The Surprise of Mercian Generosity
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
One of the things that makes me shake my head in frustrated disbelief is when I see lamentations on the Sony forum about prices going up for virtual commodities. Not because it isn’t true — prices are on the rise — but because of the incredible shortsightedness of such caviling.
If prices are on the rise, it’s because an increasing amount of Home’s content is coming from third-party developers, who have to pay a cut of their grosses to Sony, and because the commodities themselves are more complex and costlier to produce.
Granted, this isn’t unilaterally true. SCEA’s experiments with high-priced virtual goods — the Mansion, gemstone suits, etc. — have often been crass and tasteless, with little in the way of added functionality to support the price tag. But the same can rarely be said of other developers providing content to the platform. Because here’s the cold, hard reality: Home’s developers have done an amazing job of making community wish-list requests come true, even when those requests have a lot of moving parts attached to them, whether the user realizes it or not.
Let’s take virtual furniture as an example. We want items that provide more interactivity, like beds that we can lay in. Okay, fair enough. Sony even updated Home’s core client to allow for active items to utilize less memory if possible, because so many user requests would require active items to fulfill. Active items, by their very nature, usually require more development time and cost. And that’s passed on to the consumer.
Moving on to personal estates, we see the same trend. Diurnal controls. Mini-games. Hidden items. On and on goes the consumer appetite. And each one of these elements has a cost. Which, again, is reflected in the price that’s passed on to the consumer. As it should be. The latest trend in personal estates — which we wholeheartedly support — is treating the estate as an unfolding game unto itself, which requires comparatively enormous development cost and long-term commitment from a developer. And it’s worth a premium price in return.
Are there exceptions to the rule? Absolutely. LOOT’s Sunset Yacht, with diurnal controls, dynamic lighting and baked-in EOD with RadioIO, is an absolute steal at its bargain-basement price. But generally speaking, greater functionality comes with a higher price. And this is where the absolute knee-jerk hypersensitivity to pricing from some users on the Sony forum really grates on me: not because I care about their irrational fear of being priced out of the market, but because it just might cause developers to try unusual methods of hiding the true cost of their products, leading to lower levels of monetization which in turn stifle further creativity.
Case in point: nDreams’ Blueprint:Home. This is an amazing project which required outside financing from Tenshi Ventures to pull off. That gives you an idea of the amount of cost, relative to nDreams’ cash flow, that this game required to pull off. And yet, even with all that, Blueprint is stunningly underpriced. Except there’s no such thing as a free lunch: there’s even a style pack add-on (the Bling Pack) which costs more to acquire than the game itself. In short, nDreams gave away the razor and is trying to sell the blades. Given the short attention span of the Home community, which is on to the Next Big Thing after as little as a fortnight of attention, this generosity is risky.
Another example. Juggernaut’s multiplayer MiniBots. The MiniBots are easily one of Home’s greatest innovations. And if you look at how the multiplayer estate was structured and deployed, it fulfills practically every consumer request for what constitutes a “fair” (in their eyes) market strategy. In short, Juggernaut gave away the house. And while it won them some popularity points for a week or two, I doubt very much it helped their bottom line. Which means we probably won’t be seeing such generosity again — and we brought it upon ourselves.
Meanwhile, VEEMEE’s No Man’s Land is the bête noir of the Sony forum, because it unapologetically demands money from you in order to play the game effectively. And I absolutely love this, because while people froth at the mouth to decry it, they’re ignoring the reality that a whole lot of people are still playing that game — and laid out anywhere from ten dollars to fifty dollars to do so. Regardless of any of the game’s actual deficiencies, the hard line that VEEMEE took with its pricing was probably the right thing to do.
My god, how dare a developer ask us to spend money to enjoy something they spent countless hours and dollars — and, in some cases, staked their entire company’s fortunes — on bringing to life.
I know, I know, here’s the counter-argument: “Stop telling them it’s okay to raise prices, you ivory-tower elitist!”
Remember, however, that pricing is a function of what the market will bear. But what some people want is to have their cake and eat it too: they want all of this incredible functionality that we get to enjoy today, but they want it for pricing from three years ago, and to hell with how much it cost to research and develop. This is unrealistic, Maginot Line thinking. Do you really just want cheap goods like what we had back then? Or do you want the really cool, innovative products that are being delivered today, and are justified in asking for a higher price?
Which brings us neatly to the surprise of Mercia. Specifically, Lockwood’s generosity with the game’s pricing structure.
The game itself is quite good; sure, it has some bugs, such as the blue screen of nothingness, respawning errors, and rather numb hit detection, but as Terra has correctly pointed out, it has a wonderful sort of old-school gaming charm to it. The last time I had this much fun performing repetitive tasks in an action RPG was back in the late ‘eighties with Dungeon Master. And it’s fairly obvious that this game is really pushing the capabilities of what Home can do, and that Lockwood sank a ton of money into creating it.
It’s that ton-of-money part that fascinates me. It’s easy to spend a fortune on building a game for Home. Making that money back, however, is another matter entirely. And if there was ever a developer who’s earned the right to charge a premium price tag in Home without much community outcry, particularly for a very heavily-demanded product that no one else has ever released for Home, it’s Lockwood with Mercia. And yet they’ve offered up one of the most generous freemium games Home has ever seen.
Think about it. You can rip through Mercia without spending a dime. And it’s engineered that way. The game’s grind economy is very generous, and since it’s a co-op, player-versus-environment game instead of player-versus-player game, it’s entirely possible to take down harder enemies without investing real money for better armor or weaponry. The only real penalty, then, for not investing money is that you might die a bit more often if you play the game solo — which, even with generously-sprinkled respawn points, might lead to some extra tedium.
This is an exceedingly generous formula from Lockwood. Even SodiumOne, which was a PvE game with a generous grind economy, still mandated a five-dollar buy-in to gain access to the bulk of the game. I was frankly expecting much the same from Mercia once it came out of beta, particularly since there’s a natural delineation point: transitioning from the Old Temple to the Lockaway. What a perfect place to ask for money! Let players experience a few early quests for free, get used to the game, and then open up the rest of the game quests and a second dungeon after a five-dollar access purchase. I doubt anyone would have objected.
Since the game is freemium, however, instead of pay-to-access, it’s remarkably generous in its structure. Successful freemium games usually have some sort of pain built into them if you play for free. Once Hellfire Games released Escalation and Vindication for Novus Prime, it became clear that even in a PvE co-op environment, you were going to get your ass handed to you if you didn’t invest in some upgrades. VEEMEE took this even further with No Man’s Land, in which the default loadout is so easily overwhelmed that you really have to spend at least a few dollars to upgrade your armor and weaponry. Even Lockwood’s own Sodium2 has some very clever pain built into it: you can race for free, and you can grind your way to some upgrades, but since it’s a PvP game with taunting built into it, you’re never really going to have that competitive edge unless your spend a few bucks to kit out your racer. This sort of manufactured, by-design pain is very important for monetizing users.
This is the legacy of the industry’s shift to freemium, and it’s a monster we as consumers created. Up until freemium, we all spent the same amount of money to get exactly the same game, and then it really was a test of who was the best player. But in freemium gaming, where you give away the razor and have to sell the blades, you never really have a level playing field — because the game has to somehow monetize, and the only way of doing that is to sell enhancements to the experience.
We may not like the “pay to win” aspect of freemium gaming, but like I said earlier…there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Mercia comes awfully close, though. I’m legitimately astonished by just how generous Lockwood was with this game, particularly given everything they sank into it. Now, granted, they’re an unusually large Home developer, so they may be able to absorb a lower player conversion percentage, but it really is the perfect counter to all of the bleating about how pricing in Home is going up. Here’s what had to be a ridiculously expensive game to produce, and Lockwood’s practically giving it away.
One potential advantage Mercia has is that it’s got some legs to it. Because it’s one of the few games in Home you can socialize in while you’re playing (the others being Cutthroats 2.0 and No Man’s Land), it has some real long-term appeal: you can hang out with your friends while you swat bugs together. And because it’s such an easy, pick-up-and-play adventure RPG, it’s perfect for new users to Home. So perhaps this game will have a longer monetization curve than other Home games — a rare feat to pull off in 2012, when there’s so much huge content being released every week into Home, distracting the user’s attention and fighting for the almighty dollar.
Are prices going up in Home? Yes. And with good reason. But in such an environment Lockwood’s Mercia stands out in stark contrast.
I’ve done the only thing I can do as a consumer, which is to vote with my wallet. Even though the game’s difficulty curve doesn’t require premium items to beat, I bought upgraded weapons and armor because I wanted to demonstrate my support for such generosity. Mercia is an astonishing experience for Home, and the only way to see more of it is to financially support it. Ultimately, what kind of Home we end up with is a direct reflection of what kind of Home the user base is willing to pay for, and I want more of these sorts of engrossing gaming experiences with generous commerce models. Hopefully you do, too.
September 3rd, 2012 by NorseGamer | 8 comments
NorseGamer is the product manager for LOOT Entertainment at Sony Pictures, as well as the founder and publisher of HomeStation Magazine. Born and raised in Silicon Valley, he holds a B.A. in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and presently lives in Los Angeles. All opinions expressed in HSM are solely his and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sony DADC.
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I do not see how the business model is different from Cutthroats 1.0. I haven’t played it yet, but if free-to-play means you do not have to buy anything, I thought that was the lesson learned already. Or maybe not.
Now we have our answer. Same business model. Same result.
I can foresee some “bugs” with Lockwood generosity in Mercia.
There’s really no need and almost no “motivation” to buy any premium upgrade.
The weapons available with the in game currency are nearly as powerful as their premium counterparts. That I think is ok.
Armor can be bought only as a premium item. Again a good strategy… if you really need a better armor at some point!
Beside the “Killer queen” wich can be a small pain. I never felt the need for much better protection. True that I max out at lvl 30 on the Beta and the public version is somewhat harder but still…
Now with the public release and the store open I would love to show my appreciation and buy a nice looking armor. But I can’t play anymore! Most of the Old Temple is off limit due to waterfalls. The red teleport in the Lockaway ore off. So I dont have much to do.
Thats where i see a problem, : Replay value! I found myself buying way more than i needed on games just because I was there for so long. I may want to own different blades, bows or armors just so I can use them and show them off occasionaly. But why would I spend time on a game where I can’t achieve any quest?
If I had to start the game from scratch I might buy a $4.00 pack at level 15 and thats it! I’ll probably end up buying one anyway. Mostly for support. But please, give me a reason to play.
n.b. If the weapons could be used as regular avatar items it might help too. But I guess there is a good reason why there not.
I bought my armor, figured out how to keep playing after maxing. (Just have to start the 3 quest again). And waited… The game had every signs of a ready to update game.
Sadly, Norse, Ted, me and a lot of peoples were right.
We lost a good game.
Hmm, I assumed the areas would open more and more as you got higher up in level, not blocked off due to lack of quests! There are a LOT of bugs in this game still (no real surprise) but some of them really should have been picked up by the beta testers (that’s what you signed up for, right?). I’m curious as to how many beta testers were used and how many of them were just Home users in there to be more special than their Home friends, compared to those who acctually y’know TESTED the game?
Seems to me this is where its failing is, glaringly obvious game-breaking bugs should not be part of Mercia after all this time. Which is why I refuse to put in a penny. This isn’t me crying about my wallet getting pummeled, I think the prices are pretty fair; but not if it’s so broken you cant play with your new toys. Call me old fashioned but when I pay for a product (game, shoes, car, anything!) I expect it to work! Crazy idea huh?
Man @ car-lot: I really like the look of this car, but why only 3 wheels?
Salesman: Ah, this is a new model sir, it just came out of its beta.
Man: Oh, okay. Hmm, it seems to only have one headlight too…
Salesman: Yes sir, but if you buy it now, we’ll fix all these things later… Promise.
A likely sale? Would you? Price structuring of the freemium model, like any other, only works if the product works. Then again, I do have a habit of underestimating the general public’s stupidity.
The bugs you experienced in the game were spotted in Beta. In fact this is a far better version than the first beta…
The game reminds me of a watered down version of ps2 baldurs gate which was strangely addictive but very linear. I think lockwood got it right doing it this way, because a bugged game that costs money to play is always going to create negative feedback, a bugged game thats virtually free to play will get sympathy. Add rewards and you get a race to get that last reward anyway which creates a need to get ” Legendary Weapons ” VeeMees biggest mistake with No Mans Land wasnt the money it cost, it was the that VeeMee released a fairly robust game that plays within the limitations of home and then seemed to forget it was a home game. They seemed to forget that the thing that runs home is a ps3 one of worlds best game machines and if I just want to play a shooter online with friends why on earth would I play it within homes limited game platform. Developers face a tough choice of weighing up, how robust, how much and how much content is the game going to be or have, Robust and content in a game within a game now thats hard because a normal game has all the power, a home game has a lot less, how much is how does the developer make a profit. take Skyrim its a full priced game thats actually quite bugged, but the content makes up for that and any major bugs are fixed. Home games are more about look at me in my gold armor, legendary weapons, level 30 title and my level 30 reward not about the game itself. Look at some of the Japanese content you need to buy these tickets, this ear ring, this suit and this hand item then play a basic game to win a gold coffee mug reward and that space will packed with users spending they money for weeks.
I think it would be very smart on Lockwoods part if they monetized anyone going further in the game past level 30, and had accompanying rewards but had those come out at a less easy rate of dispersal. Make us pay $5 to play the next dungeon or two. Then do the same each time they add a new area or two. People would gladly pay $5 at a time to play several more new quests and a couple of new levels and get rewards to boot.
They should also consider making both a purchasable version of the gate they gave us beta testers, a non active item one for sure, and also representations of the weapons that people can carry around Home, not just the ones you can buy for in game use. Those would also sell very well I think, because lets face it, who wouldn’t like to carry a huge bow around Home, especially if it had a motion attached to it that made it look like you can use it, lol.