Words by Greywolfe
Last week, we talked about how publishers sometimes give their customers rather short shrift. I wanted to talk a little bit more about the idea, because I think it’s worth looking into the current state of how games are sold – it will illuminate a handful of what I think are terrible practices and hopefully, it will make you think about how you purchase games in the future.
All the money! ALL THE MONEY!
The Monetization Trap
One of the worst words to come out of gaming in the last ten or so years is “free-to-play.”
In principle, free-to-play allows the customer to download the game – bypassing that original $60 purchase cost up-front. You are then set free in whatever world this is – usually, it’s a massively multiplayer online game – particularly of the role playing variety – but then, somewhere along the way – usually level twenty or so, the game starts demanding to be fed.
There are numerous problems with free-to-play, but most notably:
- It is a gross misnomer.
- Probably the most important thing about free-to-play is its name. Somehow, publishers adopted this particular set of words for what is – at its heart – not at all “free.” Good free-to-play systems give the player access to [very nearly] everything as long as they have time. Hearthstone is this model done absolutely right, but it doesn’t take looking very far to see how terribly it is abused.
- The game is always built around the monetization method.
- As a result of no box sale, the publisher has to recoup money somewhere along the line. At very least, they want their $60. At most, they want the sun, moon and stars. This is walking-walletry at its worst. Particularly when items are time locked and the timer keeps ticking regardless of whether or not you’re logged in. One need merely look at “time cards” that are sold for various massively multiplayer role playing games. These time cards should only tick down as long as you are logged in, but that, of course, is not how they work.
- Content that should be part of the base game [like specific races and particular classes, in the case of a role playing game] are behind a pay wall. Items need to be “unlocked” in order for you to use them. The laundry list of sins here is pretty long, but the net result is simple: there end up being “haves” and “have nots.”
- Games sometimes sell “power.”
- In order to attract players, the game might sell enchanted swords that you cannot get anywhere other than in the store. These enchanted swords might be strictly better than anything else you could get in the world of the game.
- Games always sell cosmetic items.
- Whenever I look at a list of sins committed in the free-to-play space, this one always seems to get a massive free pass, somehow. The idea is that “cosmetic items” are not content, and so these are fair game to the publisher. What this generally means is that the nicest looking suits of armour, or the neatest ride able dragons are only to be found in the store. “It’s just a cosmetic item” is usually the defence issued in a case like this, but the trouble is: cosmetic items are content to someone. Perhaps not you, but they do matter to certain players. Why should they be forced to shell out for what they like when your raids are free?
No selling your bought games. Bad customer!
The War On Used Games
Another onerous practise that has slowly begun to crop up in gaming is the stance that second-hand sales are a bad idea. They should be avoided and we should move to a world where the only sale that matters is the first one.
Publishers are, of course, driving this particular practise because they don’t see any money from the game once it becomes second hand. You see, games – or nearly any entertainment product – exists on a store shelf [or virtual shelf] at a retailer’s to be sold with the express understanding that some portion of the sale will trickle back to the publisher.
In any other entertainment industry – books, music or movies, once that first sale has occurred – NO more money can trickle backward to the publisher for a second-hand sale. That’s a transaction between two individuals and in that case, the original owner gets the money and the new owner gets the product.
In gaming, however, publishers hate the second sale. So they have built in systems that force at least a portion of the second sale to go back to them. Perhaps you need to buy a [again, rather mis-named] “season pass” to access content that you should have had as a result of the sale. Or the publisher outright stops you from selling if it’s on a digital platform. None of this is consumer friendly – and none of it works this way in other industries. [though, to be fair, those industries are slowly trying to “catch on.”]
On To The Future
Next week, I will wrap up this series – we will talk a little about a handful of other bad practises, but I do want to point out that there is some good in all of this silliness. Gaming isn’t a “lost cause” when it comes to this particular issue, but it is in a place where we need to start seriously thinking about who we support and how we support them. That way, we get our “reasonable monetization models” back, because, really, publishers seem to only listen to sales data, anymore.
