Here we are: After nine years of development in the public eye, an actual City of Heroes spiritual successor that was birthed in the chaos of CoH’s shutdown actually is launching. Ship of Heroes should be a testament to a scrappy and passionate indie outfit — winner of MOP’s Indie MMO of the Year in 2021 — bringing the love and creativity of a modern superhero MMORPG into the 2020s.

Instead, it doesn’t look good at all for Ship of Heroes. Not only is it countering the unforeseen return of an officially sanctioned City of Heroes with a very indie game that looks like it belongs in the early 2000s, its studio saddled it with a price tag that all but guarantees its failure. Sometimes, friends, a bad business model can be the factor that kills your game. Let’s talk about it.

A lesson from WildStar

You know what? Let’s actually talk about WildStar for a few paragraphs. When this came to market in 2014 (has it really been that long ago?), Carbine and NCsoft’s sc-ifi-themed MMORPG exuded high-quality visuals and a rich feature set of a AAA-level game. The studio spent years in advance drumming up incredible levels of hype for this title, which was needed due to its original IP and sci-fi setting (fantasy is an easier sell in this space).

No doubt that some of this hype went to Carbine’s head, and the studio barreled into release with a premium box price plus a monthly subscription. If it had been 2004 rather than 2014, nobody would’ve batted an eye at this business model. But by 2014, free-to-play wasn’t just the hot new trend; it was the de facto industry standard. With a few exceptions, most MMOs had hopped on board free-to-play, and players had gotten used to the low financial barrier of entry.

By sticking to the “box price + sub” model, Carbine essentially was telling us that WildStar was on the same quality and demand tier as World of Warcraft. And as much as I love me some WildStar, it really wasn’t anywhere near WoW’s status of polish, content, and popularity.

Gamers and press alike knew that WildStar’s business model was a grave mistake, and sadly the studio took too long to shift to a more flexible one. It tried to go free-to-play a little over a year later, but it couldn’t overcome the loss of players and revenue to start moving forward again. WildStar only made it a few more years to 2018 before NCsoft canned it and its studio.

The question that gnaws me is this: What if WildStar had read the room right and come out of the gate with a much more appropriate and attractive business model? Would we still be playing it today?

Bad Idea Inc.

There aren’t a lot of times where the entire MMO community, including journos, come together in agreement that something is a Bad Idea, but Ship of Heroes’ last-minute announcement of its $60 box price plus a subscription has gotten everyone on the same page — everyone save the studio, which is stubbornly sticking with its decision.

Listen, I have no beef with Ship of Heroes. It was cute and kind of fun in the beta, it had potential, and in an ideal world under ideal circumstances, it could’ve become a sleeper hit of sorts.

So believe me when I say that I’m not trying to be mean here. I wanted the best for this game, but I think we’ve all seen the writing on the wall for a while now. It’s not a project that’s generated a whole lot of enthusiasm over the concept, which put the burden of its success on launching as a really good game that will generate strong word-of-mouth. We’ll see on that front — I’m not hopeful — but that’s not even the real problem right now.

The real problem is that just days before launch, the studio announced that it was going to charge a premium box price with a premium subscription price for what is most decidedly not a premium product. It’s a horrendous mismatch of a business model for what Ship of Heroes is.

If it were up to me, I’d probably release Ship of Heroes for free with an optional subscription and a whole lot of microtransactions, probably centered around costumes. Or maybe $15 box price with optional microtransactions. Try to rope in as many people as possible, build up a community, and hook people on the game so that they want to spend money to make that experience even better.

The avoidable train wreck

This is the pivot that Embers Adrift made months after its release, when it initially tried to do pretty much the same thing as Ship of Heroes (albeit with a lower price point). Embers started with a mismatched business model that repelled rather than attracted, but then it found a better fit.

I don’t know what Ship of Heroes’ studio is thinking here. It’s definitely seeing the enormous amount of pushback on these prices, which ironically generated the most conversation the MMORPG community’s had about Ship of Heroes this entire year. Probably 2024 too. But the studio is doubling down on this decision, and thus an avoidable train wreck commences.

I’m guessing that either Heroic Games is overconfident that it has a big and loyal enough community that will happily put up this kind of money or is just going to try to generate the revenue it can before it’s got to shut down the game in a couple months. Either way, it’s not a good look, and it’s going to be a textbook example of how a bad business model or price point can completely kill any goodwill and hype that a title might have had. Other studios and upcoming MMOs, learn from this.

Do you love spectating and speculating about upcoming MMOs? We do too! Every week, Justin tackles another upcoming title on the MMO Hype Train with opinions, analysis, and blind fervent hope. Choo choo all aboard!