Many gamers keep asking why some are willing to pay money monthly for a game. The MMORPG pioneer Raph Koster has an answer for that: Because they provide the corresponding service. There is a certain relationship between player and game.
Who is speaking? Raph Koster is known as the lead designer of the legendary Ultima Online, one of the oldest MMORPGs in the world. He is regarded as one of the creators of the genre and frequently shares insights on the current state of the industry. He is currently leading as CEO of Playable Worlds and pursuing the dream of a “real cloud game.”
In the interview with VentureBeat, Koster explained a few days ago what games with a subscription model do right and must do, and why they can still hold their ground in 2020 amidst all the free-to-play competition.
No wonder games like World of Warcraft have been in business for decades. On October 27, 2020, Shadowlands will be released, its eighth expansion.
A service that keeps players engaged for years
How do subscription models still hold up? According to Koster, it’s because players only subscribe to a game that “deserves” it. The game must be good enough to make players want to keep paying:
The ultimate purpose of a subscription is to offer a service that binds players over the years. And making a game that keeps someone engaged for years is very hard. It’s a completely different approach than making consumable content games.
A service game that wants to last for a long time requires ongoing work. This is a completely different model than many years ago, when games were shipped as complete experiences and then played through without developers having to care anymore – “fire and forget,” as Koster puts it.
His own game, Ultima Online, is already 25 years old and is still running. The developers are even planning now to “reach the largest audience of all time”.
What does this mean for new games? The effort involved in development is increasing, Koster explains, and so are the costs for production. This would make it more profitable for companies in the long run to dedicate a long time to a game and keep players engaged with it.
That’s exactly what MMOs do and it impacts the entire industry. Koster recently explained here on MeinMMO what MMOs actually are and what it all entails. He reinforces this with a new statement:
We are currently seeing the entire industry trying to move in this direction. That’s why AAA titles suddenly have chat, auction houses and so on, although they were historically linear narratives.
Additionally, other approaches would also stem from the subscription model that could also be successful and could be employed when not enough people are paying monthly. One of these models would be a free-to-play approach with season passes and huge events when new expansions come out. The king in this discipline is currently Fortnite.
“You are in an ongoing relationship”
The reason you are even willing to pay for these games repeatedly – no matter in what form – lies in how the developers and the game itself relate to you. Koster cites “transparency, openness, and honesty” as important points and explains:
You are in an ongoing relationship, and your game and your service must be designed to maintain and nurture that relationship. […] The most successful way to build a long-term community is all about how [the players] perceive the operator as part of this community and not as above them. The feeling of “we are in this together” is absolutely crucial.
This also means that developers must engage with the criticism and wishes of the players. What they desire is often not what one would expect. Koster revealed to us earlier that simply killing is not good game content. Baking or growing plants is much more important for a good game.
