I think it’s an important question, but it’s one I honestly haven’t had a chance to fully decide on yet.
Honestly, I think the answer to that question for this game is going to be different than most MMOs. This isn’t a game being made by a major company, and it’s a game that will likely have a smaller population. I’m hoping to get 10,000 Monthly Active Players playing by the end of the first year – terribly small by most MMO standards, but that would be a sizable portion of the entire VR install base.
With a player base of that size, I’m not sure a microtransaction model would work. I’m against Pay to Win obviously, but I mean even in terms of just selling skins or anything like that, small one-off purchases, I just don’t think it would work. But I could be wrong!
On the other hand, I don’t really want to go the straight “you must pay $10/mo. to play this game!” route, because quite frankly this is something I’ve always wanted to do and I want as many people in the game as possible. Plus I think there might be a lot of people who are getting into VR and maybe haven’t really done the MMO thing before.
So probably it will be some sort of freemium model, where the game is totally free to play but then there will be an optional subscription with some perks for “power users” who want to support the game’s ongoing development. The subscription would definitely be something you want if you’re really into the game – like subscription users get access to the “new zone” right away, or have access to a special members-only feedback forum – but it wouldn’t be anything that’s just “insert cash, get better gear.”
If you have any thoughts I’m open to them, but like I said, that’s really step 1,678, and we’re on step 34.
The only other thing worth noting is that I have plenty of resources to work on this game until it’s ready for launch, so there is no need to rush into this. I’d rather get people excited, get people playing, and then my experience has been when there is a community that is really enjoying something, there’s a way that they can help support it that works for everyone.