Doctor Tyche wrote:

Ok, one thing to clarify: unlocking of missions (be it pay or play) is only required of the team lead. Nothing ever annoyed me more than the whole "everyone needs to purchase the signature story arcs in order to run it as a team" angle.

That's good to know.

You know, the title of this thread is, "What Will Make a Subscription Worth Buying ". It's not, "How Bad Should It Be Not to Sub".

There should be advantages to subscribing, yes. This does not mean non-subscribers should have a sub-par experience. The B2P with cash store has worked without [i]any[/i] subscriptions. Just look at Guild Wars 1&2. Are there going to be people who buy the game and that's it? Yes. But how bad do you think that is really going to be? Are they really going to fill all their character slots and play eight hours a day and not want to drop anything on the store? They wouldn't be interested in new powers, new animations, new costumes, or more character slots? The people who get invested in the game will be the ones buying and spending stars.

I said in an earlier post I would have subscribed to GW2 if they had the option. In CoT players will have the option and awesome for every person that takes it. But the key thing is, it needs to be an option. Stop trying to force this game to be subscription. That is [i]not[/i] the model MWM is going for.

The "only the leader needs to buy the content" idea I like, but it makes me wonder if this will create a sort of environment where the subscribers (who presumably can afford more of this kind of stuff) will end up being more in-demand for team-ups as potentially "more fun" leaders. You know, as in "It's not a party until Radiac get's here, because he's got the thing unlocked for us, yay, Radiac! We love you Radiac..." Like the kid you knew who had a fake ID or knew a guy who knew a guy that could get you beer when you were 16.

Radiac wrote:

... Like the kid you knew who had a fake ID or knew a guy who knew a guy that could get you beer when you were 16.

YAY.. lets go over to his house. Hes got an ATARI! ;)

Cinnder wrote:

If the main perq of subscribing is a Stars stipend, then it seems fair to say that the primary source of income for MWM will be the Stars store, because both subbers and non-subs will be buying stuff there. It's easy for me to see how the development time put into any new power set, costume, travel power will be paid for directly by purchases. What's not clear is how a new zone -- possibly one of the most resource-intensive development efforts -- will be paid for if we don't all have to buy it in the store. If everyone gets access to all content because we don't want to cause divisions, who's paying for it?

I remember the first mini booster pack in CoH, the wedding pack. It sold pretty well, so well that we got VEATs an issue earlier than originally planned. The thing is, buying a costume piece in the store isn't just funding more costumes. Yes, there is a cost associated with the development of costumes, powers, etc. but it shouldn't take many sales to recoup this cost and start throwing more money in the war chest. And that's not counting things like character slots, respects, renames, and storage expansions which have no additional development cost.

A new zone would be paid for by selling stuff in the store, just like everything else.

As Doctor Tyche hinted at, what we're looking at in our subscription-side is something that could almost be termed "microsubscriptions." More accurately, we're looking to break down the "subscriber benefits" into individual chunks so that you, the player, can decide precisely what benefits you want to pay for.

Then, when you go and buy "a subscription," what you're really doing is buying a regular stipend for the time period you specify. You can then select the various microsubscription perks you want to make up your personalized subscription package, and it will devote portions of your stipend to each.

For those who don't want to get that deep into the details, at least one (and possibly 2-3) "subscription packages" will be pre-built for you to select from, but these will just be pre-built packages. You could build them yourself if you were so inclined. Think of them as popular starting points.

In the end, you will have exactly the subscription YOU want for YOUR playstyle, and exactly the stipend on top of that that you feel is necessary to make the purchases you want from the c-store on a regular basis.

And those who prefer to be "freemium" players can instead just buy some Stars up front, and buy a month at a time on a given microsubscription item if they want to try it out, and go to the c-store with their Stars paid-on-demand.

So when we say we're going for a hybrid model, we really are, but we're looking at it in a way that makes it not a hard divide. Subscribers and "freemium" players are really the same thing; it's just how you feel is most convenient to pay for what you want to get out of the game.

And yes, loyalty/veteran rewards will DEFINITELY be a thing. They're good business and they're fun to share with everybody. They truly are a win/win!

There will be a "standard subscription package," but all it will be is a collection of microsubscriptions bundled together for the lump price they'd cost if bought individually. It's a convenience item more than anything else.

If we wind up with so many microsubscription services that it winds up being more expensive to have all of them than it is to have the full subscription in our competitors' games, we'll examine our prices and what we're offering to make sure we stay competitive, I assure you.

Segev wrote:

As Doctor Tyche hinted at, what we're looking at in our subscription-side is something that could almost be termed "microsubscriptions." More accurately, we're looking to break down the "subscriber benefits" into individual chunks so that you, the player, can decide precisely what benefits you want to pay for.
Then, when you go and buy "a subscription," what you're really doing is buying a regular stipend for the time period you specify. You can then select the various microsubscription perks you want to make up your personalized subscription package, and it will devote portions of your stipend to each.
For those who don't want to get that deep into the details, at least one (and possibly 2-3) "subscription packages" will be pre-built for you to select from, but these will just be pre-built packages. You could build them yourself if you were so inclined. Think of them as popular starting points.
In the end, you will have exactly the subscription YOU want for YOUR playstyle, and exactly the stipend on top of that that you feel is necessary to make the purchases you want from the c-store on a regular basis.
And those who prefer to be "freemium" players can instead just buy some Stars up front, and buy a month at a time on a given microsubscription item if they want to try it out, and go to the c-store with their Stars paid-on-demand.
So when we say we're going for a hybrid model, we really are, but we're looking at it in a way that makes it not a hard divide. Subscribers and "freemium" players are really the same thing; it's just how you feel is most convenient to pay for what you want to get out of the game.
And yes, loyalty/veteran rewards will DEFINITELY be a thing. They're good business and they're fun to share with everybody. They truly are a win/win!

Pay to Win? >
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNAQFhxFmaU

It's a cute little joke.

Apparently one can now buy an item in Path of Exile that, when activated, sets of fireworks around the character and sends out a "[Player] wins!" message.

So, if you're not having that winning experience you buy the fireworks, set one off, and presto, you win!

In my case, if the game is as functional or more so than CoH that's enough to get me to sign up for a $20 sub. Some cash shop credit every month, and perhaps early access to new cash shop items would be nice of course. Guaranteed/early access to training room builds? A nice little badge under my name on forum posts.I'm not too picky in this regard.

Also, there's nothing wrong with $20 a month for a sub. I can buy less with $20 at the grocery store today than I could with $10 back when I started playing Ultima Online. That's just the reality of inflation, and since MWM has to pay more for everything to produce this game, it's perfectly acceptable to pass some of that increased price onto us spoiled gamers who are tremendously lucky to have the opportunity to spend money on a good superhero game.

So far, there are a lot of great suggestions in this thread. For me personally, I agree that $20 a month is a bit steep. More so, if there is no discount for buying multiple months or an outright lifetime for $199-299 (i always go lifer if i can). If this game lives up to it's promise and potential, I would totally drop the $300 for lifetime subscription. Even on other games, i was still buying from the store with real money after buying lifer.

1) Vet Rewards: Most subs have them, and in a Superhero game, they are awesome. To not alienate the F2P crowd, allow them to earn it, but at a rate of 3 to 1 maybe? Or their time only accumulates if they play X amount of hours a month to avoid a quick daily log in.

2) Boosts: Giving subbers a 5% boost to all gains would be nice, especially if it stacked with store boosts and boost weekends/events. Maybe 10% if you go for the $20 a month.

3) Bonus boosting: While subbing, bonus weekends/events grant 5% more bonus to what ever the weekend is, which stacks with the other bonus' mentioned.

4) Loyalty system: someone mentioned this earlier, and it was a great idea (imo), but the longer you're subbed (doesn't apply to lifers) the more of a discount you recieve. After so long, you wouldn't be getting items for free, but half off to 75% during sales maybe? This could be applied to boosts as well maybe (which would apply to lifers). By the time you've been saving the city for a few years, sometimes it's nice to just log in and play with the builds. Testing and tossing, fine tuning, seeing what works and what doesn't. Getting a higher boost based on longevity is a great way to make that aspect all the better. The real question here would be if you have to start all over when your sub runs out, or if it's based on the hero's life span.

5) Enhanced visuals: Maybe for things like bases or costumes to even power effects themselves, maybe subbers would get enhanced cooler versions to pick from, which would just switch back to default when your sub ran out.

6) Better Unlocking: For the F2P crowd, in game items could be per character as rewards, but maybe subbers get them for all? F2P people get items bound to character, while subbers get items bound to account? There could be some potential here if someone smarter wanted to play around with the idea. With this one, once the sub runs out, the items lock on whom ever has them, but unlock again once they resub.

7) Stipend: this one almost seems like a must now a days. With games like SWTOR running a terrible model or Anything Cryptic just lacking any quality (and always half assed) a stipend is that little something back. A small thank you for the continued patronage. Most games seem well balanced with a $5 value from their stipend. With a possible $20 dollar asking price, The stipend really feels like it needs to match the higher amount. I really can't justify paying $20 a month to a game I might not be playing all that often. I'll probably be playing this one a lot, but you know what I mean. Sometimes life happens, and I'm not able to get in game as much as I would like. $20 a month seems like a lot if i only get in game for a single play that month. Stipends help with that since you're still getting something a little more tangible (so to speak). The Bonus' are nice, but if I miss out, I miss out. With a stipend, it's still there whether I played or not. It's just a nice thing to take the sting out of the monthly rate, but the higher that rate, the higher the stipend should be.

8) The Little Things... for free: Some games offer fast travel for a small amount of in game currencies like guild wars 2. Champions offers things every now and then like mask packs or auras, that are small additions (yet way overpriced for how little you're getting). Various games offer various little things here and there, which as a subber, would be nice to get for free. Maybe on knockout, subbers don't have to pay the hospital fees? Maybe if something is added to the store of small value, the subbers get it free? If a new type of boost is offered, subbers get one free?

9) Release Times: Subbers shouldn't get things early. On time, yes, early no. We want it to be properly tested and polished of course. However, the F2P crowd should get things at a delayed rate. Maybe a month or so as an "official" release? This works two fold. A) it adds more value to subbing that can be easily dropped if not subbing. B) It allows for an extra month or two of testing time, except on the live server. Testing is great, but once it hits live, some issues pop out of nowhere. This allows more players to stress test things before releasing it to the majority.

10) Discounted Life Time Subscriptions: If life time subs are even going to be a thing in this game (i would really buy one for $300) then after maybe a year of subbing, subbers get $50 off the price tag. After three years, they get $100 off. At 5 years, they get it half off. It's still expensive enough that some people wouldn't buy it, but it's also a great way to thank people for subbing for so long. As a side note, this might be better to be a consistant time thing. If you drop sub, than your timer resets. You need to be subbed the entire time, in one solid go to get the discount. This would keep people from automatically switching over, and ensure that people are still subbing in the long run, making it more of a thank you for the loyalty and the vigilance.

11) Ingame sub discount: While being a subscriber, maybe you could also have the opportunity to get a discount on your next subscription purchase using in game currencies? Depending on the money and how easy it is to get, maybe 100k in game currency could be a dollar of your next subscription? It helps against the higher costing monthly, it adds to the value of subscribing, and it's a bonus that can be dropped once they're time is over.

12) Nudity: Instead of leaving your hero in underwear when stripped of their gear, this leaves them naked with the Sims like pixelation. It's just an option in customization, it's simple, and yet would be hilarious to see running around. Once the sub runs out, they get placed in the default undies again.

I'm not everyone. I'm not even representative of the majority of players out there. I know this.

I paid for every box that CoX produced. Every single one.

I paid my subscription using the annual plan, which worked out to something like $15 a month. Even when I did not have time to play, I paid.

I bought the CoV book. In fact, I pre-ordered it the same day Amazon.com made it available for pre-order.

When they went F2P with microtransactions, every couple of weeks I would go into the store and spend about $40 on something. Sometimes it didn't even matter what I bought (I bought several costume sets that I never used a single piece from). Mostly enhancement sets.

All told, from beta to the day the servers shut down, I spent somewhere between $2000 and $3000 on CoX and CoX related products. I did this because I loved the game and I knew that in order for the game to stay online I had to spend money on it. I did not then, I do not now, and I never will understand players who expect to log into an online game without paying and have immediate access everything the game offers. Such thinking is, quite frankly, delusional. The simple fact that this delusion has become a global phenomenon does not bode well for the future of humanity.

I favor a boxed product with an additional boxed expansion once or even twice a year. If you don't buy the box, you cannot access the content included in the box. Every new box includes access to all previous content, but no future content.

I favor a monthly subscription fee. I cannot abide people who will spend $300 a month on their cable subscription and then complain about $15 a month for an online game. It's insane. Life is about choices. Person A pays for NFL All-Access cable, I pay for CoT All-Access play. If I want his cable package I should have to pay for it and if he wants to join me in the game he should be forced to pay for it. This is how capitalism works. This is how we as business people provide maximum access to the products and resources we offer.

I favor an online store. The store should offer premium content that is not required but which makes the game more enjoyable. The store should ALSO offer real world products like novels, comics, coffee cups, stuffed animals, tee shirts, wall posters, cloth banners, custom tailored versions of your character's costume for your Halloween party, etc. No one should be forced to buy anything beyond the box and the subscription, but for people who want more, there needs to be more.

How about a ten page comic book based on a commonly run mission arc that features YOUR character as the hero! PoD publishers are everywhere, pasting in a screenshot of the character is simple enough. Bang! $25 and you're just as immortal as Batman. Minimal cost to MWM. Over time, there could be a dozen different versions available and as long as it's based on PoD, there is zero additional overhead once the initial layout is complete.

How about a real world version of your character's costume? Much more difficult to arrange, but still not impossible. The biggest cost would be creating preset patterns in the computer and finding a tailor version of PoD. Surely there must be some shop in Hong Kong, Seoul, Bangkok, or even Hanoi that would love to cooperate in such a venture. Find one that will allow a market price of around $1500 per costume with $500 cost to MWM (not including the initial pattern creation) and you have an exclusive product that no one else in the market offers and many people will happily spend their tax return to buy.

Coffee cups featuring a screenshot of your character? Again, difficult to arrange, but not impossible. There are several companies that offer silk screening on a per item basis for $15 or $20. Charge the customer $50 plus shipping, or just make arrangements with silk screen company for a royalty payment and then send the customers straight to them.

Cloth banners featuring your SG logo. Tee shirts featuring signature NPCs or player characters or both (same companies that do the cups usually offer tee shirts!)

Got somebody who uses the ingame tools to consistently produce top quality UGC? Send'em an email asking if they'd be interested in doing a novel. Publish through Amazon.com on both Kindle and CreateSpace, sell it in the store, pay'em 15% royalties.

There are a ton of ways to generate revenue in the modern world. If the game provides the kind of entertainment value that keeps people logging in, the possibilities for spin off products are infinite. The first step is making a top notch game. After that, it's just a matter of keeping it fresh and making sure all of your players know the other products exist.

--------------------------------------------
Edit added some hours later:

So I'm reading through the Kickstarter updates and I find update #64, "The Big Game".

Perfect! The Titan City Captains mascot on coffee cups and tee shirts! Titan City Captains jerseys! The mascot printed out on mousepads, pens, pencils, so forth and so on.

Crazy? Of course it's crazy! Bet you'd sell a ton of'em, though. More than enough to justify adding them as an additional revenue stream.

Brand X wrote:

Agreed Hawk! Though the annual plan was like 12-13 a month, unless bought at the right time to snag 2 free months :) Month to month was 15 (unless there was some weird tax others had to pay, I know some people have that issue on some MMOs).
Everyone keeps thinking they deserve to play a game for free. They're getting to the point of expecting everything for free :/

+1

I am not rich, I'm not even sure that I qualify as middle class if you do the math, but I never resent paying to support something I really want or like or care about. And if I don't really like it or want it, I do without.

It makes me wonder if the people who complain that it's not free really just don't like it that much and so don't want to pay to play?

I'm also, in my heart of hearts, a subscriber, although I got burned out on CoX twice and let my sub go for a while before picking it back up again later. I think that just because your player base is, perhaps by a large percentage, teens who don't even have credit cards and/or can't afford $15/month for a game, I would also posit that many of those same people are the "here today, gone tomorrow" players who have nothing invested in the games they play either financially, intellectually, or emotionally, and will be the first to waft out to some other game at the drop of a hat. In other words, that player base is not composed of loyal customers, or even "customers" at all, by the strict definition of the word.

I personally believe that the main reason that the market behaves this way is that WoW and the few other "YOU MUST PAY A SUB" games have already gotten the vast majority of the market share of the coveted "people who can and will pay a monthly sub" market, whomever they are.

If it were up to me, I would set up the game such that the "not-serious, just messing around, probably not playing long-term" player (whom I feel is the non-subber, in reality) can have some fun with CoT but not rise to the level cap and create a financial empire for themselves within the in-game economy in any realistic way. Then, anyone who does want to invest intellectually and emotionally in the game will feel the urge to pay a sub to get all the perks necessary to become a level-capped powerhouse toon, with a SG of their own, a lair, all sorts of market buying and selling, more wallet space, more character slots, etc.

I hate to make it a game of haves and have nots, and I understand the plight of the person who has to let their sub lapse for a brief period of time, I really do, but I think we need to avoid the problem of giving non-sub players the ability to try to work smarter and harder to avoid paying anything beyond the initial purchase and still get all the perks by working the system. My worst nightmare is the dedicated player who is on all the time and grinds constantly for stuff and never pays for anything beyond the up-front purchase. I would try to eliminate that possibility entirely. Anyone apt to grind that much should be forced to either pay a sub or quit at some point, I feel. I think some integral parts of the game ought to be closed to non-sub people just to send the clear message that the subscribers are your first priority, and non-sub status is supposed to be your "try out" or "not seriously invested in the game" play style account type.

In CoX, what got me back paying for VIP in the last year after it went F2P was the Incarnate System, which as basically levels 51-60 (or intended to be, they probably only got to level 55 in reality) and was based primarily on the idea of trials, which were group content for large groups. CoX locked non-subs out of the Incarnate system entirely, and that's perhaps something the CoT should think about in some way.

If not that, then maybe have a way that the non-sub CAN participate and gain rewards from that system, but only by paying a real-money fee for each and every trial they want to join, on a "pay to join the trial" basis. You could sell trial tokens in the store and then non-subs could use them in the game. You could sell them for some set price each, or packs of say 10 at a volume discount, etc. I know this idea is controversial, (I started a thread about it, that thread got shut down eventually), but I still think it has merit. I mean, when I was at my most active, I maybe did 5 iTrials a week. At a rate a $1 per trial to the non-subber, that's only $20 a month, which means subscribing is only a better deal than that when you actually DO get that many trials in every month. Something more like $2 per trial would probably be more realistic, since it would definitely save the non-subber some money to just pay a sub instead of buying their iTrials off the rack all the time.

So instead of having a series of one-time fees to unlock any and every new thing that the devs want to monetize (which causes the up-front price of the game will all the trimmings to snowball over time and thus repel new players), I would prefer a system where in you get the basic, bare bones game for a non-sub (after the initial 3 months of VIP time lapses, of course) or EVERYTHING for the $15/month. That way when new content drops, non-sub people will have to pay a sub for like a month to play it.

for me...a subscription is totally worth it as long as I don't EVER have to visit a cash shop and I have access to all the content. I'm not a fan of cash shops and much prefer subscription.

...ah, but, iirc, they also stated there would be a subscription offer as well. hence the discussion. ;)

cupie dol!l?! man, I have been farming for that durn thing forever and it refuses to drop.... *mumblegrumble*

Cinnder wrote:

We shouldn't assume that a lot of what a sub consisted of in CoX will be in a CoT sub, ...

I just hope that MWM makes the UI in such a way that the full Subscriptions show up 1st, and then a Advanced (or perhaps a more consumer friendly phrasing, "Customize your Plan", or the like button/option to the side or as the very last Plan type. )

So it won't scare any n00b's away. ;)

If the game ends up being monetized mostly by the up-front cost, I hope they don't tack on a lot of added expansions that are really necessary and tend to make that box cost go up over time every year.

Also, if there is a subscription and it doesn't unlock any content, like the CoX one did with Incarnate stuff, I can't see myself paying a full $15 per month for it, whatever it DOES give you. Maybe $5-$10, depending on the amount of stuff you get.

For a $15/month sub to be worth $15, it will either have to unlock SO much quality of life stuff that the QoL for the non-subber will be really bad, or else it has to give you the "what you had for free wasn't terrible, but this is better" QoL stuff plus some content. For $5, I would be willing to pay for just the added inventory space, more auction house slots, etc, for $15 that stuff alone is not enough.

My 2 IGC is this. Make a game worth paying for and I will pay for it. If the focus is on game play and goodies, take my money. If the focus starts to enter the I want your wallet. Then it becomes thanks for the time well wasted.

Hmmm...to pay 50 cents a day to play a game...I'd say as long as you got at least 2 1/2 - 5 hours worth of game time in, you just made your money. Figure an average console game is 60 dollars for 4-10 hours and you're paying to play them online with them too, if I'm not mistaken (I could be)

Redlynne wrote:

People routinely spend more money per day on vending machines without even thinking about it.

I used to have a 5 dollar a day plus 1 dollar tip coffee habit :p

Then there's the idea of those who purchase a 20oz bottle of soda a day, which usually goes over a dollar, but even at a dollar a pop, cut that back to 15 a month versus the 30...yay! \o/

15 a month on a game that one is likely to play more than enough in a month to justify the payment. Even if one plays only on the weekends for 2-4 hours, that's 8-16 hours. I pay a pretty cheap 7 dollars to go the movies, but that's 7 dollars for 1 1/2 - 2 hours of movie time (plus I usually get something there :p)

Sub costs are cheap!

Though, they could do something akin to FFXIV.

10.99/month for a limit of 5 characters

14.99/month for unlimited characters

13.99/a month for 3 months for unlimited characters

12.99/a month for 6 months for unlimited characters

11.99/a month for 12 months for unlimited characters

I would guess the real question would be...how many alts does one think they really need? If one is just a part time player who thinks they don't play enough to justify 14.99 a month, then not many alts.

What will make a Subscription worth buying?

A GOOD game worth spending money on!

Period.

/end of thread

Brand X wrote:

Hmmm...to pay 50 cents a day to play a game...I'd say as long as you got at least 2 1/2 - 5 hours worth of game time in, you just made your money. Figure an average console game is 60 dollars for 4-10 hours and you're paying to play them online with them too, if I'm not mistaken (I could be)

I relate cost of games to replayability and relative cost per hour. I'll go and pay ten bucks to see a really good movie that might last 2 hours. That's $5 an hour but I don't do it even once a month.

I'll buy games on sale on Steam that cost $20 and if I get even 20 hours of enjoyment out of them then that's a buck an hour. Not too bad.

Truly epic and replayable games like Skyrim and some of the 4X games can cost $60 but I can get hundreds or thousands of hours out of them. Big score for me.

My main reasons for wanting a primarily Subscription modeal are they're easy and the game company has a budget to work with. Sure, selling the new Top Hat costume piece might generate some quick revenue but for long-term planning they NEED to be able to say 'we have 10,000 subs at $12 each for at least the next 6 months. Now we can launch that next big expansion we had on the drawing board' or whatever.

I'm old-school so I don't think the idea of an up-front price and then F2P plus a cash store will provide a steady enough cash stream but maybe that's just me.

I'm going to say that I'm cautiously optimistic about it. I too have my doubts and concerns in regards to this "Micro-Subscription" model as well. I just don't know enough to say yay or nay. So I'm going to watch and wait. Time will tell.