Posted by: Ada | May 7, 2009

F2P: How to Do it Right

The title to this post may be a little bold, and I admit up front, the thoughts below come from the perspective of a longtime “hardcore” P2P MMO player. That said, RL has made gaming life drift toward the casual side, and I’ve taken to trying out various F2P games. Further, since SW:TOR has been rumored to be RMT-based, one can hardly see F2P games as falling only into the low-quality section of the MMO market. Factor in the recent SOE offering of FreeRealms and the WoW-clone Runes of Magic and the F2P scene starts looking rather enticing.

However, what exactly does F2P mean? How does profitability factor into a “free-to-play” game? What can and should a player expect from such a game? And finally, how can a F2P system be designed to make both the company and the playerbase happy?

First of all, what does F2P mean? F2P, in short, stands for “free-to-play”. Often, these are very plain browser-based games, no frills. Think of those ads you see on MMOPRG.com or allakhazam – 2D, typically ugly, shallow, and not fun (in my experience). I really don’t see how people play them. However, there’s also the Neopets and Wizard101 side of F2P – games targeted to the tween, young teen audience. Compared to a full-fledged AAA MMO, they’re certainly less substantial. However, though graphics are not top notch and gameplay may seem to focus too heavily on pets (seriously, why do seemingly ALL F2P games have pets? Is this how they target young girls?), they can actually hold one’s attention and provide a fine, casual experience. I’d call those mid-quality – fun enough for their demographic, not very deep. Now, though, two heavy-hitters have entered the F2P market – FreeRealms and Runes of Magic. They have all the features of a AAA title (combat, crafting, exploration, social interaction, and yes, pets), but are “free”. How does this happen? How do these companies make a profit off of these free games compared to subscription-based ones?

So, second topic, how profitable can F2P games be? Apparently, very profitable. If SOE offers a F2P title, you know it must make money. Sony is not a company of philanthropists. RoM is just plain shiny, too shiny to be free. They must be making money. But how much? Check here for numbers – read on for qualitative anecdotes. While reading the FreeRealms forums since launch a couple of weeks ago, I’ve noticed some interesting trends and ideas surfacing among their playerbase. The FreeRealms official forums are divided between members (who pay the $5/month for extra features) and players (those who play for free). Although players can see the member forums, they cannot post. Further, poster’s avatars are labeled either member or player. This makes it very easy to judge player’s reactions to the cash shop, the subscription fee, and/or the lack thereof in their playing experience. What I’ve noticed is an extreme lack of hesitation to spend money in the cash shop. Of course, that’s the only way to get pets! Pets, pets, pets and pet clothing! Besides that though, there’s also weapons, potions, armor, etc. and people seem to be spending at least the amount of a monthly subscription for cash shop currency. In fact, more than one player has stated that they’ve spent $20 or more already in the first two weeks. Of course, maybe this won’t last, but SOE likely knows it needs to keep the content pumping to keep people buying, but more on that later. FreeRealms runs from the browser and downloads while you play. This means the player didn’t have to pay the $50 for the box and that SOE didn’t have to burn, press, and ship. RoM has a full client, but still is free to download.

Perhaps, as you can see, one of the greatest benefits for the player of F2P games is the “try-it-before-you-buy-it” aspect. Considering the crap that sometimes gets released to a box-buying market (I’m thinking of AoC if you can’t tell), it’s amazing to be able to see if you’re about to play something worth your time. For the company, perhaps it puts a little more accountability on them – the game actually needs to work and be fun. Really though, that shouldn’t be asking too much from a company and I think the market has needed something like this to hold AAA companies responsible for what they release. Amazingly, SOE did something right with FreeRealms – it works and it’s fun.

Ok, so despite no box sales, people still spend money beyond a normal monthly subscription ($10 for LOTRO, $15 for WoW) for a “free-to-play” game. Make it fun, make it work – people will pay.

But then, if I’m actually paying money for a free game, what should I as a player expect from a F2P title? Well, as I’ve said above, it should work and it should be fun. Basically, what gamers everywhere require of any game is needed more than ever in F2P games if the company wants to make any movie. This is good news for a playerbase! What else, though? What if I really don’t want to pay any money? Some games tend to offer a bare view of what the game is like, hardly even a trial. Consider Chronicles of Spellborn, for example. Even Wizard101- you just can’t do much unless you pay. Then, there’s something like Runes of Magic. You can do pretty much everything, albeit with less bag space and more time commitment. FreeRealms straddles the line – you can experience more than half of the game without paying, but the best equipment, a lot of the most interesting cosmetic items, and, of course, pets cost money. (And if you’re scoffing right now about people paying money for pixels, read this for a different perspective). Further, RoM has really raised the bar as far as content release goes. Players of a F2P game do not need to settle for the same old experience they’ve been having for a year and developers of F2P games cannot slack off and sit on their haunches watching people by cash shop pets. As a player, you should still expect regular updates and patches. From a company’s perspective, new content is absolutely necessary to keep people playing. This is clear from normal subscription-based games, but in F2P games, it may be even more important. People who aren’t playing definitely aren’t paying. Only with new shinies will you keep pocketbooks interested and players around to open them.

So, this line I mentioned. Where is it, and what side of it should a company fall on? How can a company design a F2P model that satisfies both its profit margins and its playerbase? We’ve seen a few models above, but let’s go over them in detail.

The “It’s Free to Window Shop” Model
This is the model of Chronicles of Spellborn and Wizard101 as I like to call it. It’s also the model of any 7-day trial you can get from such AAA titles as LotrO and WoW. Basically, you can do very limited things in the game – once you pay, you have full access. Very simple. (To be fair, the Wizard101 is probably the most complicated of this bunch – you can buy normal monthly access or simply pay for chunks of the world at a time).

The “It’s Free to Be Casual” Model
Here is where FreeRealms falls. You can do almost everything in the game (ok, well about 70%) without paying a penny. However, if you really want to be the best, have the best gear, top the leaderboards, etc., you will have to pay. Whether subscription model or cash shop, it’s the same ideology. If you don’t care about being the best, you don’t have to pay.

The “Work Hard or Pay Money” Model
This is a model that Runes of Magic subscribes to. None of the cash shop items are required to have the best gear or make the best items. They certainly make it faster and even easier (xp potions, for example, or instant teleportation runes – oh yes, and bag space), but they’re not required. There are also purely cosmetic items available in the cash shop that you can’t get anywhere else. Again, purely cosmetic so not required if you’re just trying to be uber leet – however, if what matters to you is looking cool, maybe you would consider these items required for a valuable experience.

Which is best or do we need something new? Personally, I prefer the last model but that is mostly because I tend to hate spending money on things I could just get myself. I don’t even buy materials with in-game currency that I can harvest myself. Maybe I’m just cheap – but it has always seemed a bit greedy to put the best items in a cash shop. It’s a game – shouldn’t I be able to “beat” it by playing it? Oh, sure, but then how is the company going to make money? I can be the best in WoW without paying for my swords, but I still pay $15 every month. Why is it different? Or, if it’s not, why does it feel different?

One of the distinctions I think can be made between subscription and F2P models and the psychology of the player is the product versus service distinction. When I pay $15/month for my WoW subscription, I feel like I’m paying for a service. I’m paying for the opportunity to use Blizzard’s servers to play a game with other people. When I have to pay $8.50 for the equivalent of StationCash to buy a sword for my Ninja in FreeRealms, I feel like I’m buying a product but that I shouldn’t have to because I’m using a service. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been conditioned after 12 years to see MMOs as a service, but regardless, I think it’s a block a lot of people share.

I think the best way to manage the F2P system for both new gamers who don’t mind paying for virtual products and older gamers who would rather pay for a service (and then get out of it whatever they put into it) is to have multiple payment options. I think having a cash shop for purely cosmetic items is fine – buy your turtle mount there or whatever, but be able to get some other kind of mount in the world so your travel time doesn’t suffer. Make portions of the game unlockable for a fee (kind of like the Wizard101 model or even the FreeRealms class model) or let the whole thing be open for more substantial monthly subscription.

A game like this would work as follows.

One option would be to pay a typical $10-15/month. With that, the player would have full access to all areas of the game, all classes, and all items that are not purely cosmetic.

Another would be to not pay and have access to a limited number of classes, quests, and areas (pick and choose), but would be able to supplement with further unlocked classes/quests/areas for a fee (say $3/month for a priest class).

There would also be an itemshop. In the item shop, there would be cosmetic items like fancy mounts or exotic pets. (I’m sorry, Belli, this would kill your pocketbook). One could also exchange RL money for in-game currency and could purchase, to an extent, consumables and other items that are also attainable in the world. This would be good for people who have a limited amount of time, but more money they’re willing to spend. In the end, if someone chose to purchase in-game currency each month and pay for potions, they would likely end up spending more, perhaps even much more, than a normal monthly subscriber, but sporadically.

Perhaps, things like exotic pets and mounts could be available in-game to monthly subscribers but only with very difficult/time consuming quests or objectives. I am not adverse to having everything in the item shop available in the game, but I think there needs to be some research done on how profitable such a system really is. Personally, as a player, I would prefer it I think. But another problem becomes an issue then. If a mount is a symbol of prestige and one can simply pay $10 for it or else work 60 hours, will players be concerned about feeling like they are working for something that ends up being meaningless because others can simply put in their credit card and have it all the same? I’m getting off on a tangent, but I think it would be interesting to have items only available in the cash shop simply to see what effect this would have on player’s ideas of status, elitism, etc. Perhaps skill really would be the determining factor in prestige if money and time cancel each other out. (Meaning, if I spend 60 hours and you spend $10 and we get the same result, it doesn’t really matter to either of our statuses that we have a red flying phoenix. There would have to be something else to separate the elites from the peasants.)

To get back on topic, a game that offered both a service and products could perhaps bridge the psychological gap between the older and new market generations, while also netting a reasonable (if not substantial) profit.

Posted by: Ada | March 6, 2009

Obama and Gift Exchange

I have never spent much time contemplating gift exchange until just this week when it became relevant to my research and I was blessed by a referral to a just-published article concerning it.¹ However, I also was struck by its significance in our own world when listening to NPR just a few moments ago.

If you haven’t heard of the recent diplomatic faux-pas committed by our new president, I will provide you with a brief summary. When Obama was gifted by a pen-holder crafted from the HMS Gannet, sister ship to that from which the President’s desk is made and also a first edition of a 7-volume biography of Winston Churchill, he responded by giving the Prime Minister a collection of 25 DVDs. Although the Obama daughters received hand-picked dresses and jewelry from a noble British retailer, the Prime Minister’s sons received only identical replicas of the President’s helicopter.

This discrepancy in gift exchange was considered a great snub to the British. In fact, Iain Martin from the Daily Telegraph compared it to a person in a relationship who says, “We are now seeing other people. We would like to see the French and the Germans and perhaps even the Japanese,” and forgets that in the roughest of times, the full history and depth of their relationship with the British will once again come to the fore and they will realize that a gift recognizing such a valuable companion should have been considered.

Gift exchange is not something we normally consider in our culture aside from Christmas. Even that is dominated by commercial interests and often only subconsciously or accidentally reflects the true meaning of a relationship. Often, the gift itself is hardly even related to the relationship.

When we speak of gift exchange in ancient culture, we often think of something like the Odyssey when gifts are exchanged as part of a ritual of hospitality, or the Iliad where gifts have a direct economical equivalence with honor. Rarely do we think of our own culture in terms like this (ritual of hospitality? honor?), but these actions do show up regularly in diplomatic relations in which everyday people may partake.

I speak of state relationships in games such as Civilization or Spore and the like in which diplomatic gifts usually supplement an alliance or other interstate relationship. The player is expected to consider the value of gifts when deciding whether to court a state as a potential ally or when attempting to  placate a hostile state. However, in these cases, the gifts usually take the rather dull form of currency. An equality of such gifts is easy to calculate, but also quite lazy.

Briefly, I’ve thought of including gift exchange in this MMO based on prestige. (Which MMO? Soon™.) Such a system would be much harder even to quantify than prestige itself. It could certainly rely on community assessment, but then the issue of integrity will of course arise (but it would in prestige as well).

Why is it that gift exchange is still alive and well between various states, still present in diplomatic processes in strategic games, and yet often never a part of daily life? Why is it that the importance of gifts has been reduced to such an extent that handmade baked goods and mittens may be worth less to someone than a diamond brooch they will never wear, but which cost more money? Is the fact that interstate gift exchange in games is primarily based on currency simply a result of laziness in design or a mirror-image of the tendency of our culture to relate value primarily to currency? Is there actually an underlying assessment of gifts in everday life that relies on comparing them to the relevant relationship, but one that rarely comes to the fore nor that is often thought of consciously? If so, could it be captured in an MMO?


¹Robbins, Joel, “Rethinking Gifts and Commodities: Reciprocity, Recognition, and the Morality of Exchange.” In Economy and Morality: Anthropological Approaches. K. Browne and L. Milgram, eds.   Altamira Press.     Pp. 43-58.

Posted by: Ada | February 17, 2009

Joining PvP and PvE

I noticed today some complaints by players about the way PvP and PvE are separated in most current MMORPGs. One (on massively.com) stated that a developer would work a miracle if they could blend the two instead. This got me thinking.

The challenge in blending these two spheres is that they are two different playstyles. Beyond that, the experience of one is dictated by players almost entirely, the other by NPCs. One is very closely scripted, the other open to constant variation.

An idea I had for this though would be to make an overarching value that took into account both PvP and PvE actions and further could be modified by the community in a kind of ranking (with limitations). In this system, people could earn the same amount of ‘prestige’ regardless of what sphere of the game they participated in and it would also encourage crossing over. Also, if the value was on a scale of honor (in that repeat offenses, ganking, severe stat discrepancies, etc. were worth small to negative amounts), some player habits (of evilness!) would be counteracted and prestige-farming discouraged. This would not blend the two playstyles, but it would perhaps blend the two communities, and I think also give them something common they could respect (thus avoiding the ‘carebear v l33t’ dichotomy…to an extent).

Another way to combine them would be to make resources only grow in a contested area (except very preliminary things). This would likely only be important in a game with a crafter-focused economy (but hey, this is my design and that’s what it would be anyway). Regardless, this could encourage people to PvP for reasons they might not usually associate with such a system – to actually defend their resources, safeguard their possessions, get a harvesting buff, etc. Now, not everyone would participate in this, but it would likely bring in more that it did before. I know I would at least be much more likely to PvP to defend my own fields than I would to get some (silly) arena rating. However, this would open up the economy to player actions, perhaps discourage harvesting/crafting or make it feel like a forced punishment, and would raise concerns about faction imbalance. With a fluid faction system as I would plan, there may be even further problems as players in a low-population faction would simply switch to the other side in order to have an easier time at the game. Of course, there could also be a system (similar to “Tenacity” in WoW) that gives buffs to underpopulated factions and helps control balance. This would be have to be handled delicately as players may feel their skill is not enough to counteract the system’s artificial provisions. Fluid factions and their difficulties will be a future topic though.

Further, part of the differentiation, in fact a great deal of it, between PvP and PvE in WoW is gear. A game that relied less heavily on such specific stats could also get closer to blending the two spheres as gear may not be the be-all-end-all to the game and gear acquired in both styles of play could be relevant to either. This would at least break the barrier players feel when they spend time in one activity to gain a reward but find that they have thus neglected the other sphere and are now a tier behind and unable to participate fully in it.

To fully answer this question, though, of how to blend the two systems, I think the motives for PvP and PvE need to be defined. Why do people PvP? It’s usually faster paced combat. They feel like their skill has more of a factor. Winning comes quickly and at great psychological risk (at least in balanced fights). PvE on the other hand rewards cooperation. It’s slower paced combat. Coordination across classes often counts more than individual skill. Rewards are won as a group and often do not represent individual skill (hence we see damage/healing meters, community WWS, etc.). Psychological risk is much lower – there’s a whole group of other people to blame a wipe on, for example.

Blending these two kinds of motivations would seem to be the answer to getting populations to participate in both. However, although it may be possible to blend coordination and individual skill (keep battles come to mind as a recent attempt), blending psychological high-risk and low-risk seems rather impossible. Perhaps if a developer supported competitive characteristics of group PvE combat, like meters and rankings..though this would like cause more disgruntlement among the community than satisfaction. There is simply a notion that PvP rankings require more skill to obtain because their fights are not scripted.

Would the answer be then to make PvE battles unscripted? How would this even be possible? I was talking the other day about a kind of RTS that incorporated tactics which evolve (think genetics of tactics or Fable II kind of adaptation but dependent on culture and geography). Would it be possible to incorporate this into the AI of PvE mobs? Perhaps this is just too much for MMO technology as it currently stands (considering it only exists in RTS games in my head). Further, would it even be interesting to the PvE crowd?

Maybe we just need to realize that some people like to PvE, some PvP, some do both, and they like the division and the choices it allows them to make about their own experiences.

Posted by: Ada | February 6, 2009

Too Soon, Academia

I’ve lately felt rather stifled in my world of academics. No one creates. No one innovates. Not because they can’t, but because there’s really no avenue in which to do so. Even if they do something amazingly clever (Damn you, Hinds!), it has no real value in daily life, no impact. I do not say that classics itself has no value, just that it seems somewhat stagnant and crystallized as a field of study even when changes are made. (How important is it really that a few fragmentary historians can perhaps now be dated one generation earlier? ZOMG Herodotus had peers. Oh wait, we already knew that.)

Homer already did the creating. Innovating on him would be heresy. And after 2500 years of study, there aren’t too many new ideas left to be found there.

Lately, however, I’ve been flirting with the idea of application. Perhaps the classics could be more relevant if they were applied. Not just an archaic growth fastened onto someone’s modern life, but an actual component of life.

Usually, people who try to apply the classics end up as kooks. The visionaries, mystics, and general magical nutcases who frequent Appalachian retreats and the corners of bookstores that smell like far too much patchouli.

But what if there was a way to apply classics that didn’t make you a magical quack? Maybe not if you’re trying to apply theurgy, but what about trying to apply classical ideas of ethics to a virtual community?

Virtual communities these days spring up without strict cultural divides. Languages often intersect as one common interest unites peoples of different countries and customs. What would be the result of experimenting on a society with Homeric ideals of glory and prestige, for example? My students this semester tend to think that people out for glory are just crazy death-obsessed psychos who need to watch the Dark Knight and see what honor is really about. But that’s real life. What about in virtual life? What about in a world where one could recreate certain aspects of Homeric culture and thus perhaps recreate the same incentives that drive Homeric characters? Are those incentives still present in human psychology and just inactive due to the lack of the corresponding triggers?

There are a lot of photos from today so I’ve put them into a gallery. Click on those that look interesting to see the story caption and a larger view.

Bath was just gorgeous. It’s one of those circular sort of hill towns that one sees in photos of modern Greece. There are flowers and columns all over and the squares each had a musician playing in them – one of which was captured in a video (Do forgive the poor quality – I quite forgot my camera could even record video and it was really just an experiment). Enjoy.

Posted by: Ada | August 1, 2008

Sex is like eating (potato chips)

For some people, sex is like eating. Those people can talk about it like they talk about what they had for dinner. That time Jenny’s brother walked in and the details of what he saw complete with hand motions are just another of the stories you tell at the bar.

For some people, it’s a secret, more like eating a whole bag of potato chips while you watch TV in the dark. It’s something they’d never admit to anyone, let alone in detail. A dirty, ugly little secret. Sure, they still do it, damn do they like it, but when it comes to talking about it, there’s a wall made of stammers and blushes and awkward changes of subject.

Why the difference? I used to think it was based on upbringing. The prudes come from those super strict religious households. But now I’m not so sure.

I had a conversation with someone that changed my mind and made me wonder what it really is. I bet some people would say it’s due to a traumatic sexual experience in childhood. Or maybe some would say it’s a self-esteem issue. I’m just not convinced.

I was working on a piece about polytheism in America when my friend down the hall kindly warned me of a giant flying creature in the hallway. Consider this episode of the photojournal a window into our very exciting lives, because, in all honesty, this was the most interesting part of the day.

First – the creature and our tools. The plan was to beat him with the shoe so that dead, he would fall into the recycling bin below, primed for disposal.

The bug, the shoe, the bin.

The bug, the shoe, the bin.

A closer-up of the vile creature:

The BUG

The BUG

Here is the very act itself. You can look closely and see the bug falling gracefully into the bin below. Note the arm muscles that delivered the blow.

Jenn's a murderer.

It was self defense.

Victory!

A sizeable grave just contained his monstrous form.

A sizeable grave just contained his monstrous form.

We tried to get rid of the evidence, but there was just too much…

A gift for the mean cleaning lady.

A gift for the mean cleaning lady.

King’s to you, Moth.

He is a strong one, even at the very end.

Woe to the next visitor who stops at this solemn place.

Posted by: Ada | July 17, 2008

Ben Stein on Love and Money

I’m a romantic, an idealistic one at that, and it’s pretty damn near impossible for me to resist any article that purports to be “Lessons of Love” no matter the perspective from which it hails when it’s in the NYT or any other respectable publication. Upon succumbing to such a temptation this evening, I encountered some lovely nuggets of something that seems to be good advice.

“Stay with high-quality human beings. And once you find that you are in a junk relationship, sell immediately. Junk situations can look appealing and seductive, but junk is junk. Be wary of it unless you control the market.”

“If you have to share your love with others, if you have to compete even after a brief while with others, forget the whole thing. You want to have monopoly bonds with your long-term lover.”

“To coin a phrase: Fall in love in haste, repent at leisure.”

“You need expectations that match reality before you can make some progress. There may be exceptions, but they are rare.”

“As workers and investors, we know that many dangers lurk in our paths. But so far, these things have always worked themselves out and this one will, too. In the meantime, they say that falling in love is wonderful, and that the best is falling in love with what you have. “

Source.

After too much work, I decided to go walking and take some photos. Here you go. Click for the story captions and a slightly larger image. Click again for an even larger one.

Posted by: Ada | July 13, 2008

The Antediluvian Photojournal – vol. 1

I started my morning off today with a venture of exploration north of New College. After discovering various science buildings, lovely $700k homes, and general peace away from the tourists, I landed in the Oxford Parks. Here is the entrance – the iron gates are quite classy, and a wide swath of flowers lines most of the pathway which is itself very long (I didnt walk the whole path system, but I’d guess a good 3 miles of flowers).*

On the east side of the park system, there is a series of bridges over the river. It’s really a gorgeous spot, complete with ducks and the chirping of wildlife. Considering this journey came after two cups of coffee and a refreshingly good (!!) breakfast from the Buttery (their fancy term for the cafeteria), my morning was downright fabulous.

I finished it off with an hour of practice. Of course getting into the practice room itself was an adventure. There are two groups of undergraduates here right now for summer school plus a group of MA students doing some Human Rights project/class/something, so when I went and asked the Porter where a practice room might be, he asked which program I was in. My mumbled response of ‘I’m not in one, I’m one of the three random girls that people have just left to wander around aimlessly and subsist off of cardboard’ came out, surprisingly he wasn’t spurred into action. So upon seeing that mumbling was not the key to his heart, I said, ‘Well, I’m working with Professor Parker…’ in a sweet, demure kind of voice. He perked right up, busied about getting me a key and sign-out sheet and proceeded to direct me (without lefts or rights) to the nearest piano – a soundproof room deep in the basement of an unmarked old townhouse. I set about banging out scales and Bach and fluff until my wrist hurt. It was grand.

After an afternoon of errands, complete with many more sightings of unnecessary photo-taking, Jenn lit upon the extraordinary idea of taking a meta photo of people taking photos. Upon reaching our corner of the infamous arch, I was given the perfect opportunity to do just that. The insets are below.

One is not enough.

Just through the arch is a tiny passage between buildings, mysterious looking enough to entice us to follow it until we came upon a little pub and restaurant tucked behind our building. This sign was just too good to not share with all of you. After dinner we came back and I had a local summer ale (which tasted like wheat and grapefruit). I just may go back.

Just past the passage is home here in this lovely row of buildings. Just through that open gate, in the door and through various hidden passageways, we arrived in our rooms, but not before noting this sign right outside:

Yes, we live in Halley’s house, Halley as in Halley’s Comet. I just remind myself of that now when I see the 3 drawers in my desk that have no handles and when I try to take a shower with a near absence of hot water. I live in Halley’s Comet’s house.

Upon deciding to copy over the photos for this blog, I managed to get my memory stick lodged inside my laptop and only after the many valiant attempts of pens and keys and other objects, eyebrow tweezers came to the rescue and saved these photos from the tragedy of permanent digital loss. Its now 10:45pm, I’ve barely read any Latin so it’s time to make coffee and get back to Ovid. One last photo – here’s what I’m about to imbibe. Pray for me.




*You may note if you click for an expanded view that there is someone taking a photo next to the gate. The theme of ‘meta’ is all around us, even when we don’t at first notice.

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