PS2 Business Model

[Malorn]

Little has been revealed about this, but I wanted to have a discussion about it all the same. First, starting with a few principles and lessons from the past.

* Most FPSers are used to not paying a subscription to play their games online. All of the Battlefield and COD games and just about every console and PC FPS ever has been "pay-once, play forever". Additionally, younger gamers may have parents that buy the games and they're used to buying games and not having subscriptions. The conclusion here is that having a mandatory subscription will cost PS2 players.

* PS1 got a great boost in players with the Fodder program, though the easy-to-abuse nature of this contributed to hackers and poor behavior since they could just make another player.

* WoW, World of Tanks, and others have proven that people will pay absurd amounts of money for vanity items and services. Want a sparklehorse or a vanity pet? A new skin for your tank? Redo character creation? Transfer servers? $20 each and they're yours!

* Many players and PS vets have no problem paying a subscription and prefer it over micro-transactions.

* Putting gameplay-altering options for microtransactions can have disastrous consequences and also cost PS2 players. We need only look at EVE Online and their largest subscription drop in MMO history when they got too greedy and tried to have players pay for special ammo that was better than all the other ammo, and convert their business model into a 'premium service' and other such foolish ideas. Some players have a visceral reaction to paying more money in order to compete and it likely won't go over well with the play-for-free crowd either.


From this it seems to me that the best options for PS2's business model would be the following:

1) Make it pay-once-and-play-for-free. This does a few things
* It gets SOE some of their investment for the game back immediately
* It provides a monetary barrier for creating extra characters for empire-hopping/spying, etc.
* It will go over well with traditional FPS players since this is the normal FPS business model.

2) Optional trade-in real-money for vanity items and services. List of possible services that many players will spend ridiculous amounts of money on that also do not affect gameplay one bit:
* Vanity items - various types of sunglasses, alternate uniforms, accessories, etc.
* Custom outfit logos
* Complete character re-spec
* Complete outfit re-spec (obv far more expensive)
* Character re-creation for changing appearance
* Server transfers
* Character re-names
* Double-speed learning time for certifications (for say a 2-week period)
* Double-xp gain for kills & captures

(the last two are the real money-makers from the play-for-free folks, the key is making those slightly more expensive individually than the subscription option below)


3) Provide an optional subscription service (the SOE Pass) that bundles some services & vanity items that the player would otherwise order a-la-carte.
* Gives double-speed learning time for certifications
* Double-xp gain for kills & captures
* Maybe some random vanity item awarded every couple months or something as a reward for subscribers.

I think a system like this encourages but does not mandate a subscription. Players don't have to pay anything else to play, but if they do their characters will advance faster. Additionally, vanity items and other services will further supplement revenue, as every player will likely buy something at some point in time, and some will buy lots.

This seems like the best balance for maximizing PS2 subscribers and providing players options for how much or how little they want to spend on PS2 that will be digestible to players.

Thoughts? Is this digestible to you?