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Mmo Companies Obsession with Recurring Subscriptions.
summitus
Member UncommonPosts: 1,414
What is it with the obsession these Mmo companies have with recurring subs ?. I'm sick and tired of not being able to just pay for the time I want to play , why do they force you to make a sub that you might forget to cancel ( which I have done before now ) or cancel but find that your still being billed two or three months down the line.
All these game are quite happy to have cash shops as well as your paid monthly sub , so why oh why can they not make available a week of game time or even just a few hours play if you want it ?.
I was just about to resub to STO and thought to myself , fuck it , if they are prepared to take a few pounds or dollars of me for a Uniform or funky new ship why cant they just sell me a few hours games time instead of forcing me into a committment I dont want to make.
Is there anyone else out there that hates this practice . and does anyone know any games that dont force you into a recurring Sub ?.
/Rant over ....
Comments
You answered your own question.
"Why do they force you to make a sub that you might forget to cancel ( which I have done before now )"
They make bank off of the people who forget to cancel their subs.
I hate monthly fee's to since I feel forced to play and play and play to get the most of my month of time. I don't take time to play any other games since I can always play them later, but I'm paying to play an MMO for the month. Now I get my MMO fix from an occasional f2p game, but its not the same.
Yeah, 50 cents a day to play an online game that is frequently updated is rediculous. You should be able to play forever on just the box price. Forgetting to cancel a sub is a problem but I see commercials on TV all the time that offer help to people who cannot handle a credit card so help is within reach.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
No, that's not why. It's a typical Western thing (or rather NA thing), to charge a fee over a set period rather than over running hours.
It was a means to pay for the server infrastructure and maintenance of the servers / game. Then they noticed they could hook players for years and it became a goal instead of a mean.
Now that servers are dirt cheap and most people do more than just play games online the system is changing and more people want to do away with a flat fee and go to F2P or pay / hour.
Yeah I agree Ftp games are just not the same , ( although some of them are pretty darn good these days ! ) Also there have been many times when I have had to work or go away on business sometimes even for weeks , and yea I know people will say you can cancel first but I normally forget or just cant be bothered with the hassle of canceling and then then resubbing again.
Also if you could pay for your game time in hours , days or weeks , I pretty certain there would be alot more people playing whenever they have the spare time.
I know in Asia this is what alot of Mmo's do especially Aion.
Lol you make a good point , but I should be able to use my credit card to just pay 50 cents for a days play if I want to, you are also forgeting to mention the wasted 50 cents for the days you cant play .
I would like to see companies adding the choice to pay by hour or by the month, kinda like APB does.
(tho I think APB should go the Guild Wars/Global Agenda route, but that besides the point of the thread)
Are you complaining about monthly subscriptions in general? Or just the fact that renewal is automatic, leading to the possiblity of forgetting to cancel once you're done with the game? It's a little hard to tell.
Sure it would be nice to have the option to only buy a single month, with no recurring charge, but it's not that big of a deal. Seriously, you should be going over your CC bill every month and positively identifying each charge, hopefully leading to a "Oh yeah, I'm done with that game - time to cancel NOW." Just good money practice.
Offering less than a month at a time? Aside from the issue of the initial box price, which is kind of seperate, $15/month could be seen as a pretty good deal. Looking for a package that's less than $15 is starting to get a little cheap, especially considering the cost of a computer itself. Plus, considering the genre, you should at least stick in for a month before deciding that you don't like the game.
And regarding the selling of time by the hour, by simply buying unlimited use for the time period, it removes a lot of pressure to maximize each hour. Personally, I'd hate the idea of a situation where you start getting "Can't stop to talk, on the clock" in the game itself. Enough of that in RL, really.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
I think sony offers a "weekend rate" or something where you pay $5 for three days? Not sure of the time but I do recall thinking its not a very good deal considering a full month is $15. As for the hourly paying asians, I think its done that way there do to the internet cafes being so popular. I dont know how much an hour costs but I doubt its as economical as the flat $15 a month.
@OP. Great avatar by the way. The Two Towers is on TNT right now.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
What Turbine have done with DDO and soon LotrO is a good solution to this. Instead of subscribing you just buy the stuff you want/need as you go.
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
Very simple solution:
When you make a sub, but are unsure about the next month simply cancel the minute you have added the sub, then it's already payed for that month but will not recurre back the next.
I also agree with Mehve in that you need to have your financials in order as in making sure you know what you pay and where it goes each and every month.
It's somewhat hard for me to indentify with people who want to play by day fee, I know if I would have trouble with paying a sub of lets say 15$ a month I think I wouldn't even try playing games with a subfee. To be honost I spend more on things that last less then the fun I can have for just 15 $/€ a month for a game. For example going out would give me and my friends or if I am going out with my wife just merly 3-4 drinks and not even talking about the fee to enter some concerts or party's.
No I have no problem with monthly subs for the people that want them , and just adding a months game time without recurring sub would be a nice choice too , Its the lack of choices that I object to, and as I mentioned , if they can allow people to buy things such as indidual potions , character slots and such , why cant they let players buy as much or as little time in the game that they want or can afford ?.
Yup totally agreed , it also seems that DDO is heathier than ever ! , I already have a lifetime Sub to Lotro so I guess I'm covered there , but Turbine are giving us 500 store points every month as sort of compensation I guess .
A subscription vs hourly rate debate could go on forever.
Here's just one for each.
Subscription PRO: With a monthly fee you can access the game most generally whenever you want taking time to micromanage gear and assets as well as socialize and progress in the game. CON: If a busy month comes along and you only manage an hour here and there, you probably paid more than 1 dollar an hour to just access the game.
Hourly rate PRO: When you're not playing, you're not paying. Some gamers who buy 20 hours a month efficently use the time. CON: Taking time to put items on an auction house, looking for a good group, or being silly with /dance in a public area would be wasteful to some and they would spend the majority of their paid hour trying to grind as mindlessly as possible.
APB is a pretty good example. They have a public hub where you don't use any of your game time, so when you go out into the mission maps you're free to try and get as much xp as possible.
The Free 2 Play* (*Mostly..) model is a pretty decent in the middle solution. DDO and their adventure packs probably set the way a lot of casual MMOs will handle making money in the future.
Good topic BTW.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Go play free to play mmo's instead pay to play seems simple enough then you wont have that problem.
I play sinds 99 mmo's with monthly payment and never forget or been billed more then i played lucky me then:)
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I guess I just wish they would give more options for everyones tastes or lifstyles even , I just think as with STO for example , they have the time and resources to promote and fill up their Cryptic Store, but dont seem to be bothered or want to add a few more payment options.
A lot of big name games have these things called... TIME CARDS!... oh whats that? You can buy a month, 2 months, or 3 months at a time and not have to put in your credit card! Some kind of wizardry magic is going on here... But in all honesty what one poster stated is that just add the month sub and then cancel it right after. Simple as that. Quite frankly though with how much I play an MMO when I am actually playing them 15 bucks a month is well spent when I play over 40 hours a week. Heck I cant bring just 15 bucks to go out on the town one night... movies here are 9 bucks for not even 3D :<
I think you maybe missing my point, recurrings subs if you want them ? Great , just give me more payment options is all I ask, everyone different and I think there should me more payment options to suit peoples different lifestyles or playtime or however you want to put it.
It's really no different than any other bill, cable, phone etc... The extras we pay for are for the convienence of having them. I may not use the internet everyday, or my phone, it's still nice that it's there when I need it.
As for the question in the OP, I think it's more then just the developers obsession, it's societies in general. Ease is the key factor at play, pay it and forget it for the month. Micro-management is to much to worry about for the masses. Why bother going through a payment system every day, when I can stay in the fast lane and drive on through?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Thats fine and Time cards are fine , but why not give the option for people to buy their time in segments also ?.
Or why not just simply add a Non Recurring option ? .
There are options out there if a particular game does not fit your preferred payment method.
You have sub games with no cash shops (the best in my opinion).
You have sub games with cash shops.
You have no-sub games with cash shops.
You have no-sub games with items from the cash shops required to advance.
There are many options out there.
I do not want the crap F2P/RMT stuff anywhere near the games I play.
I remember the hourly rate days, paying $3-12/hr. I think that I will pass. For those thinking it would be 50¢ a day, it would not be. Keeping your account active, the fees they pay themselves for credit card transactions, etc, etc, etc. You'll end up wishing they were back to the $15 a month.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Why because companies are lazy... just as the post right above you. Why have to deal with all the micro management with a ton of different options that would need to be checked daily and then raise the rate for error versus charge everyone 15 bucks a month and it just keeps going until the user decides to cancel.
We live far from a perfect and simple world but in the end, its not really whats best for the customer its going to be whats best for the company. All they have to do is provide you with content that will make you want and to keep you playing.
Maximizing profits in the most efficient way possible is one of the basis' of how companies work and you can I guess blame capitalism for that.
I personally have nothing against recurring monthly fees. Whether thats because its actually good or its due to the fact that I'm just used to it since thats how all the mmos I've played have been I'm not sure. I think it is a proven system that works well. Yeah it sucks if a player forgets to unsub, but if your not those 13-15 bucks a month is that big of a deal, I would hope you have the awareness to make sure you cancel the sub. As someone said earlier in the thread paying 50 cents a day for a game that has support, constantly being updated, etc. etc. is not that bad of deal in my book.
If they do allow you the option to pay for per day / per hour / ect. Then you can sure bet its going to cost more then just paying the monthly fee. Every transaction the company has to make with the billing system is money they lose. Sometime this is just 10 cents sometimes its dollars. APB offers the option to pay in blocks of hours if you choose. But it ends up costing you more to get 30 days worth of hours then if you had just bought the 30 day subscription.
I could only imagine the hassle, mess, issues that would come out of a pay per hour model. What is the bank / CC companys going to think when your monthly statement rolls around and theres some 60+ charges of $1 - $2 for a hour play time all over it? I imagine most of them would block / lock the card and think some kind of fraud / scam is happening.
Really the only thing a hourly / smaller type pay by day setup would be good for is the gold farms / spammers. It would make it super easy for them and there cost of operation would greatly be reduced.
I'd be happy to pay 15 dollars for a months worth of game time, so why not let me use that months game time when it suits me ?. Like a week one month and an then a week a couple of months down the line etc, and as I said earlier , I for one think it would lead to more players.