I really should have been clearer. I was trying to make a genreal statement. It's only considered a ripoff if the individual who sees it that way doesn't have to pay anything. But that point of view (The OP's in this case) depends on someone else paying. So the B2P model is not the same for everyone across the board. So it's a ripoff for some, but not the "freeloader". So as long as there is someone else to pick up the tab, it's not a ripoff. It just reeks of hypocrisy. It's great that some have found what they are looking for, but it's on the backs of others that they get it. And that is fine becasue all who play have agreed to this. But, they have no justification thumbing their noses at a developer who says, "No. The expense of this is going to be shared fairly by all who play."
Once again, how can you fault the players!!!
It is the Game Developer who is giving them the option for hellz sake.
You need to ask yourself, why a Game Developer would even have a F2P option and offer a subscription. I would assume they want to make a profit. For some reason they see this model as a way to do it. They want to entice people to sample their product in the hopes that they might get a subscription or two.
I really think there has been a fundemental change in the way consumers view MMO subcriptions nowadays, and for damn good reason IMHO.
I applaud companies like Anet, who are putting the spotlight on the subscription model.
As GN-003 said in his post, You can't just make an MMO and expect people to pay for it. I can see how it's becoming an easy scapegoat for developers who push out subpar products.
Not blaming the player for using this system. I'm saying those who are getting their game paid for buy someone else, have no justification for running around screaming "Subs are a ripoff"
But at the same time, a PoS game doesn't deserve a sub. It's not the revenue model that is the problem, it's the game. If the game is good, thena sub will be worth it. Because it delivers value.
Yes, I will agree with you about game quality. If a game is good, then people will want to sub or pay regardless of the sales model.
As per so called 'freeloading', I would ask for your opinion in my LOTRO example.
- I bought the orginal game (Shadows of Angmar) when it first came out
- I bought the first expansion (Mines of Moria) when it first came out
- I bought the 2nd expansion (Siege of Mirkwood) when it first came out.
- I have paid for at least 10months of subscription on top of all of the box prices
- However, I am not currently paying for a subscription...and I still play the game on the odd occasion.
- I have probably put about 200 euros into the game
So am I a LOTRO 'freeloade'r in your opinion?
Am I entitled to question Turbine's subscription model and complain that I don't have access to all of the content in the original game (Shadows of Angmar) even after I have paid the box price and 10months subscription? Am I wrong for feeling bitter or a bit ripped off?
I do think LOTRO has a much better game model than they did earlier (purely subscription / lifetime sub based). Earlier when my subscription ended I didn't have access to any content. Now at least I can play some of the content and I am very grateful for that.
I am also a GW1 and GW2 player. I have unlimited access to everthing I have paid for. I am not a freeloader here. I am just a player like everone else, with the same privledges.
Personally comparing these two MMOs and their sales models, I prefer the GW / Anet B2P version. That is just my opinion.
Is LOTRO a good game, I think it is OK, and that's why it is still installed on my PC.
In my opinion, Is Turbine justified in requiring a subscription to access content in addition to a cash shop and asking for box prices for expansions? In my opinion NO. But if I understand you correctly, my opinion doesn't even mean anything because I currently don't have a paying subscription in this game...and I am freeloading.
No worries, I am not angry at anyone, thanks for the discussion.
I'm an even worse LotRO freeloader than you. I paid $50 to Turbine for the ROI expansion after playing the game for free for about 6 months. With that, I got a deal on unlocking some things (through getting a bunch of TP with the purchase), and the rest of the stuff I unlocked by grinding some TP (I only unlocked what I wanted, not everything). I played LotRO for about a year and a half.
Over six+ years on GW1, I spent a total of roughly $200 (games+expansion+2 CS items). Am I a freeloader?
I've played GW2 since basically the first BWE. So far I've only spent the $60 for the original download. I may spend about $20 in the CS and then will most likely buy the expansions when they come out. Does that also make me a freeloader?
I have also spent money on extra accounts for my family, but I'm talking strictly for myself as I'm the biggest gamer in my house.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
1. Server hardware is much cheaper, yes. But bandwidth gets much more expensive as your game gains popularity. There is also a big difference between hosting a few non-clustered servers in an office, and requiring several datacenters worth of clustered servers and IT staff.
2. I've never seen anyone claim players are paying to offset engine development costs, but OK. At any rate, either you invest in building your own engine (rare), or you license out another and pay royalties which are commonly in the 15-30% range.
3. Game development is expensive for any "AAA" title, even if they aren't all on the SWTOR-level of expensive. Most of that expense is usually in staff. It takes many many people to bring together a game title. With MMO's, it's even worse because they tend to take 3-5 years to complete (mostly due to the much more complex nature of the game design). That's 3-5 years worth of salary, capital, rent, etc.. If you want to know why so many game companies are getting bought out by major publishers these days, this is a big reason. It's simply getting too expensive to develop a quality AAA title, much less think about marketing it.
4. Promising regular updates is a fairly new strategy with companies that started, like most things MMO, with World of Warcraft. Previously, content updates came in the form of an official expansion, usually ever 12 to 18 months. The only updates that happened in the mean time were related to bug fixes, and even then only if they *really* impacted the game.
The main problem with the classic subscription model is that it doesn't leave much room for competition, in the event that one game dominates, like WoW. It's a big reason why F2P has even taken off, because companies kind of assume that competing with Blizzard on their terms is pointless right now.
Originally posted by cowhead You're not paying to play a game. You are paying to use a service. Last time I checked most people want to be paid for providing a service. Wether it be subscription fees, cash shop, or a mix of both. No one offers a completely free service. So do I mind paying a small monthly fee to access something I enjoy? No. Most people pay for cell phones, internet, cable, netflix, etc. with no issue. Never understood the hatred about MMO subscription fees.
All those services you mentioned offer much more than just one thing. If there were a service like Netflix for gaming (you pay per month and can access any MMO you want, provided it's in the inventory), I wouldn't mind paying for it. However, the return on investment for one game isn't enough to justify almost the same amount of money per month as I pay for Netflix.
And, yes, you are paying for a game. It's not really a service, or at least not one that justifies the cost IMO. There are plenty of B2P games out there that give you the game and at least some kind of service with them (periodic patches, Online options, etc.) that are proving you don't need a sub to make a good game that people will play over a period of time.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Sub fees for MMO's should not be more than $5 or $6. The idea of paying 25% of the retail cost of the game per month to keep playing it when much of the content becomes grinding the same crap repeatedly between occasional content upgrades is ridiculous and one major reason why I have stopped playing most MMO's.
Originally posted by Ryukan Sub fees for MMO's should not be more than $5 or $6. The idea of paying 25% of the retail cost of the game per month to keep playing it when much of the content becomes grinding the same crap repeatedly between occasional content upgrades is ridiculous and one major reason why I have stopped playing most MMO's.
After factoring in the costs of licensing an IP and engine tech, hiring a company to handle online payments (or building your own setup), paying support and development staff, leasing a datacenter or two, purchasing and upgrading hardware as needed, paying for high-availability/high-bandwidth network access, paying back stakeholders and other financial backers, and marketing the game at least a little, you wouldn't even break even on 5-6 dollars a month in sub fees.
People seriously underestimate just how expensive it is to build and operate an MMO.
Here is what I think is a rip off. I'd rather pay my sub fee than subsidise your content.
I dislike freeloaders as well, but if I had to choose between paying a sub (WoW for example) as it stands and subsidizing other peoples content in GW2 for example...I would take GW2.
My reasoning is I would rather subsidize fellow gamers and reward developers who push out good content or fluff items instead of rewarding developers who take my sub charge me for expansions, charge me for name/race/server changes, and everything else under the sun...and then repay me for my sub with gear treadmills, and gateway grinds.
I really should have been clearer. I was trying to make a genreal statement. It's only considered a ripoff if the individual who sees it that way doesn't have to pay anything. But that point of view (The OP's in this case) depends on someone else paying. So the B2P model is not the same for everyone across the board. So it's a ripoff for some, but not the "freeloader". So as long as there is someone else to pick up the tab, it's not a ripoff. It just reeks of hypocrisy. It's great that some have found what they are looking for, but it's on the backs of others that they get it. And that is fine becasue all who play have agreed to this. But, they have no justification thumbing their noses at a developer who says, "No. The expense of this is going to be shared fairly by all who play."
TL;DR: You are getting your lunch paid for by someone else, so shut up and be happy.
How is someone a "freeloader" in a B2P game if they paid for the game and subsequent expansions? Just because a CS is made available (and assuming it's not Pay2Win) doesn't mean those who choose not to use it are "freeloaders". That's a ridiculous statement. The developers offer a game that way certainly hoping they will attract people to the CS. But, unless they're crazy, they would only assume the vast majority of their income would come from box sales.
By doing that, they would surely have to ensure they work within a particular budget. Sure, they may assume that some money would come in from a CS, but I highly doubt they assume at least an average of $15/month out of it, especially over the long haul.
But hey, you guys keep telling yourselves that $15/month for a game is worth it. It's your money, you can waste it however you want.
Go back and read, the term I used "freeloaders" was in quotes as it was the person I was responding to's term he used. 2nd You totally missed the point that someone who is getting the cost for ongoing content paid for by someone else, has no right to be running around screaming "Ripoff" at Blizzard, Trion, CCP and any other sub based game publisher.
I just want to address the question presented in the title of this topic.
How can an MMO justify a subscription?
By offering what no other genre can offer in a game via a living, breathing, intricately woven social and explorative world experience...like they used to.
Played: EQ1 (10 Years), Guild Wars, Rift, TERA Tried: EQ2, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Runes of Magic and countless others... Currently Playing: GW2
Who the heck do you people think you are saying that subs are a ripoff? That's entitled thinking right there. Gaming is a pastime, not a required daily activity. You'd be ripped off if you were forced to pay a gouging sum for something that you need. This is entertainment, and the cost for enjoying entertainment varies based on what value YOU place upon it.
Someone already brought up movies. If you love action movies, then maybe spending $13 for 2 hours of Bruce Willis kicking alien ass as entertainment is valuable to you. If you hate action movies, you'd be an idiot to sit in front of the theatre screaming that spending that $13 on the same movie is a ripoff.
Simple concept, guys: Pay for the shit that you want to play, and don't pay for the shit you see no value in. And stop acting like you're entitled to free or less expensive entertainment because you disagree with how much it costs them to provide.
Originally posted by cowhead You're not paying to play a game. You are paying to use a service. Last time I checked most people want to be paid for providing a service. Wether it be subscription fees, cash shop, or a mix of both. No one offers a completely free service. So do I mind paying a small monthly fee to access something I enjoy? No. Most people pay for cell phones, internet, cable, netflix, etc. with no issue. Never understood the hatred about MMO subscription fees.
Who the heck do you people think you are saying that subs are a ripoff? That's entitled thinking right there. Gaming is a passtime, not a required daily activity. You'd be ripped off if you were forced to pay a gouging sum for something that you need. This is entertainment, and the cost for enjoying entertainment varies based on what value YOU place upon it.
Someone already brought up movies. If you love action movies, then maybe spending $13 for 2 hours of Bruce Willis kicking alien ass as entertainment is valuable to you. If you hate action movies, you'd be an idiot to sit in front of the theatre screaming that spending that $13 on the same movie is a ripoff.
Simple concept, guys: Pay for the shit that you want to play, and don't pay for the shit you see no value in. And stop acting like you're entitled to free or less expensive entertainment because you disagree with how much it costs them to provide.
I like the term "entitled" you used. I was trying to come up with that for the point I was trying to make and couldn't get the right word. It's that same sentiment that you said here that ties into what I was trying to say .
I would love to pay $15 a month if MMos started to give enouph content so I dont beat the mmo in less then a month.
There were alot of older mmos that you could play for months or longer and never came close to beating there mmo. For me I cant seem to justify $15 a month if im stuck doing the same few missions for months till they give a new mission or till they put out a new expansion. I feel like mmos are just xbox or ps3 games with mutli player added on them.
I Cant wait for a MMo that goes back to the big mmos.
MASSIVE (game)
MULTIPLAYER(a ton of people)
ONLINE(playing online)
If MMos go back to huge games with a ton of content to keep playes busy for months. Then I will have no problem paying $15
A few Examples of games I played for months to years and never complained about the monthly fee.
Originally posted by Ryukan Sub fees for MMO's should not be more than $5 or $6. The idea of paying 25% of the retail cost of the game per month to keep playing it when much of the content becomes grinding the same crap repeatedly between occasional content upgrades is ridiculous and one major reason why I have stopped playing most MMO's.
After factoring in the costs of licensing an IP and engine tech, hiring a company to handle online payments (or building your own setup), paying support and development staff, leasing a datacenter or two, purchasing and upgrading hardware as needed, paying for high-availability/high-bandwidth network access, paying back stakeholders and other financial backers, and marketing the game at least a little, you wouldn't even break even on 5-6 dollars a month in sub fees.
People seriously underestimate just how expensive it is to build and operate an MMO.
Fine...$10 a month maybe, but lately I haven't felt like paying even that much to keep playing the current MMO's.
I think GW2 kind of proves you wrong though; they seem to be making enough money off the largely cosmetic game store. I have paid the box cost of GW2 so far and feel no need to pay any more money right now through the ingame store. Also, I guess I ripped off Funcom by buying a lifetime sub for The Secret World as well because that is all the money they will get from me as far as sub fees is that $200 (well maybe some would feel they ripped me off hehe, but I'll play it for years on and off...most likely). Of course Funcom could go F2P with TSW at some point aand end up screwing over those who bought lifetime subs, could happen.
There is a $50-$60 box fee for any major MMO these days and you get a month of play for free which is fine; most single player games cost the same and one is lucky to get a month's worth of play out of many of them. I play pretty hard for the first month and after that the sub fee kicks ini. $15 a month is 25% of the cost of the original game. By 4 months I have paid for the cost of the game again and maybe there have been steady content updates in those 4 months and maybe not. If the freshness of the content lasts for a week or more I would call that about worth the money I paid them for the month; this would take into account that there were steady monthly content updates like this. This does not seem to be the case with many MMO's lately for me at least and there is a great content grind for months at a time which gets boring fast; so regardless of how much it costs them to keep the game running I end up feeling that the monthly cost is not worth it thus I cancel my sub and now they have lost that monthly money from me totally. Some games have parts of the game content I really dislike and thus don't bother with such as the PvP in SWTOR; I lose interest in continuing to pay full price when there is content that I can do without.
I guess I would like to see more sub fee options between the full $15 a month fee and the F2P option which can get nickle and dime-ish and end up costing a crapload. It would be nice to see some options with lower sub costs and less restrictions than F2P but say not as many options as a full sub.
Who the heck do you people think you are saying that subs are a ripoff? That's entitled thinking right there. Gaming is a pastime, not a required daily activity. You'd be ripped off if you were forced to pay a gouging sum for something that you need. This is entertainment, and the cost for enjoying entertainment varies based on what value YOU place upon it.
Someone already brought up movies. If you love action movies, then maybe spending $13 for 2 hours of Bruce Willis kicking alien ass as entertainment is valuable to you. If you hate action movies, you'd be an idiot to sit in front of the theatre screaming that spending that $13 on the same movie is a ripoff.
Simple concept, guys: Pay for the shit that you want to play, and don't pay for the shit you see no value in. And stop acting like you're entitled to free or less expensive entertainment because you disagree with how much it costs them to provide.
I like the term "entitled" you used. I was trying to come up with that for the point I was trying to make and couldn't get the right word. It's that same sentiment that you said here that ties into what I was trying to say .
Likewise, I've agreed with everything you've said so far in the thread. The arguments really have little to do with overhead versus profit. For a non-essential service, that debate is irrelevent. IMO, OP and his supporters are people who are just looking for a handout.
I work in internet company - we have around 180 million users log in daily. Yet we have moved all our servers to Amazon cloud.
Plus we have a inhouse server cluster for content updates and main system (hardened)
This costs around 16 thousand dollars a month.
Lot of money ? For 180 million users - which is over 100 times more than WOW had in its hay day ?
Second. I never said development tools do not cost money. But its a same cost single player games have. Yet they are B2P.
How come ?
We are being milked.
And as for claim that B2P games do not invest in user because they gat their money up front ? P2P games get all the money upfront too !
Ok, so why not have only subscription without box price ? Fair is fair ?
No they want Box price + sub (19$ for TSW) + cash shop !!!
Some nerve...
You forgot to mention a very key factor here: what are those users doing with the bandwidth? Browsing a few webpages, discussion forums or transferring the odd datafile or two is extremely different than playing a modern MMO with 3D graphics, physics engines and perhaps twitch mechanics. If all your company is providing is a host for webpages and forums that statement of its cost and that it had more users than WoW is 100% invalid for a cost discussion on MMO server clusters.
Chatting and sharing files ( pictures ... not gigabyte large files ). Multiply this by 180 million - or 100X something WOW user base. I guess it equals (and largely surpasses) anything 500.000 players MMO uses in terms of bandwith.
So chatting and sporadic datafile uploads. No advanced graphics engines, no interpretive physics engines...that needs so much less than what a 3D MMO uses it's not even funny. I'm very sure that even though you have a user base supposedly 100x that of the WoW user base in terms of number of people, that the raw bandwidth and processing power required to support the WoW user base while they do what they normally do in their profoundly more complex program is many, many times what your server cluster could ever handle.
I work in internet company - we have around 180 million users log in daily. Yet we have moved all our servers to Amazon cloud.
Plus we have a inhouse server cluster for content updates and main system (hardened)
This costs around 16 thousand dollars a month.
... more irrelevant stuff ...
You're spinning wheels and getting no traction, Lobomist.
In both your OP and this one, your entire "case" is one big argument from incredulity, drowning in conjecture, cherry-picked details and assumptions crafted specifically to suit your pre-determined narrative.
For starters, how much your company allegedly pays a month on server costs (we have only your word to go on, after all) is completely irrelevant. You don't know what the requirements or demands are for running and maintaining a MMORPG and, hence, have no idea what the costs are. That's not even accounting for how large the MMO is, how many concurrent players across how many "shards", and so on. Server/Network setups aren't cookie-cutter, "one size fits all" ordeals. You simply don't know what the costs are, you have nothing to compare against and hence, your $16,000 figure means absolutely nothing.
But let's play along, just for the heck of it. Let's say your $16,000/mth figure accurately represents the server costs alone for a MMORPG to run. If that MMORPG has a $15/mth sub fee, that means you need 1066 recurring subscribers every month, just to cover server costs.
But here's where it gets interesting,and your entire argument falls flat on its short-sighted face.
Not even counting expenses during development, post launch, to maintain a MMORPG requirest any, all, or even more than the following:
1) Ongoing salaries for:
Game Programmers, Tools Programmers, Artists (2d and 3D), Designers, Writers, Internal QA, Management, Secretarial staff, Marketing/PR staff, Musicians, Sound effects staff, Producer(s), Game/Creative Director, Off-line Customer Support Staff, Database programmers, In-Game GMs/support, Networking people, General IT, Accountants, Office maintenance staff, Custodial staff, Legal staff. In some cases, the company will have hired cooks to prepare breakfast and/or lunch for the office staff. And I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting.
That's just the warm bodies of which a development company can employ well over a hundred.
2) Ongoing Costs of Business:
Office rent, Electric Bill, Bandwidth Bill (for both company use and the MMO service), Server Bill, Phone Bills, Health/Medical Coverage, Software Purchasing/Licensing, Hardware Purchasing/Upgrading, Office Supplies, Food and Beverage services (vending machines, water coolers, etc), Advertising fees, miscellaneous business expenses like traveling, etc.
Let's not forget that in a typical situation, a portion of the revenue earned has to go back to the investors who made the development of the game possible in the first place.
Let's not forget that there are taxes to be filed every year, so a portion of the revenue has to be kept aside and not used for business purposes.
Certainly more things I'm not even aware of that are integral to running any business, MMORPG or otherwise.
So as you can see, if you're willing to, that $15 a month is going toward a whole lot more than server and bandwidth fees.
Your alleged $16,000 is just one of many expenses a MMORPG development company has to cover. Many of the on-going expenses are just to keep the business afloat - nevermind keeping a MMORPG up and running.
As for Subscriptions themselves...
You pay a sub fee because MMORPGs are a service; not just a game. You are paying $15 to be provided a service that allows you to log in and play any time you want, 24/7, day or night - excluding down-times, for up to 30 days at a time.
As has been mentioned by others elsewhere in this thread, subscriptions are just a long-standing, proven and perfectly effective model for providing an ongoing paid service. Just like cell phone service, magazine subscriptions, gym memberships, online music services, cable service and so many other things you could name, you pay them to provide you a service that - presumably - has a value that you find worth the recurring cost.
Just like any other on-going, fee-based service, when you feel that service is no longer worth what you're paying, you cancel your service and move on - assuming you're not locked into a contract.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with subscriptions. They're a perfectly legitimate, valid, time and road tested revenue model that are as relevant today as they've ever been - the claims of F2P/B2P proponents notwithstanding.
If you're interested in learning more about what actually goes into creating and maintaining a MMORPG, I suggest reading this book. I own it, have read through it a few times now and find it to be very informative and insightful on the topic, covering a lot of things people wouldn't even necessarily realize go into it.
Or, of course, you can continue talking nonsense and pulling things out of thin air.
You forgot to mention a very key factor here: what are those users doing with the bandwidth? Browsing a few webpages, discussion forums or transferring the odd datafile or two is extremely different than playing a modern MMO with 3D graphics, physics engines and perhaps twitch mechanics. If all your company is providing is a host for webpages and forums that statement of its cost and that it had more users than WoW is 100% invalid for a cost discussion on MMO server clusters.
Except we know that in game bandwidth usage is minimal. I have a little 10Mbps DSL connection and can stream Netflix while my wife, son, daughter, and myself are gaming online in one form or another.
The major bandwidth costs are more likely associated with the client and asset downloads. Some mmos use download services or some form of peer to peer.
It is very likely that a media heavy website could have a heavier bandwidth cost compared to the trickle that most mmos use.
I think you may be confusing something here. I am not talking about the Internet connection which communicates between the server cluster and a user's home computer. MMO hosting companies design their software so that the amount of data that has to travel over an internet connection is minimal. That's why for the vast majority of MMOs you have to download a client software; the client and the server communicate to each other through highly compressed and simple data packets being sent back and forth over the network. It's all the calculations that the server or client has to do in order to interpret one of those data packets and transform it into a 3D visual representation of where a character is and what they are doing which is where the hard work comes in. The server cluster has to process the data packets from all of the users on at one time, checking their coordinates and directional vectors and comparing it to its 3D terrain map, so that for example it can feed back to a client's file "Your character just bonked into a tree, stop his movement in that direction" etc, create that compressed data packet and send it to the client.
It's all the behind-the-scenes math that is the slow part. A server that's just hosting basic chatrooms and the odd file upload doesn't need to do even a fraction of the calculations that an MMO one does.
I work in internet company - we have around 180 million users log in daily. Yet we have moved all our servers to Amazon cloud.
Plus we have a inhouse server cluster for content updates and main system (hardened)
This costs around 16 thousand dollars a month.
... more irrelevant stuff ...
You're spinning wheels and getting no traction, Lobomist.
In both your OP and this one, your entire "case" is one big argument from incredulity, drowning in conjecture, cherry-picked details and assumptions crafted specifically to suit your pre-determined narrative.
For starters, how much your company allegedly pays a month on server costs (we have only your word to go on, after all) is completely irrelevant. You don't know what the requirements or demands are for running and maintaining a MMORPG and, hence, have no idea what the costs are. That's not even accounting for how large the MMO is, how many concurrent players across how many "shards", and so on. Server/Network setups aren't cookie-cutter, "one size fits all" ordeals. You simply don't know what the costs are, you have nothing to compare against and hence, your $16,000 figure means absolutely nothing.
But let's play along, just for the heck of it. Let's say your $16,000/mth figure accurately represents the server costs alone for a MMORPG to run. If that MMORPG has a $15/mth sub fee, that means you need 1066 recurring subscribers every month, just to cover server costs.
But here's where it gets interesting,and your entire argument falls flat on its short-sighted face.
Not even counting expenses during development, post launch, to maintain a MMORPG requirest any, all, or even more than the following:
1) Ongoing salaries for:
Game Programmers, Tools Programmers, Artists (2d and 3D), Designers, Writers, Internal QA, Management, Secretarial staff, Marketing/PR staff, Musicians, Sound effects staff, Producer(s), Game/Creative Director, Off-line Customer Support Staff, Database programmers, In-Game GMs/support, Networking people, General IT, Accountants, Office maintenance staff, Custodial staff, Legal staff. In some cases, the company will have hired cooks to prepare breakfast and/or lunch for the office staff. And I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting.
That's just the warm bodies of which a development company can employ well over a hundred.
2) Ongoing Costs of Business:
Office rent, Electric Bill, Bandwidth Bill (for both company use and the MMO service), Server Bill, Phone Bills, Health/Medical Coverage, Software Purchasing/Licensing, Hardware Purchasing/Upgrading, Office Supplies, Food and Beverage services (vending machines, water coolers, etc), Advertising fees, miscellaneous business expenses like traveling, etc.
Let's not forget that in a typical situation, a portion of the revenue earned has to go back to the investors who made the development of the game possible in the first place.
Let's not forget that there are taxes to be filed every year, so a portion of the revenue has to be kept aside and not used for business purposes.
Certainly more things I'm not even aware of that are integral to running any business, MMORPG or otherwise.
So as you can see, if you're willing to, that $15 a month is going toward a whole lot more than server and bandwidth fees.
Your alleged $16,000 is just one of many expenses a MMORPG development company has to cover. Many of the on-going expenses are just to keep the business afloat - nevermind keeping a MMORPG up and running.
As for Subscriptions themselves...
You pay a sub fee because MMORPGs are a service; not just a game. You are paying $15 to be provided a service that allows you to log in and play any time you want, 24/7, day or night - excluding down-times, for up to 30 days at a time.
As has been mentioned by others elsewhere in this thread, subscriptions are just a long-standing, proven and perfectly effective model for providing an ongoing paid service. Just like cell phone service, magazine subscriptions, gym memberships, online music services, cable service and so many other things you could name, you pay them to provide you a service that - presumably - has a value that you find worth the recurring cost.
Just like any other on-going, fee-based service, when you feel that service is no longer worth what you're paying, you cancel your service and move on - assuming you're not locked into a contract.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with subscriptions. They're a perfectly legitimate, valid, time and road tested revenue model that are as relevant today as they've ever been - the claims of F2P/B2P proponents notwithstanding.
If you're interested in learning more about what actually goes into creating and maintaining a MMORPG, I suggest reading this book. I own it, have read through it a few times now and find it to be very informative and insightful on the topic, covering a lot of things people wouldn't even necessarily realize go into it.
Or, of course, you can continue talking nonsense and pulling things out of thin air.
Well said!
I think it has been proven that the OP is either lying or doesn't know what he is talking about in regards to number of users and/or cost of the "company he works for".
50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
More than 35 million users update their status each day
More than 60 million status updates posted each day
More than 3 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
More than 3.5 million events created each month
More than 3 million active Pages on Facebook
More than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook
More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day
Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans
I think most of us have heard of Facebook.... so how many have heard of a company that is 72% of the size of Facebook that meets the criteria the OP told us?
(Since 180 million users per day vs. Facebook's 250 million users per day = 72%)
I'm even skeptical of Facebooks claim... but we will assume they are speaking the truth, as a few lemmings did with the OP.
So anyway, how many can come up with a couple possible companies that are about 3/4 the size of Facebook in terms of daily users. I am just curious. Can anyone even come up with 1 that meets the criteria that the OP gave us?
Here are the Top 10 sites by users according to Alexa:
Google
Facebook
YouTube
Yahoo!
Baidu.com
Wikipedia
Windows Live
Twitter
QQ.COM
Amazon.com
So if we say that it takes down to the #10 spot to reach about 3/4 the size of Facebook (at the number 2 spot)... Does anyone think that Amazon.com only spends 16k per month on their servers and bandwidth? Heh... o.k.
So unless the OP is willing to come clean on the company he works for... I think we can put this scharade to bed.
The 180 million users and the 16k monthly figure are fantasy. It was fun though.
Here is a question for you -How can a modern themepark MMO justify box price + ongoing 15$ subscription ?Are we being ripped of ? Lets analyse here :1. Server cost : Today cloud servers are dime and dozen , its actually much much cheaper than even couple years ago. Asking players to chip in for server cost - false2. Engine development cost : Let assume that MMO engines are more complicated than your regular game engines. And so they cost more to develop. But today there are several licenced engines that are so good even the biggest companies use them - Players chipping in for engine cost - false3. Game development cost : What makes MMO more expensive than single player RPG ? Amount of content ? Judging from todays trends I seen single player RPGs with same or more content than many MMO games at release. Yet they dont ask for subscription. And even if amount of content is a question. Why not make less content , and than charge for aditional content as DLC ? - Platyers chipping in for content - false4. Constant updates : Yea. I heared that myth. Most of MMOs fire 80% of work force month after release. And all those "Monthly new content!" turns out to be just PR bull.. Even if new content comes after all , it happens once or twice - than it turns into payed mini expansions. So paying for developers developing something that we get to pay for again. - Players paying for constant updates - false So what we are paying 15$ for ? 180$ yearly ? Plus 60$ on box price ... thats 240$ a year from each player.Not bad. No wonder the market is full with MMO wannabies that planned to cash in on this golden goose ! I give credit to games like EVE that are sandbox , and PVP based. With amazing "all players on same server" technology and actual free updates all the time. Even they could live with B2P+F2P model - if there was no PVP balance to keep in mind. But themepark PVE games ?No excuse ! Discuss
Well worn topic, not much chance of new insights, moving on.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I can justify it. Its called I want to play the game that charges that $15.00 a month.
Thats all they need to justify it to me. Do I ask my tv provider to justify their price? Nope, I look through all the "offers and pricing" of all providers and pick the one I want. Same thing with an MMO. They don't need to justify the price if I'm willing to pay it.
A business, believe it or not...is allowed to make money. They don't have to give their shit away for free(or enjoyment). How does a drive-in movie theatre justify having patrons pay $5.00 a carload if you bring in your own food in your own car while others do not charge that same fee? Because they want to.
Not sure why we go through this subscription fee issue all the time on these boards. Some people want to pay $15.00 a month to keep the free people out. That alone justifies it for some, while others want to support the game company itself.
Yes they can justify it because people like us are willing to pay for it.
And you forgot, or at least fail to mention, the MMORPG genre is hands down the best video game genre there is. And that is why we pay $15 or more a month to play these. It's also why we come to this website so religiously.
So, here is my short list for what it might take to develop (this is to say nothing about publishing it and managing it once it is released) an MMORPG. And, what that may cost on the personal level of the time and effort people have put in and on the level of initial startup costs (in a legal/professional sense). Also, understand that (at least in my view) this is minimalistic. I want to do this from the perspective of you starting up a company and what you would need to get it done (in America):
- A Ficticous Business Name/License/Tax ID Number -
The government (weather it be county/state/district/federal etc. ) needs to know who you are and what you are doing (and especially what you are making) for Tax purposes and to help insure that no one steps on any ones toes with copyright infringment or any other sort of confusion.
So you will need a name and more importantly, to register that name as your ficticuos business name. This ficticous name accs as the name that is used for things such as payroll. There are of course signers on the account, but any one recieving a paycheck from your business or writing on to it will need to know this name and be able to pay to your business diractly (essentially).
So, Late say you are called 'EnterpriseX' . And, you have gone down to the local city hall or online and registered your name as well as sent off your notification to the state that you intend to begin business and when. If you are in a non municiple area the fee for this is a little under $200, and probably the only fee you will pay in such respects (as it is not only, not required but not possible to obtain a true business license in a non-municple area).
Of course most areas you might live in and be close to rescources you need to do something big in regards to doing something online will not be in a non-municiple area. Likely it will be on the first mile in a more developed area. So, your ficitous name will be issued with a Business License and Tax ID Number.
And, once you a couple of trademarking and conceptual copyrights to protect yourself in the future your looking at around $3000 to get the idea of you and yours as a business accepted by all those who matter in it.
- HeadQuaters -
This is where everything will be physically handled from, you need a brick and mortar location to get things done, a place people can cometogether at to do their work and have the fruits of their labor locally available to other members of the team, for their part in things. it doesn't make sense to do it all over skype and an ftp'er (not anymore anyways).
Each person working for you will be required to have no less then 11 cubic meters of space and given that it is hard to get by on less then 10 employees for such an endevour (that will be discussed next). Your going to need about 720 square feet for your employees to work in and about triple that for them to park in and use the restroom and other facilities (such as a coffee/break room which you will need permits for that will probably in total run around $300 and are not all inclusive in renting/leasing a spot).
And with a little space for storage your looking for at least 2500 square feet, zoned for business in an industrial area, and that will make your monthly upkeep on utilities and rent/payments about $5,000. And, you will need about $60 for insurance (1 mil slip and fall coverage).
And at this point we are right about at the $10,000 mark any person starting a small business should have as initial capital...and with that it's time to start looking into loans (hope you have good credit).
- Employees and their needs-
These people cannot be your buddies who want to start a gaming company with you. And, for all that is good and right in the world do not let it be family either. You need to get with people who have gone to college for 3D graphics and design. If you lucky as hell you get with a suga momma FIDIM grad who believes in your 'potential' and comes from an at least marginally wealthy family.
But, you not that lucky (most likely) and you probably have some ideas about who you want to bring on board already. which is going to be a hodge podge of people collected from community college campuses who dorked around getting various certifications in things like 3DMax, PhotoShop, and Maya before washing out but still believing their minor declarations of expertise will get them somewhere in the world and in-so-much are willing to work under you for a meger salary compaired to what they would have gotten had they just gone for that welding certification or a 2 year degree that still has application in the real world once they get out of school.
So you will need some one to be a web master (to create and run the website) and at least 1 no life programmer who lives off mountain dew, saltines and jerky (to make you game work). and 3 graphics designers ...one must be early balding and wear sweats and one must have a pony tail and wear a trench coat...this is just how they come. Each of your graphical artists will have a main job of like, 1 being world/environment design, 1 being npc, creature, and character design, and 1 being for items (gear mats, quest items, drops, item spaws etc.)
You will need to pay them at least minimum wage and they will need to work at least 3-5 hours a day to get anything done withing the first 6 months (this works out to about $750 per month per employee).
You'll also need a creative director and to pay them the same. If this is you...well you still need to pay yourself so that you are not spinning your wheels.
and you will need at least 4 other people...1 person (at least) to act as security, a secretary to be your interface between the people who work for you and the world outside their cubicles. A janitor of course (it can't be everyones job to clean and work their needs to be someone assigned to this). And an intern...gopher boy...go for this go for that.
realisticly you will need to hgiher out a corrier service occaisonally and keep a lawyer on retainer... if your wondering all told you are looking at about $10,000 base employment and services costs (if your lucky).
But wait! your employess need comercial licensed software of MMO creation grade, and work stations to utilize them on. so lets say at least 7 thermaltakes each machine will likely need some editors like cabanova, a good IMp like photoshop, 3d modeling and animation/content creation software like Maya autocad/ autodesk/ 3ds max....this all gets very expensive very quickly...
- Overall -
If you don't want to be sued later down the line for using pirated software, copyright infringments etc. You need to do things by the book from the start....for your first 2 months of operation (your first 2-3 months will be getting setup) you are going to be in the hole for around 75k-100k all told. now look 2 years into the future when you have your first title released and you owe the banks your very soul or the equivelent in monetary value and your ability to do business with any one any where is riding on this singular success.
It can easily cost 350k-500k to get a small gaming company off the ground and release your first titles. Most of that is barrowed, a lot of it is past due, all of it has interests on it. this is probably about the point where selling 10,000 copies of your game at 60 bucks a pop sounds good (after every one gets their cut up and down the line you will beath easy if you net 50k and are not still in massive debt). So, immediately after this a 15 dollars a month subscription probably looks like an even better idea... so you can continue to pay your employees, your dues other wise. and once you get a cash shop set up you can both pay your own rent and utilities and know a taste in your mouth other then ramen as far as food goes.
I really don't know why people have this conception that the men and women crating MMO's are living high on the horse without a care in the world. every one has their dues and every one wants their cut. It is true that some genius minds out their, who are at the top of their games (no pun intended) have made a pretty penny off MMO's but is not every cent of it for the hundreds of thousands, to millions of people they are primarily responcible for bringing 100's of hours of entertainment to something they have merited?
<blockquote><i>Originally posted by asmkm22</i> <br><b><p>. Promising regular updates is a fairly new strategy with companies that started, like most things MMO, with World of Warcraft. Previously, content updates came in the form of an official expansion, usually ever 12 to 18 months. The only updates that happened in the mean time were related to bug fixes, and even then only if they *really* impacted the game.</p></b></blockquote>
<p> Not true. Hate, Fear and Sky were all in between EQ Vanilla and Kunark. Jaggedpine forest is another example of a free update zone.
The major difference is that generally EQ didnt have to put out content between expansions, because there was no need for it. More people complained that new content came too fast than too slow.
Comments
I'm an even worse LotRO freeloader than you. I paid $50 to Turbine for the ROI expansion after playing the game for free for about 6 months. With that, I got a deal on unlocking some things (through getting a bunch of TP with the purchase), and the rest of the stuff I unlocked by grinding some TP (I only unlocked what I wanted, not everything). I played LotRO for about a year and a half.
Over six+ years on GW1, I spent a total of roughly $200 (games+expansion+2 CS items). Am I a freeloader?
I've played GW2 since basically the first BWE. So far I've only spent the $60 for the original download. I may spend about $20 in the CS and then will most likely buy the expansions when they come out. Does that also make me a freeloader?
I have also spent money on extra accounts for my family, but I'm talking strictly for myself as I'm the biggest gamer in my house.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Be afraid.....The dragons are HERE!
1. Server hardware is much cheaper, yes. But bandwidth gets much more expensive as your game gains popularity. There is also a big difference between hosting a few non-clustered servers in an office, and requiring several datacenters worth of clustered servers and IT staff.
2. I've never seen anyone claim players are paying to offset engine development costs, but OK. At any rate, either you invest in building your own engine (rare), or you license out another and pay royalties which are commonly in the 15-30% range.
3. Game development is expensive for any "AAA" title, even if they aren't all on the SWTOR-level of expensive. Most of that expense is usually in staff. It takes many many people to bring together a game title. With MMO's, it's even worse because they tend to take 3-5 years to complete (mostly due to the much more complex nature of the game design). That's 3-5 years worth of salary, capital, rent, etc.. If you want to know why so many game companies are getting bought out by major publishers these days, this is a big reason. It's simply getting too expensive to develop a quality AAA title, much less think about marketing it.
4. Promising regular updates is a fairly new strategy with companies that started, like most things MMO, with World of Warcraft. Previously, content updates came in the form of an official expansion, usually ever 12 to 18 months. The only updates that happened in the mean time were related to bug fixes, and even then only if they *really* impacted the game.
The main problem with the classic subscription model is that it doesn't leave much room for competition, in the event that one game dominates, like WoW. It's a big reason why F2P has even taken off, because companies kind of assume that competing with Blizzard on their terms is pointless right now.
You make me like charity
All those services you mentioned offer much more than just one thing. If there were a service like Netflix for gaming (you pay per month and can access any MMO you want, provided it's in the inventory), I wouldn't mind paying for it. However, the return on investment for one game isn't enough to justify almost the same amount of money per month as I pay for Netflix.
And, yes, you are paying for a game. It's not really a service, or at least not one that justifies the cost IMO. There are plenty of B2P games out there that give you the game and at least some kind of service with them (periodic patches, Online options, etc.) that are proving you don't need a sub to make a good game that people will play over a period of time.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Be afraid.....The dragons are HERE!
After factoring in the costs of licensing an IP and engine tech, hiring a company to handle online payments (or building your own setup), paying support and development staff, leasing a datacenter or two, purchasing and upgrading hardware as needed, paying for high-availability/high-bandwidth network access, paying back stakeholders and other financial backers, and marketing the game at least a little, you wouldn't even break even on 5-6 dollars a month in sub fees.
People seriously underestimate just how expensive it is to build and operate an MMO.
You make me like charity
Go back and read, the term I used "freeloaders" was in quotes as it was the person I was responding to's term he used. 2nd You totally missed the point that someone who is getting the cost for ongoing content paid for by someone else, has no right to be running around screaming "Ripoff" at Blizzard, Trion, CCP and any other sub based game publisher.
I just want to address the question presented in the title of this topic.
How can an MMO justify a subscription?
By offering what no other genre can offer in a game via a living, breathing, intricately woven social and explorative world experience...like they used to.
Played: EQ1 (10 Years), Guild Wars, Rift, TERA
Tried: EQ2, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Runes of Magic and countless others...
Currently Playing: GW2
Nytlok Sylas
80 Sylvari Ranger
Who the heck do you people think you are saying that subs are a ripoff? That's entitled thinking right there. Gaming is a pastime, not a required daily activity. You'd be ripped off if you were forced to pay a gouging sum for something that you need. This is entertainment, and the cost for enjoying entertainment varies based on what value YOU place upon it.
Someone already brought up movies. If you love action movies, then maybe spending $13 for 2 hours of Bruce Willis kicking alien ass as entertainment is valuable to you. If you hate action movies, you'd be an idiot to sit in front of the theatre screaming that spending that $13 on the same movie is a ripoff.
Simple concept, guys: Pay for the shit that you want to play, and don't pay for the shit you see no value in. And stop acting like you're entitled to free or less expensive entertainment because you disagree with how much it costs them to provide.
Pastime. Also, not to be confused with "past time."
You make me like charity
While the price of gas, bread and steak went up 300% in the last 15 years.
The price of my mmo raised by only 40% ... I would say that means it cost you less than it did 15 years ago.
Inclined to agree with this.
I self identify as a monkey.
I like the term "entitled" you used. I was trying to come up with that for the point I was trying to make and couldn't get the right word. It's that same sentiment that you said here that ties into what I was trying to say .
I would love to pay $15 a month if MMos started to give enouph content so I dont beat the mmo in less then a month.
There were alot of older mmos that you could play for months or longer and never came close to beating there mmo. For me I cant seem to justify $15 a month if im stuck doing the same few missions for months till they give a new mission or till they put out a new expansion. I feel like mmos are just xbox or ps3 games with mutli player added on them.
I Cant wait for a MMo that goes back to the big mmos.
MASSIVE (game)
MULTIPLAYER(a ton of people)
ONLINE(playing online)
If MMos go back to huge games with a ton of content to keep playes busy for months. Then I will have no problem paying $15
A few Examples of games I played for months to years and never complained about the monthly fee.
EQ1
SWG
DAOC
VANGUARD
WOW
EQ2
Fine...$10 a month maybe, but lately I haven't felt like paying even that much to keep playing the current MMO's.
I think GW2 kind of proves you wrong though; they seem to be making enough money off the largely cosmetic game store. I have paid the box cost of GW2 so far and feel no need to pay any more money right now through the ingame store. Also, I guess I ripped off Funcom by buying a lifetime sub for The Secret World as well because that is all the money they will get from me as far as sub fees is that $200 (well maybe some would feel they ripped me off hehe, but I'll play it for years on and off...most likely). Of course Funcom could go F2P with TSW at some point aand end up screwing over those who bought lifetime subs, could happen.
There is a $50-$60 box fee for any major MMO these days and you get a month of play for free which is fine; most single player games cost the same and one is lucky to get a month's worth of play out of many of them. I play pretty hard for the first month and after that the sub fee kicks ini. $15 a month is 25% of the cost of the original game. By 4 months I have paid for the cost of the game again and maybe there have been steady content updates in those 4 months and maybe not. If the freshness of the content lasts for a week or more I would call that about worth the money I paid them for the month; this would take into account that there were steady monthly content updates like this. This does not seem to be the case with many MMO's lately for me at least and there is a great content grind for months at a time which gets boring fast; so regardless of how much it costs them to keep the game running I end up feeling that the monthly cost is not worth it thus I cancel my sub and now they have lost that monthly money from me totally. Some games have parts of the game content I really dislike and thus don't bother with such as the PvP in SWTOR; I lose interest in continuing to pay full price when there is content that I can do without.
I guess I would like to see more sub fee options between the full $15 a month fee and the F2P option which can get nickle and dime-ish and end up costing a crapload. It would be nice to see some options with lower sub costs and less restrictions than F2P but say not as many options as a full sub.
Likewise, I've agreed with everything you've said so far in the thread. The arguments really have little to do with overhead versus profit. For a non-essential service, that debate is irrelevent. IMO, OP and his supporters are people who are just looking for a handout.
So chatting and sporadic datafile uploads. No advanced graphics engines, no interpretive physics engines...that needs so much less than what a 3D MMO uses it's not even funny. I'm very sure that even though you have a user base supposedly 100x that of the WoW user base in terms of number of people, that the raw bandwidth and processing power required to support the WoW user base while they do what they normally do in their profoundly more complex program is many, many times what your server cluster could ever handle.
Where's the any key?
You're spinning wheels and getting no traction, Lobomist.
In both your OP and this one, your entire "case" is one big argument from incredulity, drowning in conjecture, cherry-picked details and assumptions crafted specifically to suit your pre-determined narrative.
For starters, how much your company allegedly pays a month on server costs (we have only your word to go on, after all) is completely irrelevant. You don't know what the requirements or demands are for running and maintaining a MMORPG and, hence, have no idea what the costs are. That's not even accounting for how large the MMO is, how many concurrent players across how many "shards", and so on. Server/Network setups aren't cookie-cutter, "one size fits all" ordeals. You simply don't know what the costs are, you have nothing to compare against and hence, your $16,000 figure means absolutely nothing.
But let's play along, just for the heck of it. Let's say your $16,000/mth figure accurately represents the server costs alone for a MMORPG to run. If that MMORPG has a $15/mth sub fee, that means you need 1066 recurring subscribers every month, just to cover server costs.
But here's where it gets interesting,and your entire argument falls flat on its short-sighted face.
Not even counting expenses during development, post launch, to maintain a MMORPG requirest any, all, or even more than the following:
1) Ongoing salaries for:
Game Programmers, Tools Programmers, Artists (2d and 3D), Designers, Writers, Internal QA, Management, Secretarial staff, Marketing/PR staff, Musicians, Sound effects staff, Producer(s), Game/Creative Director, Off-line Customer Support Staff, Database programmers, In-Game GMs/support, Networking people, General IT, Accountants, Office maintenance staff, Custodial staff, Legal staff. In some cases, the company will have hired cooks to prepare breakfast and/or lunch for the office staff. And I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting.
That's just the warm bodies of which a development company can employ well over a hundred.
2) Ongoing Costs of Business:
Office rent, Electric Bill, Bandwidth Bill (for both company use and the MMO service), Server Bill, Phone Bills, Health/Medical Coverage, Software Purchasing/Licensing, Hardware Purchasing/Upgrading, Office Supplies, Food and Beverage services (vending machines, water coolers, etc), Advertising fees, miscellaneous business expenses like traveling, etc.
Let's not forget that in a typical situation, a portion of the revenue earned has to go back to the investors who made the development of the game possible in the first place.
Let's not forget that there are taxes to be filed every year, so a portion of the revenue has to be kept aside and not used for business purposes.
Certainly more things I'm not even aware of that are integral to running any business, MMORPG or otherwise.
So as you can see, if you're willing to, that $15 a month is going toward a whole lot more than server and bandwidth fees.
Your alleged $16,000 is just one of many expenses a MMORPG development company has to cover. Many of the on-going expenses are just to keep the business afloat - nevermind keeping a MMORPG up and running.
As for Subscriptions themselves...
You pay a sub fee because MMORPGs are a service; not just a game. You are paying $15 to be provided a service that allows you to log in and play any time you want, 24/7, day or night - excluding down-times, for up to 30 days at a time.
As has been mentioned by others elsewhere in this thread, subscriptions are just a long-standing, proven and perfectly effective model for providing an ongoing paid service. Just like cell phone service, magazine subscriptions, gym memberships, online music services, cable service and so many other things you could name, you pay them to provide you a service that - presumably - has a value that you find worth the recurring cost.
Just like any other on-going, fee-based service, when you feel that service is no longer worth what you're paying, you cancel your service and move on - assuming you're not locked into a contract.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with subscriptions. They're a perfectly legitimate, valid, time and road tested revenue model that are as relevant today as they've ever been - the claims of F2P/B2P proponents notwithstanding.
If you're interested in learning more about what actually goes into creating and maintaining a MMORPG, I suggest reading this book. I own it, have read through it a few times now and find it to be very informative and insightful on the topic, covering a lot of things people wouldn't even necessarily realize go into it.
Or, of course, you can continue talking nonsense and pulling things out of thin air.
I think you may be confusing something here. I am not talking about the Internet connection which communicates between the server cluster and a user's home computer. MMO hosting companies design their software so that the amount of data that has to travel over an internet connection is minimal. That's why for the vast majority of MMOs you have to download a client software; the client and the server communicate to each other through highly compressed and simple data packets being sent back and forth over the network. It's all the calculations that the server or client has to do in order to interpret one of those data packets and transform it into a 3D visual representation of where a character is and what they are doing which is where the hard work comes in. The server cluster has to process the data packets from all of the users on at one time, checking their coordinates and directional vectors and comparing it to its 3D terrain map, so that for example it can feed back to a client's file "Your character just bonked into a tree, stop his movement in that direction" etc, create that compressed data packet and send it to the client.
It's all the behind-the-scenes math that is the slow part. A server that's just hosting basic chatrooms and the odd file upload doesn't need to do even a fraction of the calculations that an MMO one does.
Where's the any key?
Well said!
I think it has been proven that the OP is either lying or doesn't know what he is talking about in regards to number of users and/or cost of the "company he works for".
As an example here is this link: https://www.facebook.com/FBWizard/app_10442206389
LATEST FACEBOOK STATS
Your not very good at math are you.Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Thats all they need to justify it to me. Do I ask my tv provider to justify their price? Nope, I look through all the "offers and pricing" of all providers and pick the one I want. Same thing with an MMO. They don't need to justify the price if I'm willing to pay it.
A business, believe it or not...is allowed to make money. They don't have to give their shit away for free(or enjoyment). How does a drive-in movie theatre justify having patrons pay $5.00 a carload if you bring in your own food in your own car while others do not charge that same fee? Because they want to.
Not sure why we go through this subscription fee issue all the time on these boards. Some people want to pay $15.00 a month to keep the free people out. That alone justifies it for some, while others want to support the game company itself.
And you forgot, or at least fail to mention, the MMORPG genre is hands down the best video game genre there is. And that is why we pay $15 or more a month to play these. It's also why we come to this website so religiously.
@OP...You need perspective.
So, here is my short list for what it might take to develop (this is to say nothing about publishing it and managing it once it is released) an MMORPG. And, what that may cost on the personal level of the time and effort people have put in and on the level of initial startup costs (in a legal/professional sense). Also, understand that (at least in my view) this is minimalistic. I want to do this from the perspective of you starting up a company and what you would need to get it done (in America):
- A Ficticous Business Name/License/Tax ID Number -
The government (weather it be county/state/district/federal etc. ) needs to know who you are and what you are doing (and especially what you are making) for Tax purposes and to help insure that no one steps on any ones toes with copyright infringment or any other sort of confusion.
So you will need a name and more importantly, to register that name as your ficticuos business name. This ficticous name accs as the name that is used for things such as payroll. There are of course signers on the account, but any one recieving a paycheck from your business or writing on to it will need to know this name and be able to pay to your business diractly (essentially).
So, Late say you are called 'EnterpriseX' . And, you have gone down to the local city hall or online and registered your name as well as sent off your notification to the state that you intend to begin business and when. If you are in a non municiple area the fee for this is a little under $200, and probably the only fee you will pay in such respects (as it is not only, not required but not possible to obtain a true business license in a non-municple area).
Of course most areas you might live in and be close to rescources you need to do something big in regards to doing something online will not be in a non-municiple area. Likely it will be on the first mile in a more developed area. So, your ficitous name will be issued with a Business License and Tax ID Number.
And, once you a couple of trademarking and conceptual copyrights to protect yourself in the future your looking at around $3000 to get the idea of you and yours as a business accepted by all those who matter in it.
- HeadQuaters -
This is where everything will be physically handled from, you need a brick and mortar location to get things done, a place people can cometogether at to do their work and have the fruits of their labor locally available to other members of the team, for their part in things. it doesn't make sense to do it all over skype and an ftp'er (not anymore anyways).
Each person working for you will be required to have no less then 11 cubic meters of space and given that it is hard to get by on less then 10 employees for such an endevour (that will be discussed next). Your going to need about 720 square feet for your employees to work in and about triple that for them to park in and use the restroom and other facilities (such as a coffee/break room which you will need permits for that will probably in total run around $300 and are not all inclusive in renting/leasing a spot).
And with a little space for storage your looking for at least 2500 square feet, zoned for business in an industrial area, and that will make your monthly upkeep on utilities and rent/payments about $5,000. And, you will need about $60 for insurance (1 mil slip and fall coverage).
And at this point we are right about at the $10,000 mark any person starting a small business should have as initial capital...and with that it's time to start looking into loans (hope you have good credit).
- Employees and their needs-
These people cannot be your buddies who want to start a gaming company with you. And, for all that is good and right in the world do not let it be family either. You need to get with people who have gone to college for 3D graphics and design. If you lucky as hell you get with a suga momma FIDIM grad who believes in your 'potential' and comes from an at least marginally wealthy family.
But, you not that lucky (most likely) and you probably have some ideas about who you want to bring on board already. which is going to be a hodge podge of people collected from community college campuses who dorked around getting various certifications in things like 3DMax, PhotoShop, and Maya before washing out but still believing their minor declarations of expertise will get them somewhere in the world and in-so-much are willing to work under you for a meger salary compaired to what they would have gotten had they just gone for that welding certification or a 2 year degree that still has application in the real world once they get out of school.
So you will need some one to be a web master (to create and run the website) and at least 1 no life programmer who lives off mountain dew, saltines and jerky (to make you game work). and 3 graphics designers ...one must be early balding and wear sweats and one must have a pony tail and wear a trench coat...this is just how they come. Each of your graphical artists will have a main job of like, 1 being world/environment design, 1 being npc, creature, and character design, and 1 being for items (gear mats, quest items, drops, item spaws etc.)
You will need to pay them at least minimum wage and they will need to work at least 3-5 hours a day to get anything done withing the first 6 months (this works out to about $750 per month per employee).
You'll also need a creative director and to pay them the same. If this is you...well you still need to pay yourself so that you are not spinning your wheels.
and you will need at least 4 other people...1 person (at least) to act as security, a secretary to be your interface between the people who work for you and the world outside their cubicles. A janitor of course (it can't be everyones job to clean and work their needs to be someone assigned to this). And an intern...gopher boy...go for this go for that.
realisticly you will need to hgiher out a corrier service occaisonally and keep a lawyer on retainer... if your wondering all told you are looking at about $10,000 base employment and services costs (if your lucky).
But wait! your employess need comercial licensed software of MMO creation grade, and work stations to utilize them on. so lets say at least 7 thermaltakes each machine will likely need some editors like cabanova, a good IMp like photoshop, 3d modeling and animation/content creation software like Maya autocad/ autodesk/ 3ds max....this all gets very expensive very quickly...
- Overall -
If you don't want to be sued later down the line for using pirated software, copyright infringments etc. You need to do things by the book from the start....for your first 2 months of operation (your first 2-3 months will be getting setup) you are going to be in the hole for around 75k-100k all told. now look 2 years into the future when you have your first title released and you owe the banks your very soul or the equivelent in monetary value and your ability to do business with any one any where is riding on this singular success.
It can easily cost 350k-500k to get a small gaming company off the ground and release your first titles. Most of that is barrowed, a lot of it is past due, all of it has interests on it. this is probably about the point where selling 10,000 copies of your game at 60 bucks a pop sounds good (after every one gets their cut up and down the line you will beath easy if you net 50k and are not still in massive debt). So, immediately after this a 15 dollars a month subscription probably looks like an even better idea... so you can continue to pay your employees, your dues other wise. and once you get a cash shop set up you can both pay your own rent and utilities and know a taste in your mouth other then ramen as far as food goes.
I really don't know why people have this conception that the men and women crating MMO's are living high on the horse without a care in the world. every one has their dues and every one wants their cut. It is true that some genius minds out their, who are at the top of their games (no pun intended) have made a pretty penny off MMO's but is not every cent of it for the hundreds of thousands, to millions of people they are primarily responcible for bringing 100's of hours of entertainment to something they have merited?
<blockquote><i>Originally posted by asmkm22</i>
<br><b><p>. Promising regular updates is a fairly new strategy with companies that started, like most things MMO, with World of Warcraft. Previously, content updates came in the form of an official expansion, usually ever 12 to 18 months. The only updates that happened in the mean time were related to bug fixes, and even then only if they *really* impacted the game.</p></b></blockquote>
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Not true. Hate, Fear and Sky were all in between EQ Vanilla and Kunark. Jaggedpine forest is another example of a free update zone.
The major difference is that generally EQ didnt have to put out content between expansions, because there was no need for it. More people complained that new content came too fast than too slow.