Posts Tagged ‘real money transaction’

Females are big casual gamers, but don’t ask them to pay

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

A new study released by Q Interactive further confirms the results from their earlier study released last November, indicating that women are big social gamers. But don’t call them gamers, nor ask them to pay to play.

770 women were surveyed in January and questioned about their knowledge of online gaming and virtual worlds. 36 percent indicated that they regularly play games on Facebook, with 54 percent admitting that they play at least on social game per day. Mafia Wars and Farmville scored top ranks on female gamers’ choices.

“This provides a terrific opportunity for brands to serve as a trusted, valued partner to them. By having a presence in the game and app space, brands get the benefit of reaching an influential consumer set,” said Ian Johnson, Director, Social Media World Forum. “With the support of brands, advance in games and apps and we’re finding also get information from brands they value.”

And while women may be huge consumers of casual games, please do not refer to them as ‘gamers’. Less than half of those surveyed (42 percent) would call themselves a ‘gamer’. However, these ‘non-gamers’, 67 percent of them, consider between 1 and 5 hours per week a socially acceptable amount of online play time. Likewise, when asked if they would pay (i.e. use real money transactions) to play, over three quarters of them (77 percent) indicated that they would pull the plug on their ‘non-gaming’ addiction playtime. 97 percent said that they would rather ‘earn’ virtual currency through games rather than investing actual, real-world money.

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Battlefield Heroes raises prices – receives player backlash

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

The EA/DICE title Battlefield Heroes has had a bit of a long and winding road. From being ready to go, then only to be put on hold, and finally the release with a rather gradual, we’ll let anyone in beta. Back in September EA reported that the free-to-play title had passed the 2 million registered players mark, and all seemed well. Likewise, only a month prior, EA’s own senior analytics manager Rommy Ghaly revealed that on average, users spend around $20 in-game. Sounds fair, and all is fine and dandy in this free-to-play shooter n’est pas? Well….apparently not, as EA dropped the virtual bomb yesterday by announcing that the cost of in-game earned currency was going up, while at the same time, RMT (real money transaction) cost were to be lowered. In other words – earning currency by playing has fallen out of favor at EA, and cold hard cash income is coming to the forefront.

Announced on the forum, Battlefield Heroes price restructuring took effect on the 30th, and offers players incentives to purchase items using real money transactions to purchase the virtual currency BattleFunds, as opposed to the currency earned through play, Valor Points. In effect, EA has jacked up the cost of items purchased with Valor Points, while cut the cost of items purchased with BattleFunds by upwards of 50 percent.

But why? To find the answer to this, one might want to have a read through the 70+ page forum thread of players’ reactions. To say that they’re not pleased might be a bit of an understatement. However, if seen from EA’s position, they’ve got an interesting quandary on their hands now – one that can effect virtual economies if not properly planned. It seems as though EA has an imbalanced economy, in so much as players with plenty of time on their hands, ones that have acquired massive amounts of Valor Points through play, often have accounts with upwards of 20,000 points just sitting in the economy. Through not spending this currency, the in-game economy becomes unbalanced. To add to the headache, items purchased with said Valor Point are impermanent items which expire after a certain amount of time. Conversely, items purchased with BattleFunds are permanent items. In other words – those that spend real money for items have them forever, while earned currency buyers have advanced items for a pre-determined time period. The question is – will this change now upset game balance?

What’s also important to keep in mind here is that when Battlefield Heroes first arrived on the scene, they were the only free-to-play first person shooter on the market. Since then, competitors such as Nexon’s Combat Arms or Subagames’ Cross Fire have joined the free-to-play fps ranks. As expected, with the pricing change, a number of vocal players are irate, and have suggested that they’d rather move on to something else, rather than grind away for days on end to acquire items that previously only took a few hours to get. And while these vocal players often serve up empty threats, given the number of them (not counting those that have NOT voiced their opinions), a mass exodus is something that EA should be considering carefully before we see the once promising Battlefield Heroes dead in the water.

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Blizzard moves one step closer to microtransactions

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Blizzard’s worldwide leader in the MMORPG genre, World of Warcraft took one step closer to microtransactions yesterday when they announced the availability of two unique pet companions. These two companions are available for real world money purchase exclusively at the Blizzard World of Warcraft Pet Store.

wow-pets

This new move however isn’t the first real money transaction service we’ve seen been made available by Blizzard. Prior to yesterday’s announcement, the franchise had offered paid realm (server) transfers, name changes, character re-customization, and the newly implemented race and faction change, as well as hinted at ‘some type’ of microtransactions. Add purchasable in-game pets to the roster, and we’re now one step closer to a fully fledged microtransaction revenue generating title. Note, not a free-to-play, microtransaction supported model, but one that utilizes microtransactions as an additional form of income.

As noted with the previous paid services available, and Blizzard’s increasing amount of awarded in-game pets (it seems as though every special holiday event has some type of awarded companion), this move to offering a special paid companion seems like a logical step – but how will the community react? Traditionally, World of Warcraft (WoW) has been the last bastion of the traditional subscription based form of online gaming.

Perhaps anticipating a backlash, and surely studying what others in the free-to-play field are doing and have learned, the official FAQ highlights that the pets will not offer any battle or gameplay benefits, as they are strictly cosmetic enhancements, therein combating the pay-to-pwn theory.

The new introduction is in part a piece from a much larger project Blizzard is working on – converting all accounts to a one singular account; one at battle.net. This conversion to a ‘one account management center’ can only be seen as a way for Blizzard to cross promote it’s products. The deadline for converting accounts is November 12th, and if players convert before this deadline, they receive a special companion pet – for free. Seeding this idea of various pets, again awarded from special holiday events and/or an account conversion has been a brilliant pre-release strategy, getting users into a cosmetic status mindset, and then releasing additional companions available only via a microtransaction purchase. With that said, players that do want to purchase these two new pets may do so only after their WoW account has been converted to a Battle.net account.

At $10 a piece, these exclusive pets may not be viewed as a “micro”transaction, but they do introduce RMT’s into a game that has long stayed away from anything outside server, name, and gender, race and looks options.

The two new pets available are the “Pandaren Monk”, a panda vaguely resembling a Kung Fu Panda character. All Monks purchased between now and years end will have half of the purchase price donated to the Make-a-Wish foundation.

The other (and in my opinion, the one that most players will opt for) is “Lil’ K.T., the Littlest Lich,” a miniature version of the Naxxramas dungeon boss Kel’Thuzad which Blizzard states “has a diabolical laugh” and shoots ice.

So while this move to purchasable in-game pets certainly doesn’t signal a move on Blizzard’s part to make their successful World of Warcraft a free-to-play game anytime soon, it does put them one step closer to incorporating more and more Real Money Transaction based purchases into a traditionally, pay for your play time and you’re done, style play.

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Riot Games secures an additional $8 million in funding

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Los Angeles based Riot Games has recently secured an additional $8 million in funding. The funding comes from Chinese online services company Tencent, most known for their QQ instant messenger client, Benchmark Capital and FirstMark Capital. Tencent will also be publishing Riot’s upcoming League of Legends game in China.

Riot Games, a fatfoogoo client, is now in the closed beta stage with their League of Legends fighter. Currently, 50,000 players are engaged in the testing phase, and Riot plans on an October official launch date. The free-to-play title is loosely based on a popular Warcraft III mod, Defense of the Ancients, and builds upon the popular peer-vs.-peer form of play. Up to six players can battle on one side, where they play as “summoners” that conjure up a wide variety of champions that fight in a myriad of varied battlegrounds. Riot states that the title is not an MMORPG, but contains a number of persistent game elements that are in the spirit of an MMORPG. “That is to say, while a large aspect of the game will be session-based battles, there will also be persistent elements, such as the Summoner, abilities, and levels that exist continuously throughout the game.”

Again, League of Legends is a free-to-play title, however if players want to customize their characters, or purchase time-saving features, a full featured in-game, microtransaction based in-game item shop is available. Riot has provided two types of available currency: one that can me earned through experience, or, one that can be purchased through real money transactions. Through this monetization option, Riot is preventing the pay-to-pwn stigma, and in the eyes of most gamers, provides a better balanced/fair play form of in-game spending.

In an interview with Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat, Benchmark partner Mitch Lasky said, “that the investment was attractive because the company had created an addictive game that players could revisit again and again with endless variety. The risk is that players might get bored with this kind of repetitive game play.” He also added, “They [Riot Games] nailed a model where you combined the game play of a hardcore game with the monetization of casual online games. When you go after serious gamers who pay $60 for a game, you have to realize that they have a certain expectation for game quality. The deal with Tencent validates the progress the company has made toward this goal.”

With Riot’s staff of core members hailing from a number of former hits including, Ulitma Online, Dungeon Siege, Jak & Dakter, Heroes of Might & Magic, Neverwinter Nights 2, Sly Cooper and Total Annihilation, it’s a fair bet to say that Riot can and will deliver on a console quality experience at a free-to-play price. Naturally, we’re a little biased, but from what we’ve seen thus far, let’s just put it this way: prepare for all your preconceptions about what a free-to-play is and what the quality standards are, to be shattered.

League of Legends has a projected October release date. More information and beta signups are available at leagueoflegends.com.

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