[MUD-Dev] Casual Crowd vs.Time Rich Crowd [was: Time Debt]

[Gedanken]

<EdNote: Quoting fixed, I hope correctly>

On Wed, 25 Aug 2004, Koster, Raph wrote:
> HRose wrote:

>> Players don't pay for a game they don't play.

> A disturbingly large number of them do, actually. Not all,
> obviously, but still a significant percentage. If you look at
> "unique player logins in a month" it just about never reaches
> 100%, nor does it match the churn rate (in other words, the people
> who do not log in also don't all quit). I don't have monthly
> figures handy, but you can have a game that shows 70% of the
> userbase logging in every week, and not have anywhere near 30% of
> them quitting--in fact, not even a tenth of them will quit.

Discounting the philosophical feelings i have that the average
person takes many breaks due to family, job, school, etc that should
not be considered 'not playing' as previously defined (as their
*intent* to play is there), there is still a more mathematical
explanation.

The smallest unit of time in the billing cycle is one month.  One
month however is a very large measure of time from the players
perspective.  An incredible amount can be accomplished during it,
and also a great number of fluctuations can occur as to how a gamer
feels towards a product during that cycle.

If players were billed when they logged in, or paid an hourly rate
(even if a miniscule amount!), I am sure a great many more
cancellations would occur because you are forcing a desion.  With a
monthly bill cycle, the unit of time is so large when compared to
the unit of time in game (probably the hour) that a decision is
rarely ever imminent.  * This is of course magnified with 3, 6, or
12 month pre pays. *

Anyone remember the old original gemstone(1) on compuserve?  I can
tell you from experience that, when you know youre about to pay an
hourly rate, you are a lot more critical of a service and a lot more
conscious that they are billing you every minute.  An ideal mmo
(from a billing perspective) would have nothing in it to ever remind
a customer that they are paying for it.

(1) = i will now be obsessed for the rest of the day trying to
remember my characters name

--
gedanken
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