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Why Are So Many MMO Players Cheap?
ZaineUK
Member Posts: 6
Hi All,
I keep hearing in certain games, $15 a month is steep. It's nothing. it's 2 pints of beer a month. I'll admit over a year it adds up, but i often see people refusing to try a game for 2-3 months because of a $15 sub. If you do like it, where can you get that many hours of enjoyment for $15 a month. Even if you are on benefits it's still not a lot really.
I can understand in certain countries it's going to be more to the player, but in the US, Europe the UK etc it's really not a lot of money to risk on a game you might love.
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Comments
I dont think it's as simple as that, but you ask a good question.
You are right a good portion have entitlement issues, believing the (gaming) world owes them and they should get everything for free , monthly no weekly content updates the size of WoW and all its expantions together.
Then you have people who arent being cheap, but just dont have all that much time to spent in the game.
Then ofcourse people who are more then willing to pay for their entertainment but feel the company is dragging their feet when it comes to fixes, content etc etc.
People who dont mind paying but want to have something to show for it (fluff)
Finally the people who just like the game, it just turned out to be free, they end up spending money left and right on occassion, just when it Sparks their interest.
Bottom line is, it isnt as cut and dry as saying why are people cheap,
This guy is partially right, Def. Entitlement issues.To me it seems related to age.
In my age group no one seems to have a problem paying their way. In my little sisters age group (12 years difference) it seems that some things must not only be free, they must flatter her and amuse her with shiny's and flashiness. She tried working once and didnt like people telling her what to do. She had children and lived on welfare ever since thinking the world owes her everything for just being alive. Her friends all think the same way. Then there is my nephew who will only steal things - but he is a teenager and having no income ever does indeed skew ones persepective on the value of everything, including entertainment.
You pretty much covered all the bases here. I tend to agree that a lot of it has to do with entitlement issues. However, you can only blame the people for that so much. I can't help but partially blame the f2p movement. What a concept. Don't get me wrong. PWI and so on figured out how to nickle and dime people like never before, and it lets the leechers leech. The people that do spend money in those games, tend to spend way more than they would if they were playing a subscription game. Which is why I believe you're starting to hear the calling (from some) for this type of model.
Im not disagreeing with you here, though people have Always complained about having to pay a subscription. Companies like PWI for instance played in on this market and came with all kinds of carrots on a stick to entice people to spent money.
So on 1 side companies listened and played in on the people who wanted sub-free games and on the other side it does feed entitlement issues. Then again entitlement issues are a current nowadays, unfortunately it isnt isolated to gamin.
With or without f2p and cashshops, entitlement issues would have been an issue
I can get the same amount of entertainment for free(GW2).
That's why I wont' pay more. Those sub game isn't necessary better than those F2P game.
My favorite game isn't even a subscription game. It's a F2P game called Atlantica Online.
People are cheap because shortterm gain always wins against longterm thinking. It's just human nature.
Obviously, if more and more people don't pay (and even produce costs in this case), the market size shrinks, profits get lower, budgets become smaller, and we get crappier games.
In a way, the term "you get what you pay for " applies here too, just on a non personal bigger scale.
You always pay, the question is just if with money or with the quality of the games.
That's simply not true. UO players, EQ players , DAoC player and most MMO players of the 1st few generations did not mind paying a subscription. Nobody complained at all.
I know cause I was there.
But I think the reasons are more varied and complicated than a lot of people are admitting
I think the biggest reason is how much bigger the computer/internet market has become. In late 1997, when UO came out most people did not own a home computer(37% own comps) and many who did not have internet access. In 1997, only 18% of US households had internet access. Computers with internet access was a luxury. People who could afford such a luxury didn't mind paying subscription fees because they could. By 2000, 41% of households had gained internet access. That number continued to skyrocket and computer uses in homes spread across economic borders around the world. Feel free to review the 1997-2000 census numbers and see how broadly across economic/race/class borders computer use spread during that time. These numbers continued expanding into the 2000's at an amazing rate. When Wow came out the computer market still paled in comparison recent years.
So computers went from luxury items to everyday items. The new customers were more stingy with their coin and companies were forced to come up with alternate ways to extract money. Luxury items that become everyday items always go through this transformation. Its no different that what happened in the cell phone industry and even the auto industry.
I was there too and yes people still did complain. It was not even close to what you get today but people complained.
You also had far fewer willing to even touch subscriptions at all, even if they had internet access. There was a much more black and white divide between MMO gamer and gamer.
Currently playing: Eldevin Online as a Deadly Assassin
It all seems to boil down to the fact that many people object to the fact that they are "forced" to pay a subscription, whereas with an F2P game they have the illusion that they will play for free.
The average player most likely spends more in their F2P games than they would do in a sub game, but because the spending is random and likely not recorded in detail, it's easy to rationalize each individual purchase at the time that it's made. It's far, far easier to justify spending $1 or $2 per purchase (even when that happens every day), than rationalizing away an upfront $15 fixed monthly payment.
And besides, very few people will volunteer to pay for something if there is the possibility that they could get it for free...
Sadly it is true, the market was smaller, so the people who complained (and played) where rare. I know for a fact I had a heck of a time to get RL friends to play a mmo, subscription being one of the bigger reason to pick it up.
People have Always complaint about pretty much anything.
Because we have not had an original game in 11 years full stop.
Paying 15 bucks for the same re heated dogshit for a decade is steep.
Many may not be aware of how much pain there is in many economies around the world . That pain is quite significant.
Inflation is raging...unemployment is at near record high levels in many places....wage increases are stagnant etc etc
Many are watching all of their spending and managing it carefully.
Gaming and the costs associated with it is discretionary spending,. All spending .....especially discretionary spending is carefully scrutinized.
I think the gaming industry has deservedly earned a reputation of over promising and under delivering.
Hopping mmos Constantly, like a large chunk of current mmo players seems to do now, gets expensive with box price plus sub fees, especially when you consider they don't stick around long enough to see the content updates those subs (allegedly) help pay for.
Obviously people who treat an mmo like any other game, where you play it a few months, at most, and then move on, think Subs are too expensive. No other games require a sub for what is, to them, the same short term experience.
I actually paid 60$ for a bunch of mmorpg, but never given it more than a few hours.
And there's too many talks about the 1st generation mmorpg. There is no competition back. That's why no one is complaining.
I think it is a variety of reasons.
First, I would like to state I was 9yrs old when I began playing MMO's. Obviously, I did not have a job, but my parents would pay for my subscription if I did extra chores. Or I would go mow lawns or fortunately for me I went to a rich school with spoiled kids who brought like $50 a day to school for lunch, so I opened up my own shop at my lunch table making more money than I do now...
The problem is today the kids refuse to work for their money. They are lazy and many people allow them to be lazy with excuses such as they need to wear knee pads, elbow pads, goggles, steel toe boots, 95SPF sunscreen, a sombrero, etc. for it to be safe for them to mow the lawn.
Then you add in the fact that they never had to work for something to earn it... as you can see all over. Just in gaming alone you can see a lot of them will have their parents pay for them or they can go to a free to play game. Or you can also see this because it would be wrong and demeaning if a kid who fails a class receives a failing grade, it would just devastate them... so they really do not have any pride in earning anything.
To sum it up, many children are spoiled. As children they expect everything handed to them. As adults they now expect the same thing... and in many cases they still get the same thing.
Pardon me, but when the first MMO's released the market didn't consist of tens of millions of gamers playing MMO's. Barely anyone new what an MMORPG was, and the ones that did and didn't mind paying a subscription were the ones paying the subscriptions.
Then along came another MMO that introduced tens of millions of people to MMORPG's.
Then along came other games that showed you didn't have to charge a subscription to play a game.
I love how people who prefer free to play are "cheap" and "entitled".
What do you call the person that looks down his nose at someone? What are those of you that insist on the name calling and being derogatory?
There's a label that can be applied to you lot, that would be a whole lot more accurate than calling everyone who doesn't want to pay a subscription every month to play a game cheap or entitled. You're simply guessing when it comes the other group of people, your actions on the other hand show clearly what sort of individuals you are.
I have good friends that make ridiculous sums of money and don't hesitate to spend it on others, but think it's beyond silly to pay a subscription to play a game. On the other hand, I pay subs to two MMO's.
Because there are so much better free games out there
P2P doesn't equal better than F2P, and the history has proven that
As a employer and parent I have to disagree. The current generation work a lot harder than I or my friends did when we were at school or at work. When my kids come home from school, they have a bite to eat then sit at the table and do two hours of homework every week day and they also do a few hours at the weekend. I would of baulked at that at their age and it's almost a relief when they do complain and moan about it. But they have been brought up in a culture that tells them they have little choice. If they want to have the freedom to choose what they want to do with their lives, they have to work hard.
Same can be said for anyone that I have employed. Even when I advertise a job that's not particularly good, 90% of the kids that turn up for the interview are well dressed and are fully prepared for the interview. In fact, the generation that I have the biggest problem with are the 30 - 50 age bracket.
Anyway, the fact that so many people are unwilling to pay for a subscription may be simply down to economics. Money is still tight and wages haven't risen along the lines of inflation. I would also point out that the internet has also cultivated the idea of "all digital content should be fee".
So what do you call the group of friends that make copious amounts of money, but don't think it's right to support a game they enjoy?
First of all i believe that game sub is by far the cheapest entertainment.You pay 10E for 2 hours on movies.
But the sub model needs to get fixed for people that dont have the time.If you buy 30 days of sub and u are able to play in a month 8 times then you lost 22 days.
Imo it should be 30 days access and every day you login it just removes 1 day.
QFT; I'm currently playing a P2P title but to be honest I only feel like playing it about 2-3 times a month- realistically I'd be better off with a F2P. If I played as ravenously as I did back in the EQ1 days (4-6 hours daily) then P2P would absolutely be worth it.