Seasonal Subscriptions
Duncan Gough is one of the minds behind PMOG, and certainly on the interesting fringe of MMO design rather than the flabby, World of Warcraft copying centre. Here, he talks about seasonal pricing models and free content, citing in particular an interesting comment from Valve:
“we’ve learned that we’re no longer making stand-alone games but creating entertainment services”
They’ve certainly done well out of Steam and most of the games they’ve produced, with digital sales seeming set to outpace brick and mortar ones, and some very healthy looking sales figures released late last year. The above comment is interesting because, while MMOs are widely erceived as subscription based services, none of Valve’s titles are MMOs, they’re digitally disributed game that are far more akin to players expectations of boxed games. Yet, Valve seem to see this as a service rather than a product.
Duncan continues:
Taking all the pieces together, if the future of games is to become entertainment services, then are subscriptions going to fall away in favour of upfront payments and free updates?
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Taking this approach to MMOs, it’s clear to see that the seasonal nature of EA Sports games is based around a presumption that the people buying the games want to be as up to date as possible. Indeed, it’s the story behind the game that requires an update. In this instance, the story is the team lineup which changes frequently. Transferring that to the typically fantasy themed worlds on MMOs, it’s clear to see that there are many opportunities for the intricate and detailed story that often scaffolds Virtual Worlds like Azeroth. Mapping the boxed-game-a-year franchise of EA Sports to MMOs based around fictitious Virtual Worlds is certainly one way in which the subscription business model could evolve into a season update with freemium content between the releases. It’ll certainly be interesting to see if anyone takes note of the headway Valve is making.
WoW is the behemoth. While nothing seems to be eroding it’s market niche particularly well, it’s still possible that the viability of different MMO business models could change drastically.
(Screenshot from Team Fortress 2)
