The topic of RMT (Real Money Trading) and Cash Shops is often an electric issue for gamers and creators alike. With the advent of an increasingly mixed market, in regards to payment methods used, there has been more and more variation. Not long ago, No…

And YES I couldn’t agree more, I think it’s the ability to purchase chunks of content that is (for me) one of the most compeling aspects of the F2P model, certainly fitting my playstyle.

Oh, and the Wizard 101 Access Passes have a substantial benefit over subscriptions, while you’re talking about them. Access Passes are like small Guild Wars purchases; you buy *content*, not a chunk of time to access the game. You can go back and play the game at any time, not just during the month you’ll pay for. It’s far more friendly to a scattered schedule. A sub will be great for someone who can dedicate 20+ hours a week and who has no intention of playing alts or going back to old areas, but Access Passes (like Guild Wars and DDO’s Dungeon Packs) are MUCH better value than a sub for the time-strapped player, or one who likes alts, since the access is effectively perpetual, not amputated at the end of the month.

However, I feel DDO’s implementation won’t work with a lot of other games. But, as you say, there doesn’t need to be one system for each game. DDO’s game world being a hub world + instanced dungeons and quests is perfect for this.

On the other side of the field you have your sandbox games like EVE. I cannot think of a good way these games can implement this without being horrible.

One thing that will make me never play a game is if they allow more real money = better success at playing. I don’t mind more real money = more things to do (DDO’s approach) but never have it so there’s special gear that allows you to kill Boss X easier that you can buy with real money. This is why I don’t see a way of it working in sandbox games working as there’s no way to split up a sandbox world in a way that doesn’t give people advantages to the game.

That said, that’s probably okay as not every money system needs to work for every game, as you point out.

Even without this though one thing that is important as MMOs evolve is that the $15/mo for each game will not survive (except for maybe the WoWs) since there will just be too many games to play. Honestly, I’d be playing Vanguard, EQ2, L2, LOTRO, CO and DDO along with WoW if they were or offered some discount since I could one for a night or two during the week then play the other the next week, etc.

I’d love a thing like an on-demand system or a cable-like subscription. I don’t mind paying subscriptions but only if I have the time. And yet a lot of MMOs are fun to play for a week here or there but not for long stretches and not when you have three or four other games to play.

I think you know Guild Wars. ArenaNet also seems to go a bit more item shop with Guild Wars 2, and Guild Wars 1 also has some more options added to the store by now.

The 50 bucks, play forever idea does not seem to be too popular, nobody copied this business model so far. I have no idea how much profit NCsoft and ArenaNet made so far, but the slight change to add a bit more microtransactions tells me they think that they can make even more money this way.