MMORPG monthly fees

Deadaye13

I'm helping develop a new game so I need input from the community.  What should my monthly fee be?

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All Your Base Are Belong To Us

bsherlock

Is it good? is it average? or is it s**t?

Nobody is going to be able to cast a sensible vote with no info.

You gotta judge how good your game is and charge however much you think it is worth.

Elite Member - MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA

_belial

well that's not as simple as asking how much you'd pay really, depends entirely on the game imho, lag, support etc.

I'm more than willing to pay $14 for a game that I enjoy, which has good support and servers are mainteined well. But i'm less willing to pay that much for a game which isn't really that good so i end up playin git perhaps a couple of times a month with non-existant support.

So i've not voted i'm afraid, but my max would be $14.99 (SWG)

// Carl

Currently Playing : anything to keep me occupied until EQ2 comes out

Mikew14

What should it be? Well as a customer i would say less then 10, as little as possible. However, this isnt a question you can ask the community. You need to calculate this cost yourself to make sure you don't end up in the negative by charging too little or by ripping off customers (or turning them off) by charging too much.

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Shagsbeard

Price is really not that big a deal with most who play these games.  People are playing DAoC with 2-5 accounts quite regularly.  That could easily be $50/month.  Guildwars is coming out with no monthly fee at all, planning to make their income on purchaced expansions.  There's all sorts of variables.  I'd say most players are happy to try a game out that is in the $10/month range, but are hesitant to commit to one with a much higher price tag.  I quit DAoC rather than buy multiple accounts just to enjoy the game... I'm sure there are others.  You will have to base your pricing on far more than the input of this forum though.  Are you running it out of your basement or do you have two floors of a major office building in overhead?  Is there a team of developers with families to feed or are you the only person who needs to profit from it?  Way too vague of a question to get any type of response.

imasig

If you have a lot of devs constantly working on ironing out the bugs, balancing the game, and introducing fresh new content through patches I would be willing to pay up to 17 or 18 a month.  But if you're going to release the game and say this is what you got then you probably wont keep me past the free trial.

alsodavo

It is not really the price but the inflationary trend that bothers me.  EQ started out charging $10 per month and EQ II will likely be $15 per month.  If other things we purchased went up at this rate of inflation it would be disastrous.  I haven't a clue how profitable these things are but judging from the number of new titles it looks like they are money makers.  It also looks like greed driving whatever the market will bear.

bsherlock

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Originally posted by alsodavo
It is not really the price but the inflationary trend that bothers me.  EQ started out charging $10 per month and EQ II will likely be $15 per month.  If other things we purchased went up at this rate of inflation it would be disastrous.  I haven't a clue how profitable these things are but judging from the number of new titles it looks like they are money makers.  It also looks like greed driving whatever the market will bear.

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I have got to stick up for the manufacturers on this one.

When EQ and UO came out this was a new and untapped market. They based their pricing on estimations, and realised that the market was much bigger than they had thought.

This in itself would normally lead to a price rise.

On top of this you have the game playing community (us) comstantly moaning about wanting this and that and games not being good enough. Th cost to develop these games is HUGE, and they have large monthly bills to keep the game up and running. never mind updates and patches etc.

You have to realise that a single player game is about $50, and last for a month or so. An MMORPG which is updated each month is just like 2 single player games and they could well end up charging us $50 a month.

I dont think they will obviously go this high, but if you think about it they could justify it.

Especially considering the turn around these days, because the times when a game could keep you hooked for years are gone. They will return again someday, but not until there is a radical change in the thinking behind the genre. And that costs money.

Elite Member - MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Grunty

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Originally posted by Deadaye13
I'm helping develop a new game so I need input from the community. What should my monthly fee be? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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That depends on how good you are. But you can get a better paying job down at the 7-11 on the corner. And you don't even have to be very good. But it pays a hella lot more than $15.00 a month!

--
"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
Thomas Jefferson

hercules

I used to post on some mmorpg forum from 2002 till early 2003 when i discovered this site.

It was filled with people coming in and "recruiting" people to help make games.Of course many people on those sites were folks that could barely pass high school.

Now there was this particular guy that claimed to have gotten like 10 more from the forum to help with making a mmorpg.

After 3 months he came to say he got a site now going for the game.Honestly it was a horribly desgined site and the artwork for the game looked like it was my little neice of 4 drawing a picture of a everquest rip off iskar.

Even the info on the game contradicted it self from page to page.Now supposely they finish this game would i pay even 1 cent to play?no way!

So yes i agree bring a descent game out and you will have people willing to pay $15 a month easy.Bring a junk game and no one but the "i need a free mmorpg" spammers would play it.

cromedog

I hate the fact that you have to pay a monthly fee to play any of the decent mmorpgs. I can see the reasoning behind it, they have to manage the online world and that takes time, and time is money. I guess if it keeps people from cheating on the game, a small fee would be worh it. The less the better.

alsodavo

bsherlock,

Of course it is true the more players, the more costs incurred but it is also true the more profit.  That seems like a very simplistic concept.  Generally I didn't find any of your other arguments very persuasive.  In fact the only argument I would find persuasive is a profit and loss statement.

Rammur

Most the game companys dont make games like they use too they are greedy and just want the cash like sony for example sony gotta be the greediest of all.

darkman

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Originally posted by Deadaye13
I'm helping develop a new game so I need input from the community.  What should my monthly fee be? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------All Your Base Are Belong To Us

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You are going to have to be more specific about this game for us to vote. What kind of graphics, how much content, what about bandwith and server issues, is your team very big? we need more info.

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