MMORPG Income

Involving XP curves, by Daniel Sims

 Problem
 In 2005 Rock Corp. Started a game called
EPIC to compete against the Blizzard Title
World of Warcraft. However, in 2007, the
game is on it’s knees only having 3 million
active subscribers and 8 million unique
players. How can we pull more profit out of
this game?
 Definitions
 MMORPG – Massively Multiplayer Online
Role Playing Game, a online game with more
then 16 players with a RPG system
 XP – Short for Experience points. It
Represents Experience in a skill for example if
one cuts down a normal tree that person gains
5 woodcutting experience.
 Identifying the problem
 It is a known fact that most MMORPG players
leave the game soon after hitting maximum
level. Thus by having a short XP curve a
company does not extract that most wealth
from monthly subscriptions, thus if one were
to increase the amount of XP between each
level then players will stay longer thus making
the company more money.
 Knows
 Data about the XP curve
 The max amount of XP and levels the game
can support
 The monthly fee of the game ($15 a month)
 Need to know - the equation of the line, the
equation of the new line.
 Assumption
 Independent Variable – levels
 Dependent Variable – XP
 No player can play more the 24 hours a day
 The maximum XP a player can get in a second
is 100 XP
 All players leave immediately after finishing
the XP curve.
 Current XP curve and formula

8´ 10 6

6
6´ 10

6
4´ 10

6
2´ 10

20 40 60 80 100

835256. - 117288. x + 1912.97 x2

Problems with current XP curve
 This curve does not take advantage of the
game’s maximum XP amount with is 200
million XP, thus the company is losing profit.
 Current gross income
 To get the current minimum gross income We need to
divide Max XP per Second by the XP needed to reach
level 99
100 13,034,431 =130344.31
 Now, we convert the seconds to months which gives
us .1 months as the minimum time a player has to
play which brings in $1.50. So, per player we can
only make a minimum of $1.50 per player. Currently
we can only make 4500000 million dollars at
minimum.
 New XP Curve
8
2´ 10

8
1.5 ´ 10

8
1´ 10

5´ 10 7

20 40 60 80 100

2.56261 ´ 107 - 2.52063 ´ 106 x + 37080. x2

 New Gross income
 As we did before, We need to divide Max XP per
Second by the XP needed to reach level 99 in the
new model.
100 200000000 = 2000000
 Next, convert seconds into months giving 1.5 months
as the minimum time a player plays our game.
Yielding 22.50 dollars per player. With our current
players this model will yield $22.50 in monthly fees
67.5 million dollars. Thus we are earning 63 million
more dollars.
 Problem With new curve
 This new curve is really steep, players might
be discouraged to keep playing due to the
amount of effort it takes to level up. For
example to get from level 1 to level 5 is would
take 3 minutes if they had access to the game’s
best equipment, which they don’t.
 Verification
 Is it logical?
 Yes the model is logical because with more used in
the XP curve the more money they make.
• Do the results of using this model match data.
• Yes it does, the longer players have to play the more
monthly fees we generate.
 Application to African Americans
 All too often African American gamers will place
their credit card on the game’s account and set it up to
automatically charge. However this does not help
with the massive credit card debt. This is often a trip
because while the instillation CD cost only $50-$60
The monthly cost is mentioned subtly. MMORPG
companies often times use the addictive quality of
there games to “suck” players into the game, and
keep them there. Thus I have made up a formula to
approximate the true cost of the game.
 True Cost
 Q = cost of instillation disk
H × ( M × 60 × 60 × 12) = h
 H = the average hours one
has to play the game per 30 × h = m
day. (m × C ) + Q = u
 M – Maximum XP gain per
second
 H = daily XP gain
 m = monthly XP gain
 C = Monthly charge
 U = True cost of the game
 Sources
 Experience. (N.D.). retrieved July 24, 2007, from
http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/XP
 David Wilcox (June 28, 2007). Everything in
moderation, including games. The Citizen,
ArburnPub. Retrieved July 24, 2007, from
http://www.auburnpub.com/articles/2007/07/05/news/go/g
.
 Aissatou Sidime.(2004) Credit use strangles wealth:
African American debt is increasing taster than
income [Electronic version]. Black Enterprise