Bill Roper – Computer Game Poison?
The ugly way Roper drove Hellgate: London and Flagship into bankruptcy is legendary. The greedy subscription model for an action RPG Diablo clone was an exceptionally bad idea. His constant arguing and fighting against respecs was rancid icing on the rotten cake.
In light of that, it was a real head scratcher when Cryptic hired him and made him Executive Producer of Champions Online. I must admit, while I enjoyed a lot of things about Champions Online, I’d been waiting for and worrying about Roper’s influence.
With the full opening of the Champions Online microtransaction cash shop (C-Store), those fears were apparently well founded.
I never understood where the heck Cryptic got off adding a cash shop to a full price + monthly subscription game. That’s not just double dipping, that’s triple dipping. I am fine with meta-game functions having an extra cost (server transfers, character renames, etc.), but actual game content should not have a fee in a subscription based game.
Cryptic’s constant resistance to making a decent respec system for Champions Online had boggled my mind since the beginning. Any kind of build/spec type advancement system needs a good respec feature. CO’s fully open ability system absolutely REQUIRES it. The flexibility is great, but with flexibility comes the ability to easily and quickly screw up your character.
When I read the details of the C-Store, it all became clear: $12.50 for a character respec. They designed a system that effectively requires frequent respecing, and then charge $12.50 per respec. Amazing. And with almost weekly patches that dramatically change (nerf) abilities, it is impossible to know how a power you have today will perform tomorrow.
In most MMOs, respecing your character either has quests or a gold cost equal to an hour or so of game time (or less). But in Champions Online, you pay $12.50. Unreal. Absolutely unreal.
If CO were a stock, I’d be selling short right now. The population is plummeting, and the decision making behind this C-Store does not inspire confidence at all. One can only hope that Roper will go back to voice acting and writing manuals after he kills this game.
Brian, great post. You are spot on about what makes microtransactions attractive (both to developers and players), and also what is likely to happen to the greedy business people who try to bleed their customers dry.
What makes me particularly annoyed with the CO issue is the way they basically lied about the respec issue from the start. There is no way they haven’t been planning to charge for them for quite some time. Going around to magazines and arguing that full retcons will mess up the game mechanics, and then putting it on the cash shop is just outright deception. That’s Roper at his best I guess.
And by mentioning that name, we are back to the point of this post. This guy is computer game poison. Everything he touches dies. If CO has an ugly failure like Hellgate: London, is Roper done?
Does he have to slink back to doing voice overs or something? Or is there another idiot out there willing to put him in charge of their game?
^_^ Jade Dynasty charges US$30 for a full respec.
…but Jade Dynasty is a F2P model – which is very different indeed.
JD also allows you to (using the current rate on your servers – the economy in this sense IS controlled by the players) use in-game gold to buy… another version of in-game gold, that you can then use to pay for the US$30 cash shop item that you need for a respec.
The thing is, JD is (to me) very upfront and honest about its payment model. They’ve obviously designed a very high degree of incentivizing using cold hard cash to get what you want, into the system. At the same time though, they’ve built in counterbalances that let you obtain the same items through a very large amount of in-game time, if you really want to.
Oddly, I find this more honest and appealing than the ‘triple-dipping’ you wrote about. I have nothing against cash shop models where the cash shop nature has really been thought out from the ground up.
Note though, that JD endgame is PvP, which from research seems to me to be highly flawed and unbalanced… but hey, I’m not playing for the endgame anyway. =)
Jade Dynasty sounds more like a game making appropriate use of MTs. The lack of a subscription is the main part of that.
I canceled my subscription yesterday to CO as well, but Im not going back.
Something that I think is important to point out with regards to people saying Roper cant be the one to shoulder all the blame. I agree. But here’s why:
http://crypticstudios.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=84&Itemid=35
That’s a link to cryptic’s executive team and reads like a wrap sheet of some of the worst of the industry.
What is important to note is the Tricia Gray: the director of marketing. She was also the worldwide director of marketing and PR for Flagship studios for hellgate etc.
In otherwords, you’ve got two of the most infamously bad members of Flagship doing the very same mistakes and thinking at Cryptic.
But this is no suprise if you know the history of Jack Emmert and as well CEO John Needham (formerly of SOE).
There is rumors afloat on another game forum that CO’s staff has been thinned with the displaced being put to work on STO. Another point that is not a good sign for the health of the game.
I’ll never play another title by Cryptic ever again. Nor will I play a title that Roper, Emmert, or Gray have affiliation with in the future.
Ummm are you guys daft! You can respec in the game all you have to do is save up for the cost. And they have given free respecs (at least 3 times by my count) when justified.
The micro transaction (if you can call it that) for respecs are for people that do not want to farm for the resources. And how is this any different than people who play wow paying for gold on the black market? At least this way Cryptic gets the money directly.
If wow implemented a way for you to purchase gold with real cash everyone would love them.
Now having said all of that I’m a LTS with CO and I don’t think the game has a snowballs chance in hell of making it a year. They’ve made too many stupid decisions and its going to bite them in the ass.
Check out there own online poll to see how many people are playing:
http://www.champions-online.com/node/594618
I just did a full retcon in the game itself…you don’t HAVE to buy a retcon from the shop. Line item retcons would rock but in the mean time I’d like to think that most people don’t need multiple retcons.
Also, I haven’t seen many dramatic power changes lately and when there is one they’ve given out a free retcon, in fact they’ve given out two server wide so far and one was only because one powerset was acting up.
I haven’t been farming or grinding and I have well over 100 Globals (bold in CO) since launch day and that’s with sitting on 15 missions and crafting instead of selling everything AND buying higher level items and supplies to craft with which has probably cost me 50 gold in it’s own right.
Then again I’d hope at level 40 you’d have an idea of what you want to do with your toon and I’d hope that truly dramatic power alterations come with a free retcon.
Then again there’s the Championbuilder application that allows you to plan out a hero AND the test server which (at least for the time being) has the ability to let you create a character and auto them up in level.
At the moment there just aren’t many excuses for needing a full retcon. But they definitely need to get the line item retcon in…
@Rustbucket the poll doesn’t reflect the number of players playing the game, only the ones who have bothered to go to the website and actually vote on the poll. Big difference. However, the small number of respondents thus far is rather small(under 4000 at the writing of this comment).
Micro transaction are not perse a bad thing. It depends what they are for and how they are implemented. CO’s werent’ implemented well. When you combine that with all the other issues that plague the game: frequent down time due to issues, bugs, thin/sparse content in various level ranges, power balance, pvp and pve balance, disconnected community through its shard system, predominantly useless crafting, and the patronizing and oft poor customer service, then you have a significant recipe for failure.
The game has already passed a critical point with regards to players, retailers, and the considerations by peers in the game industry. Stores already have them on clearance, reduced prices, reviews have been pretty critical, and seemingly they are losing more subscriptions than they are gaining if you consider typically less folks visible in various zones and numbers of spawned shards for them at any given time.
Given the management’s attitude and direction along with the above issues, all it seems they’re trying to do is milk the remaining pbase gullible enough to send more cash their way before the inevitable. Overall, I really think they’re just trying to get as close to break even on production costs as they possibly can before the scuttle the ship.
My beef with the retcons is not the retcons themselves not the cash shop. Heck, me and my wife also play Wizard101 and I like that model.
As for retcons i never used for i don’t like that fotm crap. The thing is that a respecc is now something that the players expect. It has become a basic feature in a AAA MMO, imo. It’s if a gym started charging players a monthly payment and all the machines and weights had a coin operated mode.
Even Blind Chicken
Maybe find seed in winter
Not Bill Ropers fault
Micro-transaction Haiku. If, as is suggested, Cryptic uses game design to create situations requiring respecs the the game just may go up in flames faster than a barn full of hay on a hot day. If, however, the subscription+micro-transaction business model succeeds, Bill Roper’s idea or not, Cryptic will come out smelling like a while field of roses.
Ship happens, you don’t have to buy any of this, it’s not the end of the world. People survived the titanic.
Dellaster, sorry, I’m probably a bit overdefensive. As much as I’m looking for other options, I’m not calling for the death of existing options. Smart companies will cater to both with hybrid business models (see Global Agenda’s setup, for instance, or Puzzle Pirates). Game design itself might have to go with different servers (see the shards vs. shardless article here) for different rules (again, see Puzzle Pirates), but it’s doable if the devs want to do it.
@William Roper: You said “Ship happens, you don’t have to buy any of this, it’s not the end of the world. People survived the titanic”.
Indeed, but brittle steel reasons aside, they’d not have had to were it not for arrogance and incompetence. Such arrogance and incompetence and dismissiveness towards those who died since “people” survived is exactly the epitome of the way Cryptic seems to be thinking of people and the game.
And remember, the captain went down with his ship, while the ship’s original creator didn’t.
@Julie Whitefeather: As I said on the first page, Roper is not the only one at fault. Gray from Roper’s Flagship + Roper + Emmert make for enough poision to make bad fugu seem safe.
However, if you want to see an mmo joke that built their game around micro transactions, then check out what Dungeon Runners was. They too went poof, though.
Before MT’s really started up on CO people voiced concern that it would be for things you couldnt attain in game, and the developers said “No that’s not going to be the case.”
True, but if you want X costume you have to grind 5000 kills of a specific mob type to get that piece(some of them being much later in the game so your final costume is on hold until then). And once unlocked, its only for that specific character and only that one specific piece.
The MT version is for all of your characters from creation and in sets.
So they made good on their promise. It’s like a Slick Willy Used car salesman advertising to customers that all cars bought will receive a free spare tire with their purchase. A customer buys the car and asks where their spare tire is and the salesman points to a pile of used, rotting, tires of various sizes and types piled high like at some junk yard and says pick which ever one you want and walks away chuckling.
Cryptic for these MT’s is being no less patronizing.
But again, MT’s alone dont really sink this game. At its core, mismanagement with most every department(design, CS, PR, etc) and overall mismanagement are the is the core reason. MT’s, bugs, bad customer service, out of touch with the game developers etc are all just symptoms of that cause.
What the hell? Seriously? Has there been a worse marketed major game in the last 5-10 years? They NEVER got a handle on explaining their ridiculous subscription model.
At 990g per respec, it would take over 100 hours of money farming to pay for it.
No, they have given 2, and they were right after each other early on. Furthermore, since that time they have completely redesigned their entire stat system TWICE, and have changed and nerfed countless powers significantly.
First, because 50g (the price of a max cost respec) costs less than 50 cents. Furthermore, you can farm that amount of money in about 30 minutes.
Second, if you hang around and read my blog for a while, you’ll see that I fault Blizzard for game design decisions that ENCOURAGE the gold selling they claim to despise. But that is a whole other issue.
Their motivation to figure out how to code those now is basically zero.
Really? How about conflagration losing its tracking ability and the ability to remove travel powers?
How about sonic device having its cooldown doubled?
How about the stat system being totally overhauled TWICE since the last free respec.
Powerhelm, you might want to keep up with the patch notes.
Lets put that in perspective. That’s your total lifetime wealth so far. At level 40, you basically need 10 times that for *ONE* full respec.
Wyrm: Good gym analogy. I’m with you on the fact that respecs are basically a required feature now.
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I don’t like what Cryptic is doing, I feel sorry for people who bought Champions Online, but I totally expected this sort of thing to happen. It’s just the root problem with micro-transactions, they never stay “optional”. It seems that gameplay inevitably gets warped in ways that effectively require the spending of money at a store/item mall.
Honestly, I vastly prefer subscription models, or a “pay per expansion” approach like Guildwars uses. But all these stores…and ingame play affecting bonuses for spending money, I don’t think it even qualfies as a game anymore. How can you call something a “game” when spending money trumps skill?
In Free to play games, microtransactions cannot be “truly optional.” Otherwise, those games will be out of business. But microtransactions can be done in a way where the game is playable and fun without them, it is just a lot MORE fun with them.
That’s why they don’t work together with a subscription game. Because for the subscription itself, you should already be getting the maximum experience. The microtransactions should then be TRULY optional. But designing truly optional MTs that aren’t craptacular suck is nearly impossible. So then you get what you have with CO. Throw in greedy idiots who know nothing about game design (e.g. publishers) and you have a recipe for disaster.
Subscription models are worth than MTs imho, because 90% of the players are basically subsidizing the 10% catassers who play 18 hours a day. I think that makes them an extremely unfair system.
Furthermore, subscription models create huge barriers to entry, make it harder to convince friends to play, and also result in friends leaving when they don’t feel like paying a subscription. In a MT game, they can keep playing even if they only pop on once a month or so.
Paying money trumps skill in a subscription game as well. I don’t want to pay $15 a month, so everyone who does gets a lot better raid gear than I do.
The reason you assume MT takes away from skill is because bad game design has reduced actual player skill to about 10% of the equation, gear is about 60% of the equation, and picking the right OP class is the other 30%.
I think we look at free-to-play games from a different angle. I do agree it could be workable in a PVE based game with very little competition between players. Once you throw PVP into the picture though..it often reaches a point where if MT gives enough of an edge to be worth paying for victory is something you earn through money and not skill. It’ll be interesting to see how dust 514 balances things in this respect.
I think the problems you mention with subscriptions such as 95% of the playerbase subsizdizing raid content 5% use is more a symtom of “treadmill based” game design then anything else (I don’t think WOW would do as well without the “elite grind” of raiding to aspire to even if most never do it). There’s plenty of sub based games where the content developed is more universally acessible.
As for barriers to entry, I think the largest one isn’t a monthly sub but rather the $50 on average purchase price of the boxed game/downloadable client. That’s a pretty big investment to make when you consider how often MMOs bomb shortly after launch and how hard it is to spot problems before launch. If you eliminate this initial outlaly then I see subscription vs MT games as roughly equal in terms of entry barriers.
Its not about content being universally accessible. 95% of the playerbase plays less than 20 hours a week. The top 5% play 40+ hours a week. They pay the same amount of money, but the top 5% consume an INSANELY greater amount of content and resources.
Actually, the subscription is a far bigger barrier to entry. Getting people to commit to that is a lot harder than the up front price. At least people can sell, trade, or loan out their $50 game if they want (not as easily as consoles, but its an option). With a subscription, that’s a non option.
And the subscription is a huge barrier to re-entry. If you get the bug to visit some old friends on an old MMO, you can’t. Because to do so, you pay $15.
Well, if folks want to “visit some old friends on an old MMO”, Cryptic sent out emails yesterday to people who have quit to come back and play for free for the Halloween Event’s first weekend.
Given that over the last 24 hours of this weekend the game was down close to 7 (according to a post and the page and a half of locked threads by Daeke)next weekend should be a complete fiasco.
Muckbeast, WoW respecs aren’t a valid comparison. Yes, you can respec a character, but you can’t change their class. That 50g gets you a different setup within whatever class, but it can’t make your Warrior a Priest.
Heck, if I could pay less then the cost of a month’s subscription and make my 80 rogue into a druid, I might still be playing WoW. Cause I’m sure not spending another month leveling through that content again on a new toon.
I do think this is bad for CO, but only because folks aren’t thinking it through fully. Where are the posts on how terrible it is that Blizzard is milking all their customers for subscription time by not offering class conversions? Spend a month leveling, spend a month farming in-game currency, pay a month’s sub fee in real money.
I really don’t see any difference between the three as far as the business of running a sub-based game is concerned. Company X gets money, just via different routes. How bloggers respond to them? Entirely different matter, and *that’s* what Cryptic should have paid more attention to.