Microtransactions
The subscriber model has been the default model for payment in video games. Every MMO I can think of in the past few years have been using this model; you buy the game and pay per month (or block of months) to play the game and for a while, it has worked. However because of the popularity of WOW, new MMO’s are trying to break into the same market and aren’t being successful – it would seem that a majority of gamers aren’t willing to pay for more than one subscription to a game and rightly so – why should we be ‘bleed’ out money to play a game every month?
In the Eastern side of the globe, microtransaction model has been used and is very successful. What are microtransactions? Well, it’s paying a small amount (usually under 5 dollars or less) for something, maybe some points to buy new items, or a level or DLC (Downloadable Content). We’re seeing that the Western gaming companies follow suite.
There’s a few examples which I am playing at the moment; one of them being League of Legends. LOL takes a great approach to getting people to pay using microtransactions. There’s a lot of champions to play in this game (55 at the time of writing). As a non-playing player, every week you have access to 10 different champions – this is a great way to keep non-playing players interested by offering new champions to try out every week. If you really like a champion and would like to play them outside of the week, you can either use IP to buy then (earning IP as you win games) or pay money for Riot Points and purchase them. Having two methods of payments allows players have a choice to earn the champion or just pay for it. On top of this, there’s other things in the game to purchase, runes (to improve your champion) which can be earnt, and also if you’re one of those gamers who like to personalise things; some new skins for your champion.
Social Media games, such at Zynga networks, gives the game for free on facebook (or you can buy the app on iDevices). You get a set amount of turns for free, however if you want more turns to tend for your farm/mafia, then you can choose to pay money for these turns. I believe you can even pay just for levels, or weapons, or animals (I don’t know, I don’t play them). Either way, last I heard is that they were leaving facebook due to their changes in policy, and creating their own network called ZLive.
Digital Distribution networks like Steam also somewhat provide these gaming services, albeit differently. You don’t pay for an steam account, but to have any games on it, you purchase them. These bind to your account and you can change computers, play on your friends or whatever, as long as you are signed into steam and they download the game to their computer. Games can also be dual OS (Mac/PC); Valve providing support to their games, and you can freely change your OS and keep playing the games you already pay for. Steam always have some sort of sales on, you can buy bundles of games for a big saving rather than buying them alone, and if you already have a game you can gift it to your friends. Steam is very successful in being one of those digital distribution hubs – not only because of the cost/content but also the social aspect mechanism.
Real ID is something Blizzard is trying to do with their new revamped Battle.net, B.net accounts, and the coming release of Starcraft 2. You pay for the SC2 cd key, bind it to your battle.net account and freely play online SC 2 matches with it. These accounts also bind with your WOW account, so they’re providing some connection between their range of games. From inside WOW/SC2, you can see what friends you have online, what game they are playing, what character names and realms. Not so much to do with microtransactions but we can see a trend to social gaming, seeing all your friends playing SC2 will probably persuade you to think “maybe I should get this game because everyone on my friends list is playing it”.
Companies ultimately want to sell games, and need a new model to do it. Other MMO’s are coming up, and failing, because of the same old subscription model in which no gamer wants to pay per month, especially if they only play the game once or a twice a week. Microtransaction is this model, and the implementation will be the future of online gaming.