MMO' monthly fees

Frittison

Seeing as how WoW has now jumped on the bandwagon and decided to charge 14.99 a month I have begun to seriously question what it really costs to run an MMO'. In that regard I really want to do the research correctly and am coming to these forums hoping someone here might be able to direct me to other websites that have done different areas of the research. If anyone knows of a site and can help me out that would be very much appreciated.

Brambey

Stop whining, if you cant afford $15 a month than you shouldnt waste a moment of your time playing one. Get a job.

Frittison

Dude if you consider that a whine than you need to go back to school and reeducate youself on proper grammar. I came here asking for help in some research I wanted to do about montly fees. I'm not complaining nor am I bashing the monthly fees. If you want to go flame someone go do it to someone who is truly whining. I came here hoping for some answers not to get bashed for asking assistance.

Edit
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Oh, and I do have a job. I also have a car payment, rent, utilities, and a bad video game habit that when I have a measly little bit of money left over from bills that I can probablly and maybe spend money on. That is if I am not giving up on food money. It is easy to tell someone to get a job when your habits are supported by your family but for those of us in the working real world sometimes we just don't have the money left over to support yearly hikes in monthly fees.

There here is your whine feel free to flame me now about how shitty my job is and that I should get a better paying one. God knows I wish for it every day as I am walking out of my 10 hour shifts.

Dekron

I'll offer an answer, but not a deep detailed one. As mmorpgs get more and more advanced (graphics, engine, code, etc.) the costs rise. Programmers must be paid for new content, modelers for new art, customer service for well, not sure about that one in most games , network matienence (including network engineers, etc.). The costs were so much lower when running an older game, say like UO. Of course they are adding probably $2-3 for profit onto that fee. And also, considering that since about 1998, inflation has been rising roughly between 2-3% per year, so that in effect takes its toll on pricing.

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jimothypetro

Well I can't find the exact site right now, but I think it might have been ign.com who did some research on this. I think it said something like the companies could still make money at charging $6 a month.

I remember one point it made.. that while the price of MMOs have gone up 50% over the past fews years($10-$15), the cost of bandwidth has gotten much lower.

But I guess if people pay it.......

For me, if it goes any higher than $15 a month, I may stop paying for them. Because if it goes higher than $15 a month, then the question is whether I should buy a brand new game every 2-3 months, or continue to play the same game, for the same price.

I mean if an expansion for a game come out every 6 months, then for 1 year of playing WoW or EQ2(who are the only ones to charge this much, and not give free expansions) it would cost $50 + $165 + $60 = $275 for a year(assuming you pay by monthly, and buy the $30 expansion packs). $275 a month for one game(not including tax) is pretty damn expensive, considering I could buy 5+ different games a year for the same price.

Oh well, for Lineage 2 in Asia don't they charge like ~$30 a month or something? So it could be worse.

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"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olson, chairman of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977

tephys

My personal limit* is $15us/mo. I won't go higher than that for a game.

*(subject to change LOL)

nitakrn

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Originally posted by jimothypetro

Well I can't find the exact site right now, but I think it might have been ign.com who did some research on this. I think it said something like the companies could still make money at charging $6 a month.

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Sounds about right, and think about how much they save slicing out customer support alone! 

I have my limit for how much money I spend per month on games, if mmorpgs go any higher I'm going to have to cut them out for the reg *50 bux a pop then I'm done* kind of games, this month was bad enough for me.  After HL2,  Halo 2, NFSU 2 and San Andreas, mmos were at the bottom of my list