Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Everquest 2 - RMT A Success?

I am confused.

I have been reading over the latest news from MMOExperience about the RMT system, and then the thread over at the EQ2 forums.

According to Grimwell

"The initial response to Station Cash has been a success for SOE"

Really?

Then why is a thread for feedback on the system full of "I quits" and hatred?

Who decided it was a success? Was a database showing a list of people opening the RMT window considered a success?
How many people really cannot live without these fluff items that they must pay SOE more than a Station Pass?
And then XP and AA potions? Really? Easy ways for the affluent to power level?

Almost like Gold Buying.

So, I ask, who is this a success for?

Corporate greed?

I can hear the commenter's now...

"SOE has to make money"

Duh.

But, had they not found one way to do this? Station Pass? They also already had one server doing this. Was it the more populated server? They thought others wanted it?
I think I noted this on another comment section or forum post.
If SOE needs money, they have quite a few dead weight MMO's they could drop (Vanguard, MxO, PoTBS).
And want to make more money on your best MMO? Try to improve the core gameplay and engine.

But this... this just smacks of greed, pure and simple, and so many agree.

SOE, have you finally taken the last step over that edge?

5 comments:

Gamer Hudson said...

Hmm I dont know. How they can tell it is a success after about a week I have no idea. Is it bringing in new people? Is it getting word out about the game?

On another note that thread seems to indicate SOME people liked it, and they threw out a bunch of ideas that make it sound kind of neat. However you are right about where to spend the money.

Tesh said...

They may also be privy to data that we don't see. They probably also have different metrics to measure "success" than we do.

Beyond that, considering that Nick Yee estimated that something like 22% of WoW players bought gold through a third party, there is definitely RMT demand out there. I suspect that the demand is greater than the number of people who fuss about it (and in some cases, those who fuss are also hypocritically patrons of gold sellers). That's just me guessing, though.

Danshir said...

Judging from what I'm seeing on forums over at MMORPG.com, and on SOE's own forums, there are more people upset then happy.

However, that is vocally. Happy people or at least content people won't go to a forum to post about it. You only really troll forums when your angry.

I'm still on the fence with SOE doing this. It's all fluff items and some EXP pots now, but they are already talking about adding weapons and armor.

And if your going to add a RMT system, take away my subscription fees please ;)

Anonymous said...

It is a minority that frequent game forums and even a smaller portion that actually posts there. And people tend to post more when they are upset than when they are reasonably happy with something, or indifferent for that matter.

I do not see a problem with them selling whatever they want, as long as they do not exploit design flaws or cause game experience for non-buyers to be hampered.

I think they certainly may have some more demands to show profit and they may have been a bit sheltered, having their pile of tghe budget money being just a part of a larger Sony entertainment budget. Losses or not so good profit could easily be hidden.

It is interesting to note that people get upset because SOE tries the MT route here. And people got upset with NCSoft for cancelling Tabula Rasa and _not_ trying the MT route to keep the game around...

City of Heroes/Villains has added some more income venues in the past year - Wedding and cyborg costume sets, additional character slots, respec token, character transfer and rename.

All bits and pieces that get more money from the players and which also has gone into the released content (e.g. Wedding pack did finance adding Villain Epic Archetypes in Issue 12).

The only objection I have had to these things has been the respec token option, which I think was exploiting a design flaw in the game. They have somewhat addressed the issue in Issue 13 though, with the multiple builds available for a character.

Tesh said...

"And if your going to add a RMT system, take away my subscription fees please ;)"

Yes, this. I've been arguing for precisely this for a while now. Microtransactions and a dual currency model can completely replace the subscription model, and still make money because they are expanding the user base.