I agree with the OP: MMOs are complete rip offs. Let's compare the costs of a typical MMO game versus the costs of a game that has a high degree of replayability: Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided $50x2= $100
Jump to Lightspeed $30x2= $60
Rage of the Wookiees $30x2= $60
Subs account 1: 27mox$15= $405
Subs account 2: 24mox$15= $360
________________________________
Total: $885
Compare that with Sim City IV, which I purchased a few months earlier:
Sim City IV: $50
Rush Hour: $30
__________________
Total: $80
Or a game I purchased after SWG: Rome: Total War: $50 Barbarian Invasion: $30 ___________________ Total: $80 These games are just as good to play and as challenging as when I bought them. SWG, however, was changeed against my will into something I don't even know how to play anymore. So I paid ten times the price for my SWG experience as I did for my Sim City IV or Rome: Total War experience, but got less than half of the amount of play value out of SWG, because of the MMO developers need to mess with my software. Value is indeed subjective, but the shelf life of the software is not. MMOs are by their nature short lived, because once the publisher quits supporting the game, the software is useless. I'm sure Tabula Rasa fans or Asheron's Call II fans would love to keep on playing the games they enjoy, but this isn't within their power to decide. Just think about how much money they could save if they found a game they could enjoy for just as long of a time for just the box price? So, in short, MMOs are indeed a ripoff, because you pay a lot more for this version of computer entertainment, and have absolutely no say when or if it will be continually available for your enjoyment. You pay much more, and get much less say over what you get.
Right........... However if you're a "gamer" then youw ill be buying all the other games so the whole it saves you money argument doesn't hold up. If I'm going to be paying a monthly sub then I expect that to include services like character transfers and expansions/content for free. What pisses me off again is when they feel the need to add in micro transactions and in game advertising even though we're paying for all the other stuff.
So really; - One paid subscription where everythign else is free
Or
- Subscription free but make us pay for all the other stuff.
Currently everyones being ripped off because they do all of them at the same time. I also find the argument of having 30 days of entertainment funny because really you don't play each and every day cause not only does that make for a sad life but it's impossible. Also I could play Left 4 Dead for the same amount of time as an mmorpg and I'm not being charged anything and when new content comes out I wont be charged for that too. Yet oh look L4D has given me more value for money than any movie or whatever so :S I think that argument is abit dumb.
I could play The Helicopter game for 30 days and thats free.
I agree, I don't mind paying a monthly subscription but things like xpacks / limited character transfers and such should be free. I will not play a game that has micro transactions or advertising if it also has monthly sub.
The main reason I stopped playing WoW was because I thought that it was no longer value for money and that they were milking it bit more than what is acceptable.
People are saying MMOs last longer than other games, but thats just because they dilute content through level-grind.
Its like going to a bar, paying 15 dollars for a gyn tonic and find that the gyn has been waterd down.
I think people are forgeting about property. Its like the blue rays, you don't buy the disk, you just "rent" the tecnology from sony
Just think about it, you have already paid for the game box, the same amount you could have payed for any single player game, but after the first month you have yo continue paying if you wan't to playing. Why did you have to pay for the box then? Its not like you can continue playing ofline, neither you can start your own server (like with neverwinter)
Also, i remember back then, when WoW was about to be released many people thought that paying monthly for an game was insane. To counter this WoW promised an "evolving" world (it was in the box) in which content would be added on a regular basis, still most of WoW patches have been to adress balance issues, which should have been fixed from the beginning. (for the 1º year there wasn't really new content added and after that, only a camp here and there where added)
It should be worth mentioning LOTRO, which is kinda faithfull to its players and has expanded with many new features that didn't ask for extra money, like housing or being able to dress as you like.
Its funny how in this modern times companies can screw their customers demanding more and more from them and striping them from the rights of owning what they have paid for, and people is still happy to accept the companies terms, instead of rising against them claming that, after all "The customer is always right".
No.. i buy the blu-ray discs then download the movies and burn them myself.. i own them usually just after they hit the big screen
Seriously at $10 a ticket they are asking for it... nay begging for it.
No, you are a criminal, has nothing to do with what they charge for them.
But that's not the topic of this thread so I won't derail it.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
People are saying MMOs last longer than other games, but thats just because they dilute content through level-grind. Its like going to a bar, paying 15 dollars for a gyn tonic and find that the gyn has been waterd down.
I think people are forgeting about property. Its like the blue rays, you don't buy the disk, you just "rent" the tecnology from sony Just think about it, you have already paid for the game box, the same amount you could have payed for any single player game, but after the first month you have yo continue paying if you wan't to playing. Why did you have to pay for the box then? Its not like you can continue playing ofline, neither you can start your own server (like with neverwinter)
Also, i remember back then, when WoW was about to be released many people thought that paying monthly for an game was insane. To counter this WoW promised an "evolving" world (it was in the box) in which content would be added on a regular basis, still most of WoW patches have been to adress balance issues, which should have been fixed from the beginning. (for the 1º year there wasn't really new content added and after that, only a camp here and there where added)
It should be worth mentioning LOTRO, which is kinda faithfull to its players and has expanded with many new features that didn't ask for extra money, like housing or being able to dress as you like.
Its funny how in this modern times companies can screw their customers demanding more and more from them and striping them from the rights of owning what they have paid for, and people is still happy to accept the companies terms, instead of rising against them claming that, after all "The customer is always right".
The MMO subscription fee is just like paying for any other service. The initial box sale is to have access to that service in the first place. Kind of like when you have to buy a cell phone and then later pay a service fee to actually use it. Using your own logic why do I have to keep paying to use my phone? I already payed for the phone but it's useless unless I keep paying them.
MMO's are services and the way I see it you are paying for the service for how it is NOW. You aren't paying for how it was or is going to be. So just like any other service, if I feel unsatisfied with it I can cancel it. It's not like the developers have the costumer by the balls and are forcing them to play their product.
People are saying MMOs last longer than other games, but thats just because they dilute content through level-grind.
Its like going to a bar, paying 15 dollars for a gyn tonic and find that the gyn has been waterd down.
I think people are forgeting about property. Its like the blue rays, you don't buy the disk, you just "rent" the tecnology from sony
Just think about it, you have already paid for the game box, the same amount you could have payed for any single player game, but after the first month you have yo continue paying if you wan't to playing. Why did you have to pay for the box then? Its not like you can continue playing ofline, neither you can start your own server (like with neverwinter)
Also, i remember back then, when WoW was about to be released many people thought that paying monthly for an game was insane. To counter this WoW promised an "evolving" world (it was in the box) in which content would be added on a regular basis, still most of WoW patches have been to adress balance issues, which should have been fixed from the beginning. (for the 1º year there wasn't really new content added and after that, only a camp here and there where added)
It should be worth mentioning LOTRO, which is kinda faithfull to its players and has expanded with many new features that didn't ask for extra money, like housing or being able to dress as you like.
Its funny how in this modern times companies can screw their customers demanding more and more from them and striping them from the rights of owning what they have paid for, and people is still happy to accept the companies terms, instead of rising against them claming that, after all "The customer is always right".
No.. i buy the blu-ray discs then download the movies and burn them myself.. i own them usually just after they hit the big screen
Seriously at $10 a ticket they are asking for it... nay begging for it.
No, you are a criminal, has nothing to do with what they charge for them.
But that's not the topic of this thread so I won't derail it.
What a joke. Torrents are sharing, and I'm allowed to share my payed product to others on however I feel like. You are the criminal that is infringing on my rights as a consumer, good riddance trash.
I agree with the op. When MMORPGs first started you got more bang for your buck.
And to the cost. 15 dollars a month doesnt = 30 days of fun. More than half of the game is grinding to get to the fun. Ever heard of the phrase end game?
About the comparisons to movies and single player games. Well. If you actualy buy a new console game and you dont know if your going to play it more than a few months ur a sheep. Im sorry your a buisnesses wet dream.
Consoles: Always rent Console games unless you know your going to love the game and play it longer than 2 months. Most the console games I have, ive played longer than most mmorpgs. The rest were used games that cost me less than 20 dollars and i played them about a month or longer. So to me current console games are cheaper and last longer than current mmorpgs.
PC games: Mods. Only buy games that you know will have or have a large mod community. If you only get a month out of ur pc games then ur a noob sorry but someone had to tell you.
Movies: This is realy sad. If you think you pay 14 dollars(or more depending on ur area) for the movie then damn son all I can say is ur clueless.
Comon why do you think people pay for concerts when they can buy the CD at home, go to the movies when pay-perview exists, or buy tickets to a play when channel 11(channel 11 is a public access and they have plays and musicals etc..). Or even pay rediculous costs at some fancy resturant.
Atmosphere and more importantly prestige.
I dont pay 14 dollars for a movie. I pay 14 dollars for my wife to feel special; and more importantly to shut her up about going out and doing something.
I agree with the OP: MMOs are complete rip offs. Let's compare the costs of a typical MMO game versus the costs of a game that has a high degree of replayability: Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided $50x2= $100
Jump to Lightspeed $30x2= $60
Rage of the Wookiees $30x2= $60
Subs account 1: 27mox$15= $405
Subs account 2: 24mox$15= $360
________________________________
Total: $885
Compare that with Sim City IV, which I purchased a few months earlier:
Sim City IV: $50
Rush Hour: $30
__________________
Total: $80
Or a game I purchased after SWG: Rome: Total War: $50 Barbarian Invasion: $30 ___________________ Total: $80 These games are just as good to play and as challenging as when I bought them. SWG, however, was changeed against my will into something I don't even know how to play anymore. So I paid ten times the price for my SWG experience as I did for my Sim City IV or Rome: Total War experience, but got less than half of the amount of play value out of SWG, because of the MMO developers need to mess with my software. Value is indeed subjective, but the shelf life of the software is not. MMOs are by their nature short lived, because once the publisher quits supporting the game, the software is useless. I'm sure Tabula Rasa fans or Asheron's Call II fans would love to keep on playing the games they enjoy, but this isn't within their power to decide. Just think about how much money they could save if they found a game they could enjoy for just as long of a time for just the box price? So, in short, MMOs are indeed a ripoff, because you pay a lot more for this version of computer entertainment, and have absolutely no say when or if it will be continually available for your enjoyment. You pay much more, and get much less say over what you get.
Why don't you and the OP quit MMO then?
I never said MMOs weren't fun and not worth playing. I just said MMOs aren't a good value for what you get.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
So, you're saying it costs me like $230 per year to play MMORPG's for an unlimited amount of time? Yep, sounds like a pretty bad deal to me. When will you learn that there isn't an amount of money that Blizzard 'deserves' to earn. (or not earn). They deserve to earn as much as they can milk out of their customer base. If they could double the rates tomorrow and have everyone still pay for it, they would deserve it. Its called free market capitalism and its how our economy works. Now, my game, EVE does not charge me for expansions, so I guess I get a better deal? But that's not why I play, nor would I care if they did charge, its just a nice perc. In fact, if I was so motivated, I could go out and sell time cards for ISK , and spend even more money on this game. Doesn't bother me a bit. MMO's are the best entertainment value out there today, (cost me more to take my wife and son to the movies (40 bucks) last night than almost all 3 of my EVE subs for the month.
Unregulated, free market capitalism is directly responsible for the U.S. mortgage scandal and recent global economic instability. Read about the Great Depression, and you'll get a better understanding perhaps of how capitalism requires monitoring and regulation to avoid exploitation and collapse. Look at the current efforts of world governments to address the problems, and you'll once again see the importance of legislation and regulation to avoid economic implosion due to greed and short-sightedness.
As for MMOs, they started out as a very cool idea I think. What a neat opportunity to live out some kind of fantastic adventure with like-minded others. A great entertainment service to be sure, and one I wouldn't mind paying for.
It seems that there was a lot of good faith in the early days of the genre too. People advertise an entertainment service and charge you a fee to participate. No problem...but wait.
There are a lot of contract law loopholes around things like "virtual property." Companies began drafting User Agreements that essentially say, "we can take your money and provide whatever we want, or nothing, or something that doesn't work, or something on Tuesday but something else on Wednesday." Then they began introducing virtual items for real cash, and tinkering with game mechanics to boost demand for virtual items. Now we have people gambling real cash for chances to win virtual items, that they don't ever actually own even after "winning" them.
It seems to me like a really cool idea, mixed with some opportunistic businessmen, and a lag in regulating a new form of entertainment are adding up to be a real pain in the ass for people just looking to pay a reasonable fee for a reasonably entertaining experience. Ultimately, if this trend continues, the genre will implode, much like the world economy has threatened too lately. Too bad, this could really be a lot of fun. Maybe it's not too late to turn things around.
$15 a month = $180 a year + retail cost and yet you're expected to pay for expansions even though people like Valve can keep updating their games without a monthly fee. Then on top of all that there are the micro transactions like the whole TCG type thing in mmorpgs such as SWG where if you want certain in game items the only way you're able to get them is by paying until you're lucky enough to get it. Not only that but you're paying for features that should come as standard with your monthly fee like what WOW charges you for like changing your character name or transfering your character to another server. I mean to me that is something that you expect as part of the service you want under you montly fee and a standard feature you would want in mmorpgs. Most the time you meet people who play the same game as you but you're normally on different servers and yet your subscription fee doesn't cover that : People say oh but that $15 goes towards server charges..... WOW makes over $1 billion a year so really they probbaly could charge everyone $5 a month and still be making more than enough. Yet soon we're going to enter in the territory where these companies start charging you $15 a month + retail + expansions + in game advertising + micro transactions + anything else they can think of and when are people going to say I've had enough of being taken a fool of? Guild Wars can survive without subscripton fee's so why don#t everyone else frop them if they expect us to pay for all this other crap? They still host every single server and still have to host every instance.
I do agree with the OP actually, Monthly fees are a ripp off. But there is light in the darkness, Arenanet don't believe in monthly fees.
Blizzard were actually having a lot of discussions if Wow should have monthly fees or not. The fees won at the end but 3 of Wows best programmers quited because it and started Arenanet after that.
Guildwars 2 will be a really massive MMO without monthly fees.
Until it releases however I do continue to pay my monthly fees, I do get ripped of in many cases knowing it (I live in Sweden, ok... Our total tax preassure is about 65% and second highest in the world. And I work in denmark, the one with highest).
A MMORPG forum discussing economic policy = priceless
Anyway you may not like the subscription system model but it has worked for over a decade. World of Warcraft which pulled the MMO genre into the limelight embraces this system and is reaping the rewards.
That is not to say the Free to Play and Item Malls are inferior. It works and we will see more of it.
The bottom line is the game that provides the most entertainment for the most people every day wins. The beauty of MMO games is that they are dynamic. You log in and the virtual world is active. You play with others possibly across the globe. A single player game does not provide that unless they have a multiplayer feature added to it. The MMO is generally larger and has much more content than a single player game. There is always something you can do. In single player games, after you finish it, the replayability declines.
Remember some of these MMOs are Still alive and well and they are over 10 years old ( Ultima Online, Runescape, Everquest) , how many single player games can boast such enthusiasm?
See I still don't get the logic of saying "they're cheap because they give me a whole months play time for only $15 when I would be buying games for $40 so I'm saving money"...... No you're buying games anyways cause when a Fallout is released or a GTA is released then you go out and buy them, so I don't really see how the argument holds up. If you're not chosing to buy games and only play WOW or something then developers are right WOW is killing PC gaming, I just don't see how that can be the case when you love to play games and will buy other games. You could play GTA4 for a month or CS or Fallout 3 and you're not paying a monthly fee. So does that give them the right to charge me a monthly fee? Just because Valve are putting new content in TF2 and L4D does that give them the right to charge me a monthly fee and I should feel privileged they're doing so because somehow it's saving me money? No all it's doing is costing you money. Now publishers are getting smarter and realising that people will throw money away because they're stupid. So they're starting to put micro transactions in the game which you can't get these items unless you pay extra for them like loot cards in SWG. So you're telling me I have to pay a subscription and on top of that I have to spend MORE money to get extra stuff? In EQ2 SOE charged you extra for that EQ2 players service and then charged you for content that should have been free with Adventure packs.
In the case of every RL friend that I know that plays MMO that just isn't true. I haven't purchased a non MMO game since Sid Meirs Pirates!.
I haven't played Fallout 3, Oblivion, Team Fortress, Call of Duty, Bioshock, or any other "Big" game.
Instead I play MMO games. Know I am a little weird compared to most MMO players because I have purchased pretty much every Western MMO that has hit the Market. I have CD/boxes for UO, EQ1, AC1, AC2, Shadowbane, Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, City of Villians, Age of Conan, D&D online, Dark Age of Camelot, EQ2, Final Fantasy XI, Guild Wars, Hellgate: London, Lineage 2, Lord of the Rings Online, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Planetside, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Warhammer Online, & World of Warcraft. ( I have played many many more in Betas and free trials)
So "Saving Money" isn't my reason for not buying Single Player games. I just find them incredibly boring, pointless, and completely devoid of any real fun or value.
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
No.. i buy the blu-ray discs then download the movies and burn them myself.. i own them usually just after they hit the big screen Seriously at $10 a ticket they are asking for it... nay begging for it.
No, you are a criminal, has nothing to do with what they charge for them.
But that's not the topic of this thread so I won't derail it.
What a joke. Torrents are sharing, and I'm allowed to share my payed product to others on however I feel like. You are the criminal that is infringing on my rights as a consumer, good riddance trash.
No you are not allowed to "share" your product to others as you feel like it. That is against the law. The Company that made the product has a right to sell their product and profit from it. Your "Sharing" infringes upon their rights.
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
So, you're saying it costs me like $230 per year to play MMORPG's for an unlimited amount of time? Yep, sounds like a pretty bad deal to me. When will you learn that there isn't an amount of money that Blizzard 'deserves' to earn. (or not earn). They deserve to earn as much as they can milk out of their customer base. If they could double the rates tomorrow and have everyone still pay for it, they would deserve it. Its called free market capitalism and its how our economy works. Now, my game, EVE does not charge me for expansions, so I guess I get a better deal? But that's not why I play, nor would I care if they did charge, its just a nice perc. In fact, if I was so motivated, I could go out and sell time cards for ISK , and spend even more money on this game. Doesn't bother me a bit. MMO's are the best entertainment value out there today, (cost me more to take my wife and son to the movies (40 bucks) last night than almost all 3 of my EVE subs for the month.
Unregulated, free market capitalism is directly responsible for the U.S. mortgage scandal and recent global economic instability. Read about the Great Depression, and you'll get a better understanding perhaps of how capitalism requires monitoring and regulation to avoid exploitation and collapse. Look at the current efforts of world governments to address the problems, and you'll once again see the importance of legislation and regulation to avoid economic implosion due to greed and short-sightedness.
Actually this is false but it is great to see how people somehow think that the Government can fix their problems for them.
Lack of personal responsibility caused the current US Mortgage crisis. Sorry if you don't have a job or if you had a job that didn't make a lot of money yet you went to the Bank and got a loan for a house that you couldn't afford it wasn't the Bank's fault. They are trying to make money for their stockholders just like any Company. It is the individuals fault.
Not only was it a lack of Personal Responsisbility but it was the Government's intervention back in the 1990s that caused this crisis. The Government forced banks to take on riskier loans because their weren't enough "Minority Homeowners". Heck even the New York Times (A mecca of Liberlism) back in 1999 said that this current crisis would happen because of the Changes in Mortgage Loans that Bill Clinton put into place.
Government intervention prolonged the Great Depression (and only WW2 really got us out of it) and it will prolong this current crisis as well. The Market needs to be free and needs to adjust. If these banks and companies were allowed to fail then new ones would take their place.
That is how a free market works and it works well. See instead of propping up the Big 3 car companies they should let them fail. They gambled on how popular thier ideas would stay and they gambled wrong.
The banks as well should of been let to fail. Sure it would of been painful but in the long run it would of been the best thing to happen for our Country. Instead we mortgage our Children's future so we don't have to hurt as much now.
It is just Pathetic.
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
If you think it's a ripoff, don't buy into it. Whatever it is that you waste money on, someone else will think it's crap. In the end, it's all a waste of time anyways. If you can manage to make it through life with at least a smile on your face, well then, you've done good.
So, you're saying it costs me like $230 per year to play MMORPG's for an unlimited amount of time? Yep, sounds like a pretty bad deal to me. When will you learn that there isn't an amount of money that Blizzard 'deserves' to earn. (or not earn). They deserve to earn as much as they can milk out of their customer base. If they could double the rates tomorrow and have everyone still pay for it, they would deserve it. Its called free market capitalism and its how our economy works. Now, my game, EVE does not charge me for expansions, so I guess I get a better deal? But that's not why I play, nor would I care if they did charge, its just a nice perc. In fact, if I was so motivated, I could go out and sell time cards for ISK , and spend even more money on this game. Doesn't bother me a bit. MMO's are the best entertainment value out there today, (cost me more to take my wife and son to the movies (40 bucks) last night than almost all 3 of my EVE subs for the month.
Unregulated, free market capitalism is directly responsible for the U.S. mortgage scandal and recent global economic instability. Read about the Great Depression, and you'll get a better understanding perhaps of how capitalism requires monitoring and regulation to avoid exploitation and collapse. Look at the current efforts of world governments to address the problems, and you'll once again see the importance of legislation and regulation to avoid economic implosion due to greed and short-sightedness.
Actually this is false but it is great to see how people somehow think that the Government can fix their problems for them.
Lack of personal responsibility caused the current US Mortgage crisis. Sorry if you don't have a job or if you had a job that didn't make a lot of money yet you went to the Bank and got a loan for a house that you couldn't afford it wasn't the Bank's fault. They are trying to make money for their stockholders just like any Company. It is the individuals fault.
Not only was it a lack of Personal Responsisbility but it was the Government's intervention back in the 1990s that caused this crisis. The Government forced banks to take on riskier loans because their weren't enough "Minority Homeowners". Heck even the New York Times (A mecca of Liberlism) back in 1999 said that this current crisis would happen because of the Changes in Mortgage Loans that Bill Clinton put into place.
Government intervention prolonged the Great Depression (and only WW2 really got us out of it) and it will prolong this current crisis as well. The Market needs to be free and needs to adjust. If these banks and companies were allowed to fail then new ones would take their place.
That is how a free market works and it works well. See instead of propping up the Big 3 car companies they should let them fail. They gambled on how popular thier ideas would stay and they gambled wrong.
The banks as well should of been let to fail. Sure it would of been painful but in the long run it would of been the best thing to happen for our Country. Instead we mortgage our Children's future so we don't have to hurt as much now.
It is just Pathetic.
There's enough lack of personal responsibility to go around. People didn't have to take out two, three, or four mortgages in the hopes that they could "flip it" for cash out of thin air. Banks didn't have to give out shark loans that couldn't be repaid. Ultimately though, personal responsibility is something that can only be practiced by persons. Institutions have no capacity to take personal responsibility, because they are not human beings. We saw this clearly with Enron: the best thing about being in a corporation is that there's always someone else to blame, and we've seen a whole lot more of that from corporations lately, as you well know.
See, the problem is and always will be the relationship between doing an art well, and doing an art profitably. It's something Plato brings up in The Republic: one who practices their trade for the sake of money can never be a good artisan, because a good artisan practices their trade for the sake of the art itself, regardless of money. The problem with corporations like Sony is that they no longer (or never did) practice their trade for the sake of the consumer electronics art. They practice their trade for the sake of money, which means they have no business practicing their art.
You see, when SOE decides to bait and switch, redesign SWG into an unplayable mess right in the middle of active subscriptions, and undermine the integrity of the game through virtual lotteries, it doesn't make people want to respect Sony's intellectual property in Blu-Ray. In fact, it makes people not care about Sony's "rights" at all. Is Sony going to go after copiers? Perhaps, but every person they go after creates a new enemy and a new expense. Not only that, but I really don't think they want the law to get involved, because then they'd be opening themselves up to scrutiny about exploding batteries, Trials of Obi-Wan, etc.
The problem with markets these days has very little to do with not being able to make money. The problem with markets is that there's no mechanism in place to practice good arts, only profitable ones. Instead of doctors who practice medicine for the sake of good health, we have doctors who practice medicine for the sake of money. Instead of real-estate developers who practice development to make better homes, we have real-estate developers who practice development to make money, regardless of whether the homes are better or not.
Economics cannot model quality, only quantity. The problem with our current economy is that there's no incentive to practice quality arts, only an incentive to produce a greater quantity of money, regardless of whether it actually exists, or not.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Methinks that many of you are missing the point. Yes, MMOs are cheaper than movies, cable TV, beer, whores, etc.... And yes, the cost of one, and exactly one, MMO isn't going to drive anyone to bankruptcy.... BUT how much value do MMOs deliver in comparison to OTHER GAMES?
It's not an unreasonable question. Consider the fact that I bought The Orange Box almost a year ago, haven't paid anything since and I still play TF2. CoD4 has been out for over a year and there are still people playing the hell out of it. You can buy Battlefield 2 and all of its expansions for $30 and there are still tons of people playing the game regularly. Hell, Madden players drop $50 a year for an entire year of playing.
BTW, there are still people playing the original Neverwinter Nights. There are still people playing Quake 3. There are still people playing Dawn of War. None of those games have a monthly fee. Pay once, play forever.
Since I normally only play games online and don't bother with single player games, I only buy about three or four games a year. To make it even cheaper, I buy used and rent games. You can't do either with an MMO.
From the pure numbers, MMOs are a giant waste of cash when compared to other genres of games.
You can't compare Valve to MMO developers.
Most of the servers we play Valve games on are owned by game communities (www.5e-community.com for instance)and not Valve themselves. They don't have near the overhead that an MMO developer has.
Also Valve is also a distributor. They have other streams of income to offset the need for a monthly subscription. Most of the games on Steam are not made by Valve yet they get a nice percentage of all the games purchased through them.
Valve games are tiny in relation to MMO's. Look at TF2. Tiny maps. So they made some tiny maps slapped together some animations and poof they make money. Most MMO's are huge. They have 1000's of servers in their server farm. It takes alot of techs to keep all that running, patched and customers happy. The overhead is expensive.
Now that said. $15 month is not that much. If Valve could get people to pay that.. they would!
I can compare Valve to MMO developers and will. You want to know why? Because we are discussing the value of their products from the consumer's point of view. As a consumer, I don't give two shits about how much a company spent to produce a game. I don't give a good goddamn about how much overhead a company pays to keep the game running. As a consumer, I'm looking for the highest quality at the lowest price. For me, MMOs are bottom feeders. Your mileage may vary.
Seriously, most MMOs have less actual gameplay than Bejewelled or Tetris. There isn't the physical skill that you would need to pull off no scope headshots in an FPS game or a massive combo in an old school fighting game. There isn't the kind of strategy that you would need to defend against an early game Eldar rush using Imperial gaurd in Dawn of War. Nor is there the kind of time and resource management that you would need in a life simulator like the The Sims or Kudos. There's just the community and you can get that on yahoo chat for free.
BTW, a game doesn't have to be big to be good. TF2 originally shipped with just 3 maps if I'm not mistaken. Shadowrun for the Xbox 360 only has 9 maps and three game modes, but people are still playing it. Maybe it's because I'm starting to look at video games in the same way that I look at board games. You don't buy board games to play by yourself. You also don't buy board games to play once and then trade in for a new one. MMORPGs are supposed to be, theoretically, like ongoing LARPs that you would be a part of at a giant nerd convention or something. In reality, MMORPGs are just spreadsheets with a 3D environment tacked on and not suprising they play and feel an awful lot like work. I guess that's fine if you're into that sort of thing. I already have a job and don't really feel like paying for the "privilege" of working a second one.
Methinks that many of you are missing the point. Yes, MMOs are cheaper than movies, cable TV, beer, whores, etc.... And yes, the cost of one, and exactly one, MMO isn't going to drive anyone to bankruptcy.... BUT how much value do MMOs deliver in comparison to OTHER GAMES?
It's not an unreasonable question. Consider the fact that I bought The Orange Box almost a year ago, haven't paid anything since and I still play TF2. CoD4 has been out for over a year and there are still people playing the hell out of it. You can buy Battlefield 2 and all of its expansions for $30 and there are still tons of people playing the game regularly. Hell, Madden players drop $50 a year for an entire year of playing.
BTW, there are still people playing the original Neverwinter Nights. There are still people playing Quake 3. There are still people playing Dawn of War. None of those games have a monthly fee. Pay once, play forever.
Since I normally only play games online and don't bother with single player games, I only buy about three or four games a year. To make it even cheaper, I buy used and rent games. You can't do either with an MMO.
From the pure numbers, MMOs are a giant waste of cash when compared to other genres of games.
You can't compare Valve to MMO developers.
Most of the servers we play Valve games on are owned by game communities (www.5e-community.com for instance)and not Valve themselves. They don't have near the overhead that an MMO developer has.
Also Valve is also a distributor. They have other streams of income to offset the need for a monthly subscription. Most of the games on Steam are not made by Valve yet they get a nice percentage of all the games purchased through them.
Valve games are tiny in relation to MMO's. Look at TF2. Tiny maps. So they made some tiny maps slapped together some animations and poof they make money. Most MMO's are huge. They have 1000's of servers in their server farm. It takes alot of techs to keep all that running, patched and customers happy. The overhead is expensive.
Now that said. $15 month is not that much. If Valve could get people to pay that.. they would!
I can compare Valve to MMO developers and will. You want to know why? Because we are discussing the value of their products from the consumer's point of view. As a consumer, I don't give two shits about how much a company spent to produce a game. I don't give a good goddamn about how much overhead a company pays to keep the game running. As a consumer, I'm looking for the highest quality at the lowest price. For me, MMOs are bottom feeders. Your mileage may vary.
Seriously, most MMOs have less actual gameplay than Bejewelled or Tetris. There isn't the physical skill that you would need to pull off no scope headshots in an FPS game or a massive combo in an old school fighting game. There isn't the kind of strategy that you would need to defend against an early game Eldar rush using Imperial gaurd in Dawn of War. Nor is there the kind of time and resource management that you would need in a life simulator like the The Sims or Kudos. There's just the community and you can get that on yahoo chat for free.
BTW, a game doesn't have to be big to be good. TF2 originally shipped with just 3 maps if I'm not mistaken. Shadowrun for the Xbox 360 only has 9 maps and three game modes, but people are still playing it. Maybe it's because I'm starting to look at video games in the same way that I look at board games. You don't buy board games to play by yourself. You also don't buy board games to play once and then trade in for a new one. MMORPGs are supposed to be, theoretically, like ongoing LARPs that you would be a part of at a giant nerd convention or something. In reality, MMORPGs are just spreadsheets with a 3D environment tacked on and not suprising they play and feel an awful lot like work. I guess that's fine if you're into that sort of thing. I already have a job and don't really feel like paying for the "privilege" or working a second one.
You can't assign a dollar amount on value. Or at least a blanket value as we all value different things. There are people who actually don't like single player games and prefer mmo's. To them it would be money well spent.
And yes, you are correct (in my opinion) that there is "more" gameplay of a certain type in single player games.
But there is an ineffable type of gameplay that you find in an mmo, one that is based on a social model.
When I fire up Oblvion and I'm in Skingrad it is very apparent that I'm in a single player game. There is no life. That is why I downloaded a mod that added population to the cities as it just seemed too dead.
But in the end, the actual value is what the player wants and is willing to pay.
If people really want/need a social aspect while being in some sort of virtual world then it very well might be worth it to them. Heck, I would have no problem paying double what I pay if the gameplay was entertaining and I found that it was something that I enjoyed. But then again, for me, money is also a way to make one's life more enjoyable.
Heck, there are people who will drop hundreds of dollars on the weekends at clubs. I would never do that as it has no value to me.
Same thing with online games. There is value there, it's just up to the player whether or not he wants that value.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Methinks that many of you are missing the point. Yes, MMOs are cheaper than movies, cable TV, beer, whores, etc.... And yes, the cost of one, and exactly one, MMO isn't going to drive anyone to bankruptcy.... BUT how much value do MMOs deliver in comparison to OTHER GAMES?
It's not an unreasonable question. Consider the fact that I bought The Orange Box almost a year ago, haven't paid anything since and I still play TF2. CoD4 has been out for over a year and there are still people playing the hell out of it. You can buy Battlefield 2 and all of its expansions for $30 and there are still tons of people playing the game regularly. Hell, Madden players drop $50 a year for an entire year of playing.
BTW, there are still people playing the original Neverwinter Nights. There are still people playing Quake 3. There are still people playing Dawn of War. None of those games have a monthly fee. Pay once, play forever.
Since I normally only play games online and don't bother with single player games, I only buy about three or four games a year. To make it even cheaper, I buy used and rent games. You can't do either with an MMO.
From the pure numbers, MMOs are a giant waste of cash when compared to other genres of games.
You can't compare Valve to MMO developers.
Most of the servers we play Valve games on are owned by game communities (www.5e-community.com for instance)and not Valve themselves. They don't have near the overhead that an MMO developer has.
Also Valve is also a distributor. They have other streams of income to offset the need for a monthly subscription. Most of the games on Steam are not made by Valve yet they get a nice percentage of all the games purchased through them.
Valve games are tiny in relation to MMO's. Look at TF2. Tiny maps. So they made some tiny maps slapped together some animations and poof they make money. Most MMO's are huge. They have 1000's of servers in their server farm. It takes alot of techs to keep all that running, patched and customers happy. The overhead is expensive.
Now that said. $15 month is not that much. If Valve could get people to pay that.. they would!
I can compare Valve to MMO developers and will. You want to know why? Because we are discussing the value of their products from the consumer's point of view. As a consumer, I don't give two shits about how much a company spent to produce a game. I don't give a good goddamn about how much overhead a company pays to keep the game running. As a consumer, I'm looking for the highest quality at the lowest price. For me, MMOs are bottom feeders. Your mileage may vary.
Seriously, most MMOs have less actual gameplay than Bejewelled or Tetris. There isn't the physical skill that you would need to pull off no scope headshots in an FPS game or a massive combo in an old school fighting game. There isn't the kind of strategy that you would need to defend against an early game Eldar rush using Imperial gaurd in Dawn of War. Nor is there the kind of time and resource management that you would need in a life simulator like the The Sims or Kudos. There's just the community and you can get that on yahoo chat for free.
BTW, a game doesn't have to be big to be good. TF2 originally shipped with just 3 maps if I'm not mistaken. Shadowrun for the Xbox 360 only has 9 maps and three game modes, but people are still playing it. Maybe it's because I'm starting to look at video games in the same way that I look at board games. You don't buy board games to play by yourself. You also don't buy board games to play once and then trade in for a new one. MMORPGs are supposed to be, theoretically, like ongoing LARPs that you would be a part of at a giant nerd convention or something. In reality, MMORPGs are just spreadsheets with a 3D environment tacked on and not suprising they play and feel an awful lot like work. I guess that's fine if you're into that sort of thing. I already have a job and don't really feel like paying for the "privilege" or working a second one.
You can't assign a dollar amount on value. Or at least a blanket value as we all value different things. There are people who actually don't like single player games and prefer mmo's. To them it would be money well spent.
And yes, you are correct (in my opinion) that there is "more" gameplay of a certain type in single player games.
Gotta stop you here. None of the games that I listed are single player games. Yes, you can play against the computer, but you are usually expected to play against / with other people. There are single player games that you can play forever, Pac Man, Defender, Super Collapse, etc., but the games that you spend the most time with are going to be competitive in nature.
More to the point, I can play with and against other people without paying $200+ annually.
But there is an ineffable type of gameplay that you find in an mmo, one that is based on a social model.
So what about the new Animal Crossing game? No monthly fee. Way cheaper than an MMO.
When I fire up Oblvion and I'm in Skingrad it is very apparent that I'm in a single player game. There is no life. That is why I downloaded a mod that added population to the cities as it just seemed too dead.
But in the end, the actual value is what the player wants and is willing to pay.
And some people are more easily amused than others. At the end of the day, your average MMORPG player is still shoveling insane amounts of money into a product for an experience that they could get much cheaper in a regular multiplayer game.
If people really want/need a social aspect while being in some sort of virtual world then it very well might be worth it to them. Heck, I would have no problem paying double what I pay if the gameplay was entertaining and I found that it was something that I enjoyed. But then again, for me, money is also a way to make one's life more enjoyable.
Heck, there are people who will drop hundreds of dollars on the weekends at clubs. I would never do that as it has no value to me.
Same thing with online games. There is value there, it's just up to the player whether or not he wants that value.
$15 a month = $180 a year + retail cost and yet you're expected to pay for expansions even though people like Valve can keep updating their games without a monthly fee. Then on top of all that there are the micro transactions like the whole TCG type thing in mmorpgs such as SWG where if you want certain in game items the only way you're able to get them is by paying until you're lucky enough to get it. Not only that but you're paying for features that should come as standard with your monthly fee like what WOW charges you for like changing your character name or transfering your character to another server. I mean to me that is something that you expect as part of the service you want under you montly fee and a standard feature you would want in mmorpgs. Most the time you meet people who play the same game as you but you're normally on different servers and yet your subscription fee doesn't cover that : People say oh but that $15 goes towards server charges..... WOW makes over $1 billion a year so really they probbaly could charge everyone $5 a month and still be making more than enough. Yet soon we're going to enter in the territory where these companies start charging you $15 a month + retail + expansions + in game advertising + micro transactions + anything else they can think of and when are people going to say I've had enough of being taken a fool of? Guild Wars can survive without subscripton fee's so why don#t everyone else frop them if they expect us to pay for all this other crap? They still host every single server and still have to host every instance.
I do agree with the OP actually, Monthly fees are a ripp off. But there is light in the darkness, Arenanet don't believe in monthly fees.
Blizzard were actually having a lot of discussions if Wow should have monthly fees or not. The fees won at the end but 3 of Wows best programmers quited because it and started Arenanet after that.
Guildwars 2 will be a really massive MMO without monthly fees.
Until it releases however I do continue to pay my monthly fees, I do get ripped of in many cases knowing it (I live in Sweden, ok... Our total tax preassure is about 65% and second highest in the world. And I work in denmark, the one with highest).
Blizzard charges monthly fees which garner free content updates, GM services, and prices that eventually lower on the expansion pack and orginal game.
Arena net...every expansion and the original version of the game are the exact same price 29.99 (not counting some smaller expansions / add ons that were 9 to 20 dollars a pop as well). That is how Arena net makes their money. You can't buy a 'packaged' deal or wait for a lower price its always the same price and there are NO free content upgrades to my knowledge either. Personally because its a heavily instanced game with zoned off / instanced hubs I would never pay a monthly for Guild Wars its simply not that good of a game in my opinion.
Every game company has a different pricing plan and offer different options this gives us the consumer the decision to make on whats more important to us, what fits our priorities, what makes it valuable to us. While the OP thinks monthly fees are of no value to him many people DO think monthly fees are of value including myself. Most games by Valve that recieve content upgrades are simply a new map that lasts all of 1 hour to complete or less. Who in their right mind would pay for that much less a monthly fee? Not to mention most of Valve's games are not dedicated servers either.
When you pay a monthly fee for an MMO your helping to pay for the server, the gms, the host of none xpansion content upgrades, & of course bug patches something you don't get from non MMO games.
While I won't pay monthly fees for some games because they simply are not worth it there are how ever MANY online games I would pay a monthly fee for. For instance I'd pay a monthly fee for Neverwinter Nights if it meant I got a dedicated server to use for my friends and I to play on.
What is of value is completely subjective when it comes to video games, the OP is right and wrong its simply is opinion and not any sort of fact.
btw anyone dumb enough to even fathom the idea of paying monthly for animal crossing has some wires crossed they're not even going to do DLC for Animal crossing and your extremely limited in activities.
Comments
Why don't you and the OP quit MMO then?
I agree, I don't mind paying a monthly subscription but things like xpacks / limited character transfers and such should be free. I will not play a game that has micro transactions or advertising if it also has monthly sub.
The main reason I stopped playing WoW was because I thought that it was no longer value for money and that they were milking it bit more than what is acceptable.
No.. i buy the blu-ray discs then download the movies and burn them myself.. i own them usually just after they hit the big screen
Seriously at $10 a ticket they are asking for it... nay begging for it.
No, you are a criminal, has nothing to do with what they charge for them.
But that's not the topic of this thread so I won't derail it.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The MMO subscription fee is just like paying for any other service. The initial box sale is to have access to that service in the first place. Kind of like when you have to buy a cell phone and then later pay a service fee to actually use it. Using your own logic why do I have to keep paying to use my phone? I already payed for the phone but it's useless unless I keep paying them.
MMO's are services and the way I see it you are paying for the service for how it is NOW. You aren't paying for how it was or is going to be. So just like any other service, if I feel unsatisfied with it I can cancel it. It's not like the developers have the costumer by the balls and are forcing them to play their product.
The other thing your paying for is to have active GMs...they aren't volunteers.
No.. i buy the blu-ray discs then download the movies and burn them myself.. i own them usually just after they hit the big screen
Seriously at $10 a ticket they are asking for it... nay begging for it.
No, you are a criminal, has nothing to do with what they charge for them.
But that's not the topic of this thread so I won't derail it.
What a joke. Torrents are sharing, and I'm allowed to share my payed product to others on however I feel like. You are the criminal that is infringing on my rights as a consumer, good riddance trash.
Hookers provide more entertainment value and roleplay then most mmos coming out lately, and yet more blow, yet less at the same time. crazy
A NYC pizza pie costs near 20 bucks, a MMO sub is 14.99 a month.
My children are allowed one pizza night every other week so I spend about 40 bucks (two pies) twice a month.
Thats 80 bucks a month for a god damn pizza and you're complaining about a 14 dollar mmo fee?
And to make things worse you put mmos up against Valve? a company that doesnt host any games?
seriously, did you think before you typed that out?
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
I agree with the op. When MMORPGs first started you got more bang for your buck.
And to the cost. 15 dollars a month doesnt = 30 days of fun. More than half of the game is grinding to get to the fun. Ever heard of the phrase end game?
About the comparisons to movies and single player games. Well. If you actualy buy a new console game and you dont know if your going to play it more than a few months ur a sheep. Im sorry your a buisnesses wet dream.
Consoles: Always rent Console games unless you know your going to love the game and play it longer than 2 months. Most the console games I have, ive played longer than most mmorpgs. The rest were used games that cost me less than 20 dollars and i played them about a month or longer. So to me current console games are cheaper and last longer than current mmorpgs.
PC games: Mods. Only buy games that you know will have or have a large mod community. If you only get a month out of ur pc games then ur a noob sorry but someone had to tell you.
Movies: This is realy sad. If you think you pay 14 dollars(or more depending on ur area) for the movie then damn son all I can say is ur clueless.
Comon why do you think people pay for concerts when they can buy the CD at home, go to the movies when pay-perview exists, or buy tickets to a play when channel 11(channel 11 is a public access and they have plays and musicals etc..). Or even pay rediculous costs at some fancy resturant.
Atmosphere and more importantly prestige.
I dont pay 14 dollars for a movie. I pay 14 dollars for my wife to feel special; and more importantly to shut her up about going out and doing something.
Why don't you and the OP quit MMO then?
I never said MMOs weren't fun and not worth playing. I just said MMOs aren't a good value for what you get.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Unregulated, free market capitalism is directly responsible for the U.S. mortgage scandal and recent global economic instability. Read about the Great Depression, and you'll get a better understanding perhaps of how capitalism requires monitoring and regulation to avoid exploitation and collapse. Look at the current efforts of world governments to address the problems, and you'll once again see the importance of legislation and regulation to avoid economic implosion due to greed and short-sightedness.
As for MMOs, they started out as a very cool idea I think. What a neat opportunity to live out some kind of fantastic adventure with like-minded others. A great entertainment service to be sure, and one I wouldn't mind paying for.
It seems that there was a lot of good faith in the early days of the genre too. People advertise an entertainment service and charge you a fee to participate. No problem...but wait.
There are a lot of contract law loopholes around things like "virtual property." Companies began drafting User Agreements that essentially say, "we can take your money and provide whatever we want, or nothing, or something that doesn't work, or something on Tuesday but something else on Wednesday." Then they began introducing virtual items for real cash, and tinkering with game mechanics to boost demand for virtual items. Now we have people gambling real cash for chances to win virtual items, that they don't ever actually own even after "winning" them.
It seems to me like a really cool idea, mixed with some opportunistic businessmen, and a lag in regulating a new form of entertainment are adding up to be a real pain in the ass for people just looking to pay a reasonable fee for a reasonably entertaining experience. Ultimately, if this trend continues, the genre will implode, much like the world economy has threatened too lately. Too bad, this could really be a lot of fun. Maybe it's not too late to turn things around.
CoD? Warcraft 3? Sim City?
We play the same games....
I do agree with the OP actually, Monthly fees are a ripp off. But there is light in the darkness, Arenanet don't believe in monthly fees.
Blizzard were actually having a lot of discussions if Wow should have monthly fees or not. The fees won at the end but 3 of Wows best programmers quited because it and started Arenanet after that.
Guildwars 2 will be a really massive MMO without monthly fees.
Until it releases however I do continue to pay my monthly fees, I do get ripped of in many cases knowing it (I live in Sweden, ok... Our total tax preassure is about 65% and second highest in the world. And I work in denmark, the one with highest).
OP is right. People are willing to pay for content not for "subscription".
Hopefully the industry will start to realize it when they analyze recent flops: AOC and WAR.
It is not that the games are bad, its the economy. If they fail to realize it now, they will get it when GW2 comes out.
As someone smart said once:
Its the ecconomy, stupid !
A MMORPG forum discussing economic policy = priceless
Anyway you may not like the subscription system model but it has worked for over a decade. World of Warcraft which pulled the MMO genre into the limelight embraces this system and is reaping the rewards.
That is not to say the Free to Play and Item Malls are inferior. It works and we will see more of it.
The bottom line is the game that provides the most entertainment for the most people every day wins. The beauty of MMO games is that they are dynamic. You log in and the virtual world is active. You play with others possibly across the globe. A single player game does not provide that unless they have a multiplayer feature added to it. The MMO is generally larger and has much more content than a single player game. There is always something you can do. In single player games, after you finish it, the replayability declines.
Remember some of these MMOs are Still alive and well and they are over 10 years old ( Ultima Online, Runescape, Everquest) , how many single player games can boast such enthusiasm?
Considering WoW cost like 40 million to build.. $15/month isn't much.
In REALITY they should cost about $30-40 a month based on what they cost to build and maintain.
In the case of every RL friend that I know that plays MMO that just isn't true. I haven't purchased a non MMO game since Sid Meirs Pirates!.
I haven't played Fallout 3, Oblivion, Team Fortress, Call of Duty, Bioshock, or any other "Big" game.
Instead I play MMO games. Know I am a little weird compared to most MMO players because I have purchased pretty much every Western MMO that has hit the Market. I have CD/boxes for UO, EQ1, AC1, AC2, Shadowbane, Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, City of Villians, Age of Conan, D&D online, Dark Age of Camelot, EQ2, Final Fantasy XI, Guild Wars, Hellgate: London, Lineage 2, Lord of the Rings Online, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Planetside, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Warhammer Online, & World of Warcraft. ( I have played many many more in Betas and free trials)
So "Saving Money" isn't my reason for not buying Single Player games. I just find them incredibly boring, pointless, and completely devoid of any real fun or value.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
No, you are a criminal, has nothing to do with what they charge for them.
But that's not the topic of this thread so I won't derail it.
What a joke. Torrents are sharing, and I'm allowed to share my payed product to others on however I feel like. You are the criminal that is infringing on my rights as a consumer, good riddance trash.
No you are not allowed to "share" your product to others as you feel like it. That is against the law. The Company that made the product has a right to sell their product and profit from it. Your "Sharing" infringes upon their rights.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Unregulated, free market capitalism is directly responsible for the U.S. mortgage scandal and recent global economic instability. Read about the Great Depression, and you'll get a better understanding perhaps of how capitalism requires monitoring and regulation to avoid exploitation and collapse. Look at the current efforts of world governments to address the problems, and you'll once again see the importance of legislation and regulation to avoid economic implosion due to greed and short-sightedness.
Actually this is false but it is great to see how people somehow think that the Government can fix their problems for them.
Lack of personal responsibility caused the current US Mortgage crisis. Sorry if you don't have a job or if you had a job that didn't make a lot of money yet you went to the Bank and got a loan for a house that you couldn't afford it wasn't the Bank's fault. They are trying to make money for their stockholders just like any Company. It is the individuals fault.
Not only was it a lack of Personal Responsisbility but it was the Government's intervention back in the 1990s that caused this crisis. The Government forced banks to take on riskier loans because their weren't enough "Minority Homeowners". Heck even the New York Times (A mecca of Liberlism) back in 1999 said that this current crisis would happen because of the Changes in Mortgage Loans that Bill Clinton put into place.
Government intervention prolonged the Great Depression (and only WW2 really got us out of it) and it will prolong this current crisis as well. The Market needs to be free and needs to adjust. If these banks and companies were allowed to fail then new ones would take their place.
That is how a free market works and it works well. See instead of propping up the Big 3 car companies they should let them fail. They gambled on how popular thier ideas would stay and they gambled wrong.
The banks as well should of been let to fail. Sure it would of been painful but in the long run it would of been the best thing to happen for our Country. Instead we mortgage our Children's future so we don't have to hurt as much now.
It is just Pathetic.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
If you think it's a ripoff, don't buy into it. Whatever it is that you waste money on, someone else will think it's crap. In the end, it's all a waste of time anyways. If you can manage to make it through life with at least a smile on your face, well then, you've done good.
Unregulated, free market capitalism is directly responsible for the U.S. mortgage scandal and recent global economic instability. Read about the Great Depression, and you'll get a better understanding perhaps of how capitalism requires monitoring and regulation to avoid exploitation and collapse. Look at the current efforts of world governments to address the problems, and you'll once again see the importance of legislation and regulation to avoid economic implosion due to greed and short-sightedness.
Actually this is false but it is great to see how people somehow think that the Government can fix their problems for them.
Lack of personal responsibility caused the current US Mortgage crisis. Sorry if you don't have a job or if you had a job that didn't make a lot of money yet you went to the Bank and got a loan for a house that you couldn't afford it wasn't the Bank's fault. They are trying to make money for their stockholders just like any Company. It is the individuals fault.
Not only was it a lack of Personal Responsisbility but it was the Government's intervention back in the 1990s that caused this crisis. The Government forced banks to take on riskier loans because their weren't enough "Minority Homeowners". Heck even the New York Times (A mecca of Liberlism) back in 1999 said that this current crisis would happen because of the Changes in Mortgage Loans that Bill Clinton put into place.
Government intervention prolonged the Great Depression (and only WW2 really got us out of it) and it will prolong this current crisis as well. The Market needs to be free and needs to adjust. If these banks and companies were allowed to fail then new ones would take their place.
That is how a free market works and it works well. See instead of propping up the Big 3 car companies they should let them fail. They gambled on how popular thier ideas would stay and they gambled wrong.
The banks as well should of been let to fail. Sure it would of been painful but in the long run it would of been the best thing to happen for our Country. Instead we mortgage our Children's future so we don't have to hurt as much now.
It is just Pathetic.
There's enough lack of personal responsibility to go around. People didn't have to take out two, three, or four mortgages in the hopes that they could "flip it" for cash out of thin air. Banks didn't have to give out shark loans that couldn't be repaid. Ultimately though, personal responsibility is something that can only be practiced by persons. Institutions have no capacity to take personal responsibility, because they are not human beings. We saw this clearly with Enron: the best thing about being in a corporation is that there's always someone else to blame, and we've seen a whole lot more of that from corporations lately, as you well know.
See, the problem is and always will be the relationship between doing an art well, and doing an art profitably. It's something Plato brings up in The Republic: one who practices their trade for the sake of money can never be a good artisan, because a good artisan practices their trade for the sake of the art itself, regardless of money. The problem with corporations like Sony is that they no longer (or never did) practice their trade for the sake of the consumer electronics art. They practice their trade for the sake of money, which means they have no business practicing their art.
You see, when SOE decides to bait and switch, redesign SWG into an unplayable mess right in the middle of active subscriptions, and undermine the integrity of the game through virtual lotteries, it doesn't make people want to respect Sony's intellectual property in Blu-Ray. In fact, it makes people not care about Sony's "rights" at all. Is Sony going to go after copiers? Perhaps, but every person they go after creates a new enemy and a new expense. Not only that, but I really don't think they want the law to get involved, because then they'd be opening themselves up to scrutiny about exploding batteries, Trials of Obi-Wan, etc.
The problem with markets these days has very little to do with not being able to make money. The problem with markets is that there's no mechanism in place to practice good arts, only profitable ones. Instead of doctors who practice medicine for the sake of good health, we have doctors who practice medicine for the sake of money. Instead of real-estate developers who practice development to make better homes, we have real-estate developers who practice development to make money, regardless of whether the homes are better or not.
Economics cannot model quality, only quantity. The problem with our current economy is that there's no incentive to practice quality arts, only an incentive to produce a greater quantity of money, regardless of whether it actually exists, or not.
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"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
You can't compare Valve to MMO developers.
Most of the servers we play Valve games on are owned by game communities (www.5e-community.com for instance)and not Valve themselves. They don't have near the overhead that an MMO developer has.
Also Valve is also a distributor. They have other streams of income to offset the need for a monthly subscription. Most of the games on Steam are not made by Valve yet they get a nice percentage of all the games purchased through them.
Valve games are tiny in relation to MMO's. Look at TF2. Tiny maps. So they made some tiny maps slapped together some animations and poof they make money. Most MMO's are huge. They have 1000's of servers in their server farm. It takes alot of techs to keep all that running, patched and customers happy. The overhead is expensive.
Now that said. $15 month is not that much. If Valve could get people to pay that.. they would!
I can compare Valve to MMO developers and will. You want to know why? Because we are discussing the value of their products from the consumer's point of view. As a consumer, I don't give two shits about how much a company spent to produce a game. I don't give a good goddamn about how much overhead a company pays to keep the game running. As a consumer, I'm looking for the highest quality at the lowest price. For me, MMOs are bottom feeders. Your mileage may vary.
Seriously, most MMOs have less actual gameplay than Bejewelled or Tetris. There isn't the physical skill that you would need to pull off no scope headshots in an FPS game or a massive combo in an old school fighting game. There isn't the kind of strategy that you would need to defend against an early game Eldar rush using Imperial gaurd in Dawn of War. Nor is there the kind of time and resource management that you would need in a life simulator like the The Sims or Kudos. There's just the community and you can get that on yahoo chat for free.
BTW, a game doesn't have to be big to be good. TF2 originally shipped with just 3 maps if I'm not mistaken. Shadowrun for the Xbox 360 only has 9 maps and three game modes, but people are still playing it. Maybe it's because I'm starting to look at video games in the same way that I look at board games. You don't buy board games to play by yourself. You also don't buy board games to play once and then trade in for a new one. MMORPGs are supposed to be, theoretically, like ongoing LARPs that you would be a part of at a giant nerd convention or something. In reality, MMORPGs are just spreadsheets with a 3D environment tacked on and not suprising they play and feel an awful lot like work. I guess that's fine if you're into that sort of thing. I already have a job and don't really feel like paying for the "privilege" of working a second one.
You can't compare Valve to MMO developers.
Most of the servers we play Valve games on are owned by game communities (www.5e-community.com for instance)and not Valve themselves. They don't have near the overhead that an MMO developer has.
Also Valve is also a distributor. They have other streams of income to offset the need for a monthly subscription. Most of the games on Steam are not made by Valve yet they get a nice percentage of all the games purchased through them.
Valve games are tiny in relation to MMO's. Look at TF2. Tiny maps. So they made some tiny maps slapped together some animations and poof they make money. Most MMO's are huge. They have 1000's of servers in their server farm. It takes alot of techs to keep all that running, patched and customers happy. The overhead is expensive.
Now that said. $15 month is not that much. If Valve could get people to pay that.. they would!
I can compare Valve to MMO developers and will. You want to know why? Because we are discussing the value of their products from the consumer's point of view. As a consumer, I don't give two shits about how much a company spent to produce a game. I don't give a good goddamn about how much overhead a company pays to keep the game running. As a consumer, I'm looking for the highest quality at the lowest price. For me, MMOs are bottom feeders. Your mileage may vary.
Seriously, most MMOs have less actual gameplay than Bejewelled or Tetris. There isn't the physical skill that you would need to pull off no scope headshots in an FPS game or a massive combo in an old school fighting game. There isn't the kind of strategy that you would need to defend against an early game Eldar rush using Imperial gaurd in Dawn of War. Nor is there the kind of time and resource management that you would need in a life simulator like the The Sims or Kudos. There's just the community and you can get that on yahoo chat for free.
BTW, a game doesn't have to be big to be good. TF2 originally shipped with just 3 maps if I'm not mistaken. Shadowrun for the Xbox 360 only has 9 maps and three game modes, but people are still playing it. Maybe it's because I'm starting to look at video games in the same way that I look at board games. You don't buy board games to play by yourself. You also don't buy board games to play once and then trade in for a new one. MMORPGs are supposed to be, theoretically, like ongoing LARPs that you would be a part of at a giant nerd convention or something. In reality, MMORPGs are just spreadsheets with a 3D environment tacked on and not suprising they play and feel an awful lot like work. I guess that's fine if you're into that sort of thing. I already have a job and don't really feel like paying for the "privilege" or working a second one.
You can't assign a dollar amount on value. Or at least a blanket value as we all value different things. There are people who actually don't like single player games and prefer mmo's. To them it would be money well spent.
And yes, you are correct (in my opinion) that there is "more" gameplay of a certain type in single player games.
But there is an ineffable type of gameplay that you find in an mmo, one that is based on a social model.
When I fire up Oblvion and I'm in Skingrad it is very apparent that I'm in a single player game. There is no life. That is why I downloaded a mod that added population to the cities as it just seemed too dead.
But in the end, the actual value is what the player wants and is willing to pay.
If people really want/need a social aspect while being in some sort of virtual world then it very well might be worth it to them. Heck, I would have no problem paying double what I pay if the gameplay was entertaining and I found that it was something that I enjoyed. But then again, for me, money is also a way to make one's life more enjoyable.
Heck, there are people who will drop hundreds of dollars on the weekends at clubs. I would never do that as it has no value to me.
Same thing with online games. There is value there, it's just up to the player whether or not he wants that value.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
You can't compare Valve to MMO developers.
Most of the servers we play Valve games on are owned by game communities (www.5e-community.com for instance)and not Valve themselves. They don't have near the overhead that an MMO developer has.
Also Valve is also a distributor. They have other streams of income to offset the need for a monthly subscription. Most of the games on Steam are not made by Valve yet they get a nice percentage of all the games purchased through them.
Valve games are tiny in relation to MMO's. Look at TF2. Tiny maps. So they made some tiny maps slapped together some animations and poof they make money. Most MMO's are huge. They have 1000's of servers in their server farm. It takes alot of techs to keep all that running, patched and customers happy. The overhead is expensive.
Now that said. $15 month is not that much. If Valve could get people to pay that.. they would!
I can compare Valve to MMO developers and will. You want to know why? Because we are discussing the value of their products from the consumer's point of view. As a consumer, I don't give two shits about how much a company spent to produce a game. I don't give a good goddamn about how much overhead a company pays to keep the game running. As a consumer, I'm looking for the highest quality at the lowest price. For me, MMOs are bottom feeders. Your mileage may vary.
Seriously, most MMOs have less actual gameplay than Bejewelled or Tetris. There isn't the physical skill that you would need to pull off no scope headshots in an FPS game or a massive combo in an old school fighting game. There isn't the kind of strategy that you would need to defend against an early game Eldar rush using Imperial gaurd in Dawn of War. Nor is there the kind of time and resource management that you would need in a life simulator like the The Sims or Kudos. There's just the community and you can get that on yahoo chat for free.
BTW, a game doesn't have to be big to be good. TF2 originally shipped with just 3 maps if I'm not mistaken. Shadowrun for the Xbox 360 only has 9 maps and three game modes, but people are still playing it. Maybe it's because I'm starting to look at video games in the same way that I look at board games. You don't buy board games to play by yourself. You also don't buy board games to play once and then trade in for a new one. MMORPGs are supposed to be, theoretically, like ongoing LARPs that you would be a part of at a giant nerd convention or something. In reality, MMORPGs are just spreadsheets with a 3D environment tacked on and not suprising they play and feel an awful lot like work. I guess that's fine if you're into that sort of thing. I already have a job and don't really feel like paying for the "privilege" or working a second one.
You can't assign a dollar amount on value. Or at least a blanket value as we all value different things. There are people who actually don't like single player games and prefer mmo's. To them it would be money well spent.
And yes, you are correct (in my opinion) that there is "more" gameplay of a certain type in single player games.
Gotta stop you here. None of the games that I listed are single player games. Yes, you can play against the computer, but you are usually expected to play against / with other people. There are single player games that you can play forever, Pac Man, Defender, Super Collapse, etc., but the games that you spend the most time with are going to be competitive in nature.
More to the point, I can play with and against other people without paying $200+ annually.
But there is an ineffable type of gameplay that you find in an mmo, one that is based on a social model.
So what about the new Animal Crossing game? No monthly fee. Way cheaper than an MMO.
When I fire up Oblvion and I'm in Skingrad it is very apparent that I'm in a single player game. There is no life. That is why I downloaded a mod that added population to the cities as it just seemed too dead.
But in the end, the actual value is what the player wants and is willing to pay.
And some people are more easily amused than others. At the end of the day, your average MMORPG player is still shoveling insane amounts of money into a product for an experience that they could get much cheaper in a regular multiplayer game.
If people really want/need a social aspect while being in some sort of virtual world then it very well might be worth it to them. Heck, I would have no problem paying double what I pay if the gameplay was entertaining and I found that it was something that I enjoyed. But then again, for me, money is also a way to make one's life more enjoyable.
Heck, there are people who will drop hundreds of dollars on the weekends at clubs. I would never do that as it has no value to me.
Same thing with online games. There is value there, it's just up to the player whether or not he wants that value.
I do agree with the OP actually, Monthly fees are a ripp off. But there is light in the darkness, Arenanet don't believe in monthly fees.
Blizzard were actually having a lot of discussions if Wow should have monthly fees or not. The fees won at the end but 3 of Wows best programmers quited because it and started Arenanet after that.
Guildwars 2 will be a really massive MMO without monthly fees.
Until it releases however I do continue to pay my monthly fees, I do get ripped of in many cases knowing it (I live in Sweden, ok... Our total tax preassure is about 65% and second highest in the world. And I work in denmark, the one with highest).
Blizzard charges monthly fees which garner free content updates, GM services, and prices that eventually lower on the expansion pack and orginal game.
Arena net...every expansion and the original version of the game are the exact same price 29.99 (not counting some smaller expansions / add ons that were 9 to 20 dollars a pop as well). That is how Arena net makes their money. You can't buy a 'packaged' deal or wait for a lower price its always the same price and there are NO free content upgrades to my knowledge either. Personally because its a heavily instanced game with zoned off / instanced hubs I would never pay a monthly for Guild Wars its simply not that good of a game in my opinion.
Every game company has a different pricing plan and offer different options this gives us the consumer the decision to make on whats more important to us, what fits our priorities, what makes it valuable to us. While the OP thinks monthly fees are of no value to him many people DO think monthly fees are of value including myself. Most games by Valve that recieve content upgrades are simply a new map that lasts all of 1 hour to complete or less. Who in their right mind would pay for that much less a monthly fee? Not to mention most of Valve's games are not dedicated servers either.
When you pay a monthly fee for an MMO your helping to pay for the server, the gms, the host of none xpansion content upgrades, & of course bug patches something you don't get from non MMO games.
While I won't pay monthly fees for some games because they simply are not worth it there are how ever MANY online games I would pay a monthly fee for. For instance I'd pay a monthly fee for Neverwinter Nights if it meant I got a dedicated server to use for my friends and I to play on.
What is of value is completely subjective when it comes to video games, the OP is right and wrong its simply is opinion and not any sort of fact.
btw anyone dumb enough to even fathom the idea of paying monthly for animal crossing has some wires crossed they're not even going to do DLC for Animal crossing and your extremely limited in activities.