The current generation of FTP RMT PTW games may seem like the future of online gaming but it should not be the future of Norrath. I believe these companies are failing to see how the quick buck gain of the "RMT Model" is actually going to loose them customers in the long run and force them into continual expensive development cycles. For SOE those lost customers have proved to be the loyal mainstay of the actual business that the RMT model is destroying. The FTP and RMT crowd is fickle and will not net companies the same long term financial stability that we do. Games need to be made for them but those games should not include the EQ franchise. Smed says he wants to end the cycle of game jumping but it is exactly these RMT/FTP type players that are the game jumpers. By propping up the RMT community even more SOE will destroy the long term viable growth potential of the EQ franchise. Up until a few months ago I paid, and was happy to pay, the standard monthly account for EQ1 and then EQ2 when it went live. $180 is not much but it is alot more than I am willing to continue pay to the current cash shop FTP model. Currently no game has really been able to separate FTP and RMT. RMT creep into Norrath will (albiet may) lead to PTW. The CoE merc is an example of a PTW/RMT piece of gear. Not overly strong as of yet but our current cash shop seeped in slowly too. According to a recent article on one of the gaming network sites SOE claims to have about 100k subscribers in the EQ franchise. Lets look at the break down: EQ Franchise: $15*12*10,000 active subscribers = $1,800,000 gross/y $15*12*50,000 = $9,000,000 gross/y $15*12*100,000 = $18,000,000 gross/y WoW: $15*12*4,000,000 = $720,000,000 gross/y cash cow. I doubt the SOE 100k figure claim to be true and 50k seems a tad low even for the EQ franchise. WoW numbers claim to be in the millions. SOE wants that WOW income and they will kill the EQ franchise trying to chase after it and achieve it. Smed once said he should have named EQ2 something other than EQ2. He should heed his advice and name EQNext something other than EQNext if they are chasing that cash cow with the next incarnation of Norrath. Build the cash cow by all means for those other people but keep the games separate - you cannot please both crowds at the same time in the same game. Build the overly simplified bugzapper MMO that the FTP/RMT/PTW crowd wants to garner your cash cow BUT focus on a solid EQ game with a real stat system reminiscent of what we older school players loved in EQ1 with some Vanguard, some EQ2 and even some of the cooler concepts from newer games but make it a real solid DnD type MMO that is not a simple face roll. Provide some challenge and we will pay. Build it from scratch with PVP in mind (PvE servers too for that crowd) and keep RMT/FTP/and PTW out of it. I propose that if you build this for a limited targeted sustained playing player base of around 50k people that want and will pay a sub for such a game with no RMT or PTW cash shop crap and you won't loose money because that 9 mill will over the next decade net your company 90 million. Keep a solid smaller team of dedicated GMs/artists/programers that release periodic smaller updates in the form of new zones, open dungeons, raids, classes, playable races, major quest lines etc and your golden. Stay true to the content and we will pay - we will play with our families and friends and online friends for the next decade. Keeping your overhead low you will keep these costs inline for this game. By all means build some other RMT, PTW, FTP eye candy bugzapper of a game, sell a million copies to people who will play for a month or 2 or 3 and then go elsewhere causing you to start another "next big thing" development cycle to sell another 500k units that amount to nothing more than $24 million in sales but will never reach the sales potential of the smaller sale but longer run better title I describe above. Sell curtains and armor fabled horseshoes in that RMT store, hook that game up to social media, but let us stay in our deep dark dungeon and just play the game.
So... $15/month was fine before, but not now that they have SC? Did the gameplay change? Would you not be able to raid or do dungeons if other players who also do that content bought some of their gear? Not that I want to see gear on the Marketplace, but it really doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game. And, how, exactly, does one "win" an MMO?
WoW is the Southwest Airlines of MMO's and EQ2 is just another Braniff or Eastern. SOE will always be playing catch-up to Blizzard's business model, but will never succeed. That's because Blizzard is like the hedgehog from Isaiah Berlin's model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox) and SOE is like the fox. (The hedgehog specializes in one thing and does it exceedingly well, whereas the fox tries to be good at all things and fails.)
I doubt I will be playing EQ Next. But the OP also said that we are currently at PTW, and i don't see that. I don't see anything on the marketplace I can buy that takes out epic encounters. There is no real gear to buy, etc. most everything only works if you are solo/molo
I have no illusions that EQNext will not include a station store. I do not want to see purchasable mercs, gear, adorns etc. I want a solid game and I want to pay a standard monthy sub for it - whether that sub is paid via debit, credit, or sc does not matter but any SC store leads to RMT creep. The more they focus on RMT the less time they have to focus on content and debugging and that is my real concern.
