Fury Business Model

Posted by Stropp on August 12, 2007

I found the announcement of the business model for Fury today by Auran rather surprising, and rather welcome. Auran are not taking the traditional path of making all their players pay a monthly subscription. Instead the basic game will be free to play with the option to pay a subscription to remain as an immortal.

The hook is that all players, when they first activate their accounts start as immortals for the first month. Then in order to remain as an immortal, they must subscribe for US$9.95 a month.

Immortals will get the following benefits:

• Quick travel in the Sanctuaries and Schools
• VoIP talk privileges
• One additional Item Roll Slot
• Extended “rested gold bonus”
• Selling privileges on the Auction House
• Priority log-in queuing
• Entry into weekly and seasonal Ladders
• Personal player battle statistics
• In-game Customer Service access
• Elite access to the test server to preview new content

This looks like a tremendously casual friendly system. Aside from the rested gold bonus, the priority log ins, and the quick travel, casual players will be less interested in the other features like the seasonal ladders and the battle statistics. VoIP can always be substituted with Vent. The features that casuals would desire can be lived without if necessary.

Auran have also promised that all players, regardless of their subscription status, will have access to all items and abilities, including the most powerful. It doesn’t say, but I’ll assume that means access to all the areas in the game as well.

You’ll still have to purchase the game, but that’s only fair. It’s then up to the player if they want to live without all the niceties that a subscription will offer. At the least it gives a way to enjoy the game for more than the standard 30 days that most give without having to commit right away. The promise is also that there will be regular free content updates.

Fury is currently in beta, and I believe is due for release sometime in quarter four this year.

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