SOE today has both announced and pushed live their Station Cash system. Station Cash, while a pretty dumb name, is essentially a microtransactions system in Everquest and Everquest 2 that allows people to purchase items like potions and pets for real-life cash. Of course, the EQ2 community is up in arms about it. My initial thoughts? Kudos to you, SOE.
- No game-breaking items. I’m sorry, but XP potions are practically handed out like candy in that game anyway. Vanity pets for housing? Let people pay money for them if they want to – anything to keep your game up and running.
- Good learning experience for their microtransactions system in Free Realms. Regardless if they’re using the same backend tech (I’d bet they are) SOE haven’t really ventured into this territory too much yet. I’d rather they practice on an established game to give Free Realms’ business model a better chance of success.
- Inevitable – come on guys, all the big dogs are going to do it eventually. I’d rather see more MMOs succeed and less of them crash and burn. Something isn’t working. Call it development schedules and budgets, or call it subscription models – but something has to change, and microtransactions work.
- Avoidable. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. Simple as that. I fail to understand how Joe Awesome having an extra pet in his house hurts you.
- Probably a much bigger deal than you think it is. EQ2 folks, stick it out – I’m sure you’ll find that it either doesn’t affect you, or is something you end up wanting to participate in. I mean, 10 bucks for the most expensive items on the list. Most of the XP potions cost a buck. That’s the same price as sending a “gift” on Facebook. I could have almost 4 XP potions a day for the cost of my morning Starbucks coffee.
Anyway, good luck with Station Cash SOE. It’s nice to see more North American studios trying new things.
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
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The Agency is rumoured that it will be free to play, with microtransactions, and a free-to-play model would not only save SWG in the longer term (with SWTOR warming up in the bullpen), but actually seems to fit with SOE's overall strategy.
Curiouser and curiouser…
As I read it, the main concern is that SOE is going to balance the exp curve against the potion-enhanced rate in the future. “Don't like the amount of time it takes to collect the 200 AA's required for endgame raiding? You can have a 50% AA exp boost for only $5/hour….”
That WOULD hurt non-participants, and it creates an incentive for the devs to create content that is overly grind-heavy in order to encourages players to buy the potions. It's worth losing some $15/month subscribers if you can sell enough potions to the people who don't quit.
I really don't see that happening Green Armadillo.
That would not be in SOE's best interest.
Hmm, interesting that they're doing XP potions with it. From the comments it sounds like these give you and XP rate increase rather than a direct XP boost. However, IMHO XP boosts are probably among the more harmless gameplay-affecting things. Let's face it, if someone is willing to invest 20+ hours simply grinding to max level (I'm thinking of the WoW expansion release date power levelers), then the only effect buying XP will do is to get them to max level (and whatever they want there) faster. I think that the extra money added to the economy would be negligible.
Thanks
The official name in-game though is Station Marketplace. We all wanted the currency to be called SmedBucks, but alas, it was not to be.
Joshua “Autenil” Kriegshauser
Technical Director, EverQuest II
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Aw, Smedbucks would have been awesome.
give it 3-6 months and see if game breaking items are introduced. You really don't think SOE is going to be satisfied with the bit of profit they can make selling fluff do you? This is a slippery slope that will end with the destruction of EQ2 as we know it.
LiarSmedbucks would be appopriate