Raph Koster’s post today got me thinking (again) about Danc’s excellent 2005 article about the touring band as a business model.

The thing about the touring band and about micropayments that gets everyone excited is that there is NO UPPER LIMIT to how much a devoted fan can spend on you. I’m embarrassed when I think about how much money I have spent on pretend Magic cards and judging by the evidence over in Korea, a lot of other people are doing the same kind of thing for all sorts of games.

There is another benefit to micropayments that I haven’t seen people talk about as often: it’s much easier for players to slip in and out of fandom. When I broke my WOW addiction, I cancelled my account, cutting myself off from play. It’s unlikely that I’ll ever return. Meanwhile, on some server in California sits my neglected Magic: the Gathering Online collection. Any time I want, I can drop back in and play a few games with my old cards. How many casual games can I stand before I break down and start buying packs again? I’m scared to find out. Free-to-play micropayment models allow the kind of “oh hey I remember this band” nostalgia to take hold more easily, dragging recovered addicts back in to the fold.