After designing the majority of a game I've been wanting to work on, the question whether or not to have additional benefits/content for subscribers and such came to mind. I've been debating back and forth how to handle this, if at all, largely because if done poorly, it could blow up in my face.
I could provide benefits to subscribers or even BYOND Members, but I have some issues in both categories.
I don't think a subscriber would like to pay $6/month just to change the font color of his name or to change the color of his characters boots from silver to gold. Although, a BYOND Member might like those benefits -- it's not like they bought a BYOND membership for the sole purpose of supporting your game.
Despite benefits being based on the game and its theme, what general benefits would you give to subscribers and BYOND Members?
ID:1421124
 Nov 13 2013, 6:24 pm
|
|
I think there are a number of ways to approach this.
I kind of like the Spiral Knights approach, where you only get X minutes of play that gives you returns (like player exp or loot or money), and then beyond that you can keep playing for fun but it doesn't provide anything that would further player progression. Subscribers aren't limited to this play duration limit, and maybe BYOND members can get a longer limit. If that was deemed unsatisfactory for the game, then I would probably lock out content. Make some content subscriber only, some content members only. Maybe there can be a content leasing system, where you can buy a 1-play lease of a block of content with in game money. Like if I wanted to play a dungeon with my subscriber friends, I would buy the 1-play lease for that dungeon and I would play it through to the end. The thing is, I can't help but think that this sort of lease needs to yield a net loss of ingame money for the f2p player. I have to say that I am really digging the DotA2 and GW2 style treasure boxes, as a way of monetizing the game. Unfortunately though, that kind of counts as a microtransaction and isn't exactly in the scope of this thread. Say in an RPG game you give subscribers special gear, I think it's unreasonable to take away that gear when they stop renewing their subscription. Instead, I think there should be special subscriber gift packages, like a first consecutive month gift package, second consecutive month gift package, sixth consecutive month gift package, etc. | |
Cosmetic items only ^^, I dislike the advantages subs get in some games. It's almost always ruins the fun for those not wishing to spend money to enjoy playing.
| |
There's an amount of premium content that is acceptable in a freemium game. You have to find the right balance. A good practice is making anything that can be bought also acquirable through realistic free means. Allow players to share their premium content through trading, gifting, playing a premium level with f2p players, whatever. Think of it as a demo for the free players to entice them to buy.
A bad idea would be implementing road blocks or time sinks that have to be bypassed via payment. Some degree of this is necessary depending on your game genre (MMO's), but try to make every activity fun so players aren't grinding. Also don't add such blocks with the express purpose of enticing people to pay. Players aren't stupid; they'll see your cash grabs for what they are. | |
A lot of good points, but a HUGE note is to avoid anything that allows one player to buy metagame power over another, e.g. 'donate for adminz' setups. I see this far too much in eg Minecraft servers, and it's universally a bad thing.
| |
For Murder Mansion, I have it set up so that Subscribers get access to exclusive content (maps and modes, including special variants of the free modes), and BYOND Members have the ability to change a set of game options.
I took a page from Last Robot Standing's book, and made it so that the benefits given to a subscriber/member are shared with all playing on the server with them (I.E. a subscriber can be the person to start the round, select a subscriber-only map and/or mode, but then everyone else can play on that map/mode) As others have said, I very strongly disagree with giving subscribers any kind of advantages (no special weapons, power-ups, etc.) | |
Topkasa wrote:
A lot of good points, but a HUGE note is to avoid anything that allows one player to buy metagame power over another, e.g. 'donate for adminz' setups. I see this far too much in eg Minecraft servers, and it's universally a bad thing. I wasn't aware people purchased to become an administrator. That's rather odd, really. SuperSaiyanGokuX wrote: For Murder Mansion, I have it set up so that Subscribers get access to exclusive content (maps and modes, including special variants of the free modes), and BYOND Members have the ability to change a set of game options. That's the game that came to mind, but I couldn't think of its name for the life of me. I've sunk a fair amount of time into that game back in the day. Good game. I took a page from Last Robot Standing's book, and made it so that the benefits given to a subscriber/member are shared with all playing on the server with them (I.E. a subscriber can be the person to start the round, select a subscriber-only map and/or mode, but then everyone else can play on that map/mode) That's a good idea. Would be silly to have a server full of all but one subscriber and thus wouldn't be allowed to play their favorite map/mode because of it. As others have said, I very strongly disagree with giving subscribers any kind of advantages (no special weapons, power-ups, etc.) Maybe. I think MisterPerson was on to something in this regard. However, that would require a player market/auction house if I wanted it to be as balanced as possible. I guess similar to how GW2 handled their market. | |
Now lets take that same thought except with a subscriber. This is where they get some nifty(maybe not much more but good enough) features. Give them some extra hairstyles available only to them when they switch, and on top of that, let them pick out colors for that hairstyle.
I know it may seem like it's not much but it can be expanded to many different things such as armors and being able to dye them to whatever color the player chooses. Having small almost nothing advantages every weekend, maybe a world event that only subscribers could join to get a little extra exp or gold.
The way I'd go about subscriber benefits is giving them a million very small benefits compared to one or two huge ones like most games do here.