Quite a fascinating section on Prognosticator’s latest podcast.

Virgin Worlds: Podcast #24

Of course the whole thing is quite fascinating as well, but it was the 2Moons bit that got me banging my head of the desk in stupefied awe. Further details can be found in text-form here:

MMORPG.com: 2Moons: Game Announced & David Perry Interview.

I’d not really heard a lot about the game up to now – a quick perusal gives the impression of being just another Korean Grinder. I hope it’s not prejudice on my part, but on the whole, I’m not too enticed by that particular school of MMO design, largely because almost every anecdotal mini-review for a game of this type I’ve ever encountered tends to describe a level of character progress much like the broken-glass-crawling experience of the earliest days of classic EverQuest. Fun if you didn’t know any better, but now I do.

One of the key distinguishing features of this particular barrel-o-monkeys is its marketing pitch as ’…the most violent MMORPG ever made.’, unusually for a gaming release, actually aiming for an ESRB ‘M’ rating right out of the box. The bit that made me slap my forehead though, was the explanation of a whole new experiment in the wacky world of the Addition Revenue Stream, a topic I’ve always found morbidly fascinating.

Yes, of course I know that these things cost a lot to run, and that hungry developers need food to be able to code well. I quite like this recent wave of indefinite free trials – who wouldn’t? – but I am quite prepared to pay a monthly subscription for a game that I genuinely enjoy, as are many people. But it does rather seem that lately, MMO companies seem to be suffering a bit of a crisis of self-confidence over their products or something. It’s probably World of Warcraft’s fault, but more and more, marketing departments seem to be reaching the conclusion that they can’t possibly get away with asking a monthly fee for their game. I’m no economist, clearly, but I do know that I’ll pay for a good game, but probably won’t even play a bad, free, game – time is valuable to me too.

However, these folks still want to eat, so the money has to come in somehow, and increasingly, they’re looking to sponsorship and out-of-context advertising to fill their bellies. This gives rise to all sorts of crazy hair-brained schemes that not so much stray, but march jackbooted into the fundamental core of gameplay mechanics and give it a good stomping. We at Van Hemlock do not condone jackboots!

I’ve ranted before about Anarchy Online’s hijinks in this direction, and Auto Assault’s cheeky but ultimately ignored go at boosting the income a little. Others have heaped well-deserved scorn on upcoming PvP-centric title Archlord for their go at trying to make RMT work for them, rather than the farmers.

I’m fairly sure 2Moons is something else though. They propose to charge nothing for the box, and nothing per month, which seems like a quite poor business model really. To earn the actual money, they plan on having a rectangular advertising space (of as-yet undisclosed size, transparency and obtrusiveness) slap bang in one corner of the screen, at all times. I guess in theory, it will cycle through adverts, but if Anarchy Online’s advertiser take-up was anything to go by, will feature the same advert constantly.

But it’s okay! You can turn it off if you want! Just be advised that if you do, you’ll get less xp, and less ‘gameplay bonuses’, which could mean anything from less chance of epic drops, right up to no loot, buffs don’t work, equipment lasts one fight and everyone else who is staring blankly at the advert having massive stat advantages over you. The details seem unclear at present.

And so we edge closer to the nightmare scenario of the imaginary Newbie Starting Area, which in addition to the usual low-grade rats, bats and bugs, contains a pedestal with an I-Win Button on it, brought to you by Coca Cola. How much of the game do we want to circumvent before we decide we’ve ruined it for ourselves? And really…if everyone else is stabbing the Make-Me-Level-60 button (especially in a hardcore PvP game, which presumably 2Moons is likely to be), you’d have to press it too, to remain in any way competitive. A test of principles, indeed…

I’m not sure I’ve seen quite such an insidious infestation of Real Life Money into a virtual dream world, and it makes baby Van Hemlock cry. Hell, even in Second Life they’re quite up-front about the money side of it all; it’s enticing certainly, but in no-way required to get on in the world. Where other games start to dabble with own-brand item-sale RMT, Acclaim are clearly innovators, effectively selling own-brand power-levelling with this idea. We salute you!

I’d like to believe the hype, that it is possible to play for free, without the ads up, but I’ve played Project Entropia, and suspect that it will be possible only in the absolutely theoretical sense, for the iron-willed masochist only, and possible only to the minimum extent whatever governing gaming laws that might apply, require. Afterall, there’s no such thing as a free launch…