The Daily Grind: How important are loyalty programs to you?
This past week, EverQuest joined the growing number of MMOs that include some sort of loyalty or veteran rewards program:
"For simply continuing to subscribe to our game you will gain 'crowns' every week that can be spent on items to improve your game play. There is no additional charge for the items you find on this vendor... The amount of crowns you gain increases for every month that you have a continued subscription to EverQuest. This increase in points per week caps out after 12 months."
The basic idea behind such programs is to provide additional incentive for players to stay subscribed. These incentives can be as trite as a new title or a badge only you can see, or as substantial as cash shop currency, special outfits or unique skills. While companies like NCsoft, Cryptic, Icarus and SOE have utilized loyalty programs as part of their subscriber strategy, plenty of other studios (Blizzard, Turbine, CCP) do not.
We'd like to know: How important are loyalty programs to you? Do they make a difference in choosing which game to play? Have you stayed subscribed to an MMO you're not even playing just for the rewards? Would you like to see your current MMO offer a veteran rewards program like this?
