Age of Micro-Transactions

With more and more companies trying out the ‘free to play’ style games I thought it was about time for me to throw in my two cents.

Firstly, I’ve got nothing against the idea on paper. However, the conversion of a monthly fee game to a ‘free to play’ game is usually a rather harsh experience.

Just as an example, with Age of Conan going ‘free to play’ I decided to download it and take a look. Only to find out that the character class I wanted to play, required a purchase at the cash shop.

Seriously? I bought the game when it first came out for $50. Ended up playing a month, until moving on… and I can’t even use all the character classes that were a part of the $50 game that I bought?

There’s alot of small things like that the bug me about the free to play style games.  Rather then sitting her complaining about it … I’d like detail what I’d like to see from a free to play game.

Solid Balanced Gameplay

If you want to add classes to your cash store, the game play needs to be balanced. If the latest cash store item / class / race is hands down the BEST in the game … you’re not better then that sleazy used car salesman.

More Vanity Less Utility

Wow’s micro transactions are a good place for any F2P model to start… mounts, vanity pets. If you have a wardrobe feature, like rift, you could even thrown in some costumes.

Giving people the ability to change the look of their character with affecting the game in a meaningful way … would be a huge plus.

Expansion Content

Things that get added after release, treat them as ‘small’ expansions.

Want access to that new raid … that’ll be $10.  The new instance … $5. New Race … $15. New Class … $15.

Offer the ‘world event’ for free to wet people’s mouth… not a bad deal.

Anyways, just my two cents … I somehow doubt I’ll ever see this happen. It’s much to easy to market gear and key game peices, forcing people to a cash shop just to play the game how it was intended.