Another MMORPG that hasn't learned a valuable market lesson: City of Heroes. Don't get me wrong, I love the game so far, but a recent announcement on their message boards that they will be cancelling any accounts made with "illegally obtained" activation codes points out a huge failing on the MMORPG front.
First, I won't get into too much detail about what they mean by "illegally obtained", but their stated intent there is to stop people from selling stolen or generated account codes on eBay or other online auction/sale sites. However, from some key language in their Terms of Service would apparently allow them to cancel any account that has been sold or transferred by its original owner.
But back to the lesson at hand. For years, people have been crying for the ability to buy activation codes for multiplayer games, without paying full price for the retail package of the software. This was the case with Neverwinter Nights, WarCraft III, Star Wars Galaxies, and many others too numerous to list here. The logic goes as follows: I payed $50 for the game, including the packaging, manual, and CDs. I'm okay with that...but if I want to install the game on another computer and play with friends or family, why should I have to buy new media and packaging? I already have the CDs and manual. I don't want another set of these, just the ability to legally install the software on another computer and, in the case of an MMORPG, create a new account, which I'm also willing to pay for.
Given that piracy is of such high concern to the game-makers out there, you'd think they'd have figured out that charging someone $50 to go buy a second copy of the game is not an incentive. In fact, many people I know who have used pirated copies or cracks of games in fact own one copy of the game...but to play with family or friends, they weren't willing to spend another $50.
So what's the solution? Simple - sell CD Keys (or account activation codes) separately. Sell them over the web - for $15-20 each. Give people some incentive to use their software legally. Unfortunately, this seems to be a concept lost on all publishers, but it particularly hurts those running MMORPGs, since those who are disinclined to spend $50 for the software again are generally willing to spend the extra $15/month to play a second account in-game. Assuming that the publisher sees $30 of the $50 retail price (probably a high assumption), if they were to sell the keys online, they'd recoup this within two months on each additional account created. This is money that they are not getting right now. If that doesn't appeal to profit motive, I don't know what will.
