Why pay per hour sub plans would be bad for the West

[Nadja]

Speaking from the Genre POV Hourly subs are probably a bad idea for the West.

The gaming industry is competative and while thats good it would invite more FotM swapping games, multiple games played per player, and less loyalty to a particular game. For the player you may be saying HELLYA! for the developers of games it would be bad news.

As the market grows and newer games come onto the scene that would mean that they could expect less cash flow per account, more frequent upgrades, and force games to dumb down (casual friendly) their content in order to maintain market share.

It would also lead to less endgame content as the larger amount of players would not stick with games very long. You could argue the reverse and say that it would lead to less grind as developers allowed you to progress rapidly through a game to get to endgame quickly HOWEVER this would lead to drasticly less content as they would not waste resources to provide a deep game experience realizing that gamers just want to hit endgame so they could move on to the next FotM game. As the profit margins shrink games would get more generic, have less community (guilds would become almost useless) and provide much more solo experiences.

Further as the profit margins shrunk games would require less developement costs in order to stay competative, ie smaller staff, less support, passable but not great graphics. Who wants to pony up the 5-12 million dollars it requires to build an MMO if your playerbase won't pay for it for long and quickly moves to the next new experience.

All in all, pay per hour would turn MMOs into LAN console games. Bad Idea.

[betrayal]

100% agree

+1

[Vestricalx]

The only reason people say it is good, they want more bang for their buck.

In all reality, it is for the the payer, but not for the person recieving the payment. This is why the chinese/korean and what not stick to their games, the companies not only care for customers, but also go WITH them.

[Muta]

Only make people pay per hour they run a private store.

[Pearson]

Is there even a movement going on for this to happen? Sounds really stupid.

$14.99 a month is the most likely price.

[Sinkro]

There is one huge flaw in your analysis. I am not agreeing or disagreeing, merely pointing out the flaw. How does this relate to the West? Pay per hour has already been established in China and I THINK that's how it is in Korea as well as Japan. If indeed Korea is using the pay by hour payment method, then your analysis could not be more wrong. Being the #1 MMORPG in Korea proves that. Your analysis is a general analysis on the pay by hour payment method, which does nothing to address your title; why pay per hour sub plans would be bad for the West.

If you want your analysis to be valid, you need to first make a clear distinction between the East and West. If pay by hour works in the East, then you need to prove that there is a fundamental difference between the two sides in order to prove it won't work in the West. Or, you could just prove that pay per hour payment method is flawed in general, which if Korea Aion is indeed using, would be false.

[Groovejet]

I've seen a few vidoes mention the form of payment which was paying for the time you play, instead of paying for a month. It's a good way to lose(casuals) and gain(hardcores) money.
It can also be pretty much standard payment for those in the middle region of Casuals and Hardcores, we'll just call them Players.
I think the usual rate ~$18.00 can get you equivalent of 4 hours of play everyday for 30 days(varying upon your own time use).

SO depending on an individuals play scheduel the amount payed can be more, or less, or even the standard amount payed.

Depending on the popularity and longevity of the game, this may, or may not, work in NCsoft's favor.

[Muta]

Let's not even mention the fact that the pay-by-unit system used in China and Korea won't be used in the west, so it's a moot point.

Sorry.

[Nadja]

Originally Posted by Sinkro

There is one huge flaw in your analysis. I am not agreeing or disagreeing, merely pointing out the flaw. How does this relate to the West? Pay per hour has already been established in China and I THINK that's how it is in Korea as well as Japan. If indeed Korea is using the pay by hour payment method, then your analysis could not be more wrong. Being the #1 MMORPG in Korea proves that. Your analysis is a general analysis on the pay by hour payment method, which does nothing to address your title; why pay per hour sub plans would be bad for the West.

If you want your analysis to be valid, you need to first make a clear distinction between the East and West. If pay by hour works in the East, then you need to prove that there is a fundamental difference between the two sides in order to prove it won't work in the West. Or, you could just prove that pay per hour payment method is flawed in general, which if Korea Aion is indeed using, would be false.

Good Question!

The West does not have this option and as I have read in many threads people wonder why/want pay per hour.

The Eastern player represent a larger group of gamers than the US does currently, they also have a differing system of how they play, cyber cafes. Less home PCs with internet access from most reports.

The western players biggest complaints about Eastern games; graphics which could be linked to lower developemnet costs. Grind-related to making player have to play more (more hours) to generate larger revenues. More PvP centric (not a bad thing I might add from my view, but PvP is Pariah to many Westerners) to make up for lack of endgame raiding/high level content.

Aion is a bridge between the two, a bridge I feel that will improve the genre as a whole. However we don't need a bridge between the payment plans. What makes WoW (the only western MMO widely accepted in Asia) profitable is not Eastern subs but its NA/EU base. The Asian market is a bonus to them, valuable yes but no where near as profitable as the West in terms of cash flow.

[Sinkro]

Originally Posted by Nadja

Good Question!

The West does not have this option and as I have read in many threads people wonder why/want pay per hour.

The Eastern player represent a larger group of gamers than the US does currently, they also have a differing system of how they play, cyber cafes. Less home PCs with internet access from most reports.

The western players biggest complaints about Eastern games; graphics which could be linked to lower developemnet costs. Grind-related to making player have to play more (more hours) to generate larger revenues. More PvP centric (not a bad thing I might add from my view, but PvP is Pariah to many Westerners) to make up for lack of endgame raiding/high level content.

Aion is a bridge between the two, a bridge I feel that will improve the genre as a whole. However we don't need a bridge between the payment plans. What makes WoW (the only western MMO widely accepted in Asia) profitable is not Eastern subs but its NA/EU base. The Asian market is a bonus to them, valuable yes but no where near as profitable as the West in terms of cash flow.

The cyber cafes are a good point you brought up. That certainly would favor the pay by hour payment method. The others can easily be shot down in your argument for your OP, but I'm too lazy to disagree with you there =X

You should also bring up the fact that MMORPG's are used as a market in itself. The bot makers, the gold farmers, there's a huge market in Asia for those. It is such a huge source of money to do those things that it's worth the cost for them. Now how this relates to the difference between monthly payments and pay by hour method, I do not know. Heck, it might even undermine the argument you are supporting. But I'm throwing tid bits of information out there that can help or shoot down the argument.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Nadja

What makes WoW (the only western MMO widely accepted in Asia) profitable is not Eastern subs but its NA/EU base. The Asian market is a bonus to them, valuable yes but no where near as profitable as the West in terms of cash flow.

Funny, because with the Chinese servers down, WoW lost 6.5 million subs, down to 5 million. Sounds like China alone was a majority, and a huge cash cow.

[Empower]

Originally Posted by Sinkro

There is one huge flaw in your analysis. I am not agreeing or disagreeing, merely pointing out the flaw. How does this relate to the West? Pay per hour has already been established in China and I THINK that's how it is in Korea as well as Japan. If indeed Korea is using the pay by hour payment method, then your analysis could not be more wrong. Being the #1 MMORPG in Korea proves that. Your analysis is a general analysis on the pay by hour payment method, which does nothing to address your title; why pay per hour sub plans would be bad for the West.

If you want your analysis to be valid, you need to first make a clear distinction between the East and West. If pay by hour works in the East, then you need to prove that there is a fundamental difference between the two sides in order to prove it won't work in the West. Or, you could just prove that pay per hour payment method is flawed in general, which if Korea Aion is indeed using, would be false.

+1 My toughts exactly . After reaching a certain age i come to realise that i dont have the time that i had in the past to play a game. So that is making me more than a casual player and for me the game is more appealing with this method of pay .

[Coopers]

There is no chance of this happening. Why? because i've paid for 3 months sub already, and it was the standard western system.

[Abyss]

All I have to say is they better have the monthly pay plan. Im not paying for no HOUR crap.

[Shishi]

I highly doubt that they'll do an hourly payment for the NA version, because they need to adapt to the NA market. If not it'll cost so much more for their players, plus it's not good in the business aspect of it if they did it, though the option for it will not be bad move either.