IMO, advertising is worthless in online content.

People keep saying that they hate the "pay to play" model, but it''s the best model for both the provider and the player. How? Because the player gets regular content creation, they get a consistent environment, social interaction and entertainment for $.50 a day, give or take some. On average that''s around $.15 per hour, since playerbases are usually at around a 3 hours per day online (that''s not mean, that''s average, so the people who are on 16 hours a day skew it a bit...). The content provider isn''t busy spending as much money trying to find new ways to advertise (gain more money) as he is trying to create new content.

It''s a win-win situation to NOT try and find ways to let people play for free.

Looking at this business and interpolating from known/published/estimated numbers:

Running a MMORPG on a shoestring might cost about $5 per player per month. Note: this is per paying player, not per simultaneous active (it would be more like $30 per s.a.).

Could you get $5 per month per registered player with advertizing? I don''t think so.

quote: Original post by hplus0603
Looking at this business and interpolating from known/published/estimated numbers:

Running a MMORPG on a shoestring might cost about $5 per player per month. Note: this is per paying player, not per simultaneous active (it would be more like $30 per s.a.).

Could you please provide references to these known/published/estimated numbers? I''m extremely curious. I''ve also found MMOG financial statistics extremely difficult to acquire.

*rollseyes*

eedfadeH <-- what is that? honest, I have googled and cant find it...

My opinion, you can only get proposals to advertise when your userbase is massive. Just having about even 20,000 players won''t cut it. Companies with the online advertising dollars to spend are typically big companies, and they''d start showing the money only if they see > 100000 players. Smaller companies wont usually think about advertising in a game. They''ll advertise on search engines..

This goes the same too even if you were to put the adverts in-game as part of the game (It''s even worse in the sense that it could be bad for advertisers who aren''t even well known.. the player would have trouble telling the advert whether its something real in the real world or if its a fictional item in the game)

A good plan would be :
1) Give a 1 month trial (of course), that lets the player establish something in the game. This will induce the player to not want to waste what he''s built, and might tip the scale in your favour when he''s in the consideration process to pull out his wallet or not.

2) Charge moderately. What you''re charging will probably have to stick. Players Will complain everytime anyone raises the price bar (even though the final price is still lower than other mmogs).

3) When you have your userbase, then you switch marketing strategy to maintaining users instead of grabbing new users.. NOW, you can open your site up to advertisers, chuck in expansion packs after expansion packs to maximize your profit.

Regards,
Eddie



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