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[MetalSlimeHunt]

Personally, I think that anyone who makes games should try to follow the Valve model as much as possible. Single payments on everything, lots of sales and free updates. It's controversial, it's counterintuitive, and there are lots of people who do hate Valve, but for the most part the customers are happy and not screwed over while Valve is rich and successful. It clearly works and everyone is happy, except the hardcore Valve-haters who would never be appeased anyway.

Really, it surprises me how much there is to be gained in not being a bastard about capitalism when a company can resist that urge.

[Sowelu]

How many servers does Valve host?  They don't sell MMOs.  Your argument is invalid.  Remember, once a single-player or user-run-server game has been published, the marginal cost of selling another copy is damn near zero.  If you sell a copy of Half-Life 1 for two cents off Steam, even if they play it every day for a year, you've made a profit.  If you get a World of Warcraft player to subscribe for a year for two cents, you're losing money.

...Actually, Valve does host SOME 'pure' servers for their various FPSes, but not all of them by any means.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

How many servers does Mojang host? Like Valve, very few. Hell, the lack of charging server fees is why some people think Notch is even making this thing.

I feel like there's a way around this problem for an MMO. I just haven't finished thinking of it yet, but I believe I'm onto something.

Now, for WoW specifically, that's not really fair. So many people play WoW that Blizzard might actually be still making money even if they did charge a really low annual fee. I also recall hearing that a bunch of Blizzard's WoW income actually doesn't come from the subscriptions anymore. Didn't they institute some kind of real-to-game money system at some point? I've never played WoW so I don't really know myself.

[Lord Dullard]

A low annual fee actually makes more sense to me the more that I think about it. Yes, there's some degree of uncertainty you'll have to prepare for when it comes to the first year's subs going up, but you should be able to get a fairly decent sense judging by new subs in that first-year period of whether the game will be viable past that point (and if it's not, just make sure you have enough banked to finish out two years' worth of server costs). At any rate, you can cut the costs for customers and also receive a larger initial financial boost than you would with monthly subs. And perhaps more importantly, I think people would be more willing to deal with a one-time yearly payment than with the hassle associated with monthly payments. Seems win-win to me.

[Microcline]

How DO you fund a truly MMO-based game like this, if not by a monthly fee?  I mean, what on earth do you charge for?  Pay-to-win sucks, and "you only buy it once" is a great way to bring down the game's servers in a real hurry once new players stop signing up.

Let's be generous and say that an average player uses $0.50 per month in bandwidth and amortized CPU costs, and that advertising costs and pay for the devs are fairly minimal.  What kind of payment scheme can you use, which guarantees an average income of like $6.00 per player per year?

I don't think anyone is debating the use of subscriptions for MMOs.  All things considered, a reasonable subscription is probably the most honest form of payment available for that kind of service.

The problem is that in exchange for a subscription the player tends to expect a minimum level of support.  Minecraft's multiplayer is a buggy, unfinished product made playable through extensive modification.  If Notch running a central server for his game, he discards that crutch.  It's almost impossible to argue that Mojang has the level of finesse and quality assurance required to pull something like this off.

[Metalax]

So I've got a thought experiment for you guys (partially because I have a small stake in it, even if I probably won't go back to that project for a while).

How DO you fund a truly MMO-based game like this, if not by a monthly fee?  I mean, what on earth do you charge for?  Pay-to-win sucks, and "you only buy it once" is a great way to bring down the game's servers in a real hurry once new players stop signing up.

Let's be generous and say that an average player uses $0.50 per month in bandwidth and amortized CPU costs, and that advertising costs and pay for the devs are fairly minimal.  What kind of payment scheme can you use, which guarantees an average income of like $6.00 per player per year?

For a generic MMO, some ideas for what could be sold are below. Obviously the specifics would change depending on the type of game.

Cosmetic items.
Items that are available to be purchased from in-game shops with in-game currency or that are common drops.
Character editing items, ie name change, gender/appearance change, total reset and rebuild, etc.
Character upgrades such as extra bank slots/inventory slots as long as such slots can also be purchased with in-game money(even if a substantial ammount).
XP boosts if PvP is by similar player level or game is primarily PvE.
Guild/gang/outfit creation charters.

Stuff that should not be sold in cash shops;
High level equipment with lower level requirements than what can be obtained in game.
Crafting materials.
Items that duplicate those that can be crafted by players.
Items with actual game effects that cannot be obtained in game.
Rare drop items.

Stuff that could be offered to subscribers
Priority login on busy servers.
Longer idle period before being kicked.
Priority tech support, though free players should not be ignored/told to just read the support forum.
Small free monthly amount of cash shop currency.
Free Guild/Gang/Outfit creation.

For subs offering both monhtly and yearly subscriptions would probably be bast, some people prefer either option either because they want to avoid the hassle of monthly subs or only wanting to pay for the months that they are going to be playing.

[Sowelu]

How DO you fund a truly MMO-based game like this, if not by a monthly fee?  I mean, what on earth do you charge for?  Pay-to-win sucks, and "you only buy it once" is a great way to bring down the game's servers in a real hurry once new players stop signing up.

Let's be generous and say that an average player uses $0.50 per month in bandwidth and amortized CPU costs, and that advertising costs and pay for the devs are fairly minimal.  What kind of payment scheme can you use, which guarantees an average income of like $6.00 per player per year?

I don't think anyone is debating the use of subscriptions for MMOs.  All things considered, a reasonable subscription is probably the most honest form of payment available for that kind of service.

The problem is that in exchange for a subscription the player tends to expect a minimum level of support.  Minecraft's multiplayer is a buggy, unfinished product made playable through extensive modification.  If Notch running a central server for his game, he discards that crutch.  It's almost impossible to argue that Mojang has the level of finesse and quality assurance required to pull something like this off.

Ah!  Now I understand the arguments better.  This seems sensible to me.

[Sirus]

Stuff that could be offered to subscribers
Priority login on busy servers.
Longer idle period before being kicked.
Priority tech support, though free players should not be ignored/told to just read the support forum.
Small free monthly amount of cash shop currency.
Free Guild/Gang/Outfit creation.

I can support pretty much all of these. City of Heroes does similar stuff, but it's still playable to end-game content without paying a cent.

[Sowelu]

I play CoH and they restrict certain character classes to subscribers only, as well as stuff like custom missions, so it's a little on the fence.  It does work though.

[alway]

I really really like the sound of this game so much, and seems like it would get a generation of kids to start learning coding to play it haha, so in reality your learning and playing at the same time... I know his would make me more inclined to learn more and more I depth about programming.

The only thing which I look at and think hmm I do NOT like the sound of this is that players can create viruses.... how is that going to work exactly is it going to be like back doors into your ship and then off your generators and stuff, or something alot more malicious like as in breaking your game Ect...

And how long till you think Notch will release it for us to buy for alpha ?

I somehow think that he'll at least put basic measures in place to prevent people spreading malware and shit inside the game that breaks your computer or game.

In-game computers will be game for viruses and malware, as stated by Notch. Expecting them to do anything outside of the simulated game world would be almost as silly as expecting the HFS in DF to burst out of your monitor and chase you around your room.

As for subscription fees, it really depends on the game. I agree with Notch on Free-2-Play being something of a scam in that it isn't actually free. Sure, I could play it without paying anything, but just the psychology of there being real money shops seems to unconsciously turn me away. I'm fine with paying for a game and paying a subscription for a game, but for whatever reason feel that resources in a game and resources outside of games should be always separate.

[Tilla]

I find monthly subscriptions terrible because not everyone wants to commit to playing in such timeframes. I get bored of games usually in a week or two and then don't touch them for a while. This is why F2P has been great for me. I'm not sure what sort of middlegrounds exists, but very few people have tried different sized subscriptions (Pay $1 to login for a day, or $5 for a week, or full $10-15 for a month). I think this might be a neat way to do it honestly. Alternately some games have had hourly purchases - it could be cool to experiment with that.

Honestly MMO design has been far too safe with their pricing models, for the first decade+ it was mostly subscription only and even with F2P now in the mix people aren't trying new things nearly enough. Guild Wars WAS a grand experiment as clearly that was insanely profitable, enough that they're building the sequel much bigger but keeping  that model. I think Notch has a lot of work cut out for him.

[Neonivek]

They don't want to put subscriptions to a day to day basis because it means they get less money overall.

It is why a lot of MMOs give you sometimes large discounts for signing up for a year... because chances are you will only use half that time.

[Sowelu]

Just in case there's more to discuss, I thought I should unhijack this thread.  Pricing models thread

[Rose]

Spoiler: Suddenly, rails. (click to show/hide)

[Sowelu]

I wonder what FPS he's getting for these suckers.  I care /very much/ about making sure I can see fifty ships out the window and still run at a reasonable rate.