metagame

Dun­geons & Now What?

It was worth com­ment­ing on before, but time flies and here we are. DDO freeplay has gone live. Some­day I should com­pose some­thing of a per­sonal post­mortem on the game, but until then, we can talk about this development.

Of course, by “free” it’s “freemium,” not absolutely free. There are ways — sub­scrip­tions and micro­trans­ac­tions — for play­ers to put money into Turbine’s pocket (and no doubt Atari and Has­bro take a cut, or else they wouldn’t have agreed to the new busi­ness model). On bal­ance, though, it does seem that Tur­bine has made it pos­si­ble for the absolutely free player to earn access to all of the game’s con­tent. The guy drop­ping the nickel just makes it eas­ier. Not entirely unlike the lat­est social net­work games.  But with bet­ter graphics.

So what do I think ? It’s a savvy move, even if it’s widely regarded as a Hail Mary pass born of des­per­a­tion. DDO was never designed (or mar­keted) to com­pete with games at the now-traditional $15 sub­scrip­tion. A smaller scope resulted in some­thing between Dia­blo and a full MMO in terms of con­tent, scope, and invest­ment. We should expect the audi­ence to be able to dis­crim­i­nate value when it doesn’t work in their favor, and Tubine failed that test. D&D play­ers most every­where prove highly sen­si­tive to price; many believe a $30 Player’s Hand­book is over­priced, when the cost per hour of enter­tain­ment quickly approaches zero. Find­ing ways to reduce, hide, or make costs incre­men­tal to the audi­ence are all good ideas in this inter­net age.

Check back in a few months to see if Tur­bine announces addi­tional con­tent or an expan­sion (new busi­ness model suc­cess!) or cuts bait (patience was never their strong suit).