WARNING: Wall of Nerd Shit
Gaben said in one of them Dota2 articles that they aren't focusing on monetisation of the product right now, which I can believe. Between steam and World of Hatcraft they have plenty of operating capital. That being said, I don't think that there will be NO monetisation for Dota 2, but I don't think that the end goal of building Dota 2 was ever to make steaming piles of cashmoney.
Here are things that could be done better than the current pair of pay models.
- If Dota 2 has a shop that only has skins, not for-purchase locked character (like what we had assumed
the HoN shop would have), Valve has some options. If the shop ships with a LOT of skins (at least one for each hero) they could easily get away with charging less real money on a skin-to-skin basis than HoN does. I had thought initially that HoN's aesthetic-only shop would make money by keeping skin prices low and consistent, but then produce more content than a player could reasonably keep up with. This way, players could get some of the cool shit they saw others have, but only a small fraction of the cool shit that was coming. People who wanted more would pay a small price.
- Dota 2 could go fully two-tier, like HoN did in a half-assed, round about way or Bloodline Champions did for real. You can pay for the game, which would give you total, unlimited access to all present and future heroes (perhaps even some in-game currency or a special skin too). If you were a casual or somebody who hates competitive fun, you could play the free version, which might include 20 or 30 less-complicated heroes (I really hate the rotating pool idea) with no access to certain other features, such as spectating or whatever other doodads Dota 2 adds. As time goes on, the in-game rewarding mechanism or a credit card would allow you to buy more heroes in packs (purchasing single heroes in asinine) and eventually you could be on par with a real player, but they would still have more cool shit because they LOVE VALVE while you HATE FUN.
- Option for a low-priced subscription a la Runescape. Runescape is free to play, but there is also a paid subscription which was $5 a month iirc. While the two games are not analogous, a cheap subscription could work in a moba environment, by providing things nerds care about. It could be subscription-only skins that are unobtainable outside of a limited window. It could be game modes outside of traditional 5v5 battles, like perhaps a subscribers 1v1 ladder. Or it could be things that makes the persistent player's life easier, like experience multipliers or currency bonuses available only to subscribers (I think Knight Online had something like this). The key is to keep the price low so people don't think they're throwing their livelihood away to play.
Jesus that's a lot of boring moba monetisation bullshit. what the fuck is wrong with me
Gaben said in one of them Dota2 articles that they aren't focusing on monetisation of the product right now, which I can believe. Between steam and World of Hatcraft they have plenty of operating capital. That being said, I don't think that there will be NO monetisation for Dota 2, but I don't think that the end goal of building Dota 2 was ever to make steaming piles of cashmoney.
Here are things that could be done better than the current pair of pay models.
- If Dota 2 has a shop that only has skins, not for-purchase locked character (like what we had assumed
been told
- Dota 2 could go fully two-tier, like HoN did in a half-assed, round about way or Bloodline Champions did for real. You can pay for the game, which would give you total, unlimited access to all present and future heroes (perhaps even some in-game currency or a special skin too). If you were a casual or somebody who hates competitive fun, you could play the free version, which might include 20 or 30 less-complicated heroes (I really hate the rotating pool idea) with no access to certain other features, such as spectating or whatever other doodads Dota 2 adds. As time goes on, the in-game rewarding mechanism or a credit card would allow you to buy more heroes in packs (purchasing single heroes in asinine) and eventually you could be on par with a real player, but they would still have more cool shit because they LOVE VALVE while you HATE FUN.
- Option for a low-priced subscription a la Runescape. Runescape is free to play, but there is also a paid subscription which was $5 a month iirc. While the two games are not analogous, a cheap subscription could work in a moba environment, by providing things nerds care about. It could be subscription-only skins that are unobtainable outside of a limited window. It could be game modes outside of traditional 5v5 battles, like perhaps a subscribers 1v1 ladder. Or it could be things that makes the persistent player's life easier, like experience multipliers or currency bonuses available only to subscribers (I think Knight Online had something like this). The key is to keep the price low so people don't think they're throwing their livelihood away to play.
Jesus that's a lot of boring moba monetisation bullshit. what the fuck is wrong with me
.
