Originally posted by TaskyZZ We have this same discussion every frickin' day... In fact, there is another thread on the front page of this forum with this topic. If you don't like it don't pay it. $15 a month is a small price to pay for the amount of playtime you get.
heh it is irrelevant if you think it doesnt matter or if there is a post on it everyday. It is a legit issue.
Whats the cieling for monthly MMORPG cost ? and when its reached will the playerbase hold the devs to a higher standard ? will we tolerate devs like Funcom and Artifact entertainment and their early crappy performance ??
Right now imo there isn't much different between $12.95 a month and $14.95 a month. But yes I do agree if you dont like it dont have to pay the cost.
imo I think LIneage II isnt worth the $15.00 a month but a lot of people do.
I am waiting to see what EQ2 and WoW costs are going to be. Should be an interesting next 6 to 8 months for the MMORPG industry.
Originally posted by Hadesprime heh it is irrelevant if you think it doesnt matter or if there is a post on it everyday. It is a legit issue.
It IS relevant. All he had to do was look a little and he could have joined a debate already in progress. but instead, he starts up a fresh one, so the same arguments get thrown out over and over. Like watching reruns on TV.
Whats the cieling for monthly MMORPG cost ? and when its reached will the playerbase hold the devs to a higher standard ? will we tolerate devs like Funcom and Artifact entertainment and their early crappy performance ??
Right now imo there isn't much different between $12.95 a month and $14.95 a month. But yes I do agree if you dont like it dont have to pay the cost. imo I think LIneage II isnt worth the $15.00 a month but a lot of people do. I am waiting to see what EQ2 and WoW costs are going to be. Should be an interesting next 6 to 8 months for the MMORPG industry.
I agree. Going to be very interesting. My guess is they all go for $14.95. Each afraid to be the first to go higher. Some poeple can pay whatever it takes, and some have limits. It will be up to the devs to find the price break.
I am still not getting the complaints. If you are used to getting everything you want, then surely $15 a month isn't too much. If $15 a month is too steep, then you should be able to deal with settling for less. You know, I would love to have a Hummer, but what is up with that insane price? Heck, it doesn't use that much more steel than the minivan I have, why can't they sell them for 10k? But they don't. They sell them far beyond my price range so I just settle for what I can afford.
Bottom line, if $15 a month is too much for you, play a cheaper game. There are a ton of them out there for $13 a month. There are some for less. There is even a list on this board here of games that don't charge anything to play, and Guild Wars is promising no monthly fees. Unless you are wealthy (and even if you are), you won't be able to afford everything you want in life. Get used to it and settle for whatever is in your price range (or expand your income so you don't have to settle).
Consider this. Turbine Games recently acquired $18,000,000 to develop Dungeons and Dragons Online. Will they invest that much revenue into developing the very best game they can? You bet your butt they will. The cost of developing these "Totally Awesome" games can be compared to anything else in the entertainment industry. Hollywood dumps millions of dollars into Movies just to watch them fail or succeed. What determines this is the return they see on their investment. Now, back to Turbine Entertainment.
Lets say they manage to get 100,000 subscribers after release. The game costs $50 at release, and they charge $15 a month to play. 100,000 x 15 = $1,500,000 plus the cost of the game itself, or 100,000 x $50 = $5,000,000. So, they have made $6,500,000 in the first month. By the end of the first year, they will have made (100,000 x 15) 12 + (100,000 x 50) = $23,000,000.
Ok, so they made their money back in the first year. They even managed to make a $5,000,000 profit. Seems like a huge amount of money doesn't it? Now consider they must maintain the servers, hire people to do that, (NT and IT specialists make some damn good money these days). Even if you co-locate all your servers in one spot, you still need to hire 4 to 5 technicians to cover the servers 24/7. Then factor in all those people that answer the phones when those infuriated subscribers call to complain about the lack of customer service. Oh yeah! Don't forget about the designers and developers who are still on the payroll to create new content and expansions so the game will continue to be competitive in today's extremely crowded MMORPG market. Basically, the $5,000,000 they made off their initial investment of $18,000,000 won't even begin to pay the bills. For most of these games to make the cut, they must survive with a high number of subscribers well into their second or third year. Because these Game developers don't just create one game, release it, then sit back and scoop in the bucks. They are hard at work for the next generation games we all demand. This takes revenue.
I grumble about the cost the same as eveyone else. Hell, I'm a dad with four kids, one on her way to college. I bitch about the cost of a Big Mac at lunch time. But in the big scheme of things, that $15 a month employs a crap load of people, who in turn spend their money on things and that mysterious monster we call the economy keeps grinding on. Its business ladies and gentlemen. And the name of the game is make a profit or perish. Be happy we have the developers to give us our monthly fix.
Game Over
Grym Goblinsbane
(My son speaking to his Japanese Grandmother) " Sorry Obaba, I don't speak Japanese, I only speak human."
Actually I've been quoted higher than 20%, but it could just be your struggling war economy, so your mileage may vary.
I had posted this earlier but I guess it got eaten. Suffice it to say that if you really wanna treat your money like it's nothing, by all means do so. Just remember the next time your fill up at the pump because the price is lower that day, when I retire, I'll have money coming out the wazoo, while you might be scrounging up money to buy tutors for your kids so they don't become another casualty of a school system where half the high school kids struggle to read.
A good portion of people who play MMOs don't have a readily available source of income on their own, easily making the monthly fee the most important selling point for them.
With SWG at 15/month and now CoH and (I've heard) Lineage 2 also there, it's possible for that to become the expected/acceptable standard fee. Will it continue to rise?
One bright point in this topic is a game called Guild Wars, made by some former Blizzard people. They've actually gone out of their way to make the game such that there will be NO monthly fee. As long as the game's reasonably entertaining, it could easily become the haven for those people for whom price is a major point. Atleast someone's got some sense out there.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
The one very simple thing that many of you are overlooking...as long as they can get money outta you the game companies will. Soon $15 becomes the norm we all pay that. A year or two, one company decides to charge $17 a month. Finds that ppl are still willing to pay that...after a few months all games become $17 a month. Monthly fees will continue to rize untill players are no longer willing to pay more.
*A game does not rule all other games...espcially if it hasn't been released yet.*
*A game does not rule all other games...espcially if it hasn't been released yet.*
again my answer is RUNESCAPE SUCKS... it may only be like $5 a month but thats still too damn much for a piece of crap like that... oh and even with these updates it still has the LEAST amount of content then any game i've ever seen...
okay lets take a look at what we got here shall we?...
a horribly flawed PvP system where the person with the highest str and lowest def almost always win, leaving stats like magic and def practically useless...
crappiest graphics i have ever seen in an MMORPG that isnt text based... oh and anybody who says graphics doesnt matter are lying... no matter who u are, u would rather play something with good graphics then something with crappy graphic...
the grind in this game is the worst i have ever seen... even with the 15+ skills/stats the game does have, i still find myself bored with absolutly NOTHING to do... training ur fighting skills requires you to fight the same monsters who even respawn in the same tile every single time for hours and hours and even days just to get that 1 extra stat point...
the smallest (and leat detailed) world i have ever seen in an MMORPG... EVEN if ur a pay player...
non-existant GM's... seriously theres no GM's... none... actually i saw one ONCE, but i had to e-mail him 3 hours in advance to get any help out of him...
even with the fatigue system, the highest skill/stat persons are always those who macro... u know why? because nobody in their right mind would sit there for days on end, clicking... clicking... clicking... just to get 1 stat point...
horrid economy... honestly the worst economy i've ever seen... no bullshit... its insanely flawed... and u wanna know what the funny thing is?... it was pretty much ruined by 1 single player (musashi)... a game where 1 player can single handedly ruin the economy... ohh sounds like fun...
no sfx/music unless ur on RS2 in which case i could do better on my friends MIDI keyboard...
horrible movement... not only is it PnC, but its a sad excuse for PnC...
the community is (whether u wanna admit it or not) mostly just 12 year old immature MMORPG noobies... never before have i seen such a horrid community...
horrid combat system... u hit random numbers... how sad is that... attack is how often u hit (a.k.a not hit a 0), defense is how often u dodge (affected by other's attack... a.k.a how many times u get 0's hit on u)... str is the max amount u can hit... for instance with about 65 str and a rune 2 hander u will hit anywhere between 1-19 (example)... so bassically if ur having a REALLY unlucky day, sum1 half ur level could whomp ya...
bah i cant even talk about this crap anymore... its giving me a headache just thinking about it...
The best way to find out if mmorpg's now days are cheap or not is ask a old school text based mud player what there bills used to be
You will soon see how much cheaper mmorpg's are now days , i know a few ppl who would be classed as casual gamers who could clock up a $500 a month bill and i know ppl who used o clock up $2000 + a month bills(god knows how they paid them)
Over the course of a year including addons it might seem like a big bill now days but also look at the money you saved on not buying as many new games because your still busy with your mmorpg, I used to buy at least one game a week before i descovered EQ then i went nearly 3 years without buying a single game because EQ supplyed me with all the fun i needed.
Sure, 15$ a month aint that much, thats true, and a 1 dollar raise every one and awhile isnt that much either. But, it adds up, and I dont think anyone is complaining about the price, but how fast it goes up.
Its sort of like gas, its 80 cent a gallon, no big deal, then its 1$ agh, just keeps on raising, then its 1.30, geez, you're killin me! Then its 1.60! Its doubled! Then it'll be 2$, then 3$. Its the whole fact at first its not expensive, its the raising, and continuous raise that'll piss people off at MMRPG's.
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
I am playing a MMORPG that pays me instead of me paying the MMORPG.
Since 5 years I used to be quite active organizing quests and events in games that I had to pay 10$-17$ a month for, plus what I had to pay for the initial box.
Well, I tried out SecondLife. 7-day-free-trial and 10$ one time membership fee, no monthly rates. I just did what I did in other games: have fun, explore, build things and bring people together. After one month I find myself with a surplus of in game currency that I could sell for more than 100$ at GOM - bonuses and such I received for being creative.
Now I wonder what was wrong with all those other game companies...
If you sign up to SecondLife entering "Anshe Chung" as referal adds you to my in game friendslist :-)
Like I said I have no problem with paying to play.
My only problem is the fact that they keep testing the water by increasing the price .
It is always a popular mmorpg that starts the trend.Like EQ when it was increased to $13 a month they knew no one would dump their characters because of an extra $3.I certainly did not.
However did they really need to do that.Back then they claimed to have 300,000 accounts which worked out to $3 million a month.I doubt the bandwitdth ,servers or salaries were eating that much money.I know for a fact that the server GMs were recieving less pay then me(i used to speak a lot with my server GM as he kept unholy hours like me hehe).Which I can tell you is not much at all.And none of them got a rise from the extra $3 a month.Also they sacked most of them and left a few to do general server CSR,that was when the CSR of EQ went downhill.
So really it seems to me it was just co operations getting greedier.
Heh, I respond the same way to all of these posts: They wouldn't be so damn pricey unless there were enough fat americans to buy them.
Face it: Some people scrounge all of their savings just to buy a freaking computer in some countries, let alone internet access, let alone highspeed
Culture shock: The mmorpg craze is about to hit the US(I am sorry but anything less than 5% of the total population playing is not siginificant), what do you expect?
Big titles are coming out with big products, labels will milk those initial customers for all they are worth: Remember Jurassic Park 2? I actually saw it in the theater when I was 14 yrs old. Was utter crap, but had an awesome turnout because of it's predecessor's standing.
If you're been watching the news delta inflation is >= 0 , don't expect prices to go down much more than they already have, I am expecting average to be 12 +/- 3, I'm not an economist so my rather paltry statistically induced conclusion is probably way off the mark.
"That's not a toy. Hey wait a minute. Don't f* around homey you can lose an eye with it. That's mah double-blade-razorwhip-chop-jimmy and it's mine mf*er so gimme gimme." -ICP Toy Box Riddle Box
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
I don't think games are being over priced. They're focused on a particular group that will pay them - aka the cheaper games are usually for a younger crowd, and the more expensive games are (hopefully) drawing in a more mature, older crowd. However, it usually doesn't turn out that way. But like people have said, they only put them at prices that people will pay for them.
Comments
heh it is irrelevant if you think it doesnt matter or if there is a post on it everyday. It is a legit issue.
Whats the cieling for monthly MMORPG cost ? and when its reached will the playerbase hold the devs to a higher standard ? will we tolerate devs like Funcom and Artifact entertainment and their early crappy performance ??
Right now imo there isn't much different between $12.95 a month and $14.95 a month. But yes I do agree if you dont like it dont have to pay the cost.
imo I think LIneage II isnt worth the $15.00 a month but a lot of people do.
I am waiting to see what EQ2 and WoW costs are going to be. Should be an interesting next 6 to 8 months for the MMORPG industry.
It IS relevant. All he had to do was look a little and he could have joined a debate already in progress. but instead, he starts up a fresh one, so the same arguments get thrown out over and over. Like watching reruns on TV.
I agree. Going to be very interesting. My guess is they all go for $14.95. Each afraid to be the first to go higher. Some poeple can pay whatever it takes, and some have limits. It will be up to the devs to find the price break.
I am still not getting the complaints. If you are used to getting everything you want, then surely $15 a month isn't too much. If $15 a month is too steep, then you should be able to deal with settling for less. You know, I would love to have a Hummer, but what is up with that insane price? Heck, it doesn't use that much more steel than the minivan I have, why can't they sell them for 10k? But they don't. They sell them far beyond my price range so I just settle for what I can afford.
Bottom line, if $15 a month is too much for you, play a cheaper game. There are a ton of them out there for $13 a month. There are some for less. There is even a list on this board here of games that don't charge anything to play, and Guild Wars is promising no monthly fees. Unless you are wealthy (and even if you are), you won't be able to afford everything you want in life. Get used to it and settle for whatever is in your price range (or expand your income so you don't have to settle).
Consider this. Turbine Games recently acquired $18,000,000 to develop Dungeons and Dragons Online. Will they invest that much revenue into developing the very best game they can? You bet your butt they will. The cost of developing these "Totally Awesome" games can be compared to anything else in the entertainment industry. Hollywood dumps millions of dollars into Movies just to watch them fail or succeed. What determines this is the return they see on their investment. Now, back to Turbine Entertainment.
Lets say they manage to get 100,000 subscribers after release. The game costs $50 at release, and they charge $15 a month to play. 100,000 x 15 = $1,500,000 plus the cost of the game itself, or 100,000 x $50 = $5,000,000. So, they have made $6,500,000 in the first month. By the end of the first year, they will have made (100,000 x 15) 12 + (100,000 x 50) = $23,000,000.
Ok, so they made their money back in the first year. They even managed to make a $5,000,000 profit. Seems like a huge amount of money doesn't it? Now consider they must maintain the servers, hire people to do that, (NT and IT specialists make some damn good money these days). Even if you co-locate all your servers in one spot, you still need to hire 4 to 5 technicians to cover the servers 24/7. Then factor in all those people that answer the phones when those infuriated subscribers call to complain about the lack of customer service. Oh yeah! Don't forget about the designers and developers who are still on the payroll to create new content and expansions so the game will continue to be competitive in today's extremely crowded MMORPG market. Basically, the $5,000,000 they made off their initial investment of $18,000,000 won't even begin to pay the bills. For most of these games to make the cut, they must survive with a high number of subscribers well into their second or third year. Because these Game developers don't just create one game, release it, then sit back and scoop in the bucks. They are hard at work for the next generation games we all demand. This takes revenue.
I grumble about the cost the same as eveyone else. Hell, I'm a dad with four kids, one on her way to college. I bitch about the cost of a Big Mac at lunch time. But in the big scheme of things, that $15 a month employs a crap load of people, who in turn spend their money on things and that mysterious monster we call the economy keeps grinding on. Its business ladies and gentlemen. And the name of the game is make a profit or perish. Be happy we have the developers to give us our monthly fix.
Game Over
Grym Goblinsbane
(My son speaking to his Japanese Grandmother) " Sorry Obaba, I don't speak Japanese, I only speak human."
Actually I've been quoted higher than 20%, but it could just be your struggling war economy, so your mileage may vary.
I had posted this earlier but I guess it got eaten. Suffice it to say that if you really wanna treat your money like it's nothing, by all means do so. Just remember the next time your fill up at the pump because the price is lower that day, when I retire, I'll have money coming out the wazoo, while you might be scrounging up money to buy tutors for your kids so they don't become another casualty of a school system where half the high school kids struggle to read.
A good portion of people who play MMOs don't have a readily available source of income on their own, easily making the monthly fee the most important selling point for them.
With SWG at 15/month and now CoH and (I've heard) Lineage 2 also there, it's possible for that to become the expected/acceptable standard fee. Will it continue to rise?
One bright point in this topic is a game called Guild Wars, made by some former Blizzard people. They've actually gone out of their way to make the game such that there will be NO monthly fee. As long as the game's reasonably entertaining, it could easily become the haven for those people for whom price is a major point. Atleast someone's got some sense out there.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
*A game does not rule all other games...espcially if it hasn't been released yet.*
*A game does not rule all other games...espcially if it hasn't been released yet.*
63 str, 63 atk, 63 def, 63 hits, Combat 77, 940 skill total.
-insert sig-
Jesus, too pricy?! COME ON PEOPLE DON'T YOU HAVE JOBS?! I WORK AT CHICK-FIL-A FOR CHRIST'S SAKE AND I HAVE MORE THAN ENOUGH!!!!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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again my answer is RUNESCAPE SUCKS... it may only be like $5 a month but thats still too damn much for a piece of crap like that... oh and even with these updates it still has the LEAST amount of content then any game i've ever seen...
okay lets take a look at what we got here shall we?...
a horribly flawed PvP system where the person with the highest str and lowest def almost always win, leaving stats like magic and def practically useless...
crappiest graphics i have ever seen in an MMORPG that isnt text based... oh and anybody who says graphics doesnt matter are lying... no matter who u are, u would rather play something with good graphics then something with crappy graphic...
the grind in this game is the worst i have ever seen... even with the 15+ skills/stats the game does have, i still find myself bored with absolutly NOTHING to do... training ur fighting skills requires you to fight the same monsters who even respawn in the same tile every single time for hours and hours and even days just to get that 1 extra stat point...
the smallest (and leat detailed) world i have ever seen in an MMORPG... EVEN if ur a pay player...
non-existant GM's... seriously theres no GM's... none... actually i saw one ONCE, but i had to e-mail him 3 hours in advance to get any help out of him...
even with the fatigue system, the highest skill/stat persons are always those who macro... u know why? because nobody in their right mind would sit there for days on end, clicking... clicking... clicking... just to get 1 stat point...
horrid economy... honestly the worst economy i've ever seen... no bullshit... its insanely flawed... and u wanna know what the funny thing is?... it was pretty much ruined by 1 single player (musashi)... a game where 1 player can single handedly ruin the economy... ohh sounds like fun...
no sfx/music unless ur on RS2 in which case i could do better on my friends MIDI keyboard...
horrible movement... not only is it PnC, but its a sad excuse for PnC...
the community is (whether u wanna admit it or not) mostly just 12 year old immature MMORPG noobies... never before have i seen such a horrid community...
horrid combat system... u hit random numbers... how sad is that... attack is how often u hit (a.k.a not hit a 0), defense is how often u dodge (affected by other's attack... a.k.a how many times u get 0's hit on u)... str is the max amount u can hit... for instance with about 65 str and a rune 2 hander u will hit anywhere between 1-19 (example)... so bassically if ur having a REALLY unlucky day, sum1 half ur level could whomp ya...
bah i cant even talk about this crap anymore... its giving me a headache just thinking about it...
--------------------------------------
The best way to find out if mmorpg's now days are cheap or not is ask a old school text based mud player what there bills used to be
You will soon see how much cheaper mmorpg's are now days
, i know a few ppl who would be classed as casual gamers who could clock up a $500 a month bill and i know ppl who used o clock up $2000 + a month bills(god knows how they paid them)
Over the course of a year including addons it might seem like a big bill now days but also look at the money you saved on not buying as many new games because your still busy with your mmorpg, I used to buy at least one game a week before i descovered EQ then i went nearly 3 years without buying a single game because EQ supplyed me with all the fun i needed.
Sure, 15$ a month aint that much, thats true, and a 1 dollar raise every one and awhile isnt that much either. But, it adds up, and I dont think anyone is complaining about the price, but how fast it goes up.
Its sort of like gas, its 80 cent a gallon, no big deal, then its 1$ agh, just keeps on raising, then its 1.30, geez, you're killin me! Then its 1.60! Its doubled! Then it'll be 2$, then 3$. Its the whole fact at first its not expensive, its the raising, and continuous raise that'll piss people off at MMRPG's.
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
I am playing a MMORPG that pays me instead of me paying the MMORPG.
Since 5 years I used to be quite active organizing quests and events in games that I had to pay 10$-17$ a month for, plus what I had to pay for the initial box.
Well, I tried out SecondLife. 7-day-free-trial and 10$ one time membership fee, no monthly rates. I just did what I did in other games: have fun, explore, build things and bring people together. After one month I find myself with a surplus of in game currency that I could sell for more than 100$ at GOM - bonuses and such I received for being creative.
Now I wonder what was wrong with all those other game companies...
If you sign up to SecondLife entering "Anshe Chung" as referal adds you to my in game friendslist :-)
Like I said I have no problem with paying to play.
My only problem is the fact that they keep testing the water by increasing the price .
It is always a popular mmorpg that starts the trend.Like EQ when it was increased to $13 a month they knew no one would dump their characters because of an extra $3.I certainly did not.
However did they really need to do that.Back then they claimed to have 300,000 accounts which worked out to $3 million a month.I doubt the bandwitdth ,servers or salaries were eating that much money.I know for a fact that the server GMs were recieving less pay then me(i used to speak a lot with my server GM as he kept unholy hours like me hehe).Which I can tell you is not much at all.And none of them got a rise from the extra $3 a month.Also they sacked most of them and left a few to do general server CSR,that was when the CSR of EQ went downhill.
So really it seems to me it was just co operations getting greedier.
Heh, I respond the same way to all of these posts: They wouldn't be so damn pricey unless there were enough fat americans to buy them.
Face it: Some people scrounge all of their savings just to buy a freaking computer in some countries, let alone internet access, let alone highspeed
Culture shock: The mmorpg craze is about to hit the US(I am sorry but anything less than 5% of the total population playing is not siginificant), what do you expect?
Big titles are coming out with big products, labels will milk those initial customers for all they are worth: Remember Jurassic Park 2? I actually saw it in the theater when I was 14 yrs old. Was utter crap, but had an awesome turnout because of it's predecessor's standing.
If you're been watching the news delta inflation is >= 0 , don't expect prices to go down much more than they already have, I am expecting average to be 12 +/- 3, I'm not an economist so my rather paltry statistically induced conclusion is probably way off the mark.
"That's not a toy. Hey wait a minute. Don't f* around homey you can lose an eye with it. That's mah double-blade-razorwhip-chop-jimmy and it's mine mf*er so gimme gimme."
-ICP
Toy Box
Riddle Box
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.