from “illegal” third party websites. If you take the above example, a player is essentially able to access 30,000 gold worth of product for 10 bucks. As a comparison the going rate on 50,000 gold (before the in-game currency feature) was about $45. Ouch.

If future studios are going to attempt to emulate Blizzard, there are a few key points they need to note:

1. Even though the player base has the option to “play for free” by using in game currency, by no means is the game pay to win
2. The economy must be balanced. The market should have a means to naturally stabilize in relation to the supply of both currency and products.
3. The game still has to be fun! Without challenges or significant end game content, the player has no incentive to stick around and pay the subscription (in game currency or otherwise!)

By no means is this the perfect solution. This is a system that was slowly integrated over the course of several years. What I do like is that Blizzard was able to step up to the plate and do something different. I wish more titles would be equally cautious in straddling the line between paid and free content. One thing is certain, companies will always emulate the most successful product. With WoW nearing its 12th anniversary, it’s hard to imagine developers aren’t already taking careful notes!