I’m getting a tad anxious, waiting on the next NA Aion beta event (this weekend!). So, I’m in the process of patching up a Chinese Aion client (no walk through on how to do it here, Google it). It’s taking quite a while to do, considering the distance and such, so I’ll have a short post today on something that not all NA/EU MMO gamers know about — Asian subscription methods.

We may know most Asian MMO’s as Free to Play, but there’s plenty of subscription based ones too. But, this model is a bit different, or a lot different, from the Western one. For starters, Asian gamers typically don’t buy a client or box for their games, even ones like Aion. Just sign up for an account. This account only comes with a few hours of play time free, however, and this is where the difference is. Asian subscriptions have their game time paid for in advance. I guess you could think of it in terms of a pre-paid cell phone or phone card. The time lasts until you use it, which is quite convenient (not sure if it’s that way for all games, however, but it is likely). To put this in perspective, I can get roughly 80 hours of Aion time for around 7 USD. That’s certainly enough to last me a month.

Looking at this model, I really like it and can see plenty of possibilities in the Western market. The only people that would be opposed are the hardcore of the hardcore as it’d likely cost them a bit more than the current 15/month. It would, however, further open up the MMO market to casual gamers and non-MMO gamers — those that don’t want to pay a monthly subscription. You might ask, “why would they pre-pay game time and not a subscription?” and I’d respond: perception. When you pay for game time, you get all the time you pay for and can use it whenever you like. When you pay for a monthly subscription, you don’t always feel like you’re getting your money’s worth out of it. It’s a commitment, and many people don’t like those. Knowing that you’ll always get your money’s worth is very attractive.

Also, I could see this as being beneficial to the MMO industry. The initial costs are generally a bit high for MMOs, really. Even when you consider the amount of potential entertainment you can draw from them. Fifty dollars to grind for a month or two to get to the meat of the content is not appealing to most people. This would allow them to get in, try games and put up only a little investment at a time.

I doubt NCSoft will use the Asian subscription model in the West, but I hope they at least consider it — bringing something new into the market would certainly spark some interest of some kind and possibly get them more hype or coverage in the gaming media.