Some of the games that are free-to-play but charge customers for essentially useless upgrades actually make more monthly revenue per user than the paid subscription models do. For instance, Maple Story makes an average of about $20 per user per month just on crap they purchase in-game from the company. See full story here: http://www.playnoevil.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/2046-NOTED-Free-to-Play-Fun-Nexons-Maplestory-earns-20-Million-in-Virtual-Item-Sales-in-2007.html
The question is: why hasn’t Blizzard moved in this direction? They’re a for-profit company, so shouldn’t they do what makes the most sense financially?
Blizzard’s stance has always been against RMT. I think their reasoning is that it undermines the hard work many people have put into the game. Why should I grind this character when I can just buy one from a botting site? Similarly, if people could just buy items/gold from Blizzard directly, there would be no incentive to keep playing the game. They would get bored very easily. Again, there’s no reason for them to spend countless hours defeating bosses to earn an epic item when some kid next door can whip out his credit card and achieve the same status in-game. Many gamers might be inclined to cancel their subscriptions, leading to losses for Blizzard. Maybe this is their argument?
Overall though, I think Blizzard’s stance is more on “moral” grounds than financial ones. They’ve always been dedicated to creating awesome games that are fun to play. The passion is there. While of course profit is one of their main goals as a company, I don’t think it’s their only goal. I think the Maple Story article makes this obvious. If their main priority was to seek revenue, they would have already started to sell goods directly to players.
Thoughts?
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