Free Realms: What do you get for being a paid member?
Many of you have heard about Sony’s free MMO: Free Realms. Its release was definitely timed well. It has been able to dominate a lot of the MMO media buzz since there is not much else going on in the industry right now.
Some of you (like me) might wonder what you get for being a paid member. Unfortunately, Free Realms uses a subscription for its paid features, rather than a direct pay-for-perks system (where you pay specifically for what you want). The things you get for paying are actually quite significant.
One of my writers wrote a detailed guide about it:
Guide to what you get for being a member in Free Realms
Check it out!
The “gotcha” in this case appears to be that you can’t finish your quests even with the free classes without paying for it. This assures that anybody that likes the game will pay for it at least once. And what are you going to do once you finish that first character? Start a second one most likely, meaning you are going to keep paying so you have access to two characters.
There’s a rumor going around that Star Wars: The Old Republic is going to have some sort of pay for perks system as well. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I guess it depends on implementation. Sony’s implementation in Free Realms seems very flawed to me. I don’t mind paying monthly for an entire game. I don’t necessarily mind paying for perks(though it really depends on what those perks are). I don’t like real life money making you an upper class player in the game though, and the Free Realms system seems like it would inevitably make that happen. It can happen in a more standard pay for perks system too, but I don’t think it’s as inevitable.
That sounds like a terrible “free to play, pay for perks” model.
This is an example of the kind of inexperience currently exists in the west with this model. The tough balance to strike is making the free-version of the game not feel gimped, while making the things you pay for attractive enough to make enough money.
Striking that balance requires enormous experience with the business model, as well as patience, research, and a little dash of cleverness (imho).
I guess they could learn a bit from Navyfield. There you can buy equipment/crew/ships, but it is not so blunt and apparent that you just multiplied your abilities/combat value.
The 5 EUR “subscription” for example gives people more XP and more money. It does not sound like much, but soon you realize that you even make money/XP from a totally lost battle if you paid for the subscription. It is actually more like 4x the money and XP.
The EU version of Navyfield rents special ships for a limited period (100 or 300 battles) to players, while US players simply buy the “premium” ship without this restriction. The premium ships usually have a better setup, more tonnage for guns and armor, or extremely small size.
Still, despite being at a definite advantage, having such a monster ship is not mandatory. The subscription is not mandatory either… players sooner or later just want it.
I would call they way they do it clever & smart. The question is if it is that customer friendly.
Free Realms on the other hand is obnoxious: BECOME A MEMBER on every loading screen, in every other quest, and then the example I already mentioned in the article about Free Realms: A pay to play class with paid weapons from the job is just so incredibly much better than the free to play classes that there is no point in playing them.
Navy Field strongly favors subscribers, too, but even a lowly Z1 destroyer is able to destroy the inofficial “third battleship” of the Kriegsmarine, the Moltke class premium cruiser, with a torpedo barrage.
Sounds like another Sony epic fail based on a total lack of understanding of customer psychology.
Creating things people WANT to spend money on is great.
Nagging the hell out of them, or making them feel like they are playing an utterly gimped version of the game without subscribing just makes people angry.
How soon will you update your blog? I’m interested in reading some more information on this issue.
Jaime Skelton wrote a TON of great articles on Free Realms here:
http://www.brighthub.com/members/jskelton/articles.aspx
I need to make a whole post listing them.