ID:276571
 Nov 27 2005, 1:03 am
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Well I was just thinking about runescape and how much money they would get. As Runescape is a free game they would have to rely on member ships to get money(like byond). I calculated it up. Theres roughly 62000 members which pay $6 a month. Add this up and they end up getting $372000 a month. Now some of the more popular retailed games get more but people dont keep buying them. Therefore is it more profitable to make a free internet game?
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I wouldn't be so quick to call Runescape "free" when some of the game is locked and kept from you if you don't shell out money.
A REAL free game, well...has no profit, unless you use advertisement banners I suppose. | |
At the time of this posting Runescape has ~28,000 members online and playing, later on in the day it will be quite a bit higher which shoots the 62,000 mark out of the water. Fortunately Runescape is actually one of the few games that it's creators aren't afraid to release subscription numbers for, as of june/july they had somewhere in the neighborhood of 350,000 subsribers, which at $6 per month is $2.1 million before expenses. As it would so happen, Runescape is one of the most popular MMO's out there right now.
As to whether its more profitable to make a free internet game, definetely not if you plan to be running the servers. Back in the day Runescape was completely free, but the cost of running the servers outweighed what they were bringing in from ads on the website, hence the addition of the members portion of the game. Other games that are just free to play online (UT, HL, etc.) where players run the servers and the only thing the game company runs is one master server to track all the player servers than expenses are significantly less and they can factor that into their intial budget. | |
Personally, I think "free" MMORPGs need to use a cost-sharing system, where they adjust the monthly membership costs based on the actual fees for the previous month.
$372,000 per month is a darned sight more than they actually need to run servers... take a look at the much-higher-traffic and -bandwidth Wikipedia, which needs approximately $500K every quarter (and most of that money goes to getting new hardware). Then compare BYOND memberships, which are practically giving bandwidth to each user for $1.25/mo. | |
Free games don't earn any money, by definition. =) Cheap internet games, though... yes, they can be very profitable. Partly because the ease of distribution and advertising on the internet means that many many people can be drawn in for practically no cost, and partly because the overheads are much smaller than in a brick-and-mortar game studio.
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I've been thinking about the big potential for making money with computer programming and its benefits over other types of products:
-Besides a computer, electricity, internet, and the actual programming software, which may or may not be free, you don't have to pay anything else to make it if you work by yourself. Unless you want advertising, which can be even a simple exchange of links among popular sites. -It takes nothing to make a free and identical copy of your product and costs nothing to 'ship' it via the internet. A simple e-mail or uploading it to a freewebs site works. This is probably the biggest advantage of all. -You can make additional money from ad space or sponsorships on the game, even if its a little ad during the beginning movies. -You won't need to pay for servers if players host their own games. -Making some parts/items/things only accessible to paying players brings in the money. Even if it is cheap, like $5 for special items, multiply it over 1000's maybe even 100000's or more and that's a lot of money. | |
For example BYOND and Gaim, if I had a way to donate to them I would. Where as with other programs that actually cost, I dont pay for them. Because, if I didnt download them, I wouldnt buy them. So they gain a satistfide *customer*.
I know that isnt games, but I feel the need to help fund free stuff more than I do with un free stuff. In other words, I would rather donate to XLink Kai instead of subscribing to Xbox Live.