Tag: subscription

The MMO Subscription Cull: 2018 Edition

Posted on by Gazimoff

Over the last few years, I’ve developed a bit of a January ritual. I look at the games coming out and think about what I want to play, and there’s plenty to look forward to in 2018. But I only have so much time to play games, which means something else has to give.

Sometimes it means that a free-to-play game gets shelved for a while, but it also makes sense to cut back on subscriptions. After all, why spend £10 a month for a game that I don’t even have time to log into? That way I get both more time and more money.

So, without further ado, here’s what’s on the chopping block this year. And although some of the titles may be obvious, the reasons why might surprise you.

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Free to Play: Myth or Miracle?

Posted on by Gazimoff

It’s become almost a perennial tale: an MMO in distress makes the switch to free-to-play and becomes instantly successful. But, without hard numbers, it’s been difficult to appreciate just how much a difference it can make.

That has now changed. In a great interview with Daniel Tack at Forbes, Rift Creative Director Bill Fisher revealed some fascinating figures. It’s worth reading the entire article, but the headline number is staggering: revenue increased five times. That’s difficult for any developer to ignore.

It gives rise to a number of follow-up questions. Was the uplift a momentary surge or sustained growth? What does the average revenue per active player look like? How reliant are they on a certain subset of players? Has the change improved Rift’s long-term fortunes, or was it just a blip on the radar?

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SWTOR: The Retention Rate Question

Posted on by Gazimoff

Earlier today I was listening to Talk of the Galaxy over on Galactic Public Radio, when they reminded me that the month of game time bundled with the full version of the game was about to expire and that subscriptions were just about to kick in. There was a little bit of debate about how many players would actually maintain their subscription after the end of the month, with the show hosts generally feeling that it’s a difficult thing to predict.

Trying to forecast renewal rates is pretty challenging at the best of times, mainly because there’s very few benchmarks on these figures for MMOs. The most common figure that’s announced is the total subscriber base, although sometimes we’ll hear about how those subscribers are distributed by market. We’re also not given churn rates, so we have no clue about the number of new subscribers coming in versus the ones that are leaving.

So what exactly is there to go on? Well, assuming that the best renewal rate BioWare can hope for is 100%, let’s have a look at what will help them keep that number high and what’s dragging it down like a lead weight.

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A Limit on Subscription MMOs?

Posted on by Gazimoff

With Star Wars: The Old Republic being less than a month away, the game seems to be treading the well-worn path of other top-flight MMOs in charging a subscription. For $14.99 or £8.99 a month you’ll be able to clash lightsabers as much as you like. But is a subscription the right model to be using?

At face value a subscription seems to be ideal. Play as much as you like with all the content you want for a single monthly fee. You have the same character slots and the same bank space as everyone else. The only difference is in the box you buy and the extra goodies that come with it.

On the flip side though, subscriptions are also incredibly limiting if you want to play more than one game. It makes sense to pay monthly when you’re only playing one game, but if there’s another that you might only play occasionally you start to question the value of the subscription. It’s something that I’ve struggled with when trying to divide my time between Warcraft and Rift.

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The Optional Extras

Posted on by Gazimoff

We often think of choice as being a good thing. Go to any chocolate shop and you’re greeted with a range of options to choose from, all of them tempting. Then again, being free from choice is also a wonderful thing –buying chocolates by the box is much more popular than just choosing a couple of favourites. But what happens when you take this concept out of the chocolate shop and into the world of MMOs?

Concern recently emerged that anyone buying the digital download version of Cataclysm would miss out on any of the in-game cinematics. The issue was quickly resolved, with a note that the downloader would be updated to include all previous and future cinematics and cutscenes. While interesting on its own, the incident also served to highlight a recent interview in Game Informer. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick mentioned that there is the possibility of selling cutscenes as a separate product, like a DVD or similar in the same way that soundtrack CDs are produced.

Unfortunately the two stories managed to get jumbled together. Speculation was rife that those who bought the digital download would somehow miss out, or that they’d have to pay extra to download the cutscenes as well. Both of these turned out not to be the case, but they do raise some interesting questions.

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