Player Studio will be 'backbone' of EverQuest Next's free-to-play economy
EverQuest Next and Landmark will be free-to-play when they launch. SOE hopes that Player Studio--which lets players build, share, and sell in-game items--will end up being the "backbone" for the game's revenue.
Sony Online Entertainment exclusively deals with free-to-play. That means both EverQuest Next and Landmark will be free-to-play when they launch.
While the company has had a good track record with free-to-play (for the most part), EverQuest Next affords SOE a unique opportunity to approach monetization in a whole new way. With player creation a huge focus for Landmark, SOE hopes that Player Studio--which lets players build, share, and sell in-game items--will end up being the "backbone" for the game's revenue.
"We consider ourselves 'good guy' free-to-play," EverQuest franchise director Dave Georgeson told Shacknews. "We don't allow you to pay-to-win. We allow things like shortcuts for time, appearance options, and things like that. But everything that we sell, we allow you to get inside the game." This kind of approach is pretty much standard across all free-to-play games.
However, Georgeson hopes that Player Studio will "be a big backbone" for the company, because "if the players get excited about building the world with us and they start selling stuff to each other... that just lets us have to not worry about the other stuff."
Players will have reason to create goods for EverQuest Next, not simply for the sense of personalization. "We share revenue with the players," Georgeson pointed out. While figures weren't disclosed, when Player Studio originally launched, creators took a 40 percent cut of the revenue.
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replyAndrew Yoon posted a new article, Player Studio will be 'backbone' of EverQuest Next's free-to-play economy.
EverQuest Next and Landmark will be free-to-play when they launch. SOE hopes that Player Studio--which lets players build, share, and sell in-game items--will end up being the "backbone" for the game's revenue.-
I like this.
I really, really like this.
Let's face it - hundreds of thousands of players, many thousands of those who are skilled in some fashion, are ALWAYS going to out-produce a few dozen employed artists. It makes a whole lot of sense to let them make stuff and get royalties for using them in the game, as that allows the game to have a LOT of content that it otherwise would not have while also rewarding the creators for helping build the game. Win-win!
Of course, what's actually allowed in the game has to be policed to some degree, but that's a small price to pay for how much you gain in the process.-
It kind of makes sense. In older MMO's people have spent millions of hours crafting items to be sold in one way or another (game money or real world money)... but they were just pre-made templates set down by the developers. If players can now take that time to actually craft unique items or structures from their own imagination (which will not exist anywhere else) that actually adds value to the game and I'm sure people will pay money for that.
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Nice. Very much interested in this. Bring on Nov 1999!!
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