$20 a month business model

Maybe one way to present the risky attempt to a increase the sub fee to 20 a month is to tell the players that the extra five dollars will all go to game expansions. game content, and improving the game. For every 100k subs that would six million per year if things go well and get one million subs that would be 60 million a year just for expansions.

Or you could use the cash shop and say all the money made for the next three days will used only for game development purposes and cap it at lets say 10 million or whatever amount you feel is right.

Thing is MMO companies can make net profit of hundeds of millions But when an expansion comes out it does not fell like a 20 million dollar expansion even 10 million definitely below ten million.. Seems like MMORPGs come out which is a huge initial investment then they just milk it until it dies expansions are more of the same and they do not deliver when it comes to very popular features that players have been asking for them to do for years.

But if the player were gauranteed the money they spent or contibuted to the game would go to for the sole purpose of new content and improve quality of life issues like new character models or better animations or choice of sounds for abilities then players would be more apt to support the game.

Reason people feel like 20 dollars is to much is because they already decided that in their mind that MMO companies are already making to much money and not really reinvesting it in game content.

I know Steve is a marketing expert so I will cut this post short and say if you just give players a chance to support and contribute to thier own game instead of well your pockets.(no offense intended) I think players would respond pretty well.

Plus you can even let them vote on things like expansion theme like undead theme, dragon theme, or demonic vs celestial expansions.

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Noaani

wanderingmist wrote: »

Indeed. Not only that but once the game is launched at a set price, Intrepid would be fools to try and increase the price, no matter how popular the game is.

That is actually a fair point that I hadn't considered.

I guess that's a good thing about a cash shop - rather than increasing the cost of the subscription, they could increase the average cost of cosmetics (or decrease in hopes of gaining significantly more sales, I'm not a marketing expert..).

unknownsystemerror

damokles wrote: »

Okay I decided to also say my opinion on the idea.
I would be totally fine to pay 20€ a month to pay for this game.
But only IF they then also included some things:
1. regular content updates and free expansions
2. no other shop items then cosmetic skins in the future (no exp pots, buff flasks, special unlimited and effective things to collect resources...looking at you GW2..., immidiate mail servants, etc)

They will have to compete with the big four: GW2 (you dont even have to buy the game anymore i believe, you have to buy the newest expansion i think), WoW (Who has not ever at least heard of WoW?), Elder Scrolls Online (I think the game is also free but you have to buy expansions), FFOnline (Subscription based, you have to buy expansions)

GW2 saved itself with the F2P aspect, the same goes for ESO. WoW and FF have both the cost of around 13€ per month, meaning that AoC really has to wow everyone so hard that they wont think of the price, if they ever go for 20.

The safest route would be what they said at the start: 13€, but I am hyped enough to go for 20 and see how it goes.

Done and done.

There are futher multiple quotes out there from the Sandal God himself about no p2w and what he defines as p2w if you go looking. Specifically your time boosts like exp pots will be a no-no. Content rollout is planned smaller monthly and larger quarterly, but like everything else, those are what they plan to do, reality may be different.

zinnie

I think the real question becomes how fast Intrepid can churn out new content since the game is under a Subscription model.
A quarterly Content drop with a bigger expansions every 6 to 12 months should be a minimum if you want to keep the player-base happy. Remember, Intrepid is new and have to do better than the competition to keep Subscription retention. Blizzard and Sqeenix had a huge previously extremely popular IP to fall back on and keep people coming and subscribing.

I think $15 a month is max they can afford to charge considering their competition, if they increased to $20 people would leave.

insomnia

I think they already said that the sub will include expansions

ArgentDawn

zinnie wrote: »

I think the real question becomes how fast Intrepid can churn out new content since the game is under a Subscription model.
A quarterly Content drop with a bigger expansions every 6 to 12 months should be a minimum if you want to keep the player-base happy.

What MMO fantasy world do you live in? The average "lifespan" of an expansion is 2 years. So I wouldnt expect much in the large content drop short of that. The difference ashes is offering is a living world instead of a static world. Every day you log onto ashes can be different. Rotating seasons, nodes leveling and deleveling, guild conflicts, caravans, world events, something attacking a node... Etc.

If ashes can deliver on what's being promised we are all in for a treat because there will always be content for the majority of people. To be honest I'll be surprised if people coming from theme park MMOs aren't overwhelmed.

unknownsystemerror

I asked and was answered about calling dlc something else like expansions or some other wordplay to justify charging later down the line and was told that would not happen. Intrepid has stated that they plan on smaller monthly and larger quarterly content drops. Like everything else, people need to drop preconceptions they have from other games they have played and have faith they will do what they have stated, because until they break those promises everything is proceeding according to the Sandal God's plan.

Karthos

Let's be honest, game companies don't make their money off subscriptions anymore. If they did, the sub model would be the gold standard it once was.

In the end, the name of the game is putting "butts in seats" so to speak. Why do you think "Free" to Play games exploded over the past few years.

Not convinced? When's the last time you saw a movie in the theater and paid less for a popcorn and coke than you did the ticket? The ticket gets your butt in the seat, so they can sell you the items where's they really make money.

Game companies want you to play their game, they want you to spend your money in their game. Rising the cost of admission that's been stable for over 2 decades is going to prevent some people from playing the game.

Damokles

@karthos
Activision Blizzard still makes around 45.000.000$ per month from WoW subscriptions alone though

(Assuming that they still have around 3.000.000 subscribers currently)

Karthos

damokles wrote: »

@karthos
Activision Blizzard still makes around 45.000.000$ per month from WoW subscriptions alone though
(Assuming that they still have around 3.000.000 subscribers currently)

Sure, but there's a difference between making money and making profit.

You're also making the assumption every player is paying month to month and not doing the discounted 3 and 6 month payment options.

Plus you can activate game time via tokens that you can buy from an item shop (not a subscription) and sell for gold. You know plenty of people are grinding out gold for essentially free game time.

Estimates range from $4-7 million a month JUST on server upkeep costs. That's not counting paying their people coding, working on expansions, managers and legal team, to name a few.

I doubt they make more in subs now than they do in MTX. For proof, look at Blizzard's games since WoW. D3, Overwatch, HotS, Hearthstone. Overwhelmingly MTX based. Why would a company abandon a strategy that made money,for one that makes less?

They didn't. They found one that makes more.

Damokles

@karthos
I just wanted to throw that in because you said that no one makes any money from the subscription model.
That is wrong, the subscription model is one of the most paying methods, the problem is the dwindling player base

Karthos

damokles wrote: »

@karthos
I just wanted to throw that in because you said that no one makes any money from the subscription model.
That is wrong, the subscription model is one of the most paying methods, the problem is the dwindling player base

I don't accept "you are wrong". This phrase means nothing to me.

Show me how I'm wrong. We both know you can't.

Damokles

@karthos
I did. I gave you an example, for why the subscription model is still profitable, and i also said the real reason why the subscription model is failing. It is making money, but the problem with it is that it needs a stable and strong player base.

Karthos

I really don't see anything you've included that would change my mind honestly. I invited you to expand your point.

Assumptions (especially wrong ones) do not equal "examples".

Damokles

karthos wrote: »

Assumptions (especially wrong ones) do not equal "examples".

Well you did not mention any examples for why subscriptions are not profitable yourself... Both of us can only assume here, depending on our corresponding information and own experience.

Karthos

damokles wrote: »

karthos wrote: »

Assumptions (especially wrong ones) do not equal "examples".

Well you did not mention any examples for why subscriptions are not profitable yourself... Both of us can only assume here, depending on our corresponding information and own experience.

I'll switch to crayons.

My examples were Overwatch, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm. Remember when I said that? Are you actually reading my replies?

Wandering Mist

@karthos and @damokles this argument is pointless from both sides, since neither of you have access to the in depth finances of Blizzard. You don't know how much they spend to produce new content for their games or keep their servers running, nor do you know how much money they make from subscriptions as opposed to in-game purchases.

As such both of you can only ever make assumptions on what is going on.

grisu

Doesn't wow have mtx too by now? Then there is the bi-yearly full priced expansion which should alraedy cover the content for the following 2 years.
With the playerbase they have, I doubt server costs are that significant. I remember back in the day seeing some detailed breakdowns of blizzards costs anjd server costs were so insignificant they usually were packed in with other expenses and there have been quite a few things that cost them just a million or so. Servers are cheap nowadays. They have been for a long time.
WoW is a weird horse. It seems to make them enough money to justify continuing it, even tho they are down to 1/4 of their peak player base. Just think about that, how much extra money they must have made, back then.

Either way, I absolutely love the true subscription model intrepid offers. You have no Box price, so you can very easely justify playing and paying for 4 months to get to know this MMORPG. That is plenty of time to see wether you personally like it or not. I was always a little confused about the cosmetic store, but if I understood it correctly, the only real exclusive items are seasonal ones and specific colour variations(probably with some extra fluff) of skins you can earn ingame.
I'm not a fan of MTX, but if it's reasonally priced, aka a full blown reskin of textures design and stuff, while also not being the only source of looking decent/diverse, then I can justify dropping 5 extra bucks into the pot ever so often.

Wandering Mist

@grisu It's entirely possible that the money Blizzard got from WoW was (and still is) used to fund their other less lucrative projects. And it's not just the game itself but their e-sports ventures as well. The prize money for this year's WoW MDI and Arena tournaments was funded by in-game shop purchases.

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/world-of-warcraft/22862590/wow-esports-in-2019

As an example.

grisu

Heroes of the storms failed and it was entirely MTX supported. Yeah, who knows how money is distributed with Actrivision in the mix. Their "other incomes" is as big as their entire pc income which is slightly behind their console income.
All those toys and crap they sell is making them tons for sure too for little cost.

Point was anyway, I like IS approach and hope they don't drop themselv into an MTX nightmare hole.

Karthos

@wanderingmist

Don't make assumptions about what I do and don't have access to.

You know what happens when you assume...

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