Thursday, January 29, 2009

Joint account idea

As the world spirals into recession, I've been thinking of some ways that would allow MMO companies to make the cost of their services more appealing to the penny pinchers (like myself).

My idea is to have a joint account, where two people with separate logins share the same MMO account. Both players can be logged in at the same time and be playing different characters, but they share the same storage and gold. If the game had limited character slots, then that would be shared as well. The cost of the subscription or the upfront cost of the account would be slightly higher than what it would be for one person, but a lot less than the cost for two people. For example, for WoW you would pay a $20 US sub fee instead of $15.

I think this kind of deal would be very appealing to couples who are both gamers. Who knows, it may even bring them closer together :)

I don't think that this idea would be too much of a target for abuse, because it would require having complete trust in the person you were sharing with. This would hopefully eliminate the majority of random internet people sharing accounts to save money.

There is potential for a customer service nightmare, especially if couples separate or friends split up, but this could be circumvented with the option to split the account at any time for a small fee (of course). The gold would be split evenly and the items would go to the account that initially placed them in storage.

Honestly, I think this idea would work, and would be very popular. I'll add it to the pile of great idea's that will never see the light of day (it's a very big pile)...

6 comments:

Chappo said...

Its a good idea but most developers would never sell it that cheaply, I see accounts like this going for $25 a month. Still, I reckon it would be interesting to see it being implemented.

Talyn said...

Wizard101 already offers a Family account so, say for example Mom gets an account then adds Dad and two Kids. Each person is a little extra but WAY cheaper than having four individual accounts.

I think FusionFall is doing that too, but I haven't been following that at all.

MMOs need to open their payment plans, even if we're sticking with a monthly service subscription. Cell phones have varied payment/service options, including family plans. It just makes sense especially with the current economy.

Anton said...

I definitely would have added my wife for 5$/month to my WoW account...Of course, now I don't play at all for money-related reasons.

Crimson Starfire said...

@Scott
I didn't know about the family account deal with Wizard 101. That game seems to be well ahead of the MMO pack.

I'd certainly like to have a few options with MMO payment plans. The good old $15 a month is losing it's shine.

arbitrary said...

I love the idea, but I don't know if they'd go for it. They definitely need new plans!

Rich said...

for exactly the reasons you mentioned (couples splitting up), i doubt it would ever happen.

the last place Blizzard (or any company) wants to be is in the middle of relationships.

plus it would just cut down on revenue... why give 2 bottles of milk away for the price of one and a third?