The Magician's Tower

7/27/2010

What is that supposed to mean?

http://www.massively.com/2010/07/27/eqi ... bandwagon/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

read between the lines, rather than the press releases. the intention is obviously to choke off the subscription model, and force all players to their micro-transaction model (which requires a subscription to get most, but not all, of the features currently on the subscription game).

Nothing could be further from the truth. The whole gaming industry is shifting to a free to play model.

#1 it is much more profitable
#2 you have to evolve to survive in any technology industry, something I fear the EQ veterans are unable to do because of their lofty idealistic principles

A free to play version might work, but you forget one fact, SOE will try to milk us both way, overdoing it as usual.

Danille wrote:Nothing could be further from the truth. The whole gaming industry is shifting to a free to play model.

#1 it is much more profitable
#2 you have to evolve to survive in any technology industry, something I fear the EQ veterans are unable to do because of their lofty idealistic principles

Oh, sure, it is more profitable.

Profit is not necessarily a good thing, unless you are a greedy smurf, though.

Free to play results in the overall quality of the game dropping through the floor, as core gameplay mechanics which you can't nickel-and-dime for are neglected in favor of making the things you can charge for as flashy as possible.

This is just another example of 'new capitalism' turning everything to smurf, by abandoning the principle of 'make your product quality so that the market will pay more for it', to 'make the flashiest crap you can and aim for customer churn to replace customer retention'.

The last time I checked, businesses exist with pretty much the sole purpose of making money...I could be wrong, though.

najiwench wrote:The last time I checked, businesses exist with pretty much the sole purpose of making money...I could be wrong, though.

You say that like it is a good thing.

Either way, the making money and releasing a quality product are not mutually exclusive. They only are if you (as an entity) are greedy smurf.

Kelno wrote:

najiwench wrote:The last time I checked, businesses exist with pretty much the sole purpose of making money...I could be wrong, though.

You say that like it is a good thing.

Either way, the making money and releasing a quality product are not mutually exclusive. They only are if you (as an entity) are greedy smurf.

Have you ever owned your own business?

Kelno wrote:

najiwench wrote:The last time I checked, businesses exist with pretty much the sole purpose of making money...I could be wrong, though.

You say that like it is a good thing.

Either way, the making money and releasing a quality product are not mutually exclusive. They only are if you (as an entity) are greedy smurf.

No, I say that like it's a fact.

And, actually, most often releasing a quality product brings MORE money. If the quality fails, the users will drop off and the income will drop. Though, when you're talking about MMORPG's, it's more like a crack dealer raising prices and dropping quality, people are hooked and will often pay more for less quality just because they are hooked.