http://www.brighthub.com/members/jskelton/articles.aspx

I need to make a whole post listing them.

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.

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.

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).

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.