That whole ‘unseen difficulties’ thing made me think that I should link to T=Machine, which recently posted two of the most thoughtful discussions of the MMO industry I’ve read in some time:

• Does it lose money when you do that? Then don’t do that! – A discussion of MMO business models and pitfalls. Stuff Raph and Co. have been harping on for a while and a great argument for the kool-aid I drank early in 2008.
• Customer Relationships and Support for Online Games and MMOs – Variations on themes Sanya’s been putting out there for some time now, and well worth a readthrough.

According to the customization page, for the price of $15 players can change:

• Gender
• Character Name
• Face
• Hair Style
• Skin Color
• Any other “cosmetic features determined by your race and gender combination.”

That’s a good start, but I want the whole keilbasa. I want class changes, and most especially I want race changes. I think racial changes would be the single most popular service Blizzard could offer. It’d be especially interesting if we could see race changes across traditional class lines as a sort of RP element. They’ve always used that old Gnomish Teleportation device as a metaphor for server transfers … why not let there be Blood Elf Warriors or Dwarven Mages?

The catch is that this is (again) largely a costmetic change. Keeping the price low on this should be priority. Keep the price at about $20 and I bet you’d get buckets of people signing up.

I view this as wholly natural, entirely understandable. People like change, they like to be able to try new things, and they like flexibility. Nothing wrong with providing them what they like.

I think it’s probably pretty obvious where I fall on your new microtransaction content. I like the idea quite a bit, and I’m happy with some elements of what you’ve rolled out so far. The 100 coins = $1 component, for example, is a very wise choice. Making costs easily understandable is one of the simple things a company can do to remain in the good graces of its players, Microsoft notwithstanding.

That said, I think there is big-time room for improvement. If you guys are serious about making a go at this, I think you should consider some elements carefully and perhaps reconsider some of the elements you’ve already apparently decided on. Here’s my list for the suggestion box.

• First and foremost, you’re missing the ‘micro’ part in some of these transactions. $10 for a set of armor? Really? Tipa’s examination of the armor across multiple models highlights numerous problems with the sets you have available now, and brings into sharp relief a number of things you guys need to consider here. I honestly think $10 is too much money. I’m a pretty big fan of pampering my avatars, and I’d never even consider paying that much for something that has no material benefit. You need to re-examine appearance armor costs fundamentally.
• Further, take a look at Tipa’s analysis and retool future armor sets with aesthetics in mind. Perhaps offer different sets depending on the avatar models? Yeah, yeah … it’s hard, and you have limited artist time, and … whatever. If you want to say that about in-game drops, fine. If you’re charging money separately for content, it’s a whole different ball game with a different set of expectations. Do it right.
• It’s kind of annoying just to see what you’ll be buying in EQ2, and this is apparently functionality that’s just not there in EQ. This is unacceptable. Don’t ever, ever ask a customer to purchase something blind. Make it as easy as possible to allow a player the opportunity to see what he’s getting before he gets it. For armor, make a ‘View Armor Set’ button that slaps all the armor onto your avatar in the dressing room. Find some way to view those vanity pets. And put all of this into EQ as well.
• Better yet, why not let us try before we buy? Once per item per day, allow us a 5 minute trial of whatever you’re selling. Be it armor or pet or whatever (obviously not XP potions), let us see what it’ll really look like in-world before we put down our hard-earned money. The dressing room is great, but nothing compares with actually running your character around in the world with your new duds on.
• Some people have been railing against the idea of rehashing past holiday content in the store, but I say load that sucker up. Anything and everything that we’ll no longer be able to get via a live event … why not put it into the store for like 50 coins? If it’s already in the game, and you have no plans to use it again, I think that’s a great opportunity for low-cost content purchase options.
• Finally … please give us some mounts in the store. The options in-game have just never impressed me that much, and I’m continually trying to hold back my jealousy for all the awesome mounts EverQuest players are enjoying. Give EQII players the mount-related love!

That’s what I’ve got. Go alternate business methods!

Last two days alone:

• SOE Launches Proper RMT services for EQ/EQII
• Warhammer adds two of its missing classes
• Infogrames/Atari purchases Cryptic Studios
• Age of Conan server merges delayed
• Mythic won’t skimp on WAR Updates for Expansion

The bit I’m personally very interested in is this post right here all about the success of the City of Heroes ‘booster pack’ system. Begun with the well-received wedding set, they released the first of their series packs with the Cyborg set. It’s kind of downplayed a bit in the interview there, but I have it on good authority that the Cyborg set has a RIDUNKULOUS sellthrough rate. Not 1:1, probably, but really fricking high. As a result NC NorCal is sitting pretty with talented designers, regular income from subscriptions, and an occasional much-appreciated boost from the microtransactional content.

What I’d love to see them do is drop the subscription price to pay back the players for buying into the MT content. Maybe someday, NorCal?

Update: I didn’t notice this till I wandered over to their store. $4.99 for a 30-day limited item? That I can get for free at Christmas? The value of the Cyborg and the Wedding packs are relatively high, but this jetpack thing should be more like a buck. At most.

Syp is right in saying that the problem of gold selling is the demand of gold buyers. But his solution is wrong, because he short-sightedly attributes the demand to notions of “morality or honor”, which is just plain silly. Player’s demand for gold is simply a function of how grindy it is to get gold, and what you need that gold for. And that are all questions of game design. It is a lot easier to solve the problem with good game design than to start a successful crusade to stop people from cheating in video games. Google has 80 million hits in a search for “cheats”, most of which are about video games, that isn’t something we can make go away if we all just hold hands and wish for it very, very strongly.

Okay, if he was snarking about me I might be a bit more testy. He’s 100% right through that whole post, though, and about the only thing I can add is that I can’t believe people are still high and mighty about secondary in-game currencies in 2008. I mean theres, what, a kabillion dollar aftermarket for that gold piece you earned from your Dailies in WoW, right?

The truth, though, is that people wanking about the dishonor of goldbuyers and the scourge of goldsellers should really put it back in their pants. For better or worse goldselling is something that’s … well, I’ll say it outright: in my mind it’s not an issue that players have to worry about anymore. Every game I can think of has done their best to deal with goldfarming and spammers at this point. Every one.  It’s 2008, and if you are still getting spammed by goldfarmers in-game it’s becuase the game developers want you to be. It’s as simple as that.

To clarify: I am being mostly flippant with that statement; obviously the developers don’t *want* you to be spammed. Ultimately my belief is that goldfarming hurts game developers in actuality, whereas goldfarmers are really only a perceptive annoyance/negative impact on players. Scott has a fantastic, AAA-level writeup on his solution to this issue at Broken Toys. Go read.

Let’s go down the list of some farming/spammer solutions:

• EverQuest 2: Solved issue. Players who want to buy currency have the official aftermarket to use. I know for a fact, having talke to some of them, that some EQ2 players that were buying gold on the secondary market are now happily on the two RMT servers run by LiveGamer. They like the fact that they don’t have to worry about scams, and that there’s no stigma attached to their purchases. Goldfarming is still big on the other servers, but it’s REALLY hard for spammers to do any advertising because of SOE’s robust filter/blocking system. Result: plat is more expensive.
• World of Warcraft: Solved issue. Spam-blocking to the max, and … wait for it … gold is really INEXPENSIVE on the open market. Daily quests out the yin-yang was basically Blizzard’s solution to goldfarmers, with the idea that it should be easier to just farm the money yourself than rely on an unreliable farmer and a system of possibly felonious fellows. Right now 1000 gold is selling for less than $20. The price was probably … I’d guess about three times that a year ago?
• Final Fantasy XI: Solved issue. There’s an entire taskforce dedicated to stamping out these ruffians, and the in-game gambling scam factories are pretty well done and over with. Obviously there are always folks skimming the edges, but the pernicious existance of these characters is well and truly under control.

The real problem with goldsellers, in this day and age, isn’t their impact on the players. Game developers pretty well have that element under control, I think.

The real problem is their impact on the companies, with chargebacks to stolen credit cards and endless account forgery. That’s the real problem. If you’re going to get on your huffy bike and be upset about something, that’s the thing to be upset about. Chargebacks and bank fraud are already a major concern to MMO developers, and at this point if you’re launching a game without some serious consideration of those issues, you’re just being naive.