By Lorin Baumgarten

Before we get into this week’s topic, I feel it is my job – nay, my duty – to mention my friend’s new ‘ism’. With several weeks of intense work, Brent Adams and Tony Grice manged to cure our good friend Daniel Kayser of a pretty severe ailment. The disease was one of the larynx. The sickness would cause his voice box to forcibly eject the words “At the end of the day” from his oral cavity multiple times a day. But with a lot of hard work, that dark period is behind us. And for the Boys of Battlecasting, it has been a serene time. Well this week it seems there is a new strain of the virus infecting Daniel’s body, and I feel that I would be remiss in my duties as a friend were I not to try and strike out the plague before it takes hold. This new strain has taken the form of the following words: “On the Whole”. Now it seems benign enough, but don’t be fooled. Mr. Kayser uttered these words no less than one hundred and thirty-seven times throughout the short show that was released last Monday, and every time he did I could not help but think of Scott Evil uttering the infamous line from the cinematic classic Austin Powers: Goldmember, “You know what, I agree. Preparation H does feel good… on the hole.” So it is time for an intervention to help our friend. Consider yourself intervened upon Daniel.

Ok, with that out of the way, what is the topic of this week’s article, you ask? Well if you couldn’t tell from the title, it’s how APB makes me feel like the game is a hooker that I picked up on the street corner by asking me to pay for it by the hour. But, maybe that’s the effect they were going for. Read on and let’s discuss pricing by the hour (and maybe hookers – ‘ya never know).

So for those of you who don’t know what APB is, it is a PC only, Massively Multiplayer Online game the is set in the modern day fictional city of San Paro. The game revolves around two factions, Criminals and Enforcers, who battle for control of the city. It has an urban gangster feel to it and, according to the game’s website, it will support up to 100 players in each action district, 250 players in each social district, and up to 100,000 players in each world. The game design is being headed up by David Jones, the creator of the original GTA and Crackdown, and is being developed by Realtime Worlds for release on June 29th in the US and July 1st in Europe. Okay – now that you have the background, let’s talk about what I really came here to discuss, the game’s pricing structure.

I wrote a post about it last week on EBA when the pricing was first announced and the boys brought it up on this week’s episode of EpicBattleCry. Interestingly the proposed pricing structure has been pretty polarizing. In a nut shell, you buy the game at $49.99 (a normal price for PC games) and you get 50 hours of gameplay. After that time has expired, you can buy blocks of twenty more hours for $6.99 or get an unlimited monthly plan for $9.99/month (with discounts for 90 and 180 day packages). And on top of all of this, there are ways to earn RTW Points within the game which can be used to buy more game time (RTW ostensibly stands for Realtime Worlds). So, let’s take this apart a bit and see if we can’t discern if this is a positive or negative take on pricing.

Let’s start with the bad, because I think this is where people have a tendency to go when they hear about this different pricing structure. One of the first things I feel I should mention is a very insightful point that Daniel brought up on EpicBattleCry, and one which I had never thought about. Daniel’s point was that structuring the pricing for this game in this way will create a constant feeling that the player is always playing the game under the thumb of a running clock. The player will always be thinking about how much time certain activities might take and there is always the threat of the clock running down. It is an interesting concept to think about. Can the pricing structure of a a game actually change the way the game feels when you play it? That’s pretty heavy. Another concern is what kind of precedent this sets. While it is well established that MMO’s will have an ongoing fee to play, but the idea of paying buy the hour is a new one (please correct me if I am wrong). If this type of thing passes muster with the gaming audience now, how long will it be until we are paying by the hour for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 or Halo: Reach multiplayer? This is a potentially dangerous road to go down, don’t ‘ya think? Another interesting point alluded to on the show this week was the question of whether or not it was a wise decision for an unproven, new IP to try this new structure? That one I will leave to you to answer below. Now let’s hop over to the good side of the fence.

Ahhh….(stretches arms)…..welcome to the good side. It is much nicer over here, isn’t it? Okay, so what is good about this pricing structure? Well, first and foremost – choice. Choice is good, and this structure provides choice. If you are not a hardcore player, this pricing structure benefits you by providing you a way to avoid being beholden to a monthly fee. Theoretically, if they had stuck to the traditional model, you would have paid $49.99 for the game and $9.99/month after that. So after the first three months, you would have paid roughly 70 bucks. But if you’re a person who can only put in 10-20 hours a month on this game, well you just saved yourself 10-20 dollars. That’s a good thing. On the flip side, if you want to play the game a lot, well they offer a monthly fee for your pleasure. Not only that, if you know you are going to play APB for a while, there are even discounts for 90 or 180 day subscription. Additionally, you can actually earn more game time by doing things in the game. Now it remains to be seen how easy or difficult that will be (although I would imagine it will require some work), but the possibility is there. David Jones, the game’s creator, did go so far as to say about the ability to earn RTW Points (and therefore game time) that “Highly talented players could potentially even play for free in this way.” Either way, this just offers more choice.

So, as you can see, this isn’t really as black and white as it may initially seem. The choice given to the player to not be tied to a monthly payment regardless of the amount of play time is good, but on the other hand – where could this slippery slope lead us? As I said at the top, this is an issue that seems to be pretty polarizing, though I, for one, am always interested in seeing how something new like this works. For me, I wouldn’t be able to put a lot of time into a game like this on a consistent basis, so keeping the cost down is enticing. But do I really want to feel like I am playing under a clock?

What are you thoughts? How do you feel about paying by the hour (for games, not sex)? Does it make you feel dirty? Cry Havok and let your voice be heard below!!