This week’s episode is full of computer roleplaying game goodness, as well as some of the disbelief of a Nintendo-owned Harry Potter franchise. All that and Civilization VI and Turok excitement to boot.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
This week, TD Gaming Podcast talks about Battlefield V and how a certain part of the gamer population completely lost their minds over it. There was also a half-hour discussion of Second Life, shoot-em-up, and developer Treasure, with web searches and aimless conversation that went nowhere.
This week’s news:
Let us know what you think in the comments below.
It’s 2016, and the first podcast of the new year is now live. Be warned, there are Star Wars spoilers like Han Solo dying and the entire plot being a rehash of A New Hope, so don’t listen if you don’t want to have your The Force Awakens experience ruined.
This week’s podcast covers the following news:
Question of the Week: “Which game do you really want to play in 2016.”
There is room to grow in the world of massive multiplayer online gaming. A large online community should not have to subscribe to a monthly charge to play great MMORPG’s because there are other known models that work, including the micro-transaction based MMO.
At first, this sounds like a dirty word, micro-transaction. Often we relate it with being “nickle and dimed” through a video game by means of dirty marketing which feeds our enthusiastic gamer addiction. Put this thought aside for a minute and keep an open mind.
Imagine a game with worlds the size of World of Warcraft and stories as in-depth as Guild Wars (which is not monthly itself) but free from monthly payments (or “playments” a new term that needs to be coined). The reason behind the monthly charge covers service fees, technical support staff, bandwidth, servers and sheer volume of Activision Blizzards user base.
The micro-transaction concept could still help pay for all the overhead of running an online gaming business because gamers tend to be over-enthusiastic about their great addictive games. If you build a game with excellent content, replay value and strive for a community atmosphere a micro-transaction title can work just as well as a subscription based game.
One beautiful aspect to micro-transaction models is paying for content when you’re willing to pay. This includes cosmetic character alterations, basic needs items (health potions) and other products to enhance the playability of the game without requiring the gamer to do so. There will be some gamers that use this as a “free ride” and never buy anything while other gamers spend way too much because they have expendable income which helps balance out costs.
