Pay as you play Option?

Mortelus · April 2014

So many threads about P2P, F2P etc...

One of the arguments against P2P is that you paying even when you not playing, which I can understand as I live in China and so far I am yet to play a full evening week, this week I have already missed my Monday and Tuesday evenings due to maintenance.

Now I should make this perfectly clear, I am a happy sub, I really don't care about losing a few evenings here and there. I am happy to pay 8.99 GBP a month. It is NOT very much.

But why don't games employ a pay-as-play option.

You could buy 10 days game time for the same as a 30 monthly subscription, the difference being that time only ticks down when your online, playing.

This way people wouldn't feel cheated of money.

What do you guys think?

Thesiren · April 2014

I think that while this is a very commonplace option in Asia, you would have a difficult time persuading any P2P developer or publisher in North America or Europe to go along with it. Mainly because they make a lot more money at $15 US per month.

And they aren't going to get that out of many Asians; it's mostly the bong-hosted, "pay pennies per hour that roll over into the next month if you don't use them" thing going on over there. So they have to make money where they can. Even most NA and EU F2P games aren't F2P at all; they wind up socking you two or three times' as much money just to have full access to the game. They're most often pay to win, too.

Mailmann · April 2014

That is a wonderful idea, but it's not going to happen. When you are dealing with a corporation that is primarily concerned with their profits (as pretty much all corporations are) it really isn't cost effective for them to nickle and dime their customers in such a way. Besides, ESO has millions of accounts and it would be quite challenging if all of them had custom payment plans. I just don't see any game publisher going to all that effort if it wont provide them with a ton of profit.

Mortelus · April 2014

Thesiren wrote: »

I think that while this is a very commonplace option in Asia, you would have a difficult time persuading any P2P developer or publisher in North America or Europe to go along with it. Mainly because they make a lot more money at $15 US per month.

And they aren't going to get that out of many Asians; it's mostly the bong-hosted, "pay pennies per hour that roll over into the next month if you don't use them" thing going on over there. So they have to make money where they can. Even most NA and EU F2P games aren't F2P at all; they wind up socking you two or three times' as much money just to have full access to the game. They're most often pay to win, too.

I agree, BTW i'm an expat (UK Native teaching in China).

It would be a complicated process to have millions of people on a different model and profits would be down on the fixed fee cost.

However, if it was made more expensive than the fixed monthly pay, some would still opt for the monthly pay, as they would be getting more return game time for their money.

While others that work would opt for the more expensive option knowing that their money isn't going to be wasted as they can only play maybe 5 hours a week.

I believe they would have an even divide. I for one would stick with the fixed fee, because some days I only play 1-2 hours, some weekends I get in about 8 hours a day.

I should say, obviously 10 days would be too much, that's 240 hours. They would most likely sell by the hour, 5 hours, 10 hours 24 hours etc...

deathly809_ESO · April 2014

I already do pay as I play, I pay per month.

Shimond · April 2014

As you point out it's so inexpensive as is considering how many hours are in a month there's little point in doing this. Anybody complaining about the monthly fee as an expense wouldn't be any happier with the pay as you play option. They simply want the game for "free"

deathly809_ESO · April 2014

As a followup... I spend more per month at Starbucks than for ESO

Mortelus · April 2014

deathly809_ESO wrote: »

I already do pay as I play, I pay per month.

No you don't...

Look at mobile phones, pay as you go and contracts are different, this model (P2P) is paying a fixed contract amount per month, whether you use it or not.

Pay-as-you-play is where you only pay when you play. 'as-you-' being the important distinction here!

Mortelus · April 2014

Shimond wrote: »

As you point out it's so inexpensive as is considering how many hours are in a month there's little point in doing this. Anybody complaining about the monthly fee as an expense wouldn't be any happier with the pay as you play option. They simply want the game for "free"

This is a valid point. And yes I would be happy paying the monthly sub as to me it is cheap and I am not worried about the days I cannot get online.

But there are people out there that do worry about paying for something they are not using. Mobile Phone companies have plenty of customers on both contracts and pay-as-you-go models.

I think the same would be equally successful for MMO's and it would stop/help stop, the F2P models taking over.

If for instance I pay usually by the month, but suddenly one month I have a lot of marking or something around exam times, maybe I would not pay the fixed fee that month, maybe I would buy 10 hours and use that during my month. Then return to my fixed fee again once I knew I had more time to play.