Icarus Studios News

The debate over the best pricing model for MMOs continues to rage. Increasingly, industry experts are pointing out that the subscription model is hard to make profitable in a post-World of Warcraft world: many players are unwilling to pay the same monthly rate for a new game as for WoW unless it delivers a comparable or better experience. Yet games with smaller audiences are precisely those that can’t afford to lower their subscription rate in order to compete with WoW’s budget and development history: $15 per person goes a lot farther with millions of users than it does with thousands.

It’s interesting, however, that the very model that’s allegedly resulting in the slow death of massive RPGs is potentially the key to finally fully monetizing the tabletop predecessors of these games. The recent numbers for the upcoming D&D Insider (a combination of virtual tools and game magazine) are surprisingly similar to standard MMO subscription rates: $14.95 per month with a discount for multiple-month subscriptions. With DDI, Wizards of the Coast seems to be trying to stabilize and extend their revenue stream by turning the occasional, unpredictable rulebook purchase into a regular monthly charge.

While D&D has a massive audience compared to other tabletop RPGs, it still pales when compared to WoW’s numbers. If the subscription model is becoming unworkable for small MMOs, can it find success in a tabletop RPG going out of its way to incorporate the strong points of online games? Will DDI result in an upswing of WotC’s revenue, or simply cause more gamers to decide that their fifteen bucks a month is better spent on WoW?

-Stephen Cheney, Virtual Worlds Team