Ekim's Gamer View: Putting a Price on MMORPG Players

Michel "Ekim" Veilleux
2003-04-19

How many players does an MMORPG need to be profitable? If the rumors flying around about Earth & Beyond shutting down in July are true, it seems that 30,000 paying customers on a monthly basis isn’t enough. So what’s the magic number? And how do these 30,000 players feel about the possibility of losing their game eventually?

Player’s worth

Unlike any single-player RPG, the MMORPG community is pretty scared whenever the words “shutting down” are uttered by the publisher. Think about it. You’ve invested dozens, if not hundreds of hours in a game and someone comes up to you one day and says: “Buddy, you’re losing your character in two months.” That has to be difficult to swallow. It’s as if someone said that starting in July no one could ever play Morrowind again…. The fact that you’ve invested so many hours in it wouldn’t make a difference. And no plea to the publisher would change a thing

Publishers put a value on each gamer. That value is the price they pay to play the game. In terms of single-player games, that value is the exact price of the box. A single player will never be worth more than that price, and perhaps that of an eventual expansion. In the case of MMORPGs, it’s quite more complicated. A single player is worth the price of the box, plus the monthly fee he will be charged to gain access to the game. Usually it’s around $10.00 USD, more or less. 30,000 players paying an average of $10 a month makes for a lot of money. But not enough.

So, how many players does an MMORPG publisher needs to think that it’s worth extending the life of a game? That’s got to be tricky… With some MMORPGs out there averaging over 500,000 subscribed players at any given time, you have to wonder where this lowly 30,000 ranks in, and it must be far down the list. So, in this regard, if any one of us were in EA’s shoes, would we allow the game to continue breathing, allowing the few players that are still loyal to happily go about their daily virtual lives? Do you risk losing money to keep them happy?

Take a number

The fact of the matter is that players’ feelings don’t factor at all in these equations, and that is the very heart of the problem with new MMORPGs. As players, it so happens that sometimes we like games that no one else like. We become part of a marginal group of people. When that game is single-player, I guess we have to be happy playing that game knowing that there will probably never be any follow-up, or any expansion to it, and maybe even minimal support for it. It’s too bad, but we can still play the game. The MMORPG circus is much more heart-breaking than that. If you love a game that no one else seems to enjoy for whatever reason, you’re stuck. Any time investment you might consider with such a game is in danger. And if the game disappears you’ll be left with nothing but memories and a few screen captures.

Considering the amount of pride that sometimes goes into building up a single character in an MMORPG, the disappearance of any one title is dramatic and filled with consequences. It would be frustrating for the players, and rightly so. But the publishers don’t care about that. They can’t actually. Business is business, and there are no friends in business, regardless of what some companies out there might try to make us think. We are not people, we are money, we are simple digits.

Can we hope for a day when all publishers will truly care about their players and give a second chance to the games that they put on the shelves? I doubt it. Each new MMORPG, apart from a very few specific exceptions, is doomed to be extinct in a matter of months, especially in the coming years when so many publishers are trying to milk the cow. And the sad part is that milking this cow renders some players’ efforts totally pointless. I’m sure that there are people avoiding some of the titles out there simply because they fear that it won’t survive long enough to make it worthwhile. Most experienced players of MMORPGS will start a new game expecting to have to invest quite a lot of time into it. So why would they even take a chance on a game that might shut down sooner than later?

What this will create is a status quo in the general player community. Casual players will probably wait a few months, if not a year to see if a game is popular enough before getting into it. But then what happens if no one ever shows up? What happens if everyone always decides to wait on every new title? I guess then the genre crashes and burns…

Survival of the fittest

Why do the “old” titles (EverQuest and DAoC to name a couple) still fare so well while their new (and supposedly improved) counterparts fail so miserably? Because they’ve been there for a while, and because they already have large player-bases, and because of that they won’t shut down any time soon. Even today there are new players flocking to these games, and their player-base is continually renewed, while newer games are hard pressed to attract more than a few thousand players.

So, what’s the magic number? I don’t think any publisher would consider their MMORPG successful unless they have at least 100,000 subscribers. Anything below that and the game is doomed to disappear within a year of its release. I think this year we’ll see the playing field being leveled, and many titles will bite the dust, proving my point. Up until now even the “unsuccessful” titles had a chance because there were still only a few of them. But this year the MMORPG scenery will start changing drastically.