With this new buy to play business model, Gamigo (or more specifically, the former Trion personnel that are continuing to work on ArcheAge) has a big challenge when it comes to maintaining a recurring revenue stream. Gamigo has secured front loaded revenues from the initial pre-order packs but lose a lot of recurring revenue in the process.
With Unchained, it’s not going to be as easy with the elimination of what was easy money; Patron and APEX. While Patron could be purchased with various real money subscription plans, players could also grind for gold in-game and use that to buy APEX (listed on the trade broker by someone who actually purchased it) which could then be redeemed into credits to get their monthly Patron (2400 credits on the Glyph store). Both methods provided a lucrative recurring revenue stream.
Credit purchases themselves were also another (maybe not as consistent on a monthly basis) source of revenue given the amount of items that were in the cash shop (which included the more blatant ones that enhanced gear progression). They have a variety of options starting at $4.99 for 900 credits (750 plus a bonus of 150) where the more expensive ones gives more bonus credits. The $50 for 10,200 credits is the easiest to visualize for arbitrage purposes when calculating the average cost per credit. Finally, they also had this cycle of fresh start servers (with their own launch packs) where the above would replicate itself (where the hardcore alt account player would also continue maintaining Patron on several accounts).
A lot of this disappears with Unchained (what will hit them over time is the synergy that existed between Patron and APEX). Patron is normally $15 per month (decreases per month if one subscribes to their 3, 6, or 12 month plans where the latter is $8.33 per month). APEX is $10 and can be converted to 1250 credits (so someone using in-game gold for their Patron has to purchase 2 APEX to cover the 2400 credits it costs for 30 days).
As I noted before, the pre-order Legendary Archeum Chainbreaker pack ended up having the most value (even if it applies to only one character; which is why they purposely did not try to make them account wide since if you want to dress up you other alts, you’ll need to use either credits or try the premium track for the ArchePass). Their only method (right now) of recurring revenue from anyone who bought the game is credits. $10 provides 1500 credits while the higher price points also gives bonus credits (the $99.99 pack provides 17,250 credits; 15,000 plus a bonus of 2250).
I’ve written numerous times before that most Korean MMO’s core design is around cash shop mechanics. ArcheAge is no exception and one of the worst in this area; extricating that isn’t as easy as it seems because some items need to go somewhere in the reward loop. Some of the important ones were put into the Diligence shop via the ArchePass system (and are only available in the free track). I’m going to go off on a long tangent regarding the ArchePass (and then come back to the original topic). A simple example are expansion scrolls. Character and warehouse inventory are limited by design though and you need these scrolls to expand each to their 150 slot maximum. After that, additional storage is based on cash shop storage which goes into your built structure. Expansion scrolls are only obtainable via Diligence coins (available at specific tiers in each of the three tracks) which you get by completing the ArchePass.
The problem is that the ArchePass was barely tested during the PTS since this could be bypassed via the use of the Fluffy chat bot (to get stuff like Gilda Stars, gold, and Diligence coins). As players are finding, the overall design of the ArchePass is terrible; an unsatisfying grind to be exact. All XLGAMES did was rejigger the dailies login system without much thought put into the flow of those missions with the core game loop. Missions you receive are in a pool based on character level (and there is that loop bug where you can get the same mission over and over again).
This is what led to the whole world boss “exploit” (where the exploit was only if someone did not get that mission and needed to constantly use the change mission button) suspensions that were than mostly overturned. The lower the character level, the less amount of missions in that pool. So there are similar issues in lower level areas including the dwarf starter area and even Sanddeep (I happened to get this one on repeat where you can go back to Grenwolf and just kill the level 1 training dummies that were part of a quest) if the character is in the level 35-40 range. For the vocational track, that’s a lot of labor recharges each week.
Even with the switch to these missions being completable weekly (as opposed to the launch week dailies), a lot of your time is still spent ping ponging around the game world if the mission loop isn’t bugged (where it does the repeat above). And you need to progress through them in order to get Diligence coins. I believe there will be polarizing opinions on this because there are some folks who enjoy this kind of grind; I do see it detracting from one of the core objectives though which is “play how you want to”. You still can by just ignoring the ArchePass but the inability to earn any Diligence is going to become an issue with the limited inventory space.
The community was adamant against having the expansion scrolls available in the credit shop since it was construed as being “pay to <insert your favorite description>” (because most weren’t fully aware of how bad the ArchePass design currently is). That is fine and all BUT there really needs to be another in-game method to unlock slots (and IMHO, there should be an option for players to do that via gold if they chose to do so). Given how I’ve been one of those who was mostly stuck in the queue during week 1, I’m only now (as of this week) finally getting enough play time to level. While I have two expansion scrolls from my Founders pack, it’s not enough for all the stuff you begin accumulating and cannot get rid of as you start hitting level 40 and above. I’ve only been able to do a few missions per day so I’m only 80% through the first tier (there are 100 tiers in total for the pass). The first set of Diligence coins (45 of them) is rewarded at tier 5 (and is pretty much every 5 after that). Expansion scrolls cost 50 Diligence coins.
Gamigo and XLGAMES are going to need to re-think this system (and there is a range of feedback that has been occurring across all of their communication methods) since it’s one that is going to just lead to burnout. That is going to cost Gamigo additional money though (to have XLGAMES re-design it) and that may not fly given the companies modus operandi once they launch something (which is to eventually run it as lean as possible). Since this is a retail (buy to play) product, retention is going to be an important metric. Sure, they have our money from that initial purchase BUT they also have to incentivize these customers to stick around and continue spending money on whatever cosmetics and novelties they can put into the market place.
And this is where their challenge (recurring revenue) is going forward because they cannot rely on the methods (mentioned up top) used with the free to play version. They can’t do the whole fresh start and merger cycle (it would not surprise me if they try to eventually do this though). They can’t just willy nilly release these packs accompanying the larger updates (they may try to if they are marketed as DLC’s or expansions). It’s why they were more cognizant about not spinning up too many servers (there’s incremental expenses associated with not just the physical infrastructure but also the data). It’s why they’ve had restrictions lifted on most of the servers on NA (as post launch sales are probably slowing down) even though they’ve done little about addressing some of the root causes with the queues (that includes the lack of the grace period and queue dodgers).
How they handle the game from the point of launch is also going to dictate the level of goodwill going forward. Mine is gone since it was already on a short leash. I made it clear I was on the fence until the very last moment and noted that I have only myself to blame for thinking they (the ex-Trion folks still handling the game) would do any better this time around.
