Recruit A Friend - I like the idea!
Posted by Jay | Filed under Game Industry, World of Warcraft
Many players out there are worried about the benefits conferred through the recruit a friend program. There are people that are pro this program, and there are those that are anti this program. Whether you agree or disagree, I’d like to point out a couple points. I’ve played 3 different MMOs at varying points in their life cycle. There’s been a distinct and predictable pattern in each instance.
- MMO feels new. Influx of players. Recruitment is high.
- Player Base matures. Raiding/PVP begins. Players create Alts. Recruitment and Retention are equal.
- Expansion is released. Veteran players leave old content for expansion. Retention is high, recruitment low.
This pattern is repeated everytime a new expansion is released. Each iteration of the game world results in older content becoming more devoid of life. This is a result of vertical growth in character development. In a vertical growth environment, old content is obsolete because the character can development beyond the relative power level required to beat the content. The loop continues as quickly as the developer can push content out the door. Check out EQ Kunark item rewards versus the current item rewards. You can do the same by looking at Upper Blackrock rewards in WoW versus heroic rewards in Outlands.
Now you may be asking, what this has to do with recruit a friend? Let’s examine WoW and the casual and hard core levelers time to level to 60. I’m going to throw out a statistic that a hard core player could level a character from 1-60 in 3 weeks, playing that toon at least 3 times a week. The casual player would be three times that. There is method to Blizzards 90 day leveling bonus.
Let’s now apply the math of 1/3 the required time or from another perspective: 300% faster. The hardcore player is able to bring a character VERY quickly to 60, likely taking only 3-7 days. The casual player can do it in a month.
- Death Knights are unlocked if an account has a 55+ character on the server of choice.
- Old content for veteran players is boring. We’ve done it, we just want the high level characters.
- If you build it they will come. Wut? If you provide an incentive (reletively free level 60, free extra 30 levels and a new epic mount) players will recruit their friends.
In order for WoW to continue recruiting and retaining its customers, WoW needs to provide an incentive for veteran players to play through old content AND to play through that content with new players. In a verticle growth system, veteran players need an incentive to return to old content. Sidekick(City of Heroes/Villains) systems provide the best in game method of accomplishing this, but hurt the business. Recruit a friend with a quicker leveling curve provides the best business model for accomplishing a similar result.
Recruit a friend is a great program from the veterans point of view. From the newbie, is great too since that veteran needs to play with you to gain the 3x experience multiplier. It’s simply brilliant! Everything else is icing!
