The danger which subscription fees, and micro transactions present to the gaming industry, is that they present aleternate revenue streams that can sometimes be more lucrative than box sales. When game companies start focusing more on how they can nickle and dime than the core game itself, or worse, build the core of the game around subscription fees and microtransitions, then those games aren't going to be very good.
As consumers, we should always demand at minimum 99% of the content be included in the box sale. Developers should have to meet this demand however best they can. The exception being MMOs and 'persistent game worlds' that exist online only. And no, throwing a game online only (D3, etc) doesn't qualify it as an MMO, or 'persistent game world.' In which case, the box sale of the game should be little or nothing, and the only charge fees/subscriptions.|||Quote:
They aren't charging a monthly fee. Be thankful.
well said my friend.|||Quote:
But they're not limited. An underage or poor player can sell items or gold for money and then use that money to purchase items on the RMAH.
Have you ever tried to create an account on PayPal, eBay, etc? Pretty much all companies that work in these sorts of monetary transactions refuse to service underage clients. In the US, this is because it is illegal in most (all?) states. But even if it were not illegal, you can imagine the legal fees that add up when a kid uses his/her parents' credit card without permission and the parents decide to sue Blizzard, and that is one of the main reason these age limits are on the game - a user agreement preventing these sorts of lawsuits.
Add that to the odd lot that will sue for child labour, a case that wouldn't make it through the courts, but wouldn't need to either because it would be cheaper and more in the PR interests of Blizz to settle out of court.|||I get the feeling that the inevitable console version will be where the big bucks come from. Console gamers are a huge market, and Diablo is probably the most suitable Blizzard game for consoles.|||Quote:
Have you ever tried to create an account on PayPal, eBay, etc? Pretty much all companies that work in these sorts of monetary transactions refuse to service underage clients. In the US, this is because it is illegal in most (all?) states. But even if it were not illegal, you can imagine the legal fees that add up when a kid uses his/her parents credit card without permission and the parents decide to sue Blizzard, and that is one of the main reason these age limits are on the game - to be a user agreement preventing these sorts of lawsuits.
Add that to the odd lot that will sue for child labour, a case that wouldn't make it through the courts, but wouldn't need to either because it would be cheaper and more in the PR interests of Blizz to settle out of court.
The money can be deposited in your Blizzard "e-account" which can be used to pay for a WoW subscription, buy games/merchandise from the Blizzard store and buy items via the RMAH. No credit card is needed.
So an 8 year old could get an item or gold, sell the item/gold and buy an item via the RMAH.|||I feel like we were already discussing this topic in a separate thread, but maybe a fresh start will be good. Rather then rehash that thread, I'm going to take a different tact. First, let me say that I prefer microtransactions to monthly fees if they are optional to game enjoyment, like LOTRO or Guild Wars... in terms of D3 I am fine with RMAH fees, vanity items, perhaps even monthly fees for optional add-ons like major guild support. But if were going to talk about a straight monthly fee for D3, perhaps we need to discuss what you should get for a WoW-like fee.
So for that monthly WoW fee you get access and storage on their servers, an auction house, seperate warring realms to split players competetively in open-world pvp and major guild support to group players cooperatively in pvp or pvm, special events, better tech support, the ability to have many, many players raid together in both pvp and pvm, a persistent game world where you can explore freely rather than a more linear RPG, hundreds (thousands?) of quests, mounts, vanity items, etc., etc.
So rather than argue against monthly fees, I'm willing to discuss how much Blizzard needs to add to D3 so that it is worth a monthly fee. Right now it doesn't have enough of those features above to fairly warrant a subscription by Blizzard's own "definition" of what you get for that price.|||I will proceed on the assumption that they will not charge monthly prescription in the future, as that will be a huge PR disaster, we can throw that possibility out and not waste time talking about an unlikely scenario.
However, it is very likely (bordering on certainty) that they will implement vanity stores, which is perfectly good in my book, as long as goods sold give no gameplay advantage and stick to the cosmetic side of things, giving convenience advantage though like more shared stash space or slots for RM will start to be riding the line.
I imagine the finalized fee extraction model to end up similar to:
-RMAH transaction fee.
-Vanity store
Supplemented by expansion sales, which is another word for a big DLC really. Whether they will mix smaller DLC alongside the expansions is another possibility, though I'd hope not, D3 seems more suited to bigger DLC (expansions) then numerous optional DLC, a poorly implemented rapid DLC model can fragment the game community too.|||Quote:
The money can be deposited in your Blizzard "e-account" which can be used to pay for a WoW subscription, buy games/merchandise from the Blizzard store and buy items via the RMAH. No credit card is needed.
So an 8 year old could get an item or gold, sell the item/gold and buy an item via the RMAH.
I think that you need to check the laws for your state. In DC, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, the four states I know about, it is illegal for underage persons to vend for real money except under certain circumstances - and an online auction house is not one of them. It doesn't matter what account they put the profits into, it is illegal. I doubt underage persons will be able to legally fund their account this way.
Moreover, there is a whole issue of self-employment for minors who make a bunch of money. And if a parent finds out that their child sells $1000 bucks of items on the RMAH and gets angry because their kid is online too much, you can bet they will sue Blizz for child labour infractions, and there are plenty of judges - I am not saying I agree with them - who would rule in favour of the parents. And this comes on top of using credit cards without permission. So, even if it is legal in your state, I doubt Blizzard will risk the lawsuits.
I could imagine a slippery scenario to get out of this dilemma where Blizzard says that your Blizz account represents "monopoly money" that adults can exchange out for real money if they want. But then if Blizz does that, there is very little difference between this and the system I suggested. Blizz already said they weren't doing that, though, and I doubt it would resolve any legal issues if they did.
I think it is a safe bet underage persons will not have access to the RMAH.|||Quote:
I will proceed on the assumption that they will not charge monthly prescription in the future, as that will be a huge PR disaster, we can throw that possibility out and not waste time talking about an unlikely scenario.
However, it is very likely (bordering on certainty) that they will implement vanity stores, which is perfectly good in my book, as long as goods sold give no gameplay advantage and stick to the cosmetic side of things, giving convenience advantage though like more shared stash space or slots for RM will start to be riding the line.
I imagine the finalized fee extraction model to end up similar to:
-RMAH transaction fee.
-Vanity store
Supplemented by expansion sales, which is another word for a big DLC really. Whether they will mix smaller DLC alongside the expansions is another possibility, though I'd hope not, D3 seems more suited to bigger DLC (expansions) then numerous optional DLC, a poorly implemented rapid DLC model can fragment the game community too.
I agree with every word of that post except that I'm very skeptical that the RMAH will ultimately prove profitable.|||OP, you realize D3 will likely make $500 million-$1billion in revenue over its lifespan? SC2 has made hundreds of millions already and without an expansion or DLC, which is coming very soon.
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