Monty's Minute EP1: Free to Play

Written by: Gary Gannon (@garygannon) | September 18, 2012 5:22 pm

64 Comments

Each week Monty Sharma answers your video game business related questions. If you have a question for Monty please send it to monty@gamebreaker.tv

Questions on this weeks show:

Kenny Barras - Now THIS is cool! Question for Monty: is the rise of ‘always online’ singleplayer gaming experiences the industry’s way of cashing in on gamers wallets for maximizing profits, or is it more geared toward social engineering and viral marketing to increase footprint?

JuDa ReSt - In your opinion which has the better payment model Buy to Play or Free to Play model?

Nicholas Garduno - Do you think we’ll see a resurgence of P2P MMOs as the world economy improves and people have more money to spend on games? Or are f2p just too profitable

Roman Anguiano - Can F2P games thrive on consoles?

Dewey Cooksey – How do developers test their systems? Are there any automated processes that can iterate through all the variations of the design, or must everything be tested manually?

Jeremy Keat - Why do games always seem to have something major missing in them to appease any crowd completely these days? I am not talking about 100% bug-free but actual game features that seem in demand in large by the gamer “market”. What way or do you think some issues come down to (production) management of a game company. Every MMORPG out there seems to have some major downside to them or some superior route not taken.

45:20

World of Warcraft

Patch 5.3: Blizzard’s First Ever Live Video Interview!

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1:00:49

MMO News

This Week in MMO Ep 144:
WildStar, Rift, Dust 514

WildStar details finally coming out!Read more »

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World of Warcraft

Legendary Ep126:
Raiding Ra-Den Revelations!

This week the Legendary crew are talking patch 5.3, raiding, and more with World First raider Treckie!Read more »

25 comments

http://www.facebook.com/people/Miguel-Crespo/501398647 Miguel Crespo

The name of the show makes no sense since its 35mins long….if the show was 1 minute long then..
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=507320229 Hecate Sheard
  
  Yeah, they should add an S to the end lol
  - A1cntrler
    
    Or do it sportscenter style where the topics are on the left and he has 60sec to talk about each one…lol
    
    Good show though. Nice to watch while I flip items on the AH.
- Jado Cast
  
  I think they are going for some alliteration. :) They need another word that starts with ‘M.”
Joey Biggs

This is an awesome show! I want more!
jayremy

The problem I have with F2P is games like Nexon’s or League of Legends. It’s great that they are free and all but virtual objects just costs too much for what you are getting. Paying $10 for a measly skin on a game which doesn’t have that great graphics, offers nothing new to gameplay and only 1 of too many champions you have to play to enjoy it.

Nexon is really pay for anything, and to get “all access” feeling it would be like $40 a month instead of a simple sub. I’d rather worry about a low fixed monthly payment or a single pay price. One thing most people get wrong in assumption is that every sub game has to match WoW with $15 to be profitable.

People never talk about sub only games that give a month or two of free play before having to pay for anything later on, maybe accruing free time for returning players to. People always assume as well a sub game needs to have a “box price” up front to pay just to play it. I think buying up front is a big hurdle because a player may not know if they like the game or will like the game a month or few later.
Septic

That was a great show, thanks gents.
http://www.facebook.com/Lord.Marius.Satanus.Forbus Marius Forbid

Awesomeshow, Another great addition to the Gamebreakers line up..
http://twitter.com/AesirValkyr Aesir Valkyr

Great Show, can’t wait to see whats coming next.
HappyHansel

I was only mildly interested before I watched this show, but now I’m fascinated and can’t wait for the next installment of Monty. Plus, he revealed the Secret of the Pandas!
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Now we know, when Blizzard said every survey asked for a Pandaren race, you now know who has been answering the surveys. Western markets really want updated graphics and more content, Eastern markets wanted Pandas.
Robert Scott

great content, lots of interesting insights. Looking forward to more shows. I agree that the name of the show could use some work
Revanhavoc

Should be Monty’s Minutes with a ‘s’. Cool show loved the idea of having graphs too though I think they could have been a bit more colourful and clear. NEVER have a graph without a clear heading.

I thought the conversation was high level and quite interesting. Would like to see Jason winter in there maybe too for another opinion. You know how three is a crowd and all..

Dust 514 seem to me that it will be overlooked and under sold. No reason to me a future version of Planetside 2 couldn’t have a dedicated console service of it’s own.

Especially loved the insider talk about the development process.

As always Gannonator knows best. Great idea for a show.
RockerDC3

Thanks for picking my question on testing. What I’m getting at specifically is balance issues. With talent trees, gear, buffs, etc., there are a lot of variables to dial-in to achieve balance. (not just mmos) As a programmer, it behooves me that devs release unbalanced combat systems. I don’t develop games, but there should be a way to automate play-testing with verifiable metrics to work out these bugs before it gets to the “is it fun?”, or “is it hard?” stage.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260066056 Steven Diaz
  
  There’s really no way to test that realistically. The player’s skills and play style factor too much into that. The only real way to test it is to make the game live and fix as needed.
- matraque
  
  You can’t. You can automate a lot of shit, but you cannot automate fun or not. Play testing should never be automated… You use automation for regression testing, unit and component testing, scenario testing, builds creation, Behind the GUI, Load, repetitive tasks and data creation/setup. Automation is a safety net, nothing more.
  - RockerDC3
    
    I’m not talking about attempting to automate “fun”. I’m talking about testing the behavior of a system before anyone even asks if it’s fun. The question that automated testing attempts to answer is “does it work?”. It doesn’t replace human testing, it just minimizes it, makes it more manageable and more effective. If a programmer can design a combat system, he should (and could) provide an automated test to prove his work is reliably consistent. This includes integration testing, such as the results of one set of actions against a certain target. Again, it’s is not intended to cover everything, just most of every reasonable expectation. Real-world human testing will cover the rest. If a developer isn’t automating the tests of their combat systems, they have no way to reliably prove that their system works.
christopher murray

I enjoyed that look foward to more.
It might be best to do it biweekly though, so you dont run out of questions and have short shows after a couple months and are repeating questions.
jensea

Loved it! Will definitely be watching this again. The name made me think it was short. Glad it wasn’t.
Thomas Monahan

Great Show!
M H

Love the idea and the mind answering the questions has the right information without sounding like my fax machine going off at 2am waking me up. Will be watching for future episodes for sure.
http://www.facebook.com/jrmcewen John McEwen

Really enjoyed the show. Monty seems like a good guy. I almost felt like he was sharing industry secrets – love that!
http://www.facebook.com/tony.barber.14 Tony Barber

MOAR PLZ
http://twitter.com/MattProtagonist Matt

Very, very cool show. Liked Monty a lot. Just some feedback: Monty was a bit low on audio compared to Gary and would be awesome to get some better audio quality on Monty’s end. Might be Skype or the connection.
http://twitter.com/izumicookie Izumi

This should be called Monty’s Moment because it’s longer than a minute.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Great show. Monty really connects and Gary’s reactions were priceless. Gary’s reaction to the Mist of Pandaria question, with his assumption Blizzard was going after the kid market, while Monty made a business case for international growth.

Should be interesting to see if Gary has a new appreciation for Blizzards D3 error 37. Should players really hate Blizzard if a third party network product failed the massive load.

GamebreakerTV, you may want to prepare for some follow up questions. May want to video encapsulate this weeks answers, for the natural follow on questions.

Free to play games
- How do you prevent a free to play game from being pay to win.
- How does a sub based game, go free to pay. (risk that SWTOR faces)Off-line play

How would you prevent cheating when a gear based game is played offline.

Do game designers use “reusable code?” Do game designers heavily modify a third party game engine? How do MMOs do recursive game testing?
- BBarrikade
  
  I’m not Gary but as an avid D3 hater, yes, Monty has certainly given me a new perspective to consider error 37 from. I actually really appreciate his insight here – I didn’t know that testing login servers is difficult. But that’s just the thing: if it can’t be tested, you’re running a pretty big risk if you’re still using that system anyway.
  
  I know it’s popular to hate on Blizzard, but literally game breaking errors are not acceptable in products we are paying for. Why should Blizzard (or anybody, for that matter) get a free pass for delivering a broken product? Always online is Blizzard’s strategy for Diablo III, so Blizzard is ultimately responsible when that system fails.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    The always online, progression and RMAH are all game design questions, so I fully understand why players like, hate or debate those design points.
    
    I found the authentication and login testing to be fascinating. If your game is so popular that is blows the top off a third party network software, how does a game developer solve that problem?
    - Kagitaar
      
      The devs can’t really do much at that point. All you can do is ask your programmers to somehow build a login server that can handle ridiculous amounts of requests at once, at little to no cost increase, with no loss of long-term efficiency; aka you are screwed.
Brian Simon

This guy likes Global Agenda. I like this guy.
http://twitter.com/Stone_LX9 Stone LX9

I enjoyed the show. Thumbs up!
Damir Miric

I like how he explained pandas. It makes far more sense than kids.
Jado Cast

Great Show! Please keep it going.
http://twitter.com/crusadernero Crusadernero

Brilliant. Taking GBTV to another level.
Emil Zackariasson

Really interesting show. Keep the normal ridiculousness out of the show and keep the discussions on a serious level and this+buildcast might be the best shows here.
matraque

Great show. I really enjoyed. I work in the social gaming and F2P is what gives me and 200+ people a salary. It is def a good business model.

One thing about the show. Make sure to keep it fresh cause i have a feeling a lot of the same questions will come back very often.

This show should really put some perspective to some gamers who have no idea what’s going on behind the scene.

Also, change the name
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=502693945 Jason Fabok

At first I thought this was going to be boring, but in the end, it was so informative that I wanted it to go longer! great Job gary and Monty! keep it coming!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=706513777 Luis A. Perez

Great show! Looking forward to more. I love the detail he gets into. Not only the business but also the technical aspects that affect the business. Would love to hear him address some of the issues regarding specific games: GW2, WoW, Diablo. Keep it coming!
Dekin

That was pretty cool. If you added a video game programer to the show, that would be pretty sweet to hear the logistics of how the behind the scenes work for a video game.
Aelskafotboll

Very good and interesting show. Hope to see much more of Monty in the future. As in more time, not skin

Like someone said, this and Buildcast is my 2 favourite shows coming from gbtv.
- Aelskafotboll
  
  Also…
  
  Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
  monty@gamebreaker.tv
  - http://quintlyn.com/ QuintLyn Bowers
    
    Hmm.. Second person with that issue. I’ll let Gary know.
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      In the video GG states send you questions to submit@gamebreaker.tv, but in the text list monty@gamebreaker.tv
      - http://quintlyn.com/ QuintLyn Bowers
        
        You should be able to send emails to monty@gamebreaker.tv now. Gary’s looked into it.
http://twitter.com/ItsatrapLOL Targeter

Hooray! Great show and my question was the very first one ever! I feel all special and historic now.
http://twitter.com/Hoigwai Hoigwai

I’m going to have to disagree with the whole statement of MoP being all about china, both EU and NA have been fascinated about Pandaren ever since the april fools that bliz did all those years ago. I am going to play it because it looks fun. Simple.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  I don’t think its all about China. But, the business case probably made a case for growth. Consider it has already been approved by China, when released there it has the potential for explosive growth.
  
  For the US player base, Blizzard needs to regain the trust of the raider, I have hope the 14 first tier raid bosses and Challenge Mode dungeons, help with regaining that trust.
Fandros

My kid is getting a tabeo. I am worried about the amount of micro transaction stuff she is going to find on that. Am I dumb to hope that we see buy the game versions of tablet games marketed for kids?
Avaloner31

Nice show. Interesting info that is often not talked about so inteligently online.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr

Very good show – lots of good information, and a good honest discussion. Keep it up!
http://www.facebook.com/kristjan.blondal.12 Kristjan Blondal

Congrats on the new gig Monty.
http://www.facebook.com/richard.weil Richard Weil

Monty Sharma is one of the best, nicest and most knowledgeable people in the game industry today. Great to see his insights being shared!
http://www.facebook.com/richard.weil Richard Weil

Monty Sharma is one of the best, nicest and most knowledgeable people in the game industry today. Great to see his insights being shared!
Ali Swei

Monty is a great guy, here is a link to the game Monty mentioned for a sec.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nanoswarm/id549635910?mt=8
Kagitaar

I’m excited to play in Pandaria and to make my Pandaren monk. I’m getting really tired of being told I don’t exist.
- http://twitter.com/Khitchary Khitchary
  
  I think you are being told you are a minority. If someone literally tells you that you dont exist they are kind of insane since talking to someone that doesn’t exist….
Depravity

Excellent show. Actually shots up right to the top and is honestly a breath of fresh air, since a couple of other shows have been stagnant and lately lacked in proper analysis and informative discussion and pushed too hard on silliness and coerced humor.
pc11

This show was great and as a result I know expect more and better from everything GBTV. you have raised the bar for yourselfs
John Mccracken

I wasn’t sure how I was going to like the show but I was surprised. It was really interesting and informative. Great stuff! keep it up
Ben Cornforth

I really enjoyed the show, excellent branching out, and great addition to the brand. In the future, I hope to see a larger panel, talkin’ heads and all
ZekePrince

Love the show. Great addition to the lineup, IMO.
Clint Johnson

Really good show – great information. Loved it!
Dave Chalmers

good show
rossmonster2003

watched the most current episode and watched all of them shortly after. Love this show, great addition to the GBTV line up!

Patch 5.3: Blizzard’s First Ever Live Video Interview!

This Week in MMO Ep 144:
WildStar, Rift, Dust 514

Legendary Ep126:
Raiding Ra-Den Revelations!

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