EQ2 Station Cash Interview With Producer Bruce Ferguson

[B. de la Durantaye]

If there's anyone that knows EverQuest II, it's EQ2 Producer, Bruce Ferguson. With the Station Cash program having launched Tuesday, we thought we'd go straight to the source and talk with Bruce for a few minutes about the addition.

Station Cash offers an in-game marketplace for gamers to purchase items they can use in the game for real world money. Adding microtransactions to subscription based games is a relatively untapped concept, although it has been experimented with a bit in some other titles.

Earlier this week we had asked John Smedley, SOE President for his take, but today we go a bit deeper and speak with the game's producer.

Ten Ton Hammer: Are you planning on adding items from the broker to be available with Station Cash?

Bruce Ferguson: No. All of the things we are trying to do are incidental items. We’re not going to be putting up armor that has plus 50 strength or a weapon that automatically kills any skeleton or anything like that, no. We’re trying to go for the stuff that really doesn’t affect game play. It’s convenience.

Read the full interview here.

[kesugeo]

I'm sorry but does this guy even read the forums on their very own site. Immediately upon dumping this on us and giving us an avenue, in the form of a "Station Cash" forum, the overwelming sentament has been BAD.
The reactions to this in that forum have been from on the good side "I will wait and see" to "I have cancelled my accounts". By far what I see there is more towards the bad side than the good.

I love his answer to the question about the stat armor for casual players ... slippery. His answer speaks volumes ... they are thinking about it.

As I said in other posts I placed my vote on this option by cancelling 5 accounts yesterday.

[Medawky]

Originally Posted by kesugeo

I'm sorry but does this guy even read the forums on their very own site. Immediately upon dumping this on us and giving us an avenue, in the form of a "Station Cash" forum, the overwelming sentament has been BAD.
The reactions to this in that forum have been from on the good side "I will wait and see" to "I have cancelled my accounts". By far what I see there is more towards the bad side than the good.

I love his answer to the question about the stat armor for casual players ... slippery. His answer speaks volumes ... they are thinking about it.

As I said in other posts I placed my vote on this option by cancelling 5 accounts yesterday.

The people who post on game forums are mostly bitter trolls who spend more time ranting than they do playing. The core of the player base is too busy playing and enjoying the game to post.

I read a few of the posts and they are all knee jerk reactions against adding in game items for real world cash, I.E. selling plat like sites such as IGE do. If they bothered to read the post and investigate they would see this is not the case. I see it as an extra revenue stream in a tough economy and I hope it works out for them.

[The Dawsonator]

Originally Posted by Medawky

The people who post on game forums are mostly bitter trolls who spend more time ranting than they do playing. The core of the player base is too busy playing and enjoying the game to post.

I read a few of the posts and they are all knee jerk reactions against adding in game items for real world cash, I.E. selling plat like sites such as IGE do. If they bothered to read the post and investigate they would see this is not the case. I see it as an extra revenue stream in a tough economy and I hope it works out for them.

The people who post on game forums are mostly bitter trolls who spend more time ranting than they do playing I love it, I absolutely love it. I don't think a truer work has been said in an eq2 forum for many a day.

[markt50]

I've got nothing against items for cash, but not when I'm already paying for a monthly subscription. I'm sorry but it's one or the other for me. If I pay a monthly fee then I expect to have access to everything in the game for that fee. If I'm paying for items then I don't expect to be paying a monthly fee. I see this as nothing more than a cynical money grab by SOE, they seem to be hoping to carry on charging a monthly fee, and then get people to pay for items on top of that.

To be honest if they are that strapped for cash they should have just put up the sub fee, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more to play EQ2, I do not like the way this is heading with the introduction of station cash though, I've decided to cancel my account.

[kitsunegirl]

It might be a knee-jerk reaction, but how many times have there been such reactions, and then the people who had them were vindicated? The game has slowly been heading towards f2p for a long time now. LON gives you tons of fluff items (which I have nothing against, and actually have/had several), all of which you can find in other f2p games; not exactly but the ideas of the items are found elsewhere. Though they went opposite and made the xp-grind easier.

[kesugeo]

I have said many times I only took this much offense to this due to the fact that apparantly SOE has decided that this was a better cash making strategy than actually advertising the game or procuring shelf space. IMHO both of those choices have the overwelming potential to make more cash than fluff items. I also took offense to Station Cash due to the ease that SOE could add non-fluff items for sale (I know I know they said that isn't planned) to casual players to help balance out the casual with the hardcore raider.

Lack of business knowledge + slippery slope = me cancelling all my accounts.