Chapter 1071: Time-Based Billing
So this matter fell into a dead loop. Most designers couldn’t figure out what Chen Mo meant by making an MMORPG.
Logically speaking, the storyline of the world of Azeroth would be perfectly fine as a 3A masterpiece, and the billing model wouldn’t need much deliberation—just go with the same buy-to-play model as other 3A titles.
But an MMORPG? With so many games out there, no game company had yet figured out a good way to make it profitable.
Buy-to-play billing?
Online games require players to keep playing continuously. It’s the same principle as *League of Legends* and *PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds*—players are part of the game experience, and losing players is devastating to that experience.
A strict buy-to-play model means raising the barrier to entry, reducing the player count, and turning the game into a one-time sale, severely dampening the developer’s motivation for subsequent updates. If they sell DLC, then what?
How do you bill for this game?
How do you even play it?
Soon, concrete news came through: it was confirmed—it’s an MMORPG. Not only that, but it would use a time-based billing model!
The official response was: “*World of Warcraft* will adopt a time-based billing model, with two payment methods: prepaid cards and monthly subscriptions. Prepaid cards are priced per minute, or per minute; the monthly subscription is 500 yuan for a full month. Players trading gold and in-game currency will have a portion of the transaction deducted as tax. No other billing models are being considered for now.”
When this news came out, players were first delighted, then shocked.
Delighted because it seemed like a very fair and equitable billing model; shocked because—how the hell is this supposed to make money?!
Looking at the price alone, it wasn’t cheap, but the key was who you compared it to!
That amount of money was equivalent to just 4 yuan per hour!
This was practically the same price as PC internet cafes from ages ago. For a VR game, it was cheaper than cabbage.
If you calculated it based on the playtime of a 3A masterpiece, many 3A games had a first-playthrough time of only 30 to 40 hours. At this rate, wouldn’t you be getting the equivalent playtime of a 3A game for just over 100 or 200 yuan?
Matrix gaming pods’ 3A titles were all 1980 yuan...
The monthly subscription price was a bit more intimidating, but the question was, who would buy a monthly subscription now?
Except for those studios that specialized in farming gold in games...
Because most players had severely limited gaming time. Squeezing out an hour or two a day to play was already tough. 3000 minutes was 50 hours—that was enough for many people to play for a whole month...
200 yuan a month, and this was a next-gen VR game?
On second thought, the monthly subscription price looked scary, but for players with a lot of time, it was an absolute steal.
Moreover, players could trade gold and in-game currency, which meant the official stance recognized the existence of gold-farming studios and acknowledged those who spent time grinding gold in the game. It allowed buying and selling, as long as the official cut was taken.
But allowing this kind of trade was essentially a concession from the officials. With just that small tax, how much revenue could they really get?
The officials even explicitly stated that they wouldn’t consider other billing models—meaning no pay-to-win mechanics for stats, and no cosmetic charges.
Fair as it was, many players were deeply worried: “Is this really not going to lose money?”
Sure, people always joked that Chen Mo would go broke, but that was just banter. Now, seeing *World of Warcraft*’s billing model, many players were genuinely uneasy.
It wasn’t that they cared if Chen Mo ended up poor—they didn’t give a damn about him. What they feared was that if *World of Warcraft* kept losing money, the game might not be able to sustain itself and shut down...
Or even if it didn’t shut down, if the pressure of losses forced them to open other revenue streams and ruin their reputation, that would be a real loss.
So a strange scene appeared on the official forums: players were actually strongly demanding that *World of Warcraft* open up cosmetic charges...
“How can this game be playable without skin charges? How are we skin lovers supposed to survive? It must be opened!”
“Exactly, I strongly support it. Please, Serent, let me spend money!”
“Get this straight: I’m not buying skins for Serent; I’m buying skins for Azeroth. You can’t deprive me of my right to buy skins!”
In truth, while they said this, partly it was because they genuinely wanted to buy skins, and partly it was because they hoped to give the whales more ways to burn cash, so the game’s profitability would be better. They didn’t want it to actually lose money and shut down—that would be awkward.
Because *World of Warcraft* had already carried the hopes and emotions of so many players, they were even enthusiastically buying Matrix gaming pods, hoping the game would do well—not just in reputation, but also in profit. That’s why they were worrying about Chen Mo’s finances like a bunch of busybodies.
But if they knew Chen Mo’s actual plan, they’d probably silently shove the money they’d already pulled out back into their wallets...
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