Because Players Pay: The Business Model Influence on MMOG Design

This paper examines how business models shape the design of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), arguing that the economic structure of a game directly or indirectly constrains its design choices. Using Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Cinzia Parolini's Value Net methodology, the authors map the relationships among four actors in a MMOG environment: the game producer, the player, the business model, and the game itself. The central problem they identify is that MMOGs require large upfront investment and continuous operating expenditures, including server infrastructure, game masters, and community support, which makes the business model a fundamental concern rather than a secondary one.

The analysis focuses on two dominant categories: subscription-based games, typified by titles such as World of Warcraft and Star Wars Galaxies, which typically charge between US$10 and US$15 per month, and virtual economy games, exemplified by Entropia Universe and Roma Victor, where revenue derives from in-game currency and taxed transactions. The authors find that financial risk pushes producers toward cloning proven successful titles, thereby limiting innovation. They also observe that players hold considerable power over producers, since subscription revenue depends on sustained play, and that player requests can sometimes steer design toward poor decisions, such as repeated class rebalancing that generated complaints and a persistent content shortage driven by elite players who exhaust content quickly.

The paper concludes that in virtual economy games the business model is effectively embedded within the game design, with mechanics such as item decay and transaction taxes functioning as translations of monetary requirements into game rules. The authors suggest that currently designing a MMOG is largely synonymous with designing its business model, and they propose that emerging participatory approaches might decouple innovation from financial constraints. The work is presented as an initial application of ANT to gaming contexts, with the authors planning further analysis of innovation in this domain.