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POLL: Would you rather pay monthly for a game, or every 6 months or so buy an expansion in stores?
darkman
Member UncommonPosts: 767
Yes, hello everyone, well this topic basically spawned off of a discussion me and admin were having on another topic regarding popularity and the way companies make their games available, I personally think that MMORPG's would attract much more people if companies would cut off the monthly fee and just make it so every 6 months or whatever they would do you buy an expansion for some odd number of money in the store, in addition to of course the original game. So having said that, let's run a poll!
Comments
I would rather buy an expansion. That way, if I chose not to get one, I wouldn't have to pay any money. Also, as one of you said in the other thread, you can quit playing for a while and come back...
I can see that companies would rather have the monthly fee though, then they KNOW how much money they are going to get each month. A company with an expansion release can not be sure how many will sell. They could have a good idea, but it is highly possible it could do worse than expected and hurt them. Also, if they release an expansion that does not sell well, what can they do to recoup the amount they hoped to get? Quickly release another expansion? Or possibly try to make a change to the game that almost forces players to buy the expansion. It may even cause the developers to ruin the game to convince players to buy it.
For example, they release an expansion, it does not sell well, so they put in a patch that adds an uber weapon that everyone will want, but you need the expansion. The uber weapon ends up being something that makes the game dumb in the long run, which in turn hurts the game for the future... Does this make sense? I am sure it is a worse case scenario, but it could happen... Or they add uber skills for each class in an expansion, trying to force players to buy the expansion, but ruining the old content in the meantime because the uber skill makes defeating the older content too easy...
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Being as Guild Wars is one of the first big name MMORPG to incorporate a no monthly fee, yea it does sound a lot like Guild Wars doesn't it?
Yes I see your point Tasky, I mean developers might need to look at a worst case scenario and think that it might be better to get monthly fees, but the way I see it, if the game is known enough, we are talking an exponential increase in players versus what you would have before with a monthly fee. So the original selling of the game would back you up enough, and hopefully your decisions in the future will be good and not bad. It's a risk, but hey, creating the game is risk enough, so I think that this option is a risk that is worth it, better for the customer, and in the end more money for the company.
Expansions are totally different than patches and updates. Even if a game did expansions every 6 months (which I don't see as being feasible), they still have to do updates and patches. There is some revenue from monthly fees, but the majority of the monthly fees goes to services, such as server-hosting and customer support. Just because a company might release expansions, that has nothing to do with what monthly fees are for. So, it doesn't matter what anyone would rather pay.
[Edit:] I know someone mentioned Guild Wars. The way they are doing it is similar to the Diablo and Warcraft games. Hosting and customer service might not be as costly. Yet, they knew that monthly fees is what is hurting MMORPGs in general. I'll be keeping an eye on them. And their streaming content technology might stop all the painful patching and updating. They may be on to something.
Yeah, I really didn't understand this topic. So, I just voted Montly Fee because you get more from the game that way. ( or should )
It takes lots of super computers to host MMORPGs. I'm talking Dual-Motherboard w/ Dual AMD-64s and 5-10gb RAM and lots of them.
Not to mention 4GB++ Bandwidth wich runs in the $10,000/mo range.
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I play Shattered Galaxy which is pay per month, and has free patches every few months or weeks, I pay monthly for it, or you can play for 100% free unlimited time
so I said pay monthly
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Buying an expansion every 6 months isnt going to make the company any money.
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*Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author... got sick of holding backspace.
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ParaTrooper, That guy that used to mod the MMORPG.com forums.
Ok ok REVISED:
To those that think by just buying expansions, companies will not make enough revenue, allow me to give a certain economical perspective.
Let's say for instance we are comparing Guild Wars and Everquest.
Now, we will say Everquest has I dunno, 400,000 subscribers as a reference point.
now I don't remember the fee of EQ, but say suppose that fee is $11.95 a month.
400,000 x $11.95 = 4,780,000. x 12 would be off the top of my head somewhere in the 55 million range?
400,00 x $100 (say that is the amount the game = after buying all the expansions) = 40,000,000
Total money: 95,000,000
So per year: 40,780,000 + more for new buyers and what not.
Guild Wars:
many more people are going to buy the game, why? No monthly fee.
So say suppose we have 700,000 people buying the game.
700,000 x 50.00 = 35,000,000 for the first year.
now, say suppose they release 2 expansions every year.
that's 70 million a year, now from a perspective, it seems that it may not work, but in actuality, it does.
Look at it, I mean let's face it, more people would rather buy a game off the shelf than pay monthly for the game, and the majority of those epeople being teens or pre-teens, but let's not discriminate, I'm sure others too. So once we make it so there is no monthly fee, you are bound to have more paying customers of the game, which makes it only better.
I'm not saying that those are official numbers, nor will this turn out to be this way, I'm just floating out random numbers, because if Guild Wars say get's enough popularity, you can expect those kind of numbers.
Ok let's hope those numbers work :P.
I voted for the expansion packs every 6 months. I rather go to the store pay 50 bucks for a game each 6 months (dont even care about 3 months if its a good game) than pay monthly fees. I think with bringing out enough expansion packs the devs could cover server and customer support and even make some revenue. It might even be smart to create one server for none expansion packs and the rest for the newest edition to MAKE people buy the expansion pack. Or even make it necessary to play the game. So they know they get the money. Even if they do that, i still think more people will be playing the game ( if its real good off course).
So definately no monthly fees but expansion packs. More people will play = more money + money from expansion packs...
Darkman, your numbers don't work...
First, more than 400,000 people have purchased EQ. I am sure millions of people have purchased it, not just the 400,000 people who are currently playing. Also, EQ is guaranteed the 400,000 monthly fees unless somebody outright quits.
Guild Wars on the other hand will have a model that allows people to not buy expansions. They have no way of knowing how many will sell. If an expansion comes out that favors 30th + level characters (which many EQ expansions have done) and there are poeple who are enjoying the low level aspect of the game, then they will not purchase the expansion. If an expansion comes out that has features people don't want, they won't buy it. I think the expansion only route is definitely risky... Also, another risk is, if the expansion does not expand the game by huge amounts, and they try to get $30 for it, I can see people getting turned off and quitting.
Another issue for expansions is, what is Guild Wars going to do 8 months from now when the game is on the $19.99 shelf? The initial sale just won't be pulling in much money, and if the people paid $19.99 for the game, what is the chances they are going to go buy the 2 or 3 expansions at $30 or $40 each? They won't, they will play and use resources with the boxed set they bought for $20.
I am not saying it won't work, and it probably will, I am just saying that from a developers points of view, monthly is better. With expansions, there is no guarantees, the developer can't be sure. The ruins of Kunark expansion is what made me quit EQ. It was what finally pushed me over the edge to quit.
I hope it works, because payment model aside, the game sounds like it is going to be fun.
Well I voted that it doesn't matter to me as long as the game is good.
However I think I really prefer games with a monthly fee, because in my experience games with a monthly fee have better communities then free games. Monthly fees help to keep the community greifers at bay a bit.
It seems like a lot of times in games without monthly fees if someone decides they don't like the game they still hang around and trash it. When games have a monthly fee, people move on faster if they don't like the game and the over all atmosphere of the community is better for it.
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I can't believe I'm the only one who caught that.
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Wow, I never even realized that Snakey XD.
Yes I know my numbers don't work as millions have bought the game, but what I'm trying to throw out is that for those big name companies, they can still release games free of monthly fees and as long as they release expansions they can make enough profit. Though for smaller known companies, I don't see it possible for them to not use a monthly fee, then in which I would see it understandable.
I think I made a mistake with the guild wars thing to, 50 * 700,000 would be 35 million, whoops! But since I made a mistake both times around, it shows the same effect don't it? :P.
And whoever posted about guild wars and streaming content, they announced that they will release an expansion every 6-9 months, just look at the offical site's FAQ. (www.guildwars.com)
What I'm trying to say is think of it from a perspective, if say EQ only gets like 10,000 new customers a year, then multiply 10,000 x 100 and you get a 1,000,000 (check that for me XD), then add lets say 10,000 x 120 for yearly fees, so that's what, 1.2million in monthly fees. then add that on to the original number, and you get like I dunno, 50 million or what not in yearly fees. Well, that may be higher than guild war's figures, but still, GW is rakeing in like 40 million or so a year, while EQ is raking in like 50 million. Still good figures. And if more and more people buy the game, then we will see figures increase.
Yes, I'm sounding really confusing/stupid right about now, oh yea, let me fix up my figures in the original post.
In my post before I revised it it said 100 times 400 thousand was 4 million. But I revised that now.
I also went back to figure out the no monthly fees with Guild Wars and it's pretty simple. Even though you have a persistent character, Guild Wars doesn't have persistent worlds. In your normal MMORPG, a persistent world server has to be up and keeping track of NPCs and players no matter if you have 100 people logged on or 1000 people logged on. That's why they need monthly fees. With Guild wars, they don't have to do this. They will create worlds only when needed for missions or competition between people or guilds. There's also no shards as seen in other MMORPGs. Like I've said before, they figured out what was successful with Battlenet and put it into Arenanet with more of a MMORPG feel to it than what Diablo had. Yet, it's still unlike the MMORPG's that we are used to.
I think the way they are doing it would be an idea way to do a Star Trek MMOG but without the PvP. I might make the Academy and certain outposts as persistent areas just to meet people before going out on missions, but that's it. I'll expand more on this later in Developers Corner (just don't ask when).
Currently not playing any MMOrpg --
Lvl 80 paladin WoW