[gameprogrammer] Re: RES: Indy MMOG - How much to charge?

Tough question :).
I suppose the issue is "what will people pay?" as well as "what do they pay 
for?"

In general people tend to pay for one mmo at a time and even if they pay for 2, 
they are only actively playing one. That means that if you are charging the 
same monthly fee you are going head to head with all the other games that do 
so. As a consumer I don't think to myself "should I play game X for $15 even 
though I think game Y is more fun because I know that game X had a smaller dev 
team etc." No. I don't. I play and pay for WoW because it's the most fun I have 
right now. I don't pay for EQ2 cause it's the second most fun :). Now there are 
other considerations such as genre. EvE has been very successful and more or 
less "wow proof" because it provides such a different play experience. Guild 
Wars sold into the millions partially because it is a "free MMO." It's hard to 
guess if they would have sold equally well against WoW, EQ2 LOTR and D&D if 
they were $15/mo, but who knows. 

Another big factor is accessibility. Runescape, Club Penguin, and games like 
that do incredibly well because ANYONE can play them on any machine. Runescape 
charges below the 15$ market rate and is very successful doing that. Although I 
don't care if a game is 5$ 10$ or 15$/mo I know that there are many people that 
would pay 10 but not 15... go figure :). 

The other big tricky thing is that people play the games everyone else plays so 
I think your approach to get as many people in as possible is a good one. There 
are quite few free indie MMOs (that are also very fun :)) no one has ever heard 
of that can't get 1000 people to play for free, much less get them to pay. I 
try and play almost all MMOs that I find, but if a game is an indie game and I 
have to pay up front I will almost certainly pass unless it has something like 
awesome graphics or a friend told me "you have to check this game out!" This is 
simply because I can reasonably quickly find a free one that I can try out 
first. Having said that, the MMOs I played the longest were the ones that had 
huge budgets massive ad campaigns and large scale anticipation. I was happy to 
pay 50$ for the box and 15$/mo for those. 

I guess my opinion is that if I can try the game for free and I have about as 
much fun as I have in other MMOs I'll happily pay 5, 10 or 15. If I have less 
fun I won't pay anything. Micro-transactions were mentioned and those are a 
very interesting topic. If you google puzzle pirates you can find that when 
they added micro-payments their sales went form 500k to about 2.5 million in 
one year. I played PP quite a bit and it's really good fun and offers an 
experience I couldn't get anywhere else.

If you haven't seen it, you can go to the daedalus project which has some very 
interesting and surprising information on MMO play habits including what people 
pay, how long and so on: http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/.

That being said just FINISHING an MMO is a huge accomplishment so no matter 
what happens that on it's own is really impressive. Most well funded 
commercially published MMOs don't even see the light of day so how you pulled 
it off as an "indie" is really impressive. So good luck and when you're that 
far be sure to tell the list where to check it out!


-----Original Message-----
From: gameprogrammer-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:gameprogrammer-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Edilson Vasconcelos 
de Melo Junior
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2007 2:18 PM
To: gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gameprogrammer] RES: Indy MMOG - How much to charge?

Hi,

I'm reading a book about being an indies and survive and the writer is owner
of Samu Games. Maybe his fees could apply to you. Anyway, the link is
http://www.samugames.com/artifact/pricingandterms.htm

I hope I can help! Good luck!
Dirso

-----Mensagem original-----
De: gameprogrammer-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:gameprogrammer-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] Em nome de Kevin Jenkins
Enviada em: sábado, 28 de abril de 2007 17:04
Para: gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Assunto: [gameprogrammer] Indy MMOG - How much to charge?

With my Indy MMOG coming near it's time to decide how much to charge. 
  I'd like to ask the list advice on what is good price from both the 
perspective of the developer and as the owner.

For background, my MMOG is a action-based space shooter.  It's based 
on short-play sessions that are fun, and your interactions with other 
people in a competitive context.  While there are levels and items, 
they are a minor side part of the game.  It is not like a traditional 
MMOG where the point it is explore a huge world and collect stuff. 
It's closer to Planetside in that regard, though on a much smaller scale.

The MMOG value in the game comes from that the server zones can have 
up to 500 players - not something you will see on a standard match of 
Battlefield 2142.  Also, there are persistent rankings, characters, 
and zone events.  The kind of stuff you get from hosted games.

So I'm faced with the question of how much to charge.

One argument is that I should charge something near what other online 
games charge.  This argument goes that people value their time more 
than the usual rate $15 a month - the market is quality sensitive over 
time sensitive.  Charging $5 instead of $15 only loses $10.

The other argument is that I should charge much less.  The argument 
goes that since my game is simpler and cost less to make, it should 
according cost less.  People who are price sensitive will play and 
having more people play is better than less since community also in 
itself draws players.

A few differences:

I'm not charging for the game itself.  Other MMOGs charge $50 for the 
first month and $15 for every month thereafter.  I am simply charging 
$X per month.

Credit card transaction fees for me are very high.  If I were to 
charge $5 a month, the transaction fees are about 5% of my total revenue.

I need to scale slowly because I don't have the capacity to support 
more than 10,000 players at launch.

Right now I'm considering the following

$15 a month - I want to start high to grow slowly, and I'm still 
cheaper as other games are $50 for the first month.

$7 a month - I should charge proportional to the development costs. 
This will help me compete in a crowded market.

$20 for 3 months only - This minimizes credit card fees, and is still 
affordable to the average person.

$8 for one month, $20 for 3 months, $35 for 6 months - Minimizes 
credit card fees, allows players to pick what they can afford.

So as gamers on this list as well as developer, what do you think I 
should start out charging?

Thanks.

---------------------
To unsubscribe go to http://gameprogrammer.com/mailinglist.html





-- 
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
Version: 7.5.467 / Virus Database: 269.6.1/778 - Release Date: 27/4/2007
13:39


---------------------
To unsubscribe go to http://gameprogrammer.com/mailinglist.html



---------------------
To unsubscribe go to http://gameprogrammer.com/mailinglist.html

Other related posts: