I believe I’ve gone on the record before as saying I rather like veteran rewards. It’s nice to know that subscribing to Final Fantasy XIV for long enough (and with the newest campaigns, during the right periods of time) results in cool stuff coming my way. But I was thinking about it the other day, and the reality is that I would still be subscribed without any sort of veteran rewards. The veteran rewards are, ultimately, nothing more than fluff.
That got me thinking about other games with similar setups, like City of Heroes and its elaborate reward matrix with its free-to-play design or the various subscription rewards for Star Trek Online. I may like the rewards, but I can’t say that any of the rewards actually influence my subscription in a meaningful fashion. Either I want to subscribe or I don’t; the extra doodads don’t motivate me in any way. They’re just a nice benefit to doing something I was already planning to do.
Maybe that’s the reason why games like World of Warcraft still have no subscriber rewards, simply because the effort in putting them together won’t actually produce more subscribers. What do you think? Do veteran rewards make you more likely to subscribe to an MMO?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
