Cryptic Undecided On Neverwinter's Payment Model

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

What if you dont want to play online co-op, do you still have to continue to pay for it?

 

[Lt. Vinciti]

Please dont put Dragon Age and Oblivion in the same sentence


How can you do the Subscription if its not an MMOG?

OMG

ITS THE FLAGSHIP PLAN FOR CALL OF DUTY PAY TO PLAY PLAN!

 

[cerebus23]

play to play a co op game, facepalm. now if they made a co op game and charged people 10 bucks for mini expansions for their essentially single player rpg game, or made mega expansions and charged you 30 to 50 bucks for them, that would not sound bad, but the fact that cryptic loves microtransactions and such plus sub fees, the worst kind of sales model, i am sure they will fuck this to hell and back.

 

[Jared]

Oh joy, a subscription service still present...I really want to play this game but if it makes me pay monthly for the pleasure...

 

[sosolidshoe]

You people wonder why there will be a sub or RMT systems in most new games?

Because DRM does not work, only ~10% of players actually purchase the game and despite what pirates say, 0% actually buy the game after playing for free.

Did you think that there would not be consequences for the rampant piracy we have now?

The digital code is an infinite good (and as such has no value once released), but server access is finite (a 'scarce good') and can be easily monetised.

I suggest you get used to it, most games will be cloud based or a sub/RMT in the future.

And if they are, they will still be pirated. No DRM is effective in the long-term, doesn't matter if it's online or not, it can be emulated. Fully cloud-based services like OnLive are probably immune from piracy, but it's going to take a long time, perhaps a decade or more, before such technology is actually viable.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the way to end piracy is;

1. Charge less for your game.
2. Don't treat your actual consumers like criminals.
3. Make games which people actually feel are worth buying.

So, for example, if you put out a game which costs $60-70US, requires an always-on internet connection/installs rootkits without user-knowledge/overheats users' graphics cards(all of which have happened in the past due to DRM), and has a single-player experience which lasts for eight to ten hours and is buggy as hell - expect people to fucking pirate it.

Will there be a lot of pirates even if those points are followed? Of course, but the gaming industry has to get over the idea that every pirated copy is a lost sale, most of them will keep trying to pirate no matter how hard you try and make it, but a fairly large chunk are people who have been driven to it by pricing, customer "service", or lack of value for money. Those customers can be enticed back, but if companies keep trying to force them back, they'll lose them permanently.

EDIT: Also, for just about any other company(excluding Activision), I could accept that piracy was the prime motivator behind this move, but this is Cryptic. These guys exist for the sole purpose of fucking their customers, then quickly moving on to the next crappy project before anyone's realised just how much their arse hurts.

 

[ArmorArmadillo]

It's built on 4e, why wouldn't it suck?

 

[MonsterZero74]

I'd like to think that they have a plan for everything. This does nothing for my confidence in them making this into a good game. You don't follow your game announcement with a "We don't know what we're going to do with _______" announcement in the same week. Lame.

 

[Winfrid]

So sick of companies trying to screw gamers over with these hazy payment models, just because a couple of successful games work on subscription models (which, you know, make sense), everything thinks they can just jump on the bandwagon
This crappy announcement deffinately means I'll be staying away from it, and it's one of my favourite genres

 

[Actual]

Because DRM does not work, only ~10% of players actually purchase the game and despite what pirates say, 0% actually buy the game after playing for free.

Wow, way to just make stuff up.

90% of everyone who plays a game pirates it? That's not true, common sense and looking around tells us that's not true.

Of the maybe 30 hardcore gamers I know, 2 are massive pirates and pirate all games. They both reward the games they like by buying the retail releases. The rest of us just buy the games we want.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Well this is annoying, as I really need to know if there's going to be a subscription fee required or not, as I base whether or not I care about things by that criteria. As I've often stated, the day all games require subscription fees to play is the day I bloody well stop playing them - learning that Cryptic plans to implement such a fee would therefore immediately kill any interest I might have in exploring a Spellplague-ravaged Faerun.

 

[mythgraven]

As someone who has seen what Cryptic does to games, I will absolutely not invest one red cent in the new NWN game, nor any other games Cryptic has anything to do with.

They routinely release shoddy product, after the "base" game is released, any and every update of any worth requires more money to be spent.

I didnt want to give this post the "I played XX and XXXX killed it, and Im sad" flavor, but really, theres no other way to express it.


Whiskey Echo!
Mythgraven

 

[TechNoFear]

Will there be a lot of pirates even if those points are followed?

Of course,

Exactly.

I think the gaming companies have noticed that no DRM has stopped the pirates. I imagine they also know that any stronger DRM will just end up turning your legit customers into pirates (when they can easily access free copies).

As teh internet gets faster and more accessable this is going to get worse.

How will the gaming industry make money in not enough people pay for their plastic disks?

Which game companies are currently making money?

Is there one with millions of people who buy their plastic disks each time they make one?
As well as paying it each month, they buy one off items?
Not only multiple continuing revenue stream but they get millions when they sue the pirate servers!

Continue trying to sell plastic disks while paying to develop crippling, ineffective DRM.

Or sell virtual goods, server access AND the plastic disks (more specifically, the required registration code).

Which way do you think the game companies are going to go?

 

[Optimystic]

It's built on 4e, why wouldn't it suck?

Actually, 4e is practically designed to be ported to a digital medium. It'll definitely be a better fit than 3.x was.