The Illinois House and Senate have passed a law requiring that online games give users a clear, safe way to cancel their subscriptions. The impetus for this bill was an Illinois alderman that had a tough time canceling his son’s Final Fantasy XI account. Full text of the bill can be read here, but the main crux of the bill is:

An Internet gaming service rovider must give a consumer who is an Illinois resident the following: (1) a secure method at the Internet gaming service provider’s web site that the consumer may use to cancel the service, which method shall not require the consumer to make a telephone call or send U.S. Postal Service mail to effectuate the cancellation; and (2) instructions that the consumer may follow to cancel the service at the Internet gaming service provider’s web site.

(Warning: Prepare for Rant)

This is just another reason why the subscription model needs to die. Customers should not even have to worry about such things. Games are about fun, and when you make people have to stress over them you reduce fun. MMO companies shouldn’t operate like shady health clubs who create complicated cancellation procedures so they can bill you for months of service you do not actually want. There is no need for that. When your business model relies on people paying you when they don’t want to, or paying you when they are not actually playing, then you have failed as a gaming company.

This reminds me of the sad, but instructive, lesson of Asheron’s Call 2. A few years ago, Turbine decided that it wanted complete ownership of AC1 and AC2. So they bought out Microsoft. Since Microsoft had been handling the billing, Turbine needed to switch all of their customers over to a new billing system. This required that every customer re-sign up for AC1 and/or AC2 by re-entering all of their billing information. Well, the unfortunate result of this was that huge numbers of customers never re-signed up. A dirty little secret in the subscription based MMO industry is that “sleepers” are vital to many MMO’s continued existence. Sleepers are customers that are being charged a monthly subscription despite the fact that they no longer play and may not even be aware they are still getting billed. Some customers (and the passage of this bill leads one to assume many FFXI customers) may have actively tried to cancel but failed to perform one arcane element of the cancellation procedure.

Well, when AC2 lost its sleeper accounts it was no longer financially viable. Within a few months the game shut down as it was not financially viable. Considering AC1 and DDO are financially viable in Turbine’s eyes, that means AC2 must have REALLY been doing poorly.

If you detected a little personal interest in the issue you are pretty astute. I believe the subscription model has had its day and needs to die. I will elaborate on the many reasons in a further post, but for now, I am glad that one state has at least taken a step to stop one of the shadier business practices of many subscription based games.

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