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Arenanet on not being evil with micro tractions and my thoughts
By slith October 6, 2011 Follow AuthorIn a interview at the Eurogamer Expo 2011 Colin Johanson discussed the Is it Evil? test which Arenanet use to gauge if content, items and features whould be free or paid for with micro transactions.
“Evil” means anything that could make a character more powerful.
Correct, there is a cash shop that we run for the game.
One really important thing to note is, we don’t ever sell anything in there that makes your character more powerful. That’s really important to us.
We like to do the – we like to call it the Is it Evil? test. Every micro-transaction that we do in the game, we have everyone in the company look at it and say Is it Evil? Is it really something we should be selling?
Generally, the stuff in our store is purely cosmetic; it’s bonus stuff, it’s extra stuff you can get if you want to, but it’s not stuff you have to buy to play the game.
I have always supported and might go as far as saying its highly beneficial for both the company and players to have micro transactions; after all building a MMO is hard work and expensive.
Because I’m a casual gamer these days so I’m really happy to pay for a piece of content I want to enjoy which is also beneficial to Arenanet because with more money they can develop more great content I might potentially enjoy.
So what would I be happy to pay for?
- Quest lines to get items or rewards
- Extended experience stuff like the mobile app
- Costumes and mini’s or pets
- Un-lockable playable races or professions
- Hair styles
What wouldn’t I be happy to for?
- Convenience items that make the experience less grinding
- Storage – This would only be a problem for me if there was only a un-generous amount for free.
- Items that have dropped but I cant use because I dont have a premium account. Even if its only a cosmetic enhancement having a awesome item in your inventory that is taking up space but you cant use it is extremely frustrating
- Auctions
Arena net promise no evil in micro transactions
We not just hope, we believe a lot more people will play Guild Wars 2 than they did Guild Wars 1. We think that that will offset a lot of the development costs in itself.
We certainly are putting a lot more work into having more things available in our online store. The Guild Wars 1 store worked for us, it’s been there the whole time, but it didn’t have a ton of stuff in it. The Guild Wars 2 store we’re working on having more stuff for you to pick from to buy.
If people want to support our company and want to purchase that stuff, he added, there will be more options for them to do so. And it’s totally up to them.
We anticipate that that will help us, too.
So I trust that Arenanet will make the correct decisions as they have been very generous in the past. They should also have the right to earn money from their hardwork, just getting the balance right is the hard issue.
Do you agree or disagree with the things in my happy to pay for list?
Tags: micro transactions
There are two main advantages I see to micro-transactions over subscription fees:
1. Devs have to truly work for their money. With a subscription game the devs can continue just to pump out any old content that has been in the works, or not at all! They already have your money, this just builds complacence in the dev. With the micro-transaction model devs truly have to work for their money as players have more bargaining power with their money. If the content produced in micro-transactions isn’t any good then the player just won’t buy it. The end result is better content for the player.
2. The player gets to choose the content they pay for. With a subscription fee you pay for all the content released that month. You can’t choose not pay as much because you aren’t going to play X dungeon. With micro-transactions you only pay for what you want so if something is released in the store that you don’t want, well you don’t buy it! Once this produces better content as devs will try to create content you want to buy as apposed to content you don’t.
I won’t pay for content. Never. Not for quests, not for a race, not for a profession. A system like that would (does) just lure self-conscious teenagers into buying stuff and I’ll never support that.
@Redean – 100% agree with both the points.
@AngerinaGW2 – Fair enough, thanks for the comment
Skills, profs, races, quests and areas should cost no more than the original price of the game/ expansion.
Restyling a character should cost, but not to the extent of providing content to do so that which is exclusive within the same game ( eg. Restyling a Prophecies to Nightfall look is cool, adding new looks to Prophecies which can’t be accessed from the begining is not).
Festive hats and items should only be accessed by being there – not by being paid for.
Special costumes for cosmetics are great to buy, but only with a trustworthy way to pay (That means no NCSoft involvement) and content such as the BMP should have a pricier physical version for those of us that like boxes.
In short though I’ve always liked Anet quality and quantity for price and hope, with NCSoft keeping their sily systems out the way, that they’ll continue to release high calibre and fun entertainment to me.
-Art
I really like Anet’s vision and the fact that they are only offering cosmetic types of transactions. If the game is good and I enjoy it there’s no reason I for me not to make a couple micro transactions in their support when they could be trying to make me pay a monthly fee or else I would not be able to play. So just as a thank you alone for not making me choose between the latter two options I might make a purchase or 2.