I found Mark's latest Gamespin column, with the comments of the game developer from Dark Age of Camelot concerning the economics of MMORPGS, to be fascinating.

What really struck me is that the developer mentioned using $10 as the regular subscription price. I guess that has become the standard but I worry that may be a standard that cripples gameplay and forces us all to accept lowest-common-denominator service in these games. UO set the standard with a $10 rate, followed by EQ and AC. I haven't played AC but I played UO and EQ and both suffered through very severe crowding / ecology problems.

Crowding can be a negative in many ways. First, it makes players wait, which is frustrating. Second, there is less to do per player. Third, crowding can contribute to lag. Fourth I believe crowding contributes to player crankiness which leads to anti-social (non-game-related) behavior. Crowding can also ruin a game's ecology like the UO housing disaster or EQ's months of camping hell.

I wonder why MMORPGs are stuck with a fairly low monthly rate, which equals crappy service? For the hours the average EQ subscriber plays (which is I believe on average is over 100 hours per month!) paying $9.89 US is a STEAL! Also, the success of E-bay auctions and the popularity of add-ons to these games shows that players are definitely willing to spend more to "enhance" their MMORPG experience.

In most other industries that provide monthly entertainment service (ISP, cable, Direct TV etc) the customer has a choice of plans: from cheap plans all the way to premium plans.

For MMORPGs, given the hours of play a good one can generate, I personally would be happy to pay more than $10 per month. Or if the base rate is $10, I would be interested in having the option to pay more for better service. Better service would specifically mean better server access (less crowding) and better customer support. For example lets say a game charges $10 per month and has servers with 5,000 people on at peak time, and that those servers are hellishly crowded. If that game offered accounts for $20 per month where servers were capped at 3,000 (again this is just an example) I would probably be willing to pay the extra, assuming that the server cap was at a low enough level.

Basically, I want the option to buy better service in MMORPGs. In the MMORPGs I have paid in the past, a "one size fits all" fee structure led to lousy customer service and frustrating levels of overcrowding (at least during the first few months of release). I want to see game companies exploring "premium" plans, not just locked into an arbitrary $10 standard established 3 years ago based on UO's (erroneous) market projections.

My 79 cents,

Daniel Ban (Sharpe)

I think that there is at least one MMORPG in the works that will cost as much as $20 per month to play. Also, Simutronics has a premium version of one of their text-based MUDs that's maybe $40 per month -- can't remember the details. They guarantee that the player population will be capped at a low figure and that there will be more guides available creating quests, etc.

EQ has actually gotten pretty good about crowding with the two expansions and some free new zones. I'm sure there are still some hot spots that are heavily camped, but I've been playing lately and many zones are not crowded at all.

If someone comes out with a game that's on the leading edge graphically and is willing to guarantee a lot of GM-manufactured events, they could probably charge as much as $30 per month to play and pull in good numbers. Considering their bandwidth and server costs would be less if they had a player population capped at 50,000, charging $30 per month could be really profitable.

I'm sure EA and Sony have themselves thought about these issues. We may see a game like Star Wars have a regular subscription and a premium one that guarantees fewer players and more GM interaction. Probably not, but it's possible.

I'm more worried about these developers actually finishing these games and getting them to market. People playing the Anarchy Online beta are not too happy about Funcom's recent announcement that the game is going gold on the 27th of June. They're saying that the beta is far, far from ready for release. I'm sure Funcom has hit a point where they can't fund development any further with a revenue stream.

One of the big issues with crowding in a game like EQ is that there is basically only one MOB in the game that will drop a given item. This is nice in that you know exactly where you have to go to get the item but everyone else in the game knows this too which is the downside. There were plenty of zones in EQ that had little action due to the poor experience or the fact they had crappy items. I am sure the expansions have helped the experience part but what about the item part?

In any event I would also be willing to pay more for a better experience. Whether it is more quests or fewer people or easier access to items etc.

-- Xaroc

Xaroc, Kunark has big zones with lots of decent loot. I think a number of the original zones have been retooled as well. Verant has also boosted the XP given for kills in dungeons and given a bit more of a bonus for grouping.

The Velious zones, which I've only skirted, have the reputation of being great for treasure but with MOBs that are too tough for their levels.

The only problem with EQ is no matter how much they improve loot and XP, it still gets dull after awhile. Its the mechanics that need to be improved... like a more workable economy, and gameplay that doesn't resolve over hack n slash. Though UO wasn't perfect with its world economy it did offer the illusion of a real world economy which is pretty cool.

I would pay as high as 20 bux a month for a game that included souped up EQ hack n slash group gameplay with an "as deep" UO economy/skillset w/ souped up EQ character graphics and AC style area transitions... a mmrpg like that would get my 20 bux a month, if done right.

etc

These $10 numbers are only relevant when measured against the development/upkeep costs and the anticipated user base. Once you hit a certain number of subscribers, more and more of that $10 becomes lovely profit. The trick is getting to that point. I don't know what these things cost to make, but they probably all cost different amounts. Origin, in particular, has a horrible history when it comes to cost overruns and high upkeep due to buggy products. It's probably pretty safe to say that Verant at 100,000 subscribers made a lot more profit than Origin with 100,000 subscribers, for instance.

I read something somewhere that seemed to indicate that Verant spent $3-5 of every $10 they received on running the game.

The rest of the year will be very interesting for MMORPGs. Anarchy Online is launching next month and is the first major MMORPG since AC. I keep expecting UO to run out of gas, but they don't. The Luclin expansion in December for EQ will be a major upgrade. Shadowbane and Dark Age of Camelot should also launch this year.

Can they all thrive? I'm kind of doubtful. I wonder if either AC or UO might be a casualty? I really can't see EQ being hurt too much.

EQ will survive well into Luclin and will perhaps be king til there Star Wars game. Shadowbane still doesn't have a publisher and doesn't look to be released this year. and DAoC still only has one land (out of a possible three) in betatest... i'm expecting a late winter 2002 release for DAoC. The only new mmrpg that will be released is AO...that looks to be the only definite to expect. plus, lots of ppl on the web are saying AO is NOT ready, and looks to be buggy... is that true? have you tried anymore AO recently Mark? as a betatester right now, do you think its anyway near release?

No, I haven't logged into AO recently. I don't know why. The game's pretty neat. I think I have MMORPG malaise or something. I've been playing EQ, but I've tailed off from that too.

But yes, beta testers seem very concerned about the release date for AO. I hope Funcom is doing the right thing -- if the game is released and doesn't play well, it could really kill its chances for making it big.

I wouldn't underestimate the market for MMP games. In times when the economy starts pulling in its horns (like now, for instance), a fixed-cost yet unlimited-use entertainment source starts looking pretty good. Kind of like the Koreans and Starcraft, I'm thinking. Except that for these games, it has more multinational potential, perhaps.