It’s a long one today, but don’t give up, because it’s interesting, and I want to know what people think about the economic issues involved.

From one pirate topic to a wholly different one. The game Puzzle Pirates has been around for a while, but I finally got around to trying it a couple nights ago. I certainly have to give the designers credit for unique ideas.

The idea is this: Puzzle Pirates is a pirate-based MMORPG: ships, booty, swords, parrots, etc. You can crew a ship, but let’s face it: most of the jobs on a ship sound uninteresting to represent in a game, right? Pumping bilge water, repairing leaks, fiddling with the sails, who cares? Well, each one of these jobs is represented in a very abstract way by a puzzle. There’s a pentominoes-related puzzle, a Bejeweled playalike, a Snood playalike, a Dr. Mario playalike, and a couple others. The games are all very well-done, so they’re fun to play.

If, for instance, your ship starts taking cannon fire, it will start taking extra water in and it will slow down and lose speed, making it all the more vulnerable to whoever’s shooting at you or even in danger of being sunk. However, carpentry can repair the hull damage and bilge pumping can remove the speed penalty. If World of Warcraft were like Puzzle Pirates, then for (say) a mage, instead of trying to manage your aggro, mana, AoE, and so on, you needed to play Tetris and score points as fast as possible to deal damage to the monsters, while the tanks are trying to solve Sudoku problems to keep the monsters off of you, or whatever. PvP combat is also represented by a puzzle.

All of the other elements of an MMORPG that you would expect are there, too. Except that instead of a level, you have experience and skill ratings based on your performance in various jobs. So if a crew is looking to pickup extra people for a mission or raid, they can find someone who has good skill in the particular role that they’re lacking. There’s an economy where shops convert goods into other goods, players make money transporting resources around, etc.

Did I say economy? That brings up an interesting point, and the second interesting innovation. Clearly the designers of the game would like to make money. There are two kinds of servers. One is a fairly ordinary subscription-based server. The fee is about $10 a month and you get full access to pretty much everything. The other kind of server works on “doubloons,” which you buy for about $0.25 each. Call this model “pay-to-play.” To do anything but the most basic jobs on a ship requires a number of doubloons. For instance, a pirate’s badge that lets you hold most shipboard jobs requires 1 doubloon and lasts a months, while a captain’s badge that lets you captain your own ship costs, I think, 20. Obtaining certain pieces of equipment and certain other tasks in the world also require doubloons. You can also buy and sell doubloons with other players for the in-game currency that’s used to buy goods and such.

Although I find this scheme interesting and don’t fault them for giving it a shot, I’m also deeply skeptical. As a contrast: in their game World of Warcraft, Blizzard has gone with the pure-subscription model and, furthermore, done everything possible to combat even the perception that spending extra money might confer an in-game advantage. Buying or selling gold is punishable by a permanent account ban.

It seems to me that this stance is very important because it removes the suspicion that the company that runs the game is trying to gouge or squeeze money from its players. (Whether or not it’s true!) On a subscription server, if I add (say) a new high-level ship that goes 10% faster than the previous fastest ship for 10 times the cost, few will complain. The people who don’t have enough in-game money just won’t buy it. On the other hand, what if I put the same upgrade on a pay-to-play server, and set the price at about $25? This isn’t a killing expense, but it certainly seems like a lot of money to spend on a small advantage in an online game. What if a rival team, equipped with such a ship, hunts your ship down and takes your stuff? Will you be angry? Clearly the authors’ hope is that you’ll just be driven to buy one of your own. Or will you quit in frustration, refusing to let them extort that money from you? What if you’ve already invested doubloons in the ship you have? Will you throw good money after bad?

I’m reasonably sure I’m not compelled enough to actually take up Puzzle Pirates as a regular game, although I will admit that the mini-games are fun and all very well done. If I wanted to play often, though, I think I’d definitely go for a subscription server. Trying to justify any in-game decision in terms of a concrete dollar amount would be really jarring.

P.S. Yes, I know that on a subscription server, the currency is not U.S. dollars, but hours and minutes. The hope is that the use of the hours and minutes is entertaining enough by itself that one doesn’t mind.

P.P.S. Usually, my politics tend to the libertarian, not the socialist. But part of what I want in a game is moving away from harsh reality. Is it so wrong?