Thread: Simplistic analysis of RoR expansion

I'd like to look at this from an economics perspective (queue snoring sounds) to determine what behavior turbine is trying to encourage with this offer.

We've got 4 broad categories of players
1) F2P
2) Premium
3) VIP Subscribers
4) VIP Lifetime

A few assumptions:
Instance cluster will not be included in cost of expansion
Instance cluster will be free to subscribers / lifetimers
Price is somewhat higher than expected. (40/50/70)

Turbines apparent intention with respect to:
F2P players:
Pick up some $50 purchases for the included quest packs, but expansion not really aimed at F2P

Premium players:
Encourage purchase of expansion + becoming subscriber to play the instance cluster. Perhaps data indicated that many subscriber's who purchased RoI went premium. (And in future years they would be "subscribers with 6000 TPs to spend)

Subscribers:
Separate subscribers from either cash or more of there "free" turbine points. Increase benefit of remaining subscriber by including significant material in Updates (including instance cluster)

Lifers:
Encourage Lifers to drop more cash (as they don't have to pay for anything but expansions) or siphon more turbine points to boost rate of Lifers who buy TPs.

I think the "hate" relates mostly to players in 2nd category, who are feeling the pain of paying for an expensive expansion perceived as more of a large update and who do not currently subscribe. Those who do purchase the expansion and subscribe, however, will collect the 6000 TPs/year and be in a perceived better position for the next expansion. i.e. pre-order for cash and have lots of TPs for other stuff, or save TPs for purchase of future expansion on release, and continue to subscribe and get Update content for "free". Of course they will also spend significantly more money.

So it looks to me like Turbine is trying to boost subscriber rate while accepting loss of some (many?) long-time players who have lapsed to premium status.

Thoughts?

While I do appreciate the thought of threads like this which bring more to the table than either whining or fanboying, I do not really get why we need so many threads of more or less the same observations, claims, assumptions, conspiracy theories or whatever, as they all seem to go down the same road after a few posts.

I always went on playing as I did before F2P and subscribed on a monthly basis... as I usually need weeks or months to reach the level of being able to participate in instance clusters, I am totally fine with the later instances and considering what I pay for other games/playtime even this expansion will be relatively worth it for me... although I hope Turbine's numbers will show that they cannot push it further than this (althoug looking at polls with quite a lot players e.g. on cstm, a large majority will preorder RoR). That is why I do understand the rage of some people here because of their playstyle, my experience is that LotRO simply have large playerbase looking at the game similar to me, and when you want great ME-moments, than what we heard so far sounds very promising. It is not hyping or fanboying... simply different priorities although some people even send me messages here to tell me why going with the policy at this point can ONLY be coming from a fanboy. Lol.

Here are my thoughts along this line of thinking;

Let's say in the past if Turbine sold 4 expansions for $30 they made $120
In the F2P era they sell 2 expansions for $70 they made $140

Turbine could lose HALF the player base and still be making more money than pre-F2P.

Less overhead, less complaints, less cost and more money, what's not to like from their end?

I honestly don't think they are targeting one sect of player over another here but simply trying to soak every penny out of every player while providing as little as possible in return. Why give us more than a quest pack labelled as an expansion when they can sell every single thing they don't give us in the Store as an 'extra'?

It's my opinion that this is the new standard we'll see from Turbine from now on. Say hello to nothing more than overpriced quest packs labeled as expansions while everything that normally comes with an expansion in the rest of the gaming world will now cost us all extra....if we choose to continue to give Turbine our money that is...

Originally Posted by Mark_J

Here are my thoughts along this line of thinking;

I honestly don't think they are targeting one sect of player over another here but simply trying to soak every penny out of every player while providing as little as possible in return. Why give us more than a quest pack labelled as an expansion when they can sell every single thing they don't give us in the Store as an 'extra'?

It's my opinion that this is the new standard we'll see from Turbine from now on. Say hello to nothing more than overpriced quest packs labeled as expansions while everything that normally comes with an expansion in the rest of the gaming world will now cost us all extra....if we choose to continue to give Turbine our money that is...

I guess I don't think it's quite that bad, but I agree that with the micro-transactions model, the goal of turbine changed
from:
Make a great game to get the most subscribers which will earn us the most money.
to:
Make a game that maximizes income from micro-transactions, subscribers, and expansion for least amount of effort.

The big thing to me is that Turbine's goal no longer directly aligns with the player's goal.
(Make great game/play great game)

Originally Posted by quetzalcoatl

I guess I don't think it's quite that bad, but I agree that with the micro-transactions model, the goal of turbine changed
from:
Make a great game to get the most subscribers which will earn us the most money.
to:
Make a game that maximizes income from micro-transactions, subscribers, and expansion for least amount of effort.

The big thing to me is that Turbine's goal no longer directly aligns with the player's goal.
(Make great game/play great game)

I don't know Turbine is a big business and the primary purpose of all big businesses is to maximize income with the least possible expenditure and I seriously doubt there's a lack of desire to create a quality product, after all quality is still one of the best sale drivers. Quality has certainly gone down but I don't believe it's because of any radical shift in business philosophy. You don't think the coders, artists, and even management want to produce as great a product as they can?

Originally Posted by TheMadCat

I don't know Turbine is a big business and the primary purpose of all big businesses is to maximize income with the least possible expenditure and I seriously doubt there's a lack of desire to create a quality product, after all quality is still one of the best sale drivers. Quality has certainly gone down but I don't believe it's because of any radical shift in business philosophy. You don't think the coders, artists, and even management want to produce as great a product as they can?

I should clarify that I do think the coders, artists, and managers want to produce the best product they can within the constraints of time and budget and requirements to drive more micro-transactions.

My point, however clumsily stated, is that the way to maximize income is clearly different under a F2P micro-transaction model, and I find that a little sad. However I recognize that without the switch, there might not be a LOTRO to be playing, and that would be much, much worse.

Originally Posted by Arannir

I always went on playing as I did before F2P and subscribed on a monthly basis... as I usually need weeks or months to reach the level of being able to participate in instance clusters, I am totally fine with the later instances and considering what I pay for other games/playtime even this expansion will be relatively worth it for me...
<snip>
my experience is that LotRO simply have large playerbase looking at the game similar to me, and when you want great ME-moments, than what we heard so far sounds very promising. It is not hyping or fanboying... simply different priorities <snip>.

I myself am a lucky lifetime member, and I will certainly buy the expansion, eventually, almost certainly for cash, although I haven't decided which package to preorder. I also need months (years?) to reach the level of being able to participate in instance clusters, and I only have one 75, and only three toons above 20.

I agree wholeheartedly with what I quoted above. I really just wanted to say that maybe Turbine was a little too generous (according to the bean-counters) with the F2P/premium model, and is trying to encourage subscriptions (from the set who will want to purchase RoR because, well, it's Rohan!) with this expansion and content.

By all accounts, Turbine made way more money in the F2P system right after F2P launched (when, arguably, F2P was at its "freest") than it did when LOTRO was pure P2P. Why would they want to steer the ship back towards a more obligately P2P model, if that was less profitable? Yes, you gain more revenue in the short-term by coercing people to subscribe, but there's two long-term deleterious effects that will offset that:

A) You alienate the playerbase that doesnt appreciate being coerced to migrate to subscriptions in a game they were told would be fully playable F2P. They may stay and gripe for a while, but they'll be the first ones out the door when a better game catches their eye, and wont be too ready to come back anytime soon even though its free, since they'll have the impression that the game "isnt really F2P anymore". Those lost players are ones that wont be purchasing expansions or buying TP anymore.

B) Subscribers are a harder group to keep than F2P players. F2P players might leave the game for a few months, then be enticed to return in the future since its free. When a subscriber lets his sub lapse and moves on to other games, its much harder to convince him to start paying his $15/month again to return, let alone paying another $50 or whatever to catch up on the expansions he's missed in the meantime.

The F2P model is what is working for the game - just focus on increasing your long-term playerbase, and generate more revenue through the microtransaction store by sheer volume.

If Turbine were interested in increasing their long-term player base, they would provide some sort of incentive to (1) keep the VIP players they have happy and (2) try to convert some of the f2p players to VIP.

For (1), something as simple as stating a policy of VIP players on an annual subscription (and including lifers) get a 40% off discount on all expansions/questpacks and instance clusters/raids are always included at no additional cost. This simple policy would encourage VIP players to stay & pay as well as taking some of the bite out of expansions/quest packs. One has to wonder what a VIP actually gets for their subscription fee these days; certainly TPs can be bought for a cheaper price.

When some f2p players see what a VIP gets in (1) above, that may take care of some of the people in catagory (2).

not gonna happen with premium/.f2p changing to subscription and why would they, all subscription and lifetime give you is freep pvp, your paying 120 a year for 6000 tp and the ability to enter the moors on your freep coupled with maybe a update or two, much cheaper just to be premium and buy a bundle in a sale and buy the updates piecemeal.

Originally Posted by Mark_J

I honestly don't think they are targeting one sect of player over another here but simply trying to soak every penny out of every player while providing as little as possible in return. Why give us more than a quest pack labelled as an expansion when they can sell every single thing they don't give us in the Store as an 'extra'?

Yes. It is that Bad.

There are only two groups of audience in Turbines eyes. People that can be fooled and people that cant. You need to get rid of the second group by imposing server lags, forum disfunctionality, security breaches ... Keeping the first group happy isnt that hard. Cosmetic Mounts, Festivals, Gamble Boxes, Forum rep and titels to make them feel special etc. ... and suddenly you see peopele handing over 70dollars for a questpack and a inventory expansion (15slots)