While not for everyone, I will suggest, again, that if the sub is $15 a month VR has a premium $20 or $25 or $30 sub(one of the above...not all of them) for those who wish to support the game even further. You can look at what Ember's Adrift offers as example and build from there.
Yes, I know that some will complain no matter what and see anything offered as 'pay to win', but very few(if any) of those folks offer an alternative. If I'm against cash shops and such, then I need to offer some solutions for VR to get additional funds when the game launches. I won't be under the illusion that a one time fee and $15 sub is ALL they need to continue. Especially when other studios will most definitely be making lots of extra income with cash shops and actual pay-to-win features. Folks will still be comparing Pantheon to those games regardless while expecting them to equally compete for their time.
I know this forum is open for all views, but I really, really, really did not create this post for the negative Nancy's and Nathan's(no offense to Mr. Napalm). This was made to create a space for ways VR can make money post release and for those of us who don't like what modern day cash shops have become to offer some solutions....NOT more critcism.
I long for the days when companies can clearly say "this is how much we require to provide this service, hence, this is the cost to the customer" and people pay it if they want that service. I know, not a very reasonable request. Too many other factors in play for something so simple.
I don't totally like how Ember's does it, but I also don't have great alternate ideas. On one hand you want a lot of players in the world, on the other hand, you don't want to give your services away for free. If you charge too much you'll have empty worlds. If you don't charge enough you'll go out of business. I, as a customer, would pay pretty much any price for the *right* game. I play a ton of free games and put no money into them. If they did cost money I wouldn't play them because they're not good enough for me to put money into them, they're only good enough to goof around from time to time because it's free. Well, I've rambled and contributed almost nothing...
Ranarius said:I long for the days when companies can clearly say "this is how much we require to provide this service, hence, this is the cost to the customer" and people pay it if they want that service. I know, not a very reasonable request. Too many other factors in play for something so simple.
I don't totally like how Ember's does it, but I also don't have great alternate ideas. On one hand you want a lot of players in the world, on the other hand, you don't want to give your services away for free. If you charge too much you'll have empty worlds. If you don't charge enough you'll go out of business. I, as a customer, would pay pretty much any price for the *right* game. I play a ton of free games and put no money into them. If they did cost money I wouldn't play them because they're not good enough for me to put money into them, they're only good enough to goof around from time to time because it's free. Well, I've rambled and contributed almost nothing...
I was ONLY referencing Ember's becasue of how they handled offering some "innocent" perks for a premium account, not going buy to play only. I hope my point is more clear now and apologize if anyone thinks this was a suggestion to offer buy to play only.
For example, including Bard and Necro, there are 14 classes( a lot I think which is very cool.) The $15 would offer 14 slots, the premium would offer 18. The $15 dollar Bank vault would offer 20 slots. The $25 dollar slot would offer 25 slots. Notice I said Bank slots NOT travel bags. After 6month? A year? you would get a T-shirt/Sweatshirt/mug etc.
The perks would be small becasue the point isn't to make them all that valuable or "worth it". I'm really not that all interested in the perks. I just wanted a way to support the game more than a regular sub with something to offer. I know not everyone is as generous as me so VR would have to offer something of value, no matter how small. If you are the type that want huge/worth it perks, then my suggestion/post is not for you(plural).
With that being said, I appreciate your contribution.
I think I'm with @Ranarius on this one. If the game isn't good enough to meet the threshold of players needed for a standard monthly fee to make the company enough $$ to keep the game going and still make a profit then it doesn't deserve to survive.
For a game like Pantheon which is building it's game to be a subscription based service, VR shouldn't need to create 'Perks' to try and entice 'Whales' to spend extra so that they can survive. This would just prove that they didn't create a game that makes enough people feel like it's worth paying for to play.
Now I'm not saying that those 'Free to Play' models with an optional 'Subscription' for extras and micro-transactions don't have their place. It's a valid strategy and proven to work if done right. But in these cases there is the 'Free' option and so those players won't feel 'ripped off' if they don't get the Perks.
If there was no Free option but rather a Tier system with a 'Standard' and then a 'Deluxe' subscription with Perks; Then players who cannot afford that deluxe subscription will always feel like they are being ripped off. They pay every month, but they are still not getting the full service. Only if there is a free to play option will players accept not having the full service.
This means that anyone who cannot afford the 'Deluxe' subscription just won't bother to pay at all. Which creates a catch 22, because if only the 'deluxe' subscription is ever used then it's not Deluxe at all but rather just the standard.
Which brings us back to the fact that the game will need to be good enough to make money off a 'Standard' price. It's up to them to tune into which price is low enough to keep their population strong enough over time and yet still makes them the best profit margin.
**edit: I thought I would add that it's totally fine to have 'Deluxe' copies of the game that include Real world perks like Posters or Artwork and other things like that because this is a one time price for players who want collectables. It's proven that these kinds of Perks won't detract from your subscription numbers. Even adding in game cosmetic things like a Tabard or a non-combat pet to a Deluxe version of the game doesn't usually piss people off too much. As long as it doesn't give players any type of advantage like permanently more storage space or character slots or things like that.
If the Deluxe copy gives you useful in game items such as a free Bag, it can't be a bag that has more slots than can be gotten by players who don't buy the Deluxe version. Any bonus from the free bag has to be only Temporary as non-Deluxe buying players will still need to be able to get equivilent bags themselves as they progress... the Deluxe version of the game just gives you an X slot bag early. Any sort of permanent bonus is in my opinion just a quick way to piss off the players who cannot afford the bonus and will cause people to choose not to buy at all.
Dikenzu said:While not for everyone, I will suggest, again, that if the sub is $15 a month VR has a premium $20 or $25 or $30 sub(one of the above...not all of them) for those who wish to support the game even further. You can look at what Ember's Adrift offers as example and build from there.
I'm not into charity so if there were to be some premium monthly subscription there had better be some benefit to me for paying it. Not anything as mundane as XP bonuses or other PTW type things, but more customer support, highe rnumber of server dedicated GMs, much lower capped population to decrease competition, higher quanity of events, maybe even some unique-to-the-server items.
That said, if the game cannot survive solely upon the set subscription price then perhaps the game doesn't deserve to survive at all. Clearly a failure for the quantity of subscriptions to keep the lights on means the ideas, gameplay, artwork (any combination thereof) made by the developers were not interesting enough to the public.
Whether the game deserves to survive if it canot get enough subscribers to support it is a philosophical point of no great interest to me. If it is a good enough game to be worth playing I *want* it to survive and if a business model combining regular subscribers and whales does the job I am all for it. Now that he has been so recently spotlighted - I suggest they put in enough things Vandraad thinks are worth paying for and encourage him to become the prince of whales. Hopefully we won't have to wait as long for release as Charles did to graduate from Prince of Wales to King.
Some of the suggestions raise obvious issues. The point of a "whale" subscription level is to raise money - if VR needs to add extra staff to provide more support some or all of that money will dissipate. There is only so far an extra $5 or $10 per person will go unless there are so many subscribers they do not need this idea in the first place. This is not at all to say I disagree - it is to say that if they go this route they should and will focus on things that will attract higher paying subscibers but not cost them much money.
Manifestly there are two options - have a "whale" server or give people on regular servers the option to pay more in exchange for certain extras. Drawing some of the most dedicated fans away from normal servers where they can interact with other players is not necessarily ideal. Plus it may increase costs. But on a separate server or the same server what extras can they give?
Titles? Cosmetics. Better housing or mount options when and if these are in Pantheon? Priority in support queues? Whale events (maybe letting us transform into whales and cavort off shore?) Lower population was suggested and would appeal to me but most players in MMOs I have played complain more about population being too low than too high.
Would $15 a month players resent all of this? Stupid question - how *much* would they resent it? So-called free to play players are used to subscribers getting more benefits but people that pay what is a full normal subscription in other games having an extra layer of privileged people getting yet more than they do is not quite the same.
I still find it quite hilarious that $15/month is seen as some sanctified monthly amount that cannot be adjusted. $15 in 2000 would be the equivalent of nearly $27 today. I'm not suggesting that the default monthly subscription increase to $27, but to keep it at $15 because of some fear that the potential playerbase would balk at any increase and not purchase the game? If the game is worth it, people will pay more than $15/month.
dorotea said:I suggest they put in enough things Vandraad thinks are worth paying for and encourage him to become the prince of whales....Titles? Cosmetics. Better housing or mount options when and if these are in Pantheon? Priority in support queues?
I do enjoy having a lot of disposable income which I can spend on any number of things that I wish. If I deem the extra cost as worth it to me, I have no qualms paying it.
I have used the cash shop in WoW and ESO a few times, mostly for faction/race swaps. As long as there are no PTW items/services, a cash shop is a current-day survival tool for smaller devs and a cynically wretched corporate tool to drain the life of afore-noted Whales.
Now, if Unity goes ahead with its 'per head' scheme, well, the goose is already cooked...
Vandraad said:I still find it quite hilarious that $15/month is seen as some sanctified monthly amount that cannot be adjusted. $15 in 2000 would be the equivalent of nearly $27 today. I'm not suggesting that the default monthly subscription increase to $27, but to keep it at $15 because of some fear that the potential playerbase would balk at any increase and not purchase the game? If the game is worth it, people will pay more than $15/month.
I agree completely with this. Someone in the office will do the math and find out how much subs should cost to keep the game going (and thrive) and set the price. I detest the idea of add ons, cash shops, extras, etc. But, I don't run the world so I'll just live with it if they exist.
Nothing is set in stone with unity changes it seems. They are not going to allow "install bombing" , a threshold for install and usage needs to be met, and the main issue seems to be with mobile games that are "free to play". It will have little to no effect on VR from what I've read.
As far as game revenue, just up the monthly cost. Personally I already know I'll be cancelling a video subscription and possibly another cost required activity, I'm a member of the vibrators of the month club, and will be spending my time in terminus. If it's 35 a month for Pantheon I'm ok with that because I'll be in-game for more than 100 hours a month.
"Gotta figure with inflation by the time it's released should be around $20 per head." -mallanb81
heh
I know they have no intentions of having any Pay2Win aspects of any kind. This is a good thing.
Given that, what are people's thoughts on cosmetic only cash shops for Pantheon? This is the only form of monetization along side a monthly sub, that has never bothered me. In fact speaking of additional support, when all New World has was a cosmetics cash shop, I spent a lot of money on emotes and cosmetics, changing the look of my character quite often.
In a game like Pantheon I can't decide if a cosmetics only cash shop would take away from it or not. What do people think? Would a cosmetics only cash shop work for Pantheon, or no?
For many years VR told us and every angel investor, that there would be no cash shop. They couldn't add it now even if they wanted to. That said, they shouldn't do it anyways as it creates a perverse incentive for developing money makers over content.
If they don't get enough post-launch subs, they should be asking themselves why the game doesn't appeal to the hundreds of thousands of oldschool emulator players out there. Not what pretty pink unicorn mount they can monetize.
Prevenge said:I know they have no intentions of having any Pay2Win aspects of any kind. This is a good thing.
Given that, what are people's thoughts on cosmetic only cash shops for Pantheon? This is the only form of monetization along side a monthly sub, that has never bothered me. In fact speaking of additional support, when all New World has was a cosmetics cash shop, I spent a lot of money on emotes and cosmetics, changing the look of my character quite often.
In a game like Pantheon I can't decide if a cosmetics only cash shop would take away from it or not. What do people think? Would a cosmetics only cash shop work for Pantheon, or no?
IMO:
In my experience, every monetization scheme other than subscription leads to a shift in focus of the development team. That's what I've personally seen since 1997, in the MMOs I've played.
If a subscription is the primary source of revenue, then post launch development efforts generally focus on extending the value of the subscription. Things like more content, expansions, horizontal progression, more game loops, more depth of mechanics and gameplay. The things that make the game a world, fun, immersive, and increases retention in the long term.
However..
If a anything OTHER than a subscription is the primary source of revenue, then post launch development efforts generally focus on everything else. In particular, things like cosmetics, progression systems like storage space (like bags or banks), xp potions, loot boxes, gear, loot, resources, keys for loot boxes, RMT currencies (gems, krono, similar) and any other thing that the human imagination can contrive to provide micro-dopamine bursts, time compression, temporal efficiency, catching up, skipping time, or rewards on that theme.
It's not like it doesn't work. It does. Non-subscription monetization works great, if you have no ethics and are willing to rob the future to pay the present. I mean, so many MMOs have done it. They last a year or two, often less, and during that time, in some cases, the whales just open their wallets, pour thousands and thousands into the non-subscription monetization mechanism, and the company profits. In some case, massively.
So, it's not like it's a mystery. Yet, if it were my problem to solve, I would place integrity above profit, in my public design goals. As such, a subscription, and a subscription ONLY, is what I would use. I would also get less profit in the short term, but, ideally, higher subscriber retention in the long term. If you're making a game to appeal to a less-than-everyone audience, though, why not try integrity? :)
They have said *if* there is a cash shop, it will be only cosmetics. Take that for what you will. There is a Bazgrim video about this too :)