Sony Goes Guild Wars

[Evil Avatar]

The Austin American-Statesman is reporting (http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/10/28sony.html) that Sony is planning a non-subscription MMORPG, similar to the Guild Wars "Buy it and play free" marketing model.

Smedley said his company aims to do just that with a plan to break from its existing subscription-based business model and release a game title next fall that can be played free of charge.

Sony Online Entertainment, a division of consumer electronics giant Sony Corp., expects to more than make up for the lost subscription revenue by selling optional add-ons, such as extra weapons or game levels.

"We're going to be launching this quickly," Smedley said, though he declined to reveal the game title. "We see it as a powerful way of getting people in" to online gaming, because many video game aficionados are put off by subscription-based games.I think this is a great idea, I will only pay for one MMORPG at a time and right now that is World of Warcraft, but because it is free I still purchased, and play, Guild Wars.

[thecrazyd]

That is not exactly what this means. When they say free of charge, they mean free of charge. The client will be free and there will be no monthly charges.

[Evil Avatar]

That is not exactly what this means. When they say free of charge, they mean free of charge. The client will be free and there will be no monthly charges.

It doesn't say anything like that in the article. It just says no monthly charge.

[thecrazyd]

that can be played free of charge.
That is why they are adding content you can buy. It will be like Guild Wars, but with a free client, and you can but cool stuff that doesn't affect gameplay for small amounts. When they say you can play it free of charge, they mean that you can play the game without spending a penny.

[Bushido]

and in other news I shit rainbows.

[Hapless]

I have a quick qestion to you all out there. Do you consider Diablo 2 an MMO? People keep calling Guildwars an mmo, but to me it just seems like a shiney version of diablo 2.

[Derella]

I hope more companies adopt this model. I didn't play Guild Wars for more than a few days(just couldn't get into it) but I like the idea of being able to play more MMO-style games without worrying about going into to debt.

[Wonka]

I don't know if this will fully help with the "play one MMORPG at a time" problem since a large part of the cost of playing an MMORPG is the enormous time commitment they require.

But I will grant you that it's a step in the right direction.

[Taco]

I have a quick qestion to you all out there. Do you consider Diablo 2 an MMO? People keep calling Guildwars an mmo, but to me it just seems like a shiney version of diablo 2.

Yep, this argument comes up everytime. Apparently people will always consider it an MMRPG for some reason. Whatever, still a good game.

[TheBigL]

It will be called "Sony Wars" and you will have to protect japan from the invading force of microfoft evil army.

- Battle unique monsters such as: Blue Screen of Death, Microfoft Windofs (All Vertions!!!), Xfox and the super unique monster Xfox361.

- You can affect the world by destroying the evil leader "Bill G" and bring happines and light to the rising sun country.

- Battle with unique weapons such as: Boomerangs and Wires.

- While playing the main quest (Saving Japan from Microfoft) there is secondery quest which is to take over the world.

[Kefkataran]

I seriously wish I could've got more into Guild Wars. I play it once in a while, but there's just not enough there to keep me interested. :\

[reimomo]

Uhm, wow... everyone is excited about a "free" MMORPG where you can pay for items and levels. Hurrah. Maybe they should have a tiered pricing scheme for your avatars... more $$ = bigger boobs and more skin showing on your female char. Or a bigger schlong for your male avatar. Fanfuckingtastic I say.... bring it on SOE. Lets see what the geniuses responsible for the recording and movie industry can continue to do to gaming.

Am I the only one who can imagine the horrible grind that is going to be required in a game where the developers have a pure, 100% cash in hand incentive to make leveling an utter bitch? Free my ass. Fools.

[Murmillo]

Uhm, wow... everyone is excited about a "free" MMORPG where you can pay for items and levels. Hurrah. Maybe they should have a tiered pricing scheme for your avatars... more $$ = bigger boobs and more skin showing on your female char. Or a bigger schlong for you male avatar. Fanfuckingtastic I say.... bring it on SOE. Lets see what the geniuses responsible for the recording and movie industry can continue to do to gaming.

Am I the only one who can imagine the horrible grind that is going to be required in a game where the developers have a pure, 100% cash in hand incentive to make it an utter bitch? Free my ass. Fools.
You need to take an anger management class.



Its not like Sony has a gun to your head forcing you to play and spend your money. If the system works, it works -fine .. if it's broken and doesn't work -fine. But we won't know what works and what doesn't work until people try it.

[reimomo]

You need to take an anger management class.

Since you want to make this personal,

You need to blow me.

Watching a "cutting edge" gaming community embrace the "pay for lewt and levels" paradigm as a "free" game ought to make you angry.

[kickmybum]

That is why they are adding content you can buy. It will be like Guild Wars, but with a free client, and you can but cool stuff that doesn't affect gameplay for small amounts. When they say you can play it free of charge, they mean that you can play the game without spending a penny.

I'm sure they're charging for the Client. If anyone knows anything about SOE its that you pay out of the ass for POS expansions and monthly fees. And the guy even said "the way we'll make up subscription fees is by blah blah blah", which leads me to believe that "subscription fees" will be the only thing missing.

[Kefkataran]

Watching a "cutting edge" gaming community embrace the "pay for lewt and levels" paradigm as a "free" game ought to make you angry.

Or... maybe I have more important things to worry about... like... life?

Just saying, I can understand not digging this and arguing against it, but I really can't care enough to get *that* upset.

[Liquidize105]

Seems to me like SOE's gonna make a game to get in directly on the MMO aftermarket.

Goddamn Sony, sink any lower and you'll bump into China.

[Ludoc]

This sounds a lot like the current Anarchy Online model. Free client, free play but you'll see adds in game have to pay to access the expansions. If that's what Sony does I don't really see the problem.

[Murmillo]

Since you want to make this personal,

You need to blow me.

Watching a "cutting edge" gaming community embrace the "pay for lewt and levels" paradigm as a "free" game ought to make you angry.

Grow up.

Unless the system is abused, I think it has a model to work for gamers. Why pay $50 for a game that you just may not like. If the client is free, and the first few levels are free and if I like it and it costs only $5 to play some more, I'll do it. If by the end game of the MMO is reached and I've only spent $50 getting there then it will be $50 well spent. Same wise, if I only get halfway (or $25) thru the game and then decide that the game isn't for me, or I just no longer have the time to play it, then I just saved myself money instead of paying in full for only half a game.

I can see it getting abused, but gamers will keep these systems in check.

It makes it easier then dropping $50 in a game I don't like and hope I can find somebody who trusts me in selling it to them.

[thecrazyd]

How odd is it that a company says, "We are giving you a free game!" and everyone feels the need to complain?

[Zeal]

You get what you pay for. It will suck.

[thecrazyd]

You get what you pay for. It will suck.
Wouldn't you rather try it out FOR FREE before you make your opinion? You know, so you don't look even more like a total asshat? Because you have absolutely no information about this game at all. If it sucks, oh well, no loss. Crying about it now is just idiotic.

[Mason]

I don't get how people can complain about this yet. A game that we can try for free and decide if it is worth investing any money in is always a good thing. Suck or not, there's no harm done. Shut your whine hole.

[Taco]

I don't get how people can complain about this yet.

People are stupid.

[Heretic Machine]

Guild Wars isn't an MMO. The Devs agree, and so do veteran MMO players. It's an online game, with roleplaying elements, but it's not Massive. If Sony goes this route, I probably won't even check it out, they are just not my kind of game. Now if it's an actual free MMO, I'll see about it.

Not saying Guild Wars is bad, it's just not an MMO, and I'm not into the gameplay.

[Captain Awesome]

MMO's are too slow and the payoff is wasted hours. More instant action-based online asskickery please

[Hijinx]

Well I never thought I'd see the day the Statesman got some news up on the EvAv.

Even though there won't be any subscription fee, top Sony execs have said that the game will be expensive.

[mister_slim]

The Austin American-Statesman is reporting (http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/10/28sony.html) that Sony is planning a non-subscription MMORPG, similar to the Guild Wars "Buy it and play free" marketing model.

Sounds more like Gunbound or some of the popular Korean free MMOs to me.
Since you want to make this personal,

You need to blow me.

Watching a "cutting edge" gaming community embrace the "pay for lewt and levels" paradigm as a "free" game ought to make you angry.
Perhaps you shouldn't jump to idiotic conclusions backed by profanity?

[Royal Fool]

Ok, I read through that article. Nowhere is it mentioned that Sony is going to provide the game client free of charge. And frankly, since MMO players are generally used to buying the box games because the standard is a month of free game time, I wouldn't be surprised if Sony sells the client, even if it's gonna be cheaper than your average game. Let's face it, people will pay for demos - and I'm sure publishers in the future will start doing more of that, especially if production budgets keep rising. They need to get revenue somewhere.

This sounds rather terrible... thecrazyd said it won't affect gameplay, but I don't see how that's true if you're buying equipment, levels and who knows what.

Wanna be able to defeat that big dragon that's blocking your path to the next village? Too bad you don't have this shiny mace of dragonslaying, yours for only $3.95. Or how about a level? $2.45 per level, or buy a pack of 5 levelups for only $9.95! Wanna play as that swanky generic elf race that our artists spent a weekend modeling and creating? Yours for only $6.95!

He also thinks future games must be designed to operate seamlessly across a variety of electronic platforms, whether it be standard desktop computers, hand-held game machines or cell phones.

"We want you to be able to log into your virtual world with any device, from anywhere in the world," Smedley told participants at the Austin Game Conference.
In other words: Expect Sony PSP and Sony Ericsson-compatability in the future, if Smedley has his way.

[Kefkataran]

I don't get how people can complain about this yet.

Please see the thread about the stupid rumor that Blizzard was going to announce a Diablo 3 MMORPG at Blizzcon. Ugh. People sometimes.

[XenonCJ]

I was playing Quake4 last night online - I was blastn' fools right and left... I'd say it's almost as good of an MMORPG as Guild Wars or AoE3.

[Rirath]

I was playing Quake4 last night online - I was blastn' fools right and left... I'd say it's almost as good of an MMORPG as Guild Wars or AoE3.

:D I needed that laugh, thanks.

(I still want a good MMOFPS, some day... enough hack and slash, I want headshots.)

[51|RandoM]

:D I needed that laugh, thanks.

(I still want a good MMOFPS, some day... enough hack and slash, I want headshots.)


bf2...

Not much character development, though, heh.

[Kefkataran]

bf2...

Not much character development, though, heh.

Not really an MMO, is it?

[Player 1]

I don't get how people can complain about this yet. A game that we can try for free and decide if it is worth investing any money in is always a good thing. Suck or not, there's no harm done. Shut your whine hole.

It's because the news article has the word "Sony" in it. Duh!

But yeah, gamers whining about games that, at the very least, will be free to try extensively is just showcasing how ungrateful and unthinking people can be.

Oh, and anybody that thinks free = rubbish needs to play Doukutso Monogatari (http://agtp.romhack.net/doukutsu.html). (You'll thank me)

[BigJonno]

The only thing newsworthy about this is that it's a well-known company like Sony doing it. There are loads of online games out there that don't use the "Buy a box, pay a monthly fee" subscription method. Look at Runescape (http://www.runescape.com/) it's free to play as much as you want, for as long as you want, however if you want access to a few extra skills, items and the majority of the quest content, you have to play a small monthly fee. It's an excellent business model. Who would've thought that a Java-coded browser game that was a guy's university project would pull in over 350,000 paying subscribers?

Or how about all the Korean online games that you don't pay any fees for? I know that there are already several where you can pay for extra items. You can play all week to get that spangly new helmet (that has no mechanical benefit whatsoever) or you can pay less than the price of a beer for it. The system works.

[reimomo]

It's because the news article has the word "Sony" in it. Duh!

But yeah, gamers whining about games that, at the very least, will be free to try extensively is just showcasing how ungrateful and unthinking people can be.

Oh, and anybody that thinks free = rubbish needs to play Doukutso Monogatari (http://agtp.romhack.net/doukutsu.html). (You'll thank me)

Its pretty simple really... SOE, like any other big game company is all about the dollars. They don't make games because they love them, or even like them.

So here's a game that so far, looks like it will 1) have no monthly subscription fee, and 2) expects to "make up" the revenue lost from subscriptions by selling in-game items and levels. And there may or may not be an upfront cost (I'm betting on yes basedon the language used)

Anyone here ever played a MMO where getting in-game items or levels was sometimes more of a pain than you wanted it to be? Now imagine a game where you don't pay to play every month, so a developer has ZERO incentive to not scare you off with horrible grind/loot systems. You don't pay to play every month, why would they care if you stopped playing? Instead, they have LOTS of incentive to get you to buy items and levels.

In the interview whathisname said they expect to make their money from those in-game level and item sales. So the game will be designed from the ground up to get the average person to buy x-dollars of levels/stuff/junk every month. Here's an algebra problem... guess what X is?

Will it suck? Personally, I despise the idea of buying levels, items to a lesser degree, and SOE has a poor track record. What I was "whining" about was the characterization of this as a "free" MMO, when there's no info that the client would be free, and there definitely will be a cost associated to the average gamer to play every month. (otherwise they'd go broke, as they say themselves). Is it news? sure. Is it interesting? if you think so. Is it "free"? hell no it isn't.

And in general response to whomever... was feeling cranky in original post, I'm as grown up as I ever want to be, profanity seems rather commmon on these threads, and people with 100x my post count over nearly the same reg time shouldn't start pointing the "you have no life" finger.

[Derella]

MMO's are too slow and the payoff is wasted hours. More instant action-based online asskickery please
Unless your computer shoots out gold statues when you win games, time spent playing any game is "wasted."

[Kefkataran]

Its pretty simple really... SOE, like any other big game company is all about the dollars. They don't make games because they love them, or even like them.

That's a pretty big leap of assumption there. Now SOE as the company? As a corporate entity? Sure, I believe you on that. But the actual single developers and people involved in really making the games? I'm willing to bet all or almost all have a love (or at least like) of games.

profanity seems rather commmon on these threads, and people with 100x my post count over nearly the same reg time shouldn't start pointing the "you have no life" finger.

Methinks you refer to me with the no life thing. For the record, I wasn't implying you have no life -- I was simply saying I don't see the point in getting so angry about such a small, silly topic as a game that, judging by your views on Sony, you probably won't ever touch, and more importantly that we know next to nothing about at this point. I mean you're right: it is Sony. They don't have a spectacular track record. It will probably suck. So why get so worked up about it?

And profanity's common here, but it doesn't help your case much if you're attacking someone (or the community as a whole).

[mister_slim]

Oh, and anybody that thinks free = rubbish needs to play Doukutso Monogatari (http://agtp.romhack.net/doukutsu.html). (You'll thank me)
Odd to be agreeing with you, but yeah, everyone should try Cave Story. There's an OSX port running around, btw.
Anyone here ever played a MMO where getting in-game items or levels was sometimes more of a pain than you wanted it to be?
Back to the jumping to conclusions thing, based on the quote (so no, not conclusive) I think he was talking about game levels, i.e. maps, areas, chapters, rather than character levels. Selling levels is common practice in that sense.