

Ask HN: Are there many web-based games that are subscription-based? - gbelote

A subscription-based revenue model seems rare for a game, especially on the web. I'm curious why. Is it that most games lack the replay value needed for subscription? Are virtual goods more lucrative? Do gamers hate subscriptions?
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JeffL
I've thought about this a lot, since I have a subscription based game with
about 1200 active subs, yet nearly all newer games coming out seem to be in
the item-mall / freemium category.

When I ask my players what they think, the most common response I get is that
they prefer subscription model because it's more fair. They hate games where
the person who spends more money gets an advantage. (Of course, my sample set
is biased.)

The advantage of the item-mall category is that you get great price
discrimination, and you also get a much larger player base than you would on
subscription only. But it's seen as cheesy and unfair, so works better with
casual games, and I think that's the key.

If it's a casual game, go for item mall or freemium. If it's a more serious or
competitive game, then go for subscription. I think we're seeing a lot of item
mall games coming out these days because we're also seeing a lot more casual
games.

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gbelote
Very cool, thanks! Do you mind me asking how much users pay for a
subscription? How sensitive is your game to "critical mass"?

That's a good point about fairness and casual vs serious, it makes a lot of
sense.

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JeffL
I have roughly 1200 people paying $10/mo. I also allow people to play for
free, but capped at level 20 (out of about 1000 meaningful levels). There are
maybe 1000 active free players, but not nearly as active as the paying
players. At any given time, about 3/4 of the people online are paying
subscribers.

It's hard to say how sensitive the game is to critical mass, since the game
has grown over the last 7 years with the number of people playing it. When it
first started out, there were only a dozen or so star systems and it was a
much smaller game in scope. Now we're up to about 6000 systems. Basically I
keep growing the game / universe as more people join.

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eswat
> Do gamers hate subscriptions?

Pretty much. You still get gamers that riff on the subscription costs of MMOs,
services like Xbox LIVE or PlayStation Plus, etc. and most-recently Call of
Duty Elite—where I’m betting it’s subscription model and the general distaste
for it is talked about more than the actual benefits and features of the
service.

With the kind of hate console/PC games and services get, where you arguably
get a richer experience compared to web-based games, I’m not really surprised
that web-based games tend to err on the side of caution for generating
revenue.

~~~
bjplink
I'm not so sure if this is true. I think the vocal minority dislikes
subscriptions but there are millions and millions of WoW or XBOX Live players
who don't seem to mind. And I'm sure, in the end, there will be plenty of
people paying for CoD Elite as well.

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skz
The example that immediately comes to my head is Runescape. The game is free
for everyone. If you want more access to the world, you need to pay for a
monthly subscription. Note that this is not like the item mall games because
in Runescape you pay for access to more content. You still have to work to get
new items/skills like the free players. (although you can sometimes accomplish
things more easily compared to a free player)

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pavel_lishin
I think "freemium" is the most common option. For instance, landgrab.net (a
Risk clone) offers a premium option that lets you play more than four games
simultaneously, and gives you other features.

I paid.

~~~
auganov
Yep, I can second that. Looks like most browser games get most of their
revenue from premium features/items whatever.

At least I guess we're talking about browser games? Because if web-based
includes MMOs then of course it's different. (well a lot of those are
freemiums too, but many aren't).

Oh and I myself have once paid for premium features on tribal wars and paid
for my friends too, so make sure it's easy to buy stuff for other people, they
like doing that :-)

~~~
gbelote
Good point RE: MMOs, I wasn't thinking about them as a separate category. Why
do you think it's easier for them to pull off a freemium/subscription model?

Gifting is interesting, I first noticed it with reddit. If you don't mind me
asking, why did you pay for your friends on Tribal Wars?

~~~
auganov
Well an MMO on average provides far far more content, it's simply a more
intense and complete gaming experience. It's more unique. At least it used to
be. MMOs are definitely slowly shifting away from the subscription model to
the freemium one (some start experiment with ads but I don't think there's
anything significant so far). The shift is obviously because there's more
MMOs, they loose their uniqueness factor and it's so much cheaper to develop
and then maintain them. Nowadays if you want to make a significant
subscription based MMO it would have to be really cutting edge or very niche
(check out WW II online, but keep in mind it's not a financial success, they
can just support themselves).

Why did I pay for my friends? Well some were not even friends. I was basically
a leader of a "tribe" there and made an "invitation contest" (every member
could invite people to the tribe, top 3 inviters would get the "premium points
from me". But let's be honest, the true underlying reason is "oh look how cool
I am, I gave you a gift", in fact that little contest of mine was somewhat a
scam, I made sure the right people won :-)

But generally speaking browser games and MMOs are very different in almost all
aspects. Revenue models might be getting similar but everything else is
fundamentally different. I guess that doesn't need explanation.

As for the money making potential I think MMO market is definitely over-
saturated, competition is very fierce and barriers to entry big.

Web browser market is very saturated too, but mainly with low quality stuff,
as in it's no sooo hard to build something better. But the downside is that
most games really struggle with profits there.

