jorb wrote:MagicManICT wrote:Korean monetization models have sold a flat X hours for Y currency.
I would not mind this model as an alternative to a subscription, even though I am a little weary of cluttering up the store too much.
Disclaimer : 95%+ of all MMOs I've ever played have been korean. I follow their market, culture and trends for many years now.
Short answer : Don't even think about it. Their model only works there.
Long answer :
1) Koreans have two forms of limitations put on em when it comes to playing games online.
1. The anti-gaming addiction law prevents anyone above 18 years old to play video games from the hours of midnight to 8am.
2. Most of the gaming culture in Korea happens in PC bangs. They're as popular as regular cafes here in the western world.
These 2 points lead to a single outcome : time matters.
Korean games have to be very mindfull of how they spend their hours gaming. PC bangs cost em $/h and they can't play past midnight. So they need to be as efficient as possible. Korean gaming companies understand this perfectly. They understand that the gamers are really heavily restricted and can't play games for more than a few hours a day.
So they put a pay/hour model to make it easier to pay.
However, that is just the tip of the iceberg.
In reality, the 2nd reason this model was pushed was goverment pressure. Korea has huge gaming addiction problems in NEETs. The korean government combated this with that midnight-8am no play law, but it's not enough so they're pushing gaming companies to employ stuff like hourly reminders to take a rest and, of course, to push pay / hour models to gamers spend less time gaming.
This also goes in tune with the whole "daily quests, 24h cd instances" crap. It's not only cattering to the casuals, but just making it possible for people to progress without paying for a lot of gameplay hours.
TL;DR - It ONLY works in Korea, because of their culture and is mostly a CAUSE of problems, not a cool-ass payment model to try in the west.
Don't even think about it.