GC 2007: The Agency to combine free play, microtransactions

Posted Aug 24, 2007 at 3:12PM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: PS3, MMORPG, PC Gaming Tags: John Smedley, SOE

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In a discussion entitled "Subscriptions vs. Micro-Transactions," Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) president John Smedley said that the upcoming pseudo-MMO action game The Agency (PC, PlayStation 3) would fuse different business models to create a balancing act between attracting players and optimizing profit sources.

Free online play with in-game advertisements, some content accessible via microtransaction, and exclusive areas unlocked through subscriptions will all play a part in The Agency. Of course, in order to sit comfortably between avid MMO gamers from the East and core gamers from the West, the "velvet rope" approach will probably take precedence over the rest. Smedley said:

We also see this game going a similar style to that of Free Realms, although I think that the velvet rope model in this case, we're also going to be bringing that in quite a bit because this is also appealing to a more hardcore gamer.

Free Realms, another MMO game by SOE, will also lean toward a similar business model when it gets released next year. The big difference between the two, however, is that The Agency would be primarily aimed at adults, while Free Realms would be targeting a younger audience.

And despite its plans to break into the rich MMO market in Asia, SOE is still neutral between subscriptions and micro-transactions. "We believe very strongly that this is the future of MMO gaming, but we also know that it is something that players have an issue with," said Smedley.

The issue at hand, of course, is a new market spawning from microtransactions, such as in-game wealth being exchanged for real-world currency to purchase additional outfits, weapons, and characters. And that's not even withstanding the theft of such content. "We want to control it so that players don't get duped into having something switched out from them," added Smedley.

Though Smedley thought that the subscription business model would continue spiraling downward, he did notice that more gamers are becoming comfortable with the idea of traditional pay-to-play (P2P). Free-to-play (F2P), however, continues to be popular in many MMO-dominated regions, such as Korea and Taiwan.

"We do believe that if you allow people to play for free, in many cases they will choose to spend more than you would think so," Smedley concluded.

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GC 2007: The Agency to combine free play, microtransactions

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