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Expensive games...
Lord.Bachus
Member RarePosts: 9,686
MMOs are probably the most expensive and timeconsuming games to produce.
There are 4 major ways of making money.
- Money you make from selling boxes, expansions, and extra content.
- Money you make from subscriptions.
- Money you make selling ingame items.
- Money you make fromselling Game merchandising, Tshirts, collector cards and such (not yet much in use)
Currently Developers are trying to make constructions so the customer has to pay for all 4 of them. And thats just plane old stupid.
They should all just make a choice for one of the first 3 options. And add number 4 for the extra money. But they cant, even F2P games like Lotro, and EQ2 charge you big money for expansions. On top of that they try to pursuade you to pay a sub (which is actually a requirement for having a good game experience) and then people spend a lot of money in the item stores.
But these products are not so expensive to warrant for the current way they try to pull customers as much money out of their pockets. I used to buy any big MMO when it came out to try it, but nowerdays, i hold off most of the time, $50 and a subscription is jut to much money knowing that in less then a year the game might go free to play.
So either way, i hope they realise that either way, they let people pay for the content. OR they let people pay for playing the game (sub). Or people might not buy those game anymore, untill they finally have gone free to play. I just quit LOTRO again because they try to pull another lumpsum of money from me, while i am allready subbed to the game.
The whole MMO market needs to re evaluate their pricing pollicy, because these games are not so expensive that they can treat loyal custmoers like this.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Comments
True, but not to the extent they want you to believe.
Like I've been saying all night, in many other threads flooding the forums about "this financial method vs that one", they are milking MMO players for everything they can because this genre has become the way they pay for all their other games in development.
How many companies have only one game, vs those that are already making another by the time the first one launches?
Should state everything about the nature of this.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Agreed.
Schemes like freemium - CS + "not-so-optional" sub + paid expansion is ridiculous
Sub + cash shop is crazy bad as well
Kinda push me away from mmos tbh.
First off, if you give people a choice, they will choose the cheapest option that makes sense for them. I still don't have unlimited texts on my cell phone plan; I pay per message. This is the cheapest for me, because I only send/receive 5-10 texts per month. If my carrier didn't give me that option, I'd be paying more. The option that they gave me means they get less money.
By the way, this is why you don't see MMOs adopt a "pay per day" payment plan, where you pay like $1 for every day that you log in. There are a lot of people who are WILLING to pay the $15/mo charge, but would rather just pay $8 to play weekends, since that's the only time they play. If an MMO adopted this payment model, they would just be freely handing money back to all those people, since they were willing to pay the higher price all along.
Speaking of options, I can't understand how someone could play a F2P game and honestly say "I have the option to pay money for an expansion or some cosmetic items or some XP-boost scrolls... this sucks!" It's an option. Options are always beneficial. If they said "Okay here's F2P LotRO, and you're not allowed to buy a sub or expansions or item mall stuff", that would be strictly worse. The game they have now is strictly better because it's the same thing but also gives additional options for the benefit of people who want them.
No need to reevaluate at all; people keeping forking over their money. Why would anything change?
I agree 100%, it is rediculous how much they charge for all their content + subs + expansions...
/hears about flying sparkle ponies.
"Shut up and take my money!!"
Taru-Gallante-Blood elf-Elysean-Kelari-Crime Fighting-Imperial Agent
I am not giving people a choice, i am giving game developers a choice....
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)