Raph Koster on why MMOs should be free
by Michael Zenke 
Jan 16th 2008 at 11:00AM
Filed under: Business models, Culture, Economy, Interviews, New titles, Opinion, MetaPlace, Free-to-play, Academic, Virtual worlds
The Rock, Paper, Shotgun interview recently posted with noted Massive designer Raph Koster starts off "Raph Koster knows a thing or two about MMOs". That's a bit of an understatement. Looking at Raph's CV is like stepping back through some of the most important moments in the online gaming genre. Most of them, as has been the norm in the USA, are subscription titles.
Raph thinks that's quickly going to be an artifact of the past, as already there are more free-to-play games than flat-fee-per-month titles. He believes that big budget games are going to start to get the hint and offer tiered services, free-to-play special clients, and other ways to get an 'in' on those particular worlds.
Ultimately I think that's one of the most important points he makes in this discussion. MMO developers (in the West at least) have always seemed to be resistant to the idea of 'just get everybody you can in there'. That seems counter-intuitive to me, because more than anything else butts in the seats are what makes a Massive environment seem truly alive.
The rest of the interview is equally thought-provoking with discussion of the concept behind Metaplace, the misuse of the web by game developers, and the conceptual skeleton used by designers to make these games in the first place.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Markymark said on 6:27PM 1-17-2008
The free to play model although popular not the best way to approach the mmo market. I feel a Flat Fee is easier then buying items in a item shop that might exceed over a standard montlhy fee. You also have to take into consideration the cost of development, server maintenance, salary, funding for future patches/ expansions. So the item store would have to have its items priced accordingly but their is always a limit to what someone will pay for essentially a fake or non existant item.
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