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Following the announcement of the Clan packages, I have been looking more closely at MechWarrior: Online's monetizing strategies and how they influence the gameplay experience. While profit for the business, or Clan, is always the underlying goal to any transaction, it must be noted that one can easily kill long-term success with a short-term or narrow-view of focus.
The monetized features of MechWarrior: Online come across as if each system were meant to independently fund the game while turning a profit. For example:
Let's say one buys a battlemech. The most popular tier of 'hard' in-game currency to purchase is at the $30.00 price mark (29.95 - but if it is anything I have learned while dealing with Freeborn - it is that they prefer to use rounding for analogous budgeting rather than exact budgeting). That awards them 3,500 [battle]mech credits.
Purchasing a standard mech (neither 'hero' nor 'champion') will cost anywhere from 560 credits (for the cheapest Locust) to 5,480 credits (for the most expensive Atlas). A respectable medium mech design will cost roughly a third of your credits (or $10) while more invested heavy mechs will clean out 3/4 your credit stash (for roughly $25).
While some of the 'hero' battlemechs that effectively cost upward of $50 are a bit much - that is not a completely unreasonable fee for the convenience of battlemechs with lifetime bonuses and/or the price of convenience.
It would appear, however, that Piranha Games Incorporated has been reviewing the concept of 'synergy.'
The incorporated 'leveling' system for battlemechs requires one to spend experience (gained [Battle]Mech:General in a 10:1 ratio) in at least two other variants of that chassis to continue to 'level' the battlemech one has already purchased.
While this does not require one to purchase another battlemech outright - it does increase the 'convenience' of doing so. On the average - without any ComStar-Bill bonuses from battlemechs or 'premium time' - a match will yield an average of around 100,000 ComStar-Bills for a relatively decent pilot... when his/her team is victorious.
Most heavy chassis run between 6,000,000 and 8,000,000 ComStar-Bills, with Mediums running between 3,000,000 and 5,000,000. One can easily expect to spend 50% more than one's chassis cost on updates and customizations to the design. That means, just to get another chassis, one is looking at 40-80 victorious matches.
I would argue, from my experience, that each match averages roughly twelve minutes - which rounds to about five matches per hour. That is 8-16 hours of pure victory to purchase another baseline chassis, and 12-24 of more victory to customize the one you currently have.
Purchasing Premium Time can reduce all of this by around 50% - but your most cost-effective buy-in for that is $100 for a full year of Premium with 1,000 credits as a remainder. If you only play one day a week and purchase premium time for each day, you can reduce your buy-in to around $60 by purchasing the 12,000 and 1,250 credit options - or $55 at the 25,000 credit buy-in.
If you play every weekend and look at purchasing the '3 day' option every Friday - you are better off buying the all-year package, if you want Premium Time.
While this pricing structure is not at all uncommon - keep in mind that many other games offer effective 'subscriptions' to games at around half the price and that this game, also, has other aggressive monetizing strategies applied to it (such as battlemechs that cost half as much as a year's subscription).
So, you've purchased premium time for a year, because you realize after a few drops that it is going to take you a few months of dedicated gameplay just to get your three mechs where you want them. As you level your mechs, you also run into another monetizing strategy - the xp system, itself.
It can easily take a hundred victorious games (or more) to rack up enough general experience to unlock a module. While you -can- avoid playing a particular variant of 'mech and use general experience to unlock the necessary items for you to continue leveling variants you do, in fact, like; you are condemning yourself to ten times the time in those chassis to unlock modules.
But not to worry - you can spend battlemech credits to convert your (now useless) battlemech experience points to general experience points at a rate of 4:100 - 4 credits per 100 experience (or 1:25 for those who favor reductionist reasoning).
This may not seem too terribly excessive - until you begin to add up the cost of purchasing experience conversion on a particular variant. It costs 14250 experience to 'clear' basic efficiencies from a variant. That is 570 credits. Not too terribly bad.
It costs 860 credits to clear 'elite' efficiencies. That is a total of 1430 credits - or around $5 per variant at the most popular buy-in for [Battle]Mech Credits. Skipping two variants, entirely, will cost around $10 at 2460 credits and a cumulative 61500 variant-specific experience points.
Then you factor in the cost of unlocking modules.
So, the player has invested, at a bare minimum, two months of time and around $40 (plus 2 months of premium time - we'll divide $100 by 12 to get about $8.30 per month) and $16.60 in subscription fees. For one battlemech he/she wanted. Sure - they get two other battlemechs out of the 'deal' - but that is a requirement of the system as opposed to the desire of the player.
This is where things start to blur over into gameplay.
If one chooses to purchase a battlemech outright, and then wishes to use premium time and experience conversion - he or she can easily spend $60 for the 'convenience' of not having to play for hundreds of cumulative hours (which translates to months of calendar time for those with jobs that can support digital drug habbits).
Even so - one is still looking at a couple months of consistent gameplay to bring that battlemech into its 'mastered' state while playing very conservatively with customizations. Deciding to change engine ratings of an XL can easily add a week to one's time schedule.
And... what, exactly, is this all for?
The only 'meta' the game currently offers is the pride and joy of customizing and leveling 'mechs. That is it. Even when Community Warfare features arrive - they will be somewhat underwhelming without radical shifts in gameplay, itself. MAG - a game with a sort of 'community warfare' and leveling system for the PlayStation 3 - was a Call-of-Duty like game that involved a sort of team-based concept of 'capture the hill.' While it was not a bad game - the gameplay quickly became redundant.
Compare MAG to an older game - Command And Conquer: Renegade. There was no 'meta' to C&C: Renegade outside of the current map being played. Players could join "marathon" games that continued until one side or the other successfully destroyed the opponents' base. Individual player death was not necessarily a massive loss for the team, but did constitute something of a loss for the player (who had to re-puchase the special character he/she had or purchase a new vehicle... or play as a 'free' character until enough credits were accumulated for him/her to purchase a more advanced character or vehicle).
While the game was not designed around a monetized online experience - it was designed with a persistence to the battle. Further - gameplay balance was more around the overall objective of destroying and protecting buildings rather than destroying other players. In many cases - there were considerable 'balance' issues with player-on-player combat. Much of that imbalance, however, was not felt - because the game was not about killing other players in Call-of-Duty deathmatches so much as it was about accomplishing the objective of destroying an enemy base and defending your own.
Some servers actually had a 'leveling' system scripted into them - a way of rewarding players for sticking with their affiliated server games. You never felt the 'grind' for a more advanced character. You never felt the 'grind' to level. The focus was always on the objectives before you - simple as they were.
Yet, those simple objectives led to very dynamic gameplay. Teams would siege each other's bases, trying to bleed them of credits and high-value characters before storming in for the finish. Others would sneak in special characters or 'beacons' that could destroy a building instantly. Maps were built to allow a multitude of different tactics and to prevent the game from becoming too fixated on one style of gameplay or another.
It was not perfect - but this was also a game that could be run on machines built in 2000. Expand the concept to more modern game titles - such as ARMA2/3 - and you can see there is massive potential.
However, I should return to the point - While playing the game, one did not feel 'the grind, nor the various imbalances in the weapons and characters within the game.. This was because the entire experience was designed around battlefield objectives and team cooperation as opposed to a 1:1 death-match.
Battlemechs like the locust will -never- be 'balanced' into the game, even with 'role warfare,' so long as objectives remain fixated upon battlemech-on-battlemech combat. While MechWarriors in both the Clans and InnerSphere are highly regarded - the efforts of infantry regulars, armor regiments, and rotary wing squadrons are often more critical to the success of battle than what a few highly publicized knights in walking armor do.
A Locust is a low-cost, flexible solution to infantry regulars and light armor. It may not be the best pick to take on House Liao's Raven (itself designed to operate in the support role) - but it still has a role to play on the battlefield. It is just that its role is not to attempt to take on other battlemechs in one-on-one combat. It might not be what the Clans consider honorable - but a warrior in a Locust is often forced to choose between the dishonor of retreat, the dishonor of wasteful loss, or the dishonor of defeating an opponent through numbers. It is a foolish warrior who fails to consider the likelihood and consequences of being bloodied.
So, allow me to recap.
1. The current yield of each match is considerably low, and appears to be weighted toward players who can expend considerably more than two hours per day on the game.
2. The monetizing structure of the game seems to be focused on applying pressure to this demographic of gamers.
2a. This means players with even less time to commit to the game (such as those with jobs and families), or who simply do not -wish- to contribute that much of their time to one game, feel 'wrought' for money just to make 'average' progress in the game.
2b. Those who commit that much time to the game, who are not already spending money on the game, are not going to spend more. If anything - this aggressive, multi-faceted monetizing structure drives more people away from the game that would be casual spenders.
3. The monetizing structure of the game is focused largely upon expiring player goals. The weight of the monetizing structure is on acquiring more/new battlemechs and increasing their level while achieving the desired level of customization. Once a player has achieved his/her goals of acquiring battlemechs and leveling them - there is no further reason for him/her to spend additional money on the game.
3a. This system is heavily geared toward continual content releases and expanding leveling schemes.
3a1 - Both of these can be discouraging to new arrivals to the game. While many over-state the effect of "level differences" in discouraging new players (most players aspire to become a higher level rather than allow high-level 'imbalance' to drive them off) - the monetized nature of both leveling and expanding one's inventory of 'mechs in this game is of serious concern to the new player's outlook on their future within the game.
4. The "Solaris" style matches this game sees exacerbates imbalances in weapon design. The bias is toward heavier chassis that can deliver pinpoint damage (and survive pinpoint damage). There are no "roles" in Solaris aside from "Battlemech-Buster."
4a. The lack of a dynamic battlefield experience means there are two things a player focuses on - kill/death and the 'grind' to new components and levels. Even in the face of a relatively generous monetizing structure, this places a player's focus on the amount of time and money they invest into the game rather than the experience of the game.
4a1 - Video games are 'hollow' experiences. People do not gain the same sense of satisfaction from crafting in Skyrim as they do from building a table in the garage. If your game turns player focus onto the 'value' of what you are offering, it does not matter what you are charging, you are losing that debate. Games offered for free lose that debate all the time because a customer's time is valuable - and they do not wish to spend it on those games.
The obvious 'suggestion' is to create a much more open and dynamic experience for battles. Rather than 'matches' of 12-on-12, a server hosting a 'marathon' of 128 or more players across maps that are hundreds of square kilometers would be a start. That would open up the game to an entirely different type of economy - where re-arming and repairing a battlemech that limps back to base comes with both a cost and reward - where a player in a locust can still be valuable to the team beyond trying to 'spot' in the face of gauss rifles.
That will, however, require a completely different game engine or a virtual re-write of the entire server code so far, I would imagine.
On the more simple solutions:
- Raise the average match reward. It could easily be doubled and there would still be plenty of reason to outright buy battlemechs without being almost oppressive to those who cannot sink tens of hours per week into the game (or do not agree with the premise that this game should be the only one they ever play).
- Offer the ability to purchase a waiver on customization costs for a day for a battlemech you have in inventory. For example - you just purchased a BlackJack - now you can spend, say, 200 credits to have free reign to customize it free of costs for a day (after which point, your carriage turns back into a pumpkin, or whatever). Packaging this with credit-purchased battlemechs and/or with premium time purchases (one battlemech, one free day of customization, one day of premium time) would go a long way toward softening 'the grind' on players who are willing to spend money on the game.
- - - This monetizes MechWarrior's greatest selling point - customization. You offer the ability to 'play in the mechlab' and experiment on the battlefield without having to commit hours of time to those changes (many of which are expensive - particularly in the beginning, before one has a parts inventory, and when one is considering engine changes). Unless rewards are in the millions of c-bills per match, there will always be a market for this.
- The leveling structure needs to be reviewed. It places enormous amounts of pressure on players to invest time and/or money into procuring additional chassis. Consider a different type of 'synergy' that does not force a player to purchase another battlemech to 'master' his/her preferred - but that has cumulative rewards across an entire chassis and/or weight class for investing time in those classes.
- - - Not all of this has to be in the form of combat bonuses. It could be in the form of reduced repair costs, reduced refit costs, lower module costs, 'feat'-based access to modules otherwise restricted, etc.
- Consider allowing premium time to be activated and de-activated. Unless things have changed - I am led to believe that it is still the case that if I activate the Premium Time that came with my Overlord package - I am committed to 120 consecutive days. Okay - whatever. Let's assume I bought that time at 2,500 credits per 30 day increment - or 10,000 credits. To purchase the credits for that, it is a minimum $50 investment. While purchasing 6 months of cumulative time at 13,500 makes more sense - that requires I look at the highest tier credit buy-in at $100 or at the $50 and $7 buy-ins. If I'm committing for six months - may as well commit for a full year at $100.
--- That is a steep yearly subscription for a game designed around individual matches designed to last less than 20 minutes. That is a low-committal gameplay structure (typically less popular among computer gamers as opposed to console gamers) with a high-committal monetizing structure. Bad.
The focus should be on 'soft' measures of reinforcing rather than hard measures of restricting. The customer should see investing in another medium or a different variant as a bonus as opposed to a requirement.
Further - for moderate solutions, the game needs to be reviewed for both its platform and target demographics.
If one looks at popular MMOs on the computer - they are typically games that require an hour, minimum, of committment. If one looks at popular games on the computer - they are simulators and other games that one actually sets time aside for as a hobby. MMOs accomplished similar 'feats' of people setting aside time because of the social aspect of MMOs. Most people on World Of Warcraft don't play World of Warcraft because it's an outstanding game. People play World of Warcraft because their friends play it, and it allows them to stay in contact with each other while playing as a team.
Rather than inviting friends over to play scrabble, D&D, or whatever over dinner - people invite each other to raids on the internet.
MechWarrior: Online will probably never draw such purely casual audiences (and I would argue that the target demographic should never be those who want a casual party-game) - but the game, itself, should be designed to reinforce social aspects. Just as I have friends who I regularly play Dungeons and Dragons with over dinner - I also have friends who I would play a MechWarrior game with. We could drop into a dynamic battlefield as a team and change the course of the battle - forcing a temporary cease-fire with Liao so we could focus on the Steiner occupation of key resources - earning a nice pay-day and helping a few newbies before logging off.
Unfortunately - serious shifts in the game's design will have to come about for that to become practical. Further - the existing game mechanics do not provide many opportunities for "end-game" content. Even with the proposed restructuring of the module and leveling systems - there exist no real options for players to spend ComStar Bills and Battlemech Credits on, spare for new content. Aside from playing 'stompy robots' - there doesn't appear to be much reason for continuing to play the game, either.
Feel free to leave further insights on the problems and/or criticisms of my analysis.
Edit: corrected my mystical ability to not type two letter words in a few places
Edited by Aim64C, 26 December 2013 - 05:28 PM.
