Abstract
A large number of people worldwide play free-to-play Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) on a regular basis. Considering the significant amount of investment required in the early phases of game development, product managers aiming to quickly attract players deploy several in-game premium features which can be purchased by players willing to leverage their gaming experience. When the gap of advantage between premium and non-premium players is quite noticeable, it may lead to the lack of game fairness, resulting in players dropping out. This study aims at understanding the relevance of the drop-out factors that can be controlled by product managers, with an emphasis on game fairness when compared to other factors. A survey was sent to English-speaking communities of a MMOG. Results show that 53.9% of the variation in dropping-out is explained by the significant predictors analyzed: latency/performance issues, in-game features, community, service/support team and game fairness. Latency/performance issues and game fairness are the most relevant drop-out factors. By focusing on drop-out factors that can be controlled by product managers, this research contributes for decision making in the development of free-to-play MMOGs.
Highlights
Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) are videogames played online over the Internet where a large quantity of individuals can interact simultaneously in persistent worlds through their self-created characters/avatars, with other players’ avatars as well as with the gaming software [1, 2].In the free-to-play (F2P) MMOG industry, product managers are required to offer players premium paid features as a primary source to finance all the resources used to develop such category of games
This study aims at understanding the relevance of the drop-out factors that can be controlled by product managers, with an emphasis on game fairness when compared to other factors
MMORPG stands for Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (e.g. World of Warcraft, Ultima Online), which represent the most common type of MMOGs, with focus on character development, player versus player (PvP) and player versus environment (PvE) combat, existence of communities within the game and item collection; MMORTS means Massive Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy (e.g., Tribal Wars, Clash of Clans), with focus on strategy and tactics, so that the progress of a single player is very dependable on the game styles and relationship with others; MMOFPS are the initials for Massive Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter (e.g. Counterstrike, Project Blackout), where the main goal is to shoot other players within 3D maps [2]
Summary
In the free-to-play (F2P) MMOG industry, product managers are required to offer players premium paid features as a primary source to finance all the resources used to develop such category of games. Pushing it too hard – that is, having lots of premium features in important game mechanisms or creating premium features that grant huge advantages for those who decide to invest on the game (premium players) – leads to a lack of game fairness in the perspective of non-premium players. SUPERDATA RESEARCH INC. [12] estimates that F2P MMOG will generate $17.1 billion, while the pay-toplay continues its fall to $2.7 billion
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