I really wish these kind of people would just do some reading up on what it costs to run an MMO. I'ts not nearly as expensive as $15 a month from 2-5 millions gamers.
They are all free to play and Eve and Runes of magic are highly populated and get updates often. Runes of magic has a cash shop but its the best free to play mmo out there
Lorto is not F2p its free to try and free to play part of the game.
Same goes for RoM
And Eve is not F2p. Unless dropping untold amounts of isk ...
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
I can't really understand where the disconnect lies in having no subscription here. There are MANY F2P games that don't even have box sales that do amazingly well with persistent worlds.
On top of that GW2 (and GW1) has a similar pricing model to many single player titles with online capabilities. Yup, thats right folks, the 6 million or what have you in box sales can be equated to the many other Single Player games that sell this amount cross platform. These same companies (well, some of them anyways) host their own online content which also costs money to host and update as well. These models aren't too much different (though yes, persistent worlds will cost more for upkeep).
Just taking a look at the current games that we have on the market will pretty much answer your question on how current games survive without a monthly subscription. These same tactics will be used in GW2.
GW + GW2 do the box sale and expansion sales. That's how they pull in their money.
Asheron's Call does the subscription but then gives monthly content updates for free. It makes its money from the subscription.
F2P games make their money from selling new content and items piece by piece, but not subscription/box sales.
So yes the question comes down to: Why does WoW charge for all 3 of the above? The reason is of course that people are foolish enough to pay for the game 3 times instead of just once like any of the above options. But if I had a customer base that would let me triple charge them for all of time, I would do it too. There's good money in being niave.
One thing to keep in mind is that if there is no monthly charge people are probably more likely to buy the box. I would assume the business model stays the same and we'll see a new stand alone (least I hope they are stand alone) campaigns come out every 6 months. Making the campaigns stand alone might increase sails over a primary campaign dependent expansion because people new to the came who feel they'll be alone in a world of max'd out characters will be willing to try a campaign thats independent of what came along before. The fact new classes were introduced with each campaign helped that. Where as how many new WoW players will buy cataclysm? Also Arenanet boxes tend to keep their cost longer then other boxes.
A lot of the cost of running MMO's with subscription models goes toward paying support staff that moderate forums or resolve in-game issues. The servers themselves are just a piece of the whole. In my experience, games that don't have a sub fee usually forgo the support services and just pay for the server services. I don't think people notice it in most cases and it's usually not a problem. The game is small enough and the problems infrequent enough that everything can still run smoothly.
But it's conceivable a game can become so popular that it requires a much higher support crew. The number of scam artists, hackers and general griefers increases exponentially with a game's population size. If GW2 had, somehow, a 5 million account player base? I'm sorry, but there's no waythey can run a game of that size smoothly without regular income. It doesn't mean they would need a subscription model, they could certainly use cash shops or some other type of revenue generating plan, but there are a lot of manpower requirements necessary for a 5 mill+ game population vs a 500k game. And weren't the GW crew the ones that mentioned something about considering the game a success even if it had somewhere in the 500k ish neighborhood?
It's entirely possible their current pricing plan is based on an average or above average successful MMO title, not a mind blowingly successful title. That's probably why all the language in their interviews is phrased such as "...we have no plans to..." meaning they don't plan to have such a huge population. Of course, rarely does anyone plan for 5 million users, it just kind of happens.
But don't doubt that there's an evil producer somewhere ringing his hands in anticipation of using his undisclosed 5 million user "plan."
The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night.
Do the maths guys lets say the average Triple A mmo cost about $30 - 40 million which is very likely to be a large overestimation. GW2 will probably cost $60 retail and is very very likely to eventually sell at least £1millon considering it's b2p and the original gw1 games average out at 1.5 million per game which also takes into account that they probably sold less over copies per expansion.
Now 60 x 1,000,000 = 60 million which leaves a top end of $20 million profit. Now think about it do you seriously think it costs 20 million to maintain the servers for 1 year? Especially considering A-Net uses technology to greatly reduce server maintence costs.
Even if development costs a heck of a lot more (which it more than likely isn't) and maintence is extremely expensive (which it very likely isn't since most of the time only $2-3 of subscription goes towards it) Even if only most of the $60 goes to A-net say $50 it still gives a pretty healthy profit. I'm sure there's plenty of other costs I've missed out but I'm sure A-net would at least be able to at the very least make a small profit and more than likely will be able to make a reasonable one.
Companies only get screwed over when they put in ridiculous amounts of money into development a game say $150 million. Quite often the reason you see mmo's going down is because they put in far, far too much into development which requires the game to be a massive success in order to break even.
I would be surprise if they get 30$ per box sale. When you check the cost of making the box,shipping it to the store and the profit margin of the store (probably somewhere betwen 20 and 50% of the sell price)
It wouldbe fine for me if Anet offer some kind of "Premium Accounts". Where you pay around 10$ monthly to get more customization, are able to buy faster mounts ingame and such. This way it would bypass an item shop, devs would get some steady income and you are able to support this game, if you like it.
Yep, the interest for GW2 is increasing player numbers in GW somewhat - how much is hard to say, but I played again a bit a week or 2 ago and in whatever town I went to, much to my surprise I saw people in each town and hub, even the remote ones.
. I even read that they were working on another expansion named Utopia for GW which would have had an Aztec theme and alien technology - it reminded me a bit of the enemy faction you encounter in the game Rise of Legends and a little bit of the capital of the Asura as seen in the GW2 video.
But don't doubt that there's an evil producer somewhere ringing his hands in anticipation of using his undisclosed 5 million user "plan."
Yep, which will cause a large percentage of the original game players to destroy there characters and leave. We will not pay a monthly sub, nor will we pay for stuff in the store to make us the uber god player. This has never been the point of this set of games and this customer base expects the 'rules' to remain the same.
I would be surprise if they get 30$ per box sale. When you check the cost of making the box,shipping it to the store and the profit margin of the store (probably somewhere betwen 20 and 50% of the sell price)
I highly doubt it's $30 dollars considering all the shipping is done in bulk and that NcSoft sells it to wholesalers/retailers which move it to there stores and sell the actual game. The packaging etc is usually included in general development costs. They don't ship it everywhere companies buy it from them and move it to there stores. They'll probably just ship it to somewhere like a place in main land Europe then other companies will buy and move it themselves.
At least $40 is probably what A-net gets with the likelihood being more. Less than $40 barlely seems economical and is highly unlikely.
I love the professed ideas on this site the no sub=no fun/support/quality/etc. How brainwashed do you have to be to think that buying a box and spending a monthly fee (in my worldview it's like buying a home, paying cash for it, then having the builder/bank charging you rent!). The sub system WITH purchased anything is going to be dead if the player base ever figures this out. I would play a sub based game IF the company wasn't charging the box price.
I would be surprise if they get 30$ per box sale. When you check the cost of making the box,shipping it to the store and the profit margin of the store (probably somewhere betwen 20 and 50% of the sell price)
I highly doubt it's $30 dollars considering all the shipping is done in bulk and that NcSoft sells it to wholesalers/retailers which move it to there stores and sell the actual game. The packaging etc is usually included in general development costs. They don't ship it everywhere companies buy it from them and move it to there stores. They'll probably just ship it to somewhere like a place in main land Europe then other companies will buy and move it themselves.
At least $40 is probably what A-net gets with the likelihood being more. Less than $40 barlely seems economical and is highly unlikely.
The actual shipping costs and handling costs are paid by the retailer. They then add that cost to their sales to balance the books/make a profit. What I would like to know is what is the wholesale price and the margin for the video game, generally speaking in retail if you pay $3.00 for something (not marked down, on sale or being clearanced) it's pretty certain that the wholesale price is at most $1.00. Alot of stuff the margin is even larger. (HDMI cables running $70 at Best Buy can be purchased for less than $12.00 wholesale).
I'm thinking at the level of the devs, they might only be making $1.00-2.00/game (remember though on a 4 million player base that's a gross of $8 million).
I love the professed ideas on this site the no sub=no fun/support/quality/etc. How brainwashed do you have to be to think that buying a box and spending a monthly fee (in my worldview it's like buying a home, paying cash for it, then having the builder/bank charging you rent!). The sub system WITH purchased anything is going to be dead if the player base ever figures this out. I would play a sub based game IF the company wasn't charging the box price.
Yeah, many people prefer the subscription based models because, in the past, content was free and consistent. Sure there were paid expansions, but between expansions they still added plenty of content, fixed bugs very quickly, worked on balance and other issues, etc.
In the original guild wars, on first release, you still got some bug fixes and minor balancing, but there was no additional content to speak of.
What that ended up being was stale gameplay after the first couple months, the only players still interested were the ones who really enjoyed the PvP. In this next iteration they have more PvE content to speak of, but the content will still be the same. The only difference is, to ensure that some replayability on the PvE scale will be available, they've added "dynamic" questing on top of instanced mapping areas so that you can switch to and fro on different maps in hopes that you'll run into a scenario you may not have seen before -- but lets not fool ourselves into thinking you won't see repeated content.
That means GW2 will need to add more content, and in order to do that, they will charge for it. In the meantime, while I wait for additional content (and whether I deem said content "worthy" of my dollar) I can continue playing other games with fixes and content updates already in the pipeline without additional costs. Each game has their own payment types and they run their game with a model based around that choice.
If they use MTs then they will base the gameplay around the need to use MTs. If its B2P, then they will base their gameplay around the need to buy the next update (or something comparable) to compensate. If its a subscription game, then you pay for the box and subscription. If its a cryptic game though, you pay for all three because they really need the money.
I never tried Guild Wars because it didn't really look like a real MMO to me. Guild Wars 2 looks more like an actual MMO, so I may try it. If they can pull it off without relying on subs or massive amounts of MTs, then I think more consumers will look at all the other MMOs and ask "why can't you do this?". It will be interesting.
I would be surprise if they get 30$ per box sale. When you check the cost of making the box,shipping it to the store and the profit margin of the store (probably somewhere betwen 20 and 50% of the sell price)
I highly doubt it's $30 dollars considering all the shipping is done in bulk and that NcSoft sells it to wholesalers/retailers which move it to there stores and sell the actual game. The packaging etc is usually included in general development costs. They don't ship it everywhere companies buy it from them and move it to there stores. They'll probably just ship it to somewhere like a place in main land Europe then other companies will buy and move it themselves.
At least $40 is probably what A-net gets with the likelihood being more. Less than $40 barlely seems economical and is highly unlikely.
The actual shipping costs and handling costs are paid by the retailer. They then add that cost to their sales to balance the books/make a profit. What I would like to know is what is the wholesale price and the margin for the video game, generally speaking in retail if you pay $3.00 for something (not marked down, on sale or being clearanced) it's pretty certain that the wholesale price is at most $1.00. Alot of stuff the margin is even larger. (HDMI cables running $70 at Best Buy can be purchased for less than $12.00 wholesale).
I'm thinking at the level of the devs, they might only be making $1.00-2.00/game (remember though on a 4 million player base that's a gross of $8 million).
Really really REALLY doubt it's that low or anywhere near that as these things are hella expensive to produce. The developers themselves may not be getting much but the publishers cerainly are and since they pay for most of the game it makes sense. Shareholders won't place money into a games general if they produce such a low revenue. GTA 4 cost 100 million to make there's no way in freaking hell they got less than $30 dollars per game from that as they would barely break even and shareholders really hate that.
In the original guild wars, on first release, you still got some bug fixes and minor balancing, but there was no additional content to speak of.
There was the addition of Sorrow's Furnace which came soon after release, a sizable addition with 2 large explorable regions (surface and underground), it also bought in the first 'green' items.
Considering its timing I would say it was content meant for release, didn't quite make it, so got added shortly after.
I would be surprise if they get 30$ per box sale. When you check the cost of making the box,shipping it to the store and the profit margin of the store (probably somewhere betwen 20 and 50% of the sell price)
I highly doubt it's $30 dollars considering all the shipping is done in bulk and that NcSoft sells it to wholesalers/retailers which move it to there stores and sell the actual game. The packaging etc is usually included in general development costs. They don't ship it everywhere companies buy it from them and move it to there stores. They'll probably just ship it to somewhere like a place in main land Europe then other companies will buy and move it themselves.
At least $40 is probably what A-net gets with the likelihood being more. Less than $40 barlely seems economical and is highly unlikely.
This is for console games, but it gives you the basic idea.
Guild Wars 2, according to the official website, will be highly instanced. I think some people don't realize just how cheap instanced servers are compared to open-world servers. I've never paid to play an FPS online, and yet they all manage to provide servers for years after their release. To use an example everyone can understand, think about gaming PC performance. For $1000 I can build a pretty good gaming machine. For only quadruple the price, I can build a machine that will run games at about twice the effectiveness of the $1000 rig. The same applies to gaming servers.
Keep in mind that even the seemingly open-world areas of GW2 will be instanced. My guess is that there will be zones comparable to those in FFXI as compared to the open world of WoW, though I could be wrong.
All this being said, I do believe the $15 per month we are all used to paying is way higher than it needs to be. The $5-10 range would be more than enough to cover costs and the extra box sales would mean extra profits without ripping the gamer off, but I'm sure the big developers have done studies and found that the $15 price point is the most profitable for them. Profit always wins out in the business world.
I love the professed ideas on this site the no sub=no fun/support/quality/etc. How brainwashed do you have to be to think that buying a box and spending a monthly fee (in my worldview it's like buying a home, paying cash for it, then having the builder/bank charging you rent!). The sub system WITH purchased anything is going to be dead if the player base ever figures this out. I would play a sub based game IF the company wasn't charging the box price.
Yeah, many people prefer the subscription based models because, in the past, content was free and consistent. Sure there were paid expansions, but between expansions they still added plenty of content, fixed bugs very quickly, worked on balance and other issues, etc.
In the original guild wars, on first release, you still got some bug fixes and minor balancing, but there was no additional content to speak of.
What that ended up being was stale gameplay after the first couple months, the only players still interested were the ones who really enjoyed the PvP. In this next iteration they have more PvE content to speak of, but the content will still be the same. The only difference is, to ensure that some replayability on the PvE scale will be available, they've added "dynamic" questing on top of instanced mapping areas so that you can switch to and fro on different maps in hopes that you'll run into a scenario you may not have seen before -- but lets not fool ourselves into thinking you won't see repeated content.
That means GW2 will need to add more content, and in order to do that, they will charge for it. In the meantime, while I wait for additional content (and whether I deem said content "worthy" of my dollar) I can continue playing other games with fixes and content updates already in the pipeline without additional costs. Each game has their own payment types and they run their game with a model based around that choice.
If they use MTs then they will base the gameplay around the need to use MTs. If its B2P, then they will base their gameplay around the need to buy the next update (or something comparable) to compensate. If its a subscription game, then you pay for the box and subscription. If its a cryptic game though, you pay for all three because they really need the money.
I don't agree with this.
You see a lot of the top MMO's that are subbed where also additional payable services and itemshop-like stuff is being sneaked in. Furthermore, the content updates of subbed MMO's may be nice but what GW offered was a standalone expansion within the year: 2 years after launch it had more than tripled the amount of content that was available with the 3 expansions ANet released, where many a subbed MMO would only have 1 expansion 2 years after launch.
Comparing GW with other subbed MMO games, I find GW being cheaper and having as much content to offer as you see in a lot of MMO's. The way ANet works, with their servers having barely any downtime in all those years, their patching being done streaming, and good content-filled expansions consistently being released every 8 months/1 year, they seem to operate more cost efficiently and effectively than other MMO game companies.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I would be surprise if they get 30$ per box sale. When you check the cost of making the box,shipping it to the store and the profit margin of the store (probably somewhere betwen 20 and 50% of the sell price)
I highly doubt it's $30 dollars considering all the shipping is done in bulk and that NcSoft sells it to wholesalers/retailers which move it to there stores and sell the actual game. The packaging etc is usually included in general development costs. They don't ship it everywhere companies buy it from them and move it to there stores. They'll probably just ship it to somewhere like a place in main land Europe then other companies will buy and move it themselves.
At least $40 is probably what A-net gets with the likelihood being more. Less than $40 barlely seems economical and is highly unlikely.
This is for console games, but it gives you the basic idea.
Guild Wars 2, according to the official website, will be highly instanced. I think some people don't realize just how cheap instanced servers are compared to open-world servers. I've never paid to play an FPS online, and yet they all manage to provide servers for years after their release. To use an example everyone can understand, think about gaming PC performance. For $1000 I can build a pretty good gaming machine. For only quadruple the price, I can build a machine that will run games at about twice the effectiveness of the $1000 rig. The same applies to gaming servers.
Keep in mind that even the seemingly open-world areas of GW2 will be instanced. My guess is that there will be zones comparable to those in FFXI as compared to the open world of WoW, though I could be wrong.
All this being said, I do believe the $15 per month we are all used to paying is way higher than it needs to be. The $5-10 range would be more than enough to cover costs and the extra box sales would mean extra profits without ripping the gamer off, but I'm sure the big developers have done studies and found that the $15 price point is the most profitable for them. Profit always wins out in the business world.
Your link proves my point as you don't pay money to the platform for pc games which puts it in the price range I expected. Thats is all if I go into the rest I may be here for a loong time.
I love the professed ideas on this site the no sub=no fun/support/quality/etc. How brainwashed do you have to be to think that buying a box and spending a monthly fee (in my worldview it's like buying a home, paying cash for it, then having the builder/bank charging you rent!). The sub system WITH purchased anything is going to be dead if the player base ever figures this out. I would play a sub based game IF the company wasn't charging the box price.
Yeah, many people prefer the subscription based models because, in the past, content was free and consistent. Sure there were paid expansions, but between expansions they still added plenty of content, fixed bugs very quickly, worked on balance and other issues, etc.
In the original guild wars, on first release, you still got some bug fixes and minor balancing, but there was no additional content to speak of.
What that ended up being was stale gameplay after the first couple months, the only players still interested were the ones who really enjoyed the PvP. In this next iteration they have more PvE content to speak of, but the content will still be the same. The only difference is, to ensure that some replayability on the PvE scale will be available, they've added "dynamic" questing on top of instanced mapping areas so that you can switch to and fro on different maps in hopes that you'll run into a scenario you may not have seen before -- but lets not fool ourselves into thinking you won't see repeated content.
That means GW2 will need to add more content, and in order to do that, they will charge for it. In the meantime, while I wait for additional content (and whether I deem said content "worthy" of my dollar) I can continue playing other games with fixes and content updates already in the pipeline without additional costs. Each game has their own payment types and they run their game with a model based around that choice.
If they use MTs then they will base the gameplay around the need to use MTs. If its B2P, then they will base their gameplay around the need to buy the next update (or something comparable) to compensate. If its a subscription game, then you pay for the box and subscription. If its a cryptic game though, you pay for all three because they really need the money.
I don't agree with this.
You see a lot of the top MMO's that are subbed where also additional payable services and itemshop-like stuff is being sneaked in. Furthermore, the content updates of subbed MMO's may be nice but what GW offered was a standalone expansion within the year: 2 years after launch it had more than tripled the amount of content that was available with the 3 expansions ANet released, where many a subbed MMO would only have 1 expansion 2 years after launch.
Comparing GW with other subbed MMO games, I find GW being cheaper and having as much content to offer as you see in a lot of MMO's. The way ANet works, with their servers having barely any downtime in all those years, their patching being done streaming, and good content-filled expansions consistently being released every 8 months/1 year, they seem to operate more cost efficiently and effectively than other MMO game companies.
It all depends on the games you are looking at.
Look at Fallen Earth, WAR, SWG, or CoX. CoX had a bunch of "issues" (not problems, but free content updates and changes) before AND after they released their first expansion. Over the course of the entire game their updates expanded the content quite a bit.
Fallen earth has added new level caps, new areas, and tons of new content just with the price of subscription. They added an item shop as well, but with nothing absolutely necessary to continue playing the game and all before a years worth of time!
WAR added new classes and content, fixed bugs, etc. SWG .. well.. lets not get into everything they added without expansions, but lets just say they were .... active.
Yes GW added content, but the content was Pay content, and then they added other things like skill packs, and ITEM packs... you know, microtransaction items you'd find in F2P games but wrapped up into a pack for easy purchasing.
Then, they expanded content like regular expansions, and created packs for those games too, and etc. etc. I don't have a problem with this, and sure it may be cheaper to some people (It was for me simply because I didn't buy the packs, and didn't play the game very much.. but I did buy all the expansions thinking I would play them but got bored after a few months of content. I did however, get a T-Shirt that says guild wars for free, so its all good) but overall FREE content updates coming from subscription based games keep players coming back and subscribing.
So its the same thing, in essence, just a little different. Yeah, some companies sell MT items too, but they aren't game changing items. Aesthetic may be... but they usually aren't items that give an unfair advantage to those players that plan to spend money over others that work hard at obtaining said items.
but overall FREE content updates coming from subscription based games keep players coming back and subscribing.
I keep seeing people phrase it this way, and I have to say it's more than a bit disingenuous. If you are getting "free" content updates with a sub, you are not getting free content updates. You are paying for them with a sub. Which is fine, if that's your choice. But you're not paying a sub and that money goes nowhere, and then the company deigns to gift you with free content. you are paying over a hundred dollars a year (whether at $15/mo or a discount for buying months in bulk) for that content, and you can't even access it anymore once you stop paying that sub.
I would appreciate it if MMO subscribers would acknowledge this fact.
Besides, expansions have to be paid for in subbed MMO's as well, and those aren't standalone as the Nightfall and Factions expansion of GW were. I've never bought anything besides the expansions and I never felt disadvantaged regarding other players.
Sure, people may prefer being subbed or having no choice. But personally I think the way ANet has been doing it is the better choice for gamers, far more reasonable in price.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
but overall FREE content updates coming from subscription based games keep players coming back and subscribing.
I keep seeing people phrase it this way, and I have to say it's more than a bit disingenuous. If you are getting "free" content updates with a sub, you are not getting free content updates. You are paying for them with a sub. Which is fine, if that's your choice. But you're not paying a sub and that money goes nowhere, and then the company deigns to gift you with free content. you are paying over a hundred dollars a year (whether at $15/mo or a discount for buying months in bulk) for that content, and you can't even access it anymore once you stop paying that sub.
I would appreciate it if MMO subscribers would acknowledge this fact.
The only issue is, you are paying that sub whether or not there is additional content. While its true, I'm paying 15 dollars to play the game monthly, I'm not paying anything additional for the content given to me during this time save for an expansion.
What am I really paying for though? Entertainment. Why does that play a part? Because entertainment from GW1 was few and far between. The combat, classes, and scenarios got stale to me very fast. Whereas I could stop paying 15 dollars a month at any point, and then ONLY pay 15 dollars a month to start back up when more content is added, its similar in the sense that I could spend another 50 dollars every time a new expansion for guild wars came out.
The difference is that the "free" content (that isn't "free") is there whether I pay the 15 or not. If that means they increase the level cap in FE and add that new city, that means I have access to it for the same price I paid before. Not to mention I don't have to worry about the shmo with the extra 40 dollars who bought the extra items and skills whereas I had to work for them with my time rather then with my wallet.
Its just a different way to pay, AND to play. Once I stop paying for this content, it is no longer available to me, but just as with TV service or game subscription service like Gametap, if I choose to be entertained by this game, I have no qualms in being charged for it.
Comments
+1
SexuaLobster's Grease Portal
Lorto is not F2p its free to try and free to play part of the game.
Same goes for RoM
And Eve is not F2p. Unless dropping untold amounts of isk ...
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
I can't really understand where the disconnect lies in having no subscription here. There are MANY F2P games that don't even have box sales that do amazingly well with persistent worlds.
On top of that GW2 (and GW1) has a similar pricing model to many single player titles with online capabilities. Yup, thats right folks, the 6 million or what have you in box sales can be equated to the many other Single Player games that sell this amount cross platform. These same companies (well, some of them anyways) host their own online content which also costs money to host and update as well. These models aren't too much different (though yes, persistent worlds will cost more for upkeep).
Just taking a look at the current games that we have on the market will pretty much answer your question on how current games survive without a monthly subscription. These same tactics will be used in GW2.
GW + GW2 do the box sale and expansion sales. That's how they pull in their money.
Asheron's Call does the subscription but then gives monthly content updates for free. It makes its money from the subscription.
F2P games make their money from selling new content and items piece by piece, but not subscription/box sales.
So yes the question comes down to: Why does WoW charge for all 3 of the above? The reason is of course that people are foolish enough to pay for the game 3 times instead of just once like any of the above options. But if I had a customer base that would let me triple charge them for all of time, I would do it too. There's good money in being niave.
One thing to keep in mind is that if there is no monthly charge people are probably more likely to buy the box. I would assume the business model stays the same and we'll see a new stand alone (least I hope they are stand alone) campaigns come out every 6 months. Making the campaigns stand alone might increase sails over a primary campaign dependent expansion because people new to the came who feel they'll be alone in a world of max'd out characters will be willing to try a campaign thats independent of what came along before. The fact new classes were introduced with each campaign helped that. Where as how many new WoW players will buy cataclysm? Also Arenanet boxes tend to keep their cost longer then other boxes.
A lot of the cost of running MMO's with subscription models goes toward paying support staff that moderate forums or resolve in-game issues. The servers themselves are just a piece of the whole. In my experience, games that don't have a sub fee usually forgo the support services and just pay for the server services. I don't think people notice it in most cases and it's usually not a problem. The game is small enough and the problems infrequent enough that everything can still run smoothly.
But it's conceivable a game can become so popular that it requires a much higher support crew. The number of scam artists, hackers and general griefers increases exponentially with a game's population size. If GW2 had, somehow, a 5 million account player base? I'm sorry, but there's no way they can run a game of that size smoothly without regular income. It doesn't mean they would need a subscription model, they could certainly use cash shops or some other type of revenue generating plan, but there are a lot of manpower requirements necessary for a 5 mill+ game population vs a 500k game. And weren't the GW crew the ones that mentioned something about considering the game a success even if it had somewhere in the 500k ish neighborhood?
It's entirely possible their current pricing plan is based on an average or above average successful MMO title, not a mind blowingly successful title. That's probably why all the language in their interviews is phrased such as "...we have no plans to..." meaning they don't plan to have such a huge population. Of course, rarely does anyone plan for 5 million users, it just kind of happens.
But don't doubt that there's an evil producer somewhere ringing his hands in anticipation of using his undisclosed 5 million user "plan."
The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night.
Do the maths guys lets say the average Triple A mmo cost about $30 - 40 million which is very likely to be a large overestimation. GW2 will probably cost $60 retail and is very very likely to eventually sell at least £1millon considering it's b2p and the original gw1 games average out at 1.5 million per game which also takes into account that they probably sold less over copies per expansion.
Now 60 x 1,000,000 = 60 million which leaves a top end of $20 million profit. Now think about it do you seriously think it costs 20 million to maintain the servers for 1 year? Especially considering A-Net uses technology to greatly reduce server maintence costs.
Even if development costs a heck of a lot more (which it more than likely isn't) and maintence is extremely expensive (which it very likely isn't since most of the time only $2-3 of subscription goes towards it) Even if only most of the $60 goes to A-net say $50 it still gives a pretty healthy profit. I'm sure there's plenty of other costs I've missed out but I'm sure A-net would at least be able to at the very least make a small profit and more than likely will be able to make a reasonable one.
Companies only get screwed over when they put in ridiculous amounts of money into development a game say $150 million. Quite often the reason you see mmo's going down is because they put in far, far too much into development which requires the game to be a massive success in order to break even.
I would be surprise if they get 30$ per box sale. When you check the cost of making the box,shipping it to the store and the profit margin of the store (probably somewhere betwen 20 and 50% of the sell price)
It wouldbe fine for me if Anet offer some kind of "Premium Accounts". Where you pay around 10$ monthly to get more customization, are able to buy faster mounts ingame and such.
This way it would bypass an item shop, devs would get some steady income and you are able to support this game, if you like it.
This WAS going to be the next released campaign in GW1. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Utopia
Read the link for those who want to know how GW2 actually came in to being!
Yep, which will cause a large percentage of the original game players to destroy there characters and leave. We will not pay a monthly sub, nor will we pay for stuff in the store to make us the uber god player. This has never been the point of this set of games and this customer base expects the 'rules' to remain the same.
I highly doubt it's $30 dollars considering all the shipping is done in bulk and that NcSoft sells it to wholesalers/retailers which move it to there stores and sell the actual game. The packaging etc is usually included in general development costs. They don't ship it everywhere companies buy it from them and move it to there stores. They'll probably just ship it to somewhere like a place in main land Europe then other companies will buy and move it themselves.
At least $40 is probably what A-net gets with the likelihood being more. Less than $40 barlely seems economical and is highly unlikely.
I love the professed ideas on this site the no sub=no fun/support/quality/etc. How brainwashed do you have to be to think that buying a box and spending a monthly fee (in my worldview it's like buying a home, paying cash for it, then having the builder/bank charging you rent!). The sub system WITH purchased anything is going to be dead if the player base ever figures this out. I would play a sub based game IF the company wasn't charging the box price.
The actual shipping costs and handling costs are paid by the retailer. They then add that cost to their sales to balance the books/make a profit. What I would like to know is what is the wholesale price and the margin for the video game, generally speaking in retail if you pay $3.00 for something (not marked down, on sale or being clearanced) it's pretty certain that the wholesale price is at most $1.00. Alot of stuff the margin is even larger. (HDMI cables running $70 at Best Buy can be purchased for less than $12.00 wholesale).
I'm thinking at the level of the devs, they might only be making $1.00-2.00/game (remember though on a 4 million player base that's a gross of $8 million).
Yeah, many people prefer the subscription based models because, in the past, content was free and consistent. Sure there were paid expansions, but between expansions they still added plenty of content, fixed bugs very quickly, worked on balance and other issues, etc.
In the original guild wars, on first release, you still got some bug fixes and minor balancing, but there was no additional content to speak of.
What that ended up being was stale gameplay after the first couple months, the only players still interested were the ones who really enjoyed the PvP. In this next iteration they have more PvE content to speak of, but the content will still be the same. The only difference is, to ensure that some replayability on the PvE scale will be available, they've added "dynamic" questing on top of instanced mapping areas so that you can switch to and fro on different maps in hopes that you'll run into a scenario you may not have seen before -- but lets not fool ourselves into thinking you won't see repeated content.
That means GW2 will need to add more content, and in order to do that, they will charge for it. In the meantime, while I wait for additional content (and whether I deem said content "worthy" of my dollar) I can continue playing other games with fixes and content updates already in the pipeline without additional costs. Each game has their own payment types and they run their game with a model based around that choice.
If they use MTs then they will base the gameplay around the need to use MTs. If its B2P, then they will base their gameplay around the need to buy the next update (or something comparable) to compensate. If its a subscription game, then you pay for the box and subscription. If its a cryptic game though, you pay for all three because they really need the money.
I never tried Guild Wars because it didn't really look like a real MMO to me. Guild Wars 2 looks more like an actual MMO, so I may try it. If they can pull it off without relying on subs or massive amounts of MTs, then I think more consumers will look at all the other MMOs and ask "why can't you do this?". It will be interesting.
Really really REALLY doubt it's that low or anywhere near that as these things are hella expensive to produce. The developers themselves may not be getting much but the publishers cerainly are and since they pay for most of the game it makes sense. Shareholders won't place money into a games general if they produce such a low revenue. GTA 4 cost 100 million to make there's no way in freaking hell they got less than $30 dollars per game from that as they would barely break even and shareholders really hate that.
There was the addition of Sorrow's Furnace which came soon after release, a sizable addition with 2 large explorable regions (surface and underground), it also bought in the first 'green' items.
Considering its timing I would say it was content meant for release, didn't quite make it, so got added shortly after.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/anatomy-of-a-60-dollar-video-game.html
This is for console games, but it gives you the basic idea.
Guild Wars 2, according to the official website, will be highly instanced. I think some people don't realize just how cheap instanced servers are compared to open-world servers. I've never paid to play an FPS online, and yet they all manage to provide servers for years after their release. To use an example everyone can understand, think about gaming PC performance. For $1000 I can build a pretty good gaming machine. For only quadruple the price, I can build a machine that will run games at about twice the effectiveness of the $1000 rig. The same applies to gaming servers.
Keep in mind that even the seemingly open-world areas of GW2 will be instanced. My guess is that there will be zones comparable to those in FFXI as compared to the open world of WoW, though I could be wrong.
All this being said, I do believe the $15 per month we are all used to paying is way higher than it needs to be. The $5-10 range would be more than enough to cover costs and the extra box sales would mean extra profits without ripping the gamer off, but I'm sure the big developers have done studies and found that the $15 price point is the most profitable for them. Profit always wins out in the business world.
I don't agree with this.
You see a lot of the top MMO's that are subbed where also additional payable services and itemshop-like stuff is being sneaked in. Furthermore, the content updates of subbed MMO's may be nice but what GW offered was a standalone expansion within the year: 2 years after launch it had more than tripled the amount of content that was available with the 3 expansions ANet released, where many a subbed MMO would only have 1 expansion 2 years after launch.
Comparing GW with other subbed MMO games, I find GW being cheaper and having as much content to offer as you see in a lot of MMO's. The way ANet works, with their servers having barely any downtime in all those years, their patching being done streaming, and good content-filled expansions consistently being released every 8 months/1 year, they seem to operate more cost efficiently and effectively than other MMO game companies.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Your link proves my point as you don't pay money to the platform for pc games which puts it in the price range I expected. Thats is all if I go into the rest I may be here for a loong time.
It all depends on the games you are looking at.
Look at Fallen Earth, WAR, SWG, or CoX. CoX had a bunch of "issues" (not problems, but free content updates and changes) before AND after they released their first expansion. Over the course of the entire game their updates expanded the content quite a bit.
Fallen earth has added new level caps, new areas, and tons of new content just with the price of subscription. They added an item shop as well, but with nothing absolutely necessary to continue playing the game and all before a years worth of time!
WAR added new classes and content, fixed bugs, etc. SWG .. well.. lets not get into everything they added without expansions, but lets just say they were .... active.
Yes GW added content, but the content was Pay content, and then they added other things like skill packs, and ITEM packs... you know, microtransaction items you'd find in F2P games but wrapped up into a pack for easy purchasing.
Then, they expanded content like regular expansions, and created packs for those games too, and etc. etc. I don't have a problem with this, and sure it may be cheaper to some people (It was for me simply because I didn't buy the packs, and didn't play the game very much.. but I did buy all the expansions thinking I would play them but got bored after a few months of content. I did however, get a T-Shirt that says guild wars for free, so its all good) but overall FREE content updates coming from subscription based games keep players coming back and subscribing.
So its the same thing, in essence, just a little different. Yeah, some companies sell MT items too, but they aren't game changing items. Aesthetic may be... but they usually aren't items that give an unfair advantage to those players that plan to spend money over others that work hard at obtaining said items.
but overall FREE content updates coming from subscription based games keep players coming back and subscribing.
I keep seeing people phrase it this way, and I have to say it's more than a bit disingenuous. If you are getting "free" content updates with a sub, you are not getting free content updates. You are paying for them with a sub. Which is fine, if that's your choice. But you're not paying a sub and that money goes nowhere, and then the company deigns to gift you with free content. you are paying over a hundred dollars a year (whether at $15/mo or a discount for buying months in bulk) for that content, and you can't even access it anymore once you stop paying that sub.
I would appreciate it if MMO subscribers would acknowledge this fact.
I agree, a year's sub is easily 100-150 dollars.
Besides, expansions have to be paid for in subbed MMO's as well, and those aren't standalone as the Nightfall and Factions expansion of GW were. I've never bought anything besides the expansions and I never felt disadvantaged regarding other players.
Sure, people may prefer being subbed or having no choice. But personally I think the way ANet has been doing it is the better choice for gamers, far more reasonable in price.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The only issue is, you are paying that sub whether or not there is additional content. While its true, I'm paying 15 dollars to play the game monthly, I'm not paying anything additional for the content given to me during this time save for an expansion.
What am I really paying for though? Entertainment. Why does that play a part? Because entertainment from GW1 was few and far between. The combat, classes, and scenarios got stale to me very fast. Whereas I could stop paying 15 dollars a month at any point, and then ONLY pay 15 dollars a month to start back up when more content is added, its similar in the sense that I could spend another 50 dollars every time a new expansion for guild wars came out.
The difference is that the "free" content (that isn't "free") is there whether I pay the 15 or not. If that means they increase the level cap in FE and add that new city, that means I have access to it for the same price I paid before. Not to mention I don't have to worry about the shmo with the extra 40 dollars who bought the extra items and skills whereas I had to work for them with my time rather then with my wallet.
Its just a different way to pay, AND to play. Once I stop paying for this content, it is no longer available to me, but just as with TV service or game subscription service like Gametap, if I choose to be entertained by this game, I have no qualms in being charged for it.