Dec 9

SWTOR to be Microtransactional

Category: LOTRO, SWTOR

SWTOR is going to be microtransaction-based.

“The Star Wars online MMO [is a] mid-session game, microtransaction-based. You’ll be hearing more about those in the February [conference] call.” According to the game news site, “Mid-session” refers to the amount of time the game is typically played within a gaming session. “In this context, it seems that EA might be positioning The Old Republic as an alternative to MMOs that traditionally emphasize longer play sessions and charge users only on a monthly basis.”

My.LotRO goes into Beta.

This is the greatest/scariest/most amazing news day I’ve seen in a while. Yikes.

9 comments

9 Comments so far

  1. Brendan December 9th, 2008 8:07 pm

    Ouch.

    I can’t see this going over well if it means item shops or pay per hour, but these details are not clear yet. If EA is planning to price this like an Asian internet cafe game, that could be a collosal blunder.

  2. Lars December 9th, 2008 8:24 pm

    No, but if perhaps its a charge for storyline mini-adventures, then I think I’d be ok with that. I’m not against RMT if the game is designed around it (like most Asian internet cafe games; I actually like some of those games, particularly Sword of the New World). I’m against RMT being retrofitted into leveling games (like EQ/EQ2) built around a subscription based business model. It doesn’t mesh well in my mind.

  3. Brendan December 9th, 2008 8:33 pm

    I agree, Lars. We’ll have to see what they mean by this as the details are fleshed out next year.

    Oh, and I liked Granado Espada as well!

  4. Beau December 9th, 2008 8:38 pm

    Right, all those Cash Shop games make no money. lol

    Why do you think this and other games are pursuing this? Because they’d actually like to make money.

    As though there has been some proof recently that a good game is made bad by adding microtransactions.

  5. brent December 9th, 2008 11:42 pm

    Microtransactions tend to be a solid option for gear and ego (costume) driven games… I wonder how this fits into a story-driven game. Seems more difficult.

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  7. Keen December 10th, 2008 10:52 am

    Agreed Brent. Better yet, we should be asking: How does this fit into a quality MMORPG? We’ve yet to see the microtransaction model ever applied where the results were a AAA title.

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