Price Modelling Guess and Hopes for the Way it Will Really Be

The one thing that has me worried about this game and stifles my excitement is that I think I can guess the price modelling. The game will be free to play and you can earn cards just by playing. That is a good feature, no problems there. Then I’m sure if you want to you can by optional booster packs. That’s fine. I can grind games for the cards if I want to or buy a pack and test my luck. The stone wall will probably be in the adventure modules. I’m guessing that we will have access to a few adventures to begin with. But eventually players will hit a stone wall to where they are way too powerful to actually enjoy those adventures anymore which will force them to have to buy new higher level adventure packs. I certainly hope this is not so. Or I at least hope that you will be able to sell cards you don’t want for in-game currency that you can spend on adventure packs. That way the game will truly be free to play and not pay to win. Make sure that you leave all necessary areas of the game accessible to all players even those who may never buy anything with cash and you will have a winner. Making booster packs, individual cards, adventure modules and the obvious eventual player character releases cash purchases as well as available to be purchased via in-game earned currency through playing the game will be quite appreciated in the long run by the community. Then leave all the vanity stuff that has absolutely no game play effects to being purchasable by cash only. Just look at League of Legends F2P model and you really can’t go wrong.

 

I'm somewhat bored with the phrase 'Pay to Win'.

If the Developers don't make any money in the short run, then there won't be any 'long run'. I am quite happy to pay money to play a game and wonder how people use their 'free to play' model in other areas of their lives. This whining about having to support a game by actually - shock horror - putting their hands in their pockets is absurd.

What you're really saying is 'I want it all, for free, forever.' How is that going to keep any business going?

 

Because Card Hunter appears to be mostly a single player game (with some multiplayer mixed in) I'm ok with there being some exclusive paid content, because the divide between paying and non-paying players wont be as direct--its not like the paying players will just be running onto other boards and ganking n00bs. Nevertheless, I'm also fairly sure that there will be some incentive for players to pay and one of the most effective ways to do that is to make content exclusive, be it cosmetic or substantive. Either way, I do think Blue Manchu has been pretty aware of the frustrations of other F2P games and is truly trying to make the game 100% enjoyable as a free product.

This thread also had a lot of discussion and speculation on paying for Card Hunter, with a guest appearance by the developer himself.

 

I utterly loathe the idea of paying for adventure modules, especially if they're the only way to get new cards. There is no difference, in the end, between that and paying for booster packs. What I would love to see is a League of Legends style pay-for-cosmetics option. If an earnable in-game microcurrency is implemented, especially for buying adventures, I wouldn't mind seeing an option for paying with a cash-based microcurrency, the same way you can buy champions on League.

 

My guess is that if some modules are purchase-only, there will also be free modules. My hope is that if some modules are paid, most content can still be accessed through free modules, but maybe at different drop rates. League of Legends has really hit the sweet spot with F2P, and after talking with some of the guys at Riot it appears they wouldn't have it any other way.

 

I'm fine with pay to play modules, but its a careful balancing act to make sure those modules don't contain OP equipment, making owning them a requirement to compete. Cosmetics are also a good idea, and I think it would work well with this game.
I always support "free" games that I like, I'm certainly not being cheap.
It's the Haves/Have Nots caste system a lot of these games create that turns me off, I think its manipulative and bad for the game itself. You turn free players basically into a different form of Mob, only one that's constantly begging for gold/help.

 

Just look at League of Legends. Everything that is necessary to be able to play the game is purchasable with in-game earned micro currency and actual cash. Yet they make a huge profit. They are currently the #1 Free to Play MOBA, and game I believe, and hold multi-thousand dollar tournaments. They are very successful with this pricing model. While I have never actually spent money on the game itself I do like it so much that I have supported them through other options by buying merchandise like tshirts. By doing this I have not only supported them I've also made myself a walking billboard. It is quite possible to be successful through making your game's required content available for free via in game currency and cash purchase. There will be plenty of people with disposable income that will throw their money at it.

 

The free-to-play model adopted by developers like Riot, korean MMO companies, mobile developers, etc. fundamentally rely on several factors:

• User acquisition - This is both in terms of cost and quality of users obtained. Essentially, the benefit (mostly in terms of revenue, but there's some benefit in terms of viral and other factors) a user generates has to exceed the acquisition cost for that user. This sounds easy to do, but actually isn't, so if you don't know how to do this, a free-to-play model alone is not going to succeed.
• Accessibility / Mass Market Appeal - Tied to User Acquisition, this basically determines the "pool" of users that are available, which directly affects user acquisition costs; if a game is niche, a free-to-play is almost doomed to fail right from the start (for example, LoL did this way better than HoN, pricing model aside).
• Whale Content - Given that roughly just 2% of people who play free-to-play games will actually spend any money; having content specially priced for those who are willing to shell out lots of money. This is why lots of people who play free-to-play games complain about really expensive content (I mean, people complain anyway, but...) and "suggest" to the developers they could make "way more" money if they just lowered the prices. In reality, the % of payers is low, and the % of payers who are whales is low, but that small subset of payers make up anywhere from 40-80% of the revenue in this type of pricing model. This is probably the part most gamers do not understand or realize.
• Premium Content Pipeline - A well established content pipeline allows the developer to continue to put content that will generate revenue.

Everyone talks about LoL whenever this type of conversation comes up, and it's certainly true that it's done well. But there are plenty of examples where free-to-play as not worked, especially for games that cater to more hardcore players.

All in all, I am not suggesting free-t0-play does not work. In fact, I know it does, but it's certainly not the de-facto choice and is certainly not an applicable model for all games and all developers.

 

Yes, as A Bear said, we've been talking about the chance that there will be modules in each of the "for pay" and "for free" piles.

Inside that, there's the question of exactly what content you get from modules: is it unique content, like "The Jewel of Alet Zhav" literally dispensed at the end? Or is it random content? And if it's random, can we presume that there is a hierarchy with tougher modules giving better loot? And if there are easier and tougher modules, can we presume some "for pay" and "for free" modules will fit into each category?

In that thread A Bear linked, I said I'd like "the same range of quality in the cards, from high to low, just wearing different 'hats'" in paid versus free content. It's as far as I can really get from your concern about modules being equivalent to booster packs. For your concern to come true, you'd have to have all "good modules" be exclusively "for pay" (or, to take you literally, all modules), and have them be one-time-only purchases like buying a ticket to a movie. I doubt that would ever happen.

I also doubt you meant that. So, stepping back from the extreme, there are a lot of ways this could work out well.

 

I have a serious problem with paying for anything that is digital and server access only.. If they do come through with creating an actual desktop application that allows me to instal the game and play it any time, and download the modules to it, then I would actually consider paying for content. I just could never see myself paying for something that I can only play on the internet that will eventually be deleted. If I pay for content I want to be able to use that content 20 years from now if I would like to regardless if the servers or website is still up.

 

Good post, sokolov. I'd only add that making a game free-to-play changes the, er... "texture" of acquiring players from ads: I'd gamble that it'd be easier to get ad-driven users to stick around to try a free-to-play game than it would be a game with a demo, and in turn, a game with a demo might encourage more users to stick around and play it than a game that's purchase-only. That said, I've never actually seen hard numbers on the full "ad to download to purchase" funnel for a game that has no demo and an initial required purchase, so what do I know?

An aside... I think everyone can agree that the model League of Legends uses is very fair and unobtrusive to its users, while simultaneously being lucrative for Riot. What I don't know, however, is whether the model manages to do so without a reliance on "whales". That's the part of the free-to-play model that I think fits most poorly with Card Hunter: I don't feel like the game lends itself to being monetized well for whales without feeling overbearing to free players and regular customers. I definitely don't see a lot of room for vanity items, for starters.

If LoL is managing to get a reasonable amount of money from *more* than that 2% of users, however, I think its model is probably worth emulating here.

 

No no no no. I can see their is some confusion in my meaning. Necessary content is in reference towards new modules, cards and the eventual new player characters. Things that you must have to play the game. Initially you will get all that you need to play for free to a "point", a starter kit like D&D's Red Box, and then you will need to buy further necessities in some form in the future to go further in the game. Then I state "with in-game 'earned' currency". So this would be like in League of Legends when you play the game you earn IP that lets you buy new runes and champions to play with (necessary items). So in Card Hunter I propose earning gold or something when you play quests that can be spent on buying new cards, modules and player characters. Also in League of Legends there are two pricing options to buy "necessary" items. You can either buy them with the IP you have earned or if you have money burning a hole in your pocket there is an option to buy them with R.iot P.oints that are cash purchased. Then all cosmetic items that effect gameplay in no way what-so-ever (skins and extra rune pages) are purchasable with RP only. This is the model that I am proposing. This would ensure that people who want new content right away can just buy it with cash and those who are willing to wait can buy it with in game earned currency. Thus you get a nice balance between those who play to win and those who pay to win, for lack of better terms. You would be surprised at the cash influx caused by impatient people with a need for instant gratification.

The only problem that I can see with my idea is if you let items (cards) be purchasable with cash. That would create a possible huge imbalance. So, just leave item acquisition to finding them in quests and buying them with in-game earned currency.

While we are on the topic of purchasing options why not let us earn gold while playing the game (the equivalent of IP in League of Legends) and then be able to purchase platinum (the equivalent of RP in League of Legends)? Just an idea. I thought the theme would fit the fantasy setting.

 

The LoL model for its vanity items must be working. I see a ton of people running around with skins and all I can think is, "You spent actual money on a useless item in a free to play game?" I could see people buying new skins in Card Hunter that make you look different and change the sound effects that happen when you battle.

I think a lot of the revenue must also come from the people who are not willing to save IP to buy champions and just plunk down $5 every two weeks for the new champ that comes out. We live in a society that is really about instant gratification now-a-days and I think the...greed of the people would go a long way in keeping a game afloat if not make it profitable.

But what do I know. I don't have a business degree or specific statistics to look at. I'm just a gamer who loves old school board game RPGs and video games and can't wait to get my hands on this awesome sounding game!

 

Based on my knowledge of the industry, I would suggest that vanity items make up no more than 5-10% of their revenue - and that's a very optimistic estimate.

But yes, "give it to me now" is a huge revenue driver in these pricing models.

 

Am I the only one who would prefer to pay up front for the game and then not have to bother much with micro-transactions or buying chapters or whatnot?

 

Sadly I am aware that free to play games end up costing more in the long-run, which is why I can't warm up to them. For example, I had actually bought and used to enjoy TF2 until the hats mania started. It quickly went downhill, and by the time it went F2P I had stopped playing it altogether. Same with Global Agenda.

I just hope, whatever model they end up using it's at least done with a bit of style. Take a look at the Mann Co. Store, and do the exact opposite of that...

 

I acknowledge that there are other approaches. It's entirely possible that Card Hunter will have one that works and turns a profit. I just don't like when people twist payment methods around in weird curlicues so they can reach deeper into my bank account.