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Some credit for this topic must go to the December Roundtable at Man Bytes Blog and Only a Game, as well as the Octopus Overlords forum.
There was a time when purchasing a single-player game was a simple one-off transaction, but the market is starting to evolve beyond that. We recently looked at episodic content, which would enable developers to spread the cost of development over time, while realising income both sooner and on an ongoing basis. In some ways it draws parallels with the MMO market - and few gaming bean-counters would have failed to notice the revenue generated by the likes of World of Warcraft, on an ongoing basis.
Two more revenue frontiers that have been pioneered by the MMO market are making their way to single-player games: in-game advertising and buying in-game virtual objects.
You've probably read about in-game advertising, with quite a bit of coverage hitting the web after Funcom moved Anarchy Online (sans expansions) to a free-to-play, ad-supported model. The casual games segment has used promo games and advertising for quite some time with everything from corporate Flash games to Neopets. You can read some comments from developers on advertising in games at Gamasutra.
As a player, my first instinct is to reject this as capitalism gone berserk. The reality isn't quite that simple: isn't this win-win for the players of Anarchy Online? Players get free access to a substantive MMO and Funcom gets to extend the life of an aging game. As Chris Bateman points out at Only a Game, in the right circumstances advertising may enhance the game by creating a more realistic and immersive experience. However, Corvus from Man Bytes Blog points out that advertisers may make demands of the game design in return for their dollars - and he is right. It's downright scary to think of the pressure that might be placed on developers by a publisher like EA, compounded by big advertisers.
The typical fantasy cRPG doesn't lend itself to in-game advertising but it's not hard to see logo placement during loads and on the game menu:
A Hero's Tale: Revenge of the Orcs
- Brought to you by Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire - Now on DVD!
The second area is downloadable add-ons and in-game items. BioWare has sold NWN Premium Modules for some time now - presumably with enough success to justify the Live team that runs it. This sort of add-on adventure module is analogous to a retail expansion pack, so it's not a big leap for players to embrace. Online games like Runescape and Project Entropia, however, sell in-game benefits for monthly subscriptions or items for real cash.
In a recent preview at Shacknews, Bethesda's Pete Hines raised an ancillary market for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion:
Pete says that from the very first day, downloadable content will be made available that will add to the game. The content will "range from new items to new quests to anything in between. Being able to charge something for it allows us to dedicate more resources to it than we could in the past and be able to bring out things on a consistent basis."
We don't know any of the details about Bethesda's plans, so let's just use this as a springboard into the hypothetical.
This hints at going beyond add-on adventures and into selling individual in-game items. A magical sword for only $1? An additional skill for $2? A custom armour pack for $4.99? How about a subscription to every official add-on for the low monthly rate of $8.99? Let's assume the game doesn't have an easy to use editor, so you can't conveniently create your own items - would you pay $1 for a unique armour in your favourite cRPG?
All this opens questions about game balance and the amount of content in the box, which obviously must be judged in each individual case. It certainly raises the spectre of developers withholding content or creating an artificial in-game shortage to encourage demand.
I have little doubt that large publishers and successful game brands will exploit this purely for additional profit. But there's a possibility in the mid and lower tiers that these income streams could enable projects to proceed that simply wouldn't get made otherwise. Looking at the future cRPG release list, there are a number of key AAA titles such as Oblivion or NWN2, along with a number of Euro and Russian projects that may not even make international distribution - but there's a clear lack of mid-tier titles. CRPGs are expensive and risky - smaller studios are exiting the market or developing other projects - perhaps this is one way to make these smaller projects viable?
Ultimately, whether this is a good thing or not for gamers depends on maintaining the integrity of the gameplay, with judicious use of add-ons to enhance the play - rather than selling out the design in the name of ongoing revenue. Can the games industry do that? I can see the potential but I have my doubts.
What do you think? Will this extend your favourite games with regular add-ons and updates? Provide alternative revenue to support risky projects - or merely line the pockets of big publishers? |
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Side Quest: Would you like fries with that?
