TRM Debate: Root Question is How to Monetize Hardcore PvErs?

So apparently I was cited by Polygon, don't know this website, for propounding the business rationable behind nerfs to Story content, https://www.polygon.com/2017/7/11/15...oyal-menagerie. It got me thinking though that a root business issue underlying these sort of "nerf contents" debate is that MMO devs have not figured out how to monetize hardcore PvErs.

The basic framework is that sub-based with buy-2-play ("B2P," one time payment for X-pacs) goes for quantity over quality, so sub-based has to appeal to the lowest common denominator to get the most amount of people through the door. Retention after someone pays the entry fee, the X-pacs, is not as big a concern because the host already captured the lump-sum payment by getting the player to sub at least once.

In contrast, F2P is all about "quality," appealing to a small group of hardcore players and "whales," over quantity because F2P can exploit individual players for very large sums of money. Consequently, in F2P games, hardcore and whale players are catered to because, playing the odds, they are most likely to be willing to spend money in F2P to "stay on top," and once they cross the threshold of being willing to spend they will spend a lot. This subsidies the vast majority of F2P players who don't spend any money, and part of the exploitative logic is to essentially feed the non-spenders to the whales to give the whales a sense of achievement, and spur the whales to spend more.

But within F2P, F2P games cater to hardcore PvP, not PvE players. Why? Because PvP inherently is relative, pitting players against other players who shift the goalposts on their own. Someone will spend, encouraging others to spend to keep up, and then someone will spend more to try to get an edge, and the cycle continues. It helps that there's an information disconnect when competing against other players, rather than a CPU, since you can get exact info on a CPU generated PvE challenge that is prescripted, but you can't get an exact read on an evershifting human player.

Meanwhile, F2P devs as is have realized long ago it is very difficult to try to monetize hardcore PvErs? Why? Because PvE is inherently a set goalpost; it's a prescripted NPC. And the hardcore players tend to be very good at quickly figuring out how to beat something that's prescripted with set criteria. Consequently, that creates a softcap for spending instead of the no-holds bar world of PvP where the goalposts, and amount needed to compete, keeps moving up over time.

One might ask, well won't the devs just keep making the content harder or just nearly impossible and encourage people to whale to beat it? The problem is then it becomes too obvious that the hardcore PvErs are being exploited. One of the premises of the gamblers paradox is that the gambler does not actually feel he/she is being exploited.

In PvP games, the lack of clear information caused by the human element inherently generates enough uncertainty that people won't know what the true goalposts are, so the whales will be thinking "well if I just spend $200 more, I'll be just about on level with the top player." In contrast, if you just made an arbitarily difficult PvE boss that, lets say, required $10,000 worth of game purchases to beat, that information would spread quickly (because PvE is prescripted, once people find out the marker they know for sure), and then enough people will stop playing because they know for sure they have to spend an arbitarily high sum of money to progress.

Back to sub-based though, the problem of appealing to hardcore PvE is the same as hardcore PvP; there is an inverse correlation between content difficulty and amount of subscribing players, and sub-based isn't able to monetize a single player enough to make it worthwhile to appeal to the people who have higher demands for retention. Stated another way, to convince a hardcore PvE to sub for one more month by ratcheting up difficult will cause the loss of at least 2 other subs/prospective buyers. The devastation caused by Alexander Gordias/Midas Savage is a case-in-chief and SE knows this.

So the question remains, how can hardcore PvErs be monetized?

TL;DR: The good business from hardcore singe player PvE games like Dark Souls is because the hardcore PvE segment is a niche that can be properly catered to with single player since there's no worry about adverse consequences on the rest of the player base; each single player sale is in a vacuum. But there are tradeoffs once you get to MMOs, and MMO devs have not figured out an effective way to monetize hardcore PvE players in contrast to hardcore PvP (F2P model).

Not sure why you care about being quoted by polygon, especially since if you read the article they do arbitrary and sometimes wrong commentary. Nor do I know why any of this is relevant to, well, anything.

You're better off just emailing polygon if you care about a few people who really do not care about putting accurate information in their 'news' in the first place. Even calling that article news is insulting.

I've never seen a way to monetize hardcore players that isn't sleazy as hell.

Back when I first started playing online games people just kept logging on day in and day out (for years on end) primarily because they simply enjoyed being able to immerse themselves in a fantasy world (that had begun to feel like home to them) and also to hang out with their friends there. Things have sure gotten complicated these days.

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Originally Posted by Enjuden

Not sure why you care about being quoted by polygon, especially since if you read the article they do arbitrary and sometimes wrong commentary. Nor do I know why any of this is relevant to, well, anything.

You're better off just emailing polygon if you care about a few people who really do not care about putting accurate information in their 'news' in the first place. Even calling that article news is insulting.

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I'll take "Didn't read past the first sentence" for 200, Mister Trebek!

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

I'll take "Didn't read past the first sentence" for 200, Mister Trebek!

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I read past the first sentence, that doesn't mean I magically understand all context for it, nor does it mean that the post made any sense. I still stick with what I said until then.

So you lost that 200, lol.

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Originally Posted by Enjuden

I read past the first sentence, that doesn't mean I magically understand all context for it, nor does it mean that the post made any sense. I still stick with what I said until then.

So you lost that 200, lol.

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Well shit. I'll take that lost 200. Doesn't make you any more on topic for attacking the context, which was mentioned only as a springboard for her main question for discussion "How to monetize hardcore players?" It's an important topic if we don't want every MMO ever to become a casual kiddy ride.

But I mean sure, stick to your guns. Whole topic's her complaining about being cited by Polygon without her permission.

EDIT: It's even quite well outlined in her TL;DR segment there.

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Originally Posted by Roda

I've never seen a way to monetize hardcore players that isn't sleazy as hell.

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Because it's always sleazy. Look up the term "skinner box", or watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c

Hence, Slot Machines, Gatchapon, Lottery mechanics, and so forth are the ways you get people to spend money. Freemium games hence load up on the amount of skinnerbox mechanics in cash shop items (chance to win 1 item of 100 items, with maybe 4 items not being vendor trash.) Whales will keep buying these until they get that item.

Every freemium game does this with costumes, dyes and even pots that just make you invincible for 3 minutes (HP,MP, Stamina, ammo, etc unlimited.)

They know the whales will just buy those invincible pots to get ahead of their friends unwilling to spend money on the game.

In small amounts, it's fine, and isn't toxic, if you can get the invincible pot and only use one per 24 hours, it's less damaging than being able to just spam 20 of them to get through the hardest content, and even then that hardest content might have an instant-kill mechanic that makes using it foolish. Then you have things like lag and server crashes that makes these whale targeted items have the highest support costs.


In a subscription game, the game cost is front-loaded. Everyone who bought the game and subscribed for at least a month will likely spend more time in the game having a good time in 30 days than someone in a freemium game for 3 days who can't get anywhere without either being "powerleveled" by a friend who has already beat the content or towed through the game by paying someone to do it (which incidentally people do in FFXIV as well for the EX clears.)

The only time you ever start on a fair playing field in a freemium game is when the game is open-world PvP AND you can effectively hinder whales progress who abuse their position. Archeage and Wizardy online both employed mechanics like this, and you could actually hinder even the RMT bots (sometimes that was more fun than the game content, because it's a game to figure out which one will fight back.)


In short here is how FFXIV would look if it was on the Freemium bandwagon:
- All the items from every event? Cash shop gachapon, no need to actually do the event
- All items from every previous event? Cash shop gachapon
- No dyes in the game, Cash shop gachapon
- All the Materia in the game is vendor trash, get Grade XX from Material gachapon
- All the blue gear in the game is vendor trash, get ilevel 9000 gear from the cash shop, also can't npc it, trade it, exchange it for seals
- Spirit/Anima/Zodiac/Relic weapons eat regular gear, remember to feed all your vendor trash to it, also you can only repair with pots from the cash shop that cost $25 to repair fully
- Get the "experience booster" earring, only works while you pay 9.99$/mo
- No free retainers, every retainer is 2.00/mo
- Crafting is trash, every item you can craft requires cash shop crystals or spending months fighting elementals. Can't mine/harvest/fish them.
- Fishing games every second event, fish up nothing but vendor trash and consumables
- All the best consumables are cash shop gachapon

If you don't know which game I'm making fun of, It's stuff I've seen in Mabinogi, Wizardy Online and Archeage, and few other games going back to 1999.