It was brought to my attention yesterday that SOE has announced a new type of payment model for EverQuest II. For $5 you get to play for three consecutive days. At first I was slightly confused by the option. Given all of the restrictions surrounding it the whole idea seemed off. The more I think about it the more I believe that it is almost an awesome change. This could be the first step in the right direction for subscription based games and that seems to be the general consensus.
When you compare EQ2 passport to the subscription it isn’t that great of a deal. The amount of time per dollar is far worse than the standard commitment. That said, you don’t actually have to make a commitment. You just fire off your $5 and you get to play right away. This is awesome for players who may want to return but want to test the waters first. Spend less money to get a taste of the game and then renew if you’re so inclined. The fact that new players can’t do this is a bit strange. I would think by offering them an even lower barrier to entry you might pull more in. You also have to question the reasoning behind limiting the passport to “once a month.” It would be in SOE’s best interest to let you buy as many three day passes as you wanted! After all, each day costs you more than the standard subscription.
This plan almost brings us to where I am hoping MMOs that “double dip” go. Our subscription games are really starting to add a lot of additional services, micro-transactions and macro-transactions to their revenue stream. With resources being directed towards those additional streams I’m starting to feel like I get less for my $15.00 a month. I’d like to see an Asian model adopted where you just buy straight time and burn it like cell phone minutes. So, for $15.00 you’d get 15 days of actual play time. When it ran out you’d need to buy more. I imagine the majority of players don’t burn 360 hours a month on their MMORPG of choice.
Of course I can’t imagine any company doing this as it would basically reduce their subscription revenue. That assessment might be short sited, however, as players who have “time to burn” are more likely to remain in game or return to it frequently. That means you put more services in front of them over the long haul. If players could bank currency on a several MMOs I imagine they’d all play more titles than they do. In short, the time gets you in so that the company can sell you higher margin items in the cash shop. Everyone wins! I know this has been a tangent but the EverQuest 2 Passport just reminds me of this type of system. Hopefully it is the first step towards something better. Do you prefer the subscription fee or would you like to buy “hours” when you needed them? Do you see any value in that?
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New players can make and remake free trial accounts (supposedly there’s a new, Halas-themed trial coming in the GU as well), so that part is covered. I actually went through two of them before paying for the game for the first time.
In some ways, I’d argue that item shops are effectively hourly fee games. Exactly how the fee is calculated is less than clear, but the concept is that you’re paying for the amount that you use.
I think if they charged $5 for any 3 days (even within a week or month), instead of 3 consecutive days, I wouldn’t find it that ‘bad’ of a deal. Sometimes I just want a little taste of an old favorite and the $5 would give me enough of a sense of whether or not I was feeling so nolstalgic as to want to then get a month-long subscription. I think if they made this a tad bit more forgiving in how those 3 days were spent, this would be fine.
I’m pretty sure certain adult sites discovered this pricing structure years ago!