What if the MMO Item Mall Was Never Invented?

I never knew that Achaea had the very first item mall, and I'm definitely thankful for it. Item shops not only make games more accessible, but they have the additonal bonus of clearly defining what you're paying for. For every game bought and subscription maintained, the buyer inevitably loses out on the value, even if just in tiny amounts. Pay for a month and lose interest for a week, and that's a fourth of total subscription value lost for the month. Then you have all the characters you -could- have made, all the skills you -could- have taken, and you really lose it. Item mall doesn't just make it easier on the players financially, but it's not so iffy with what you bought. You know X moneys will become X credits, which you'll use as you please. Even with all that aside, what really can't be argued is that it's changed the way the business works, and finally we see a business change in something that's good for both sides of the bargain. Here's to hoping that subscriptions continue to crumble.

I am glad there is an item mall, I cannot (at this time) buy things online due to parent paranoia, so if they had a subscription instead I would not have been able to play at all!

rocks! I like being able to get free credits and slowly work my way up to getting artifacts :)

Pay for perks won't let you get money directly from people with no interest in paying, and it also won't help you get more people willing to pay (if they're willing to pay for perks, they'd be willing to pay for the game itself.)  What Pay for Perks accomplishes are firstly to allow you to get money from those who will pay, while attracting those who won't (either in hopes of hooking them on the game so they'll pay later, or for advertising revenue), and secondly (and this is where Iron Realms really pioneered the model) to allow a dual-currency system to monetize even the nonpaying players (as other articles have noted.)

Of course, these are both essentially business advantages, and will do nothing to actually attract players.  For that, you need good gameplay and worldbuilding, which IMO Iron Realms has done even better than it's done the business end of things.

I'm just bad about capitalizing on the ways to get credits in game

Wait, IRE really invented that? :S

Good topic to read

elite membership is awesome

still, it would be nice if there was less of a massive time or money investment on simply getting all your class skills...

Totally wonderful for credits and elite

aquaintences, have come to it to do Elite. I came here because the mud I used to play on the bbs (pre-94) was free... I was looking for the same kind of community atmosphere

I like being able to earn free credits. Like this one! Yoink!

The Pay for Perks model is sort of responsible for IRE's success despite its limited market.  It's done wonders for IRE as a whole, players and company alike, and I'm glad they take full advantage of it. 

Of particular note though is that a lot of the revenue isn't just from things like buying beter artefacts and the like, but from buying customisations and aesthetic changes.  Subdivision housing, custom descriptions, pets, and that sort of thing are all fairly unique pay for perks options that I really think add a lot of fuel to the IRE engine.  And I'm glad for it, it adds flavour and excitement.

I probably would not be playing IRE games today had they gone with a subscription model. I'm glad they're pay-for-perks!

And thus should be treated as such

IRE's concept is a good one. I agree with what has been stated.

The only flaw I see in it is this.

The way a game is "balanced" now is based on the perks purchased, not on the skillsets created for the game alone. People need to remember even though there are alot of people who pay for the perks, there are also alot who dont have these perks. To balance a game mainly around the ones who have paid money to IRE games for perks is almost like running a pay to play game. And as this article states pay to play games are a dying breed. (Something I would never want to see happen to IRE)

This can lead to a very frustrated percentage of the playerbase, mainly the ones who cannot afford these perks or are slowly working to purchase these perks through in game methods.

It can (and has in some cases) cause them to search out another gaming community where balancing is not based off a demigod with every artifact in the game but based off what is considered the median playerbase.

Sure this will mean that people with artifacts that effect certain skills may end up with an edge over those without these artifacts. But isn't that what a pay for perk is? If it is balanced by the "perks" then they end up not being "perks" anymore but the "norm".

Basically I don't know who  IRE or the individual games. But the problem still ends up falling into IRE's lap.

Yay first innovator.

I think the elite membership should be rejigged some. I know it is optional but at over twice the monthly rate of WOW and PSU. It seems a big ask to me.

I remember when i first started playing Lusternia.  One of the things that upset me was my first character was deleted due to inactivity.  It took me a while to realize why and then I got over it and started over.

The Iron Membership is a fantastic idea.  It makes your character permanant as well as gives you pretty good perks that get even better with time.  

The item-mall concept is sweeping online games as well as console games pretty quickly. I agree that the credit prices in Lusternia should be lower.  I also wish artifacts and dingbats were purchasable on the item-mall.  However, it is kind of nice that they aren't on the mall because it's a special event when they are.

Props go to the pioneers!

When I spoke to Raph Koster about MUDs at this year's GDC Online, he said that Achaea was "historically relevant" among developers for pioneering microtransactions in games. Pretty cool, and it's neat to see that kind of thing acknowledged outside the web.

Never really seen one. I should look for one near me! Sounds awesome.

Interesting to read. I wonder sometimes if I should at least buy credits online just for a permanent character. But then sometimes I wonder if I really want this character to be permanent!

free baby!

Achaea has always been and continues to be very good at getting revenue from its players without being a pay-to-play game, that is not as easy as it sounds.. keep up the good work Achaea!

:)

commented and dugg

Plus the fact that these games are very addicting!

Interesting.

"they can release half a game today and then invest money into polishing it as the revenue streams in. Of course, they're shooting themselves in the foot. As I mentioned earlier, PC gamers want a fully finished product, meeting their every expectation on release day."

With PS3 they release games like Resident Evil 5 then months down the road another version is released with all the downloadable content (almost all of the multiplayer content has to be downloaded), that's, in essence, releasing a half-finished game then using revenue to polish it, and it sold well. I don't think PC gamers are all that different.

I can't agree more to the statement! :P

One reason I began playing was that I was tired of those, being Korean myself.

:)

I much prefer F2P+micropayments monthly subscriptions, but the subscription-based games do have some benefits to it.

article

What if...

And it's good that Achaea is not "pay to win." There are some goals that buying credits will really help with, mainly combat-related goals. But there are a bunch of others where the benefit is minimal. I spent years with no access to credits, but it didn't bother me, because I felt totally unfettered on the political/RP side of things which was what I was interested in in the first place.

Eh, sells skill, doesn't afraid of anything.

Good

Definitely why I came here.

all admit, not sure if the item mall is a blessing or the worst thing ever

Brokeded! I want my Elite back *cries*. I used to brag that I got where I was without spending any rl money for like my first 7 years of being in Achaea. Then they came out with Elite and I've gotten it for multiple months, til my job went poof *sniffles*, plus taken advantage of its discount and bought creds as well. Damn you, yummy perks! :P

I'd love to create my own one someday as an educational exercise, but I'm sure it's waaay more time consuming than what I'd have time for. 

:)

Thinking about if Aetolia had been a pay-to-play model..I'd have never played it, since I started playing when I was like..14. My first batch of credits I bought I had to give my hard earned chore money to my dad to get me a money-order to send in. Oh the days..And they were put to good use! Trying to wrap my head around how lessons/artifacts etc would work or just..be gone with a sub system is kind of frightening. They made a good choice.

is that on the photo really a store or is it a museum?

On the topic of pay-to-win, many so called "free-to-play" games are not actually free. Sure, you can start to play them for free, but there is no way for one to progress without spending exorbitant amounts of money. I know only of a few games which work the free-to-play model correctly, Achaea and the other IRE games being part of this group, and Team Fortress 2 being another.

Let me explain TF2's model first. TF2's model consists of players paying for hats, purchases which have no value in the game itself, other than raising your own ego. The other items that it is possible to pay for can also be obtained simply by playing a lot. The more you pay, the more free items you receive. Hats are bought by those who love the game and wish to support the developer(Valve).

Achaea has a somewhat similar system. While people can, and do, pay exorbitant prices in order to immediately tri-trans, one can also earn credits via various IC means, never having to spend a single cent on Achaea. This makes for an incredibly diverse system, one in which those who do not have enough time to earn credits via IC means, obtain them by paying real money, which they obtained by spending time and working hard in real life. From a business standpoint, it also works well, because the prospect of being free-to-play attracts many new players, and once they are in, they can choose to pay for benefits.

As someone who started playing their first IRE mud when they were fairly young (nearly 10 years ago now) I've been through multiple phases. First, I was too young to buy credits myself, and didn't have the money anyway. Then I got older and I'd progressed in the games I played significantly, and was figured I could spare some money and buy credits. If I hadn't done it that way, I'd have never spent a cent playing it, and I would have found something else to do. 
The idea of paying to play just seems wrong, especially in such an expansive environment as the IRE games. An hour-by-hour rate would become incredibly expensive. If you work it out, even at something like $1 an hour, just on the one character I still play, I'd have spent in excess of $4500. And that's just since the opening of imperian. With characters on both Achaea and Aetolia as well, the amount of money spent would be obscene, especially in times when I haven't had money spare to pay that.

I do like elite as a hybrid of sorts.

MEH @ GREED...

Cant beat Elite and credit sales.  Don't for lessons sales myself but I have most things I need transed already.

Free stuff is great too, more of that is never a bad thing.  Helps the younger(in real life) who can't afford credits a chance to earn enough to buy their very first artefact or get their skills up enough for combat.

nice read

Good insight on how macro economies work.  Thanks for the article!

Achaea and other IRE games are so community-focused compared to large MMORPGs. You have the majority people who don't pay anything fleshing out the community, which makes it a worthwhile game to play for the minority who do invest in credits. And that community is really important - lots of fish in a small pond. If it was subscription-only, you'd probably have about 10% the playerbase. Far less people to chat with, buy refills from, sell crafts to, PK, steal from, raid, etc.

In a graphical MMORPG like, say, Runescape, the "community" is a bunch of silent strangers with dumb names competing with me for mob spawns, or spam advertising their trash in the marketplace with bad grammar. I don't care about these people, they're just milling noisily about the edges of my single-player experience.

That's why I stopped playing that game years and years ago.  It used to be free on AOL back when AOL was in its prime.  I guess they have enough people that just pay money, but you're limiting the people that are willing to do this.

I'm awful at making money in-game.

Obviously Iron Realms had the right idea.  In my openion they've been extreamly successful I love playing Lusternia more than I ever did any console game

I play Achaea.  love it

supporting a business financially that has given me years of entertainment.

I know one major reason I've stuck with IRE as long as I have is that it is free to play.  Paying for an advantage is fine, although it's nice that it is still possible to be effective (to some extent) without those advantages.

interesting read

I definitely never would have tried Achaea if it costed money just to play. Love its item mall, and I'm sure they earn plenty from people like Penwize and Tanris.

The best is that the paid options are not even necessary to have fun! If a player wishes not to spend any real cash, they can still be competitive.

Eh.  Hit and miss.