"I agree that all mmos should be downloads and have atleast 2-3 days trial. It is unfair that they could just shutdown at anytime"
Yeah, they should just give it away, who cares that they spend close to 100 mil on them.
The box price is the quickest as well as, most sure fire way to gain a return on their investment (even with the box price considered, most fail to gain a return on those investments).
People keep talking about greed, yet completely neglect to take into consideration the amount of game content you're receiving when you purchase an MMO. Add to that, for fifty bucks, the same price single-player games have been since the snes and sega era. Where is the greed in that?
For continued development and service, you pay 15 bucks a month. Where is the greed in this?
Look at any other entertainment market, DVDs, music, software etc... Prices have gradually risen over the last decade. Games have remained roughly the same price since I was a kid (I'll be 32 this year). If they were as greedy as people make them sound, this would not be the case.
Personally I didn't buy APB, so i really don't have an opinion to offer the OP. However, I think my point fits somewhere into the topic of discussion.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I have at home a box of Tabula Rasa standing on my shelf looking at me. Its useless paperweight. All other game boxes - be they good or bad games. I can install and play them if i wish too. But not this one.
It was a MMO that closed.
I ask myself is this fair buisness. 50$ standard price for something that stops functioning whenever the manifacturer decides to ?
But with Tabula Rasa we were lucky. NC soft let it run for around one year time.
APB !
3 months! People bought the game that became disfunctional paperweight after 3 months.
I am suprised that we as MMO player comunity are not vocal about this. We are effectively treated as lowest type that has no rights whatsoever. Scams , half finished products - but this tops it
Denial of service after mere 3 months !
Question here is.
Should MMOs ask for box price, if they can be closed any time. Thus making this boxed game disfunctional ?
Should closed MMOs offer posibillity of running private servers ( you purchased the game, so it should work)
Or maybe offline mode ?
Whatever it is. I think MMO community should be vocal about it. And not let themselves being treathed as lowest type of consumer there is.
I made this point years ago on another message board. People thought I was out of my mind.
Buying something that will never really be yours Is stupid in my opinion. But if you want to play a P2P MMO you simply have to put up with it bottom line.
I agree that all mmos should be downloads and have atleast 2-3 days trial. It is unfair that they could just shutdown at anytime
I have two issues with the above sentiment. First is the underlying, almost unconscious assumption that these companies are doing this TO us. They don't want to close. The companies that made APB, Tabula Rasa, AC2, etc wanted to stay open and keep those games going. But they can't do that if they don't make a profit. When the money runs out that's it, it's over.
Second. This isn't just directed at the person making the quote above, but everyone who feels this way. FAIR DOES NOT EXIST. Fair is a social concept that folks like to talk about, but NO ONE applies it all the time, and lots of people NEVER do. Is it fair that who knows how many folks have lost their life savings in the stock market? No. Is it fair that folks have lost their jobs? No. Those ones are easy. Is it fair that you got better grades in school than the person next to you, when he/she worked harder but just couldn't grasp the material? No. Is it fair that you got the promotion at work over the other guy, because he spent more time with his family? No.
Life is not fair. Things and people we like go away, and good people lose out to utter bastards all the time. Please do not mistake my argument here. I totally, completely and enthusiastically despise this concept. But the sooner one learns to recognise reality and accept it, the better off you'll be in the long run.
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
I don't know about laws in USA. But according to consumer protection laws in Finland (Consumer protection law 5:12§):
"Unless otherwise agreed, a product has to...
5) Product's sustainability/validity has to be what a consumer has reasons to normally except in the sale of similar product"
When an average customer buys a new MMO from the shop, he excepts it to last for years before the servers are finally shut down. When the game becomes unusable after 3 months, it's clearly not what the person has reasonably excepted when buying the box. The product is faulty, and the buyer can bring it back to the shop and get refund/replacement/price reduction.
Do EULA or TOS change this somehow? I don't have ABP box, so the following is taken from World of Warcraft game box:
"The use of this software is subject to the terms of and End User License which you must accept before you install this product, and all use of the product is subject to the World of Warcraft Terms of Use which you must accept before you can register an account."
Please not the parts in bold. EULA and TOS are agreed when you install and start playing, but they are not printed on the box nor visible anywhere in the store. When purchasing the game you basically agree to "I can only play this game by agreeing to and following EULA and TOS", but you do not agree that EULA or TOS would prevent you from playing the game no matter what you do. EULA can not reverse your original contract with the seller whom you bought the game from.
I don't see any problems with MMOs charging box price.
EDIT: Edited because of bug in the message editor /EDIT
I agree that all mmos should be downloads and have atleast 2-3 days trial. It is unfair that they could just shutdown at anytime
I have two issues with the above sentiment. First is the underlying, almost unconscious assumption that these companies are doing this TO us. They don't want to close. The companies that made APB, Tabula Rasa, AC2, etc wanted to stay open and keep those games going. But they can't do that if they don't make a profit. When the money runs out that's it, it's over.
Second. This isn't just directed at the person making the quote above, but everyone who feels this way. FAIR DOES NOT EXIST. Fair is a social concept that folks like to talk about, but NO ONE applies it all the time, and lots of people NEVER do. Is it fair that who knows how many folks have lost their life savings in the stock market? No. Is it fair that folks have lost their jobs? No. Those ones are easy. Is it fair that you got better grades in school than the person next to you, when he/she worked harder but just couldn't grasp the material? No. Is it fair that you got the promotion at work over the other guy, because he spent more time with his family? No.
Life is not fair. Things and people we like go away, and good people lose out to utter bastards all the time. Please do not mistake my argument here. I totally, completely and enthusiastically despise this concept. But the sooner one learns to recognise reality and accept it, the better off you'll be in the long run.
First of all FAIR is what we set it to be.
The saying goes "Fool me onece shame on you , fool me twice shame on me"
I have feeling that MMO players fit "shame on me". Not only that is the driwing force of MMO players gullible bunch of suckers - buying games that are not even developed ( Mortal , Xylon) , buying lifetime subscriptions based only on screenshots of a game that is under NDA.
But driving force of MMO players is also vocal in debasing themselves.
"Its only 50$" , "Poor company" , "They never said lifetime is for whole life" , "you probably got your money worth"
Its sad because:
We are the customer. We stand there with money in our hand.
WE SHOULD BE ONES TO SET WHAT IS FAIR.
In case of APB.
Go - flood their forums with posts demanding private servers. Flood all the forums. Post everywhere about it. Write emails.Demand
And if it does not happen for APB. I bet you the next publisher will take this public outburst in account.
I suppose to be fair you do get at least 6 months-1 year of entertainment. (ie prior to finding out they're closing down) However. It is a complete and utter waste so many manhours has gone into the game and noone can play it. Its ridiculous theres games like Earth and Beyond and AC2 that there were at least 10k people who wanted to play it. (and maybe more that was just their subs on closing). In reality maybe there should be an offline mode you can play, though mmos will argue that (1) content will be uncovered offline (2) it could be engineered to not even need to play online- therefore voiding it being online.
Originally posted by someforumguy I only think its unfair if it happens with a MMO that gives out lifetime subs and it shuts down within a year or so. These subscribers should be compensated. With a normal sub you only pay for access to the game, because you dont own the game. But giving out lifetime subs implies that the game is garantueed to last for a minimum amount of time after purchasing the sub (depending on the costs of the lifetime sub).
In the immortal words of Phineas Taylor Barnum, "There's a sucker born every minute." Welcome to Capitalism...the ultimate game of chance where you can win and win big or lose and lose big.
Well, theres no proof he actually said that at all, and many claim it came from another source, and was based off the conman's saying of 'theres a mark born every minute'.
Make of that what you will, but what I think is that if we accept 'capitialism' as synonymous with 'con' we are in deeper trouble then even I thought.
As for are customers being 'unfairly', illegally or dishonestly served when it comes to MMOs shutting down their service.. well, no they arnt. We all know the deal, we all know these games can go under any time, thats just the nature of the beast. To complain about it after you have made the informed choice to buy into it is kinda lame imo.
As long as they last the the first month you have really had your box cost value anyhow.
I would consider it good ethics if the dev allowed it to be picked up by their customers to run private servers or whatever though.
Go - flood their forums with posts demanding private servers. Flood all the forums. Post everywhere about it. Write emails.Demand
Why would anyone care about what you say on their forum? (That is, *if* their forums stay open) It is not like they are trying to woo new customers. There is absolutely nothing you can do when a company fail except going in front of a judge and may be recover a little money.
OTOH, you *can* develop your own private servers. They don't have the funds to hire lawyers to go after you.
We are the customer. We stand there with money in our hand.
WE SHOULD BE ONES TO SET WHAT IS FAIR.
While I agree with the sentiment, the reality is that usually there are too few folks willing to put their money where their mouth is to actually make comapnies change.
In case of APB.
Go - flood their forums with posts demanding private servers. Flood all the forums. Post everywhere about it. Write emails.Demand
And if it does not happen for APB. I bet you the next publisher will take this public outburst in account.
Slowly we can make tings turn in our favor.
Umm...huh? Get real. The company is going under. They don't care what you post on their forums because their forums will also be GONE. For that matter they won't care because "they" no longer exist! Who ever is controlling the liquidation is never going to agree to license private servers because it would decrease the value of an asset (ie: the game and code) that they will try and sell to pay off debts. What are you going to do, sue them? Get in line, at the end of the line, after any and all creditors, vendors and employees the company may still owe money to.
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
Going forward when these companies develop MMORPGS they really should take into account their game could fail right out the gate. As a result make it possible for the game to be converted into a single player game (final patch with stat changes and making the client run stand alone should do this) or for buyers to setup private servers (releasing server code). Sure this could only go into affect once the game closes as a final act if they wanted to. The idea that once the servers close that's it is wrong. It's not as if the game can't be installed. It's fully possible to do so and even by in some places with stores having no idea they are selling a defunct product at times (Tabula Rasa).
Its b/s ... but what can you do? They charge for the box ... people buy it. Therefore they continue to sell the box at the full price of a regular game you can infinitely play.
I do think this opens up the door for greedy b/s companies like EA and NCSoft to release a game. Make the profits from the box sales. Then decide to shut down and screw everyone over not because the game is losing money ... but because it isnt making enough. I highly doubt a fun game like APB was so low on subs that it couldnt even support a single server. The reviews werent even that bad and the few friends that played in beta before release said it was really fun. Thats more than I can say for many other games that are still in play even today.
I doubt itll ever happen but I think as soon as its decided a game is going to shut down, they should either (A) release a stand alone client (B) offer the server data, (C) not sell a game which is completely inaccesable without a server at the full price of a game you can play for an unlimited amount of time. Again, not going to happen, specially while people keep buying them as such (and WoW expansions for %80 the price of the FULL original game).
Companies can do whatever they like, and if we as consumers dont like it, many times we are screwed. I understand whatever the EULA etc. says, goes. But there really ought to be some recourse for the consumer if an MMO shuts down say, before six months. MMO's as they are now are a bit odd as products go in this regard. You buy the intitial software, and then whether or not you get to use the product that you already paid for depends on the vagarities of the production company (not the original point of sale), and perhaps the vagarities of the business climate at the time.
I think the ideas postulated here of giving the consumer that spent their money some way to use the product they paid for after product/product company shutdown (server code, offline usage code etc) as a final act is a great idea. Companies that would state that they would support such a practice for MMO products in case of product server/company/etc shut down would go a long way toward having my long term support of their products. Companies that would scoff at such an idea would simply not.
Companies can do whatever they like, and if we as consumers dont like it, many times we are screwed. I understand whatever the EULA etc. says, goes. But there really ought to be some recourse for the consumer if an MMO shuts down say, before six months. MMO's as they are now are a bit odd as products go in this regard. You buy the intitial software, and then whether or not you get to use the product that you already paid for depends on the vagarities of the production company (not the original point of sale), and perhaps the vagarities of the business climate at the time.
I think the ideas postulated here of giving the consumer that spent their money some way to use the product they paid for after product/product company shutdown (server code, offline usage code etc) as a final act is a great idea. Companies that would state that they would support such a practice for MMO products in case of product server/company/etc shut down would go a long way toward having my long term support of their products. Companies that would scoff at such an idea would simply not.
Or you just play MMOs from companies with a track record or great financial help.
Few company would bother to plan for things after its DEMISE.
This won't stop until consumers stop buying things on launch date based on hype. All games should be held to higher standards, this means all games should have a beta, open beta, and a period of time where people can talk about whether a game is good or not. People need to get smarter and not buy things based on impulse. Things rarely turn out well when you twitch purchase something.
Do I think it's fair business? No. Much like Vanguard, these company CEO's KNEW ahead of the time that they are going to fail. They know they are nowhere close to delivering a good product. They know they over ran their budget and they are 1-2 years behind schedule. They pushed a product out because they'd rather make some money before folding, rather than fold and make nothing at all. So really, it's bad business. It's companies selling a bad product that they know is bad, but this is about the only industry where you can't get your money back and you aren't guaranteed to be able to use the product you purchased.
Honestly if you bought a game and it closes shortly after, you deserve losing your money and the PR company deserves a hard-earned bonus.
If your game closes down after a couple years, you still got your 'monies' worth.
You wanted my time, so I played you. You wanted my money, I forked it over. You wanted my soul, I gave it willingly. Not to complain... but when do I get my end of the deal? And no, I don't want your flippin' carrot. If you can't do that give me back my youth and keep the change. Why don't you try chasing your own damn carrot for a change? I'll gladly hold the stick.
I have at home a box of Tabula Rasa standing on my shelf looking at me. Its useless paperweight. All other game boxes - be they good or bad games. I can install and play them if i wish too. But not this one.
It was a MMO that closed.
I ask myself is this fair buisness. 50$ standard price for something that stops functioning whenever the manifacturer decides to ?
But with Tabula Rasa we were lucky. NC soft let it run for around one year time.
APB !
3 months! People bought the game that became disfunctional paperweight after 3 months.
I am suprised that we as MMO player comunity are not vocal about this. We are effectively treated as lowest type that has no rights whatsoever. Scams , half finished products - but this tops it
Denial of service after mere 3 months !
Question here is.
Should MMOs ask for box price, if they can be closed any time. Thus making this boxed game disfunctional ?
Should closed MMOs offer posibillity of running private servers ( you purchased the game, so it should work)
Or maybe offline mode ?
Whatever it is. I think MMO community should be vocal about it. And not let themselves being treathed as lowest type of consumer there is.
Written into every MMO is the "We can change/stop the service at anytime without warning."
If the game were to shut down within the first month I would probably have something to say. But given most people play console and non-mmo pc games for 3 months or less it seems fine.
Another thing that would probably have room for a discussion would be if they allowed something like a lifetime membership and then shut down two months later so that you just waste $200, but that didn't happen either.
My pearls of wisdom that I always add to topics like this:
-Do not preorder any MMO, ever.
-Wait until the game has a free trial, do not bother paying for the box. Every MMO hits the point in time where it allows the free trial and then you can just start paying the sub once the trial is up without having to buy a box. This means you get to see if you like it and save money. Also by that point in time most of the major bugs and gameplay issues will be fixed or the game will be dead. So either way you just helped yourself.
-Do not buy lifetime subs. The vast vast vast majority will not play long enough to get their money's worth out of it when compared to subbing while playing (this obviously is a different situation for non sub games but I wouldn't expect to see a f2p game have a lifetime sub for sale). Also it takes away your ability to speak with your wallet/sub since you've already paid them.
If the game were to shut down within the first month I would probably have something to say. But given most people play console and non-mmo pc games for 3 months or less it seems fine.
Well it's hard to compare MMO's to console/pc games, because you don't pay monthly subscription to play these games... AND the fact that you could go back to play them anytime you wish. MMO's are a whole new beast, thus far protected by a stupid EULA or fine prints which currently is their license to do bad business. Shutting a MMO down in 3 months is pretty ridiculous considering there's no refunds, and that not only did people purchase a retail box, they paid for 2 additional months of subscriptions.
It's really inexecusable. But I do believe it's the consumers that need to stop feeding these bad companies money. It has to start with us.
While I don't think a company owes the consumer of an MMO anything, as they put all that disclaimership in their ToS and other legal documents... I think it WOULD be a good show of respect for the customers that they release the code for the servers for others to use. I'm sure there's a ton of complexities both technical and legal regarding such a thing, least of which, whether someone else can build servers and charge a sub fee to access them.
But yeah, this is one of the things I despise about companies requiring an online connection to play single player games. They can pinky swear all they want to that they'll offer a patch or some other means to access the game if they go OoB, but when bankruptcy is filed, ALL their financial commitments(save gov't debt) go right out the window. You can try to sue, of course, provided the banks haven't already picked the carcass clean. And they usually do.
I'd like MMO's to go to a model that doesn't involve box fees, myself. Even if that means I pay that price out in the first 6 months or so. But I'm not holding my breath for that to happen. The frontloaded cost for developing even a mediocre MMO is just too steep.
If the game were to shut down within the first month I would probably have something to say. But given most people play console and non-mmo pc games for 3 months or less it seems fine.
Well it's hard to compare MMO's to console/pc games, because you don't pay monthly subscription to play these games... AND the fact that you could go back to play them anytime you wish. MMO's are a whole new beast, thus far protected by a stupid EULA or fine prints which currently is their license to do bad business. Shutting a MMO down in 3 months is pretty ridiculous considering there's no refunds, and that not only did people purchase a retail box, they paid for 2 additional months of subscriptions.
It's really inexecusable. But I do believe it's the consumers that need to stop feeding these bad companies money. It has to start with us.
Wasn't APB a f2p with no monthly sub? If so it makes the comparison to console games extremely fitting.
Also let's take something like MW2 as an example: I pay the box price to play the game at all. Then to play it online on XBox I need to pay my XBox live membership every month just to play. Subscription MMOs are similar to that. So really all examples between console games and MMOs work.
If the game stays afloat for your free 30 days play then there is no reason to bitch. You buy a single player game how long does it last? Nobody owes you anything, the sooner you realize that the sooner you will grow up. Socialized gaming, what a concept.
Look, If they said on the cover you are only gaurenteed 30 days of play, I'd say you are right. Sure, we as mmo players do take the risk of shutdowns, but we should be given say 30 days notice. Again I have to point out, what about those who bought APB say last week?
What about those? The company is BANKRUPT. What are you going to do? Sue them for money that you will never collect?
This is a fact of life. Same thing if your insurance company went under, you get into an accident and you are left dangling. You may feel pretty bad about it, but there is little you can do about it.
It is a free world. You have the choice of NOT buying any product that you think there may not be support in the future.
in this case that is the problem. there was every indication that there would be future support. go to the games website and look under news. one day they announce a patch complete with patch notes to go live the next day. the next day comes and they announce a shut down.
as to bankruptsy, i have been that route personally. it takes months to go through during which you continue as normal but are told to stop paying bills. Months being the key word. they had notice, the players who were still investing in the game up until the shut down did not.
I loved Tabula Rasa it is still my favorite game and i mourn it's death to this day.
If it were still running it'd still be getting my money ,i havent found anything like it since it closed either.
sure ive heard of games like Earthrise but i hear its very pvp heavy (which is a repelling factor for me) and Global Agenda looks good too however my old computer won't run it.
With Tabula Rasa i feel i got what i paid for but not everything I wanted out of it . I place it akin to going to a buffet style restaurant with your family and then there are only a few things you really like on the buffet, sure you enjoy what there is but it leaves you wishing there had been more, hope that makes sense. (i'm not very good at expressing myself in an easily understandable manner :P )
Wasn't APB a f2p with no monthly sub? If so it makes the comparison to console games extremely fitting.
If that's the case I had no idea. Did they have RMT cash shops? If so it'd be just as bad as monthly subscriptions lol. But point taken, it was f2p. Kinda weird they sold boxes for a f2p game though.
Comments
"I agree that all mmos should be downloads and have atleast 2-3 days trial. It is unfair that they could just shutdown at anytime"
Yeah, they should just give it away, who cares that they spend close to 100 mil on them.
The box price is the quickest as well as, most sure fire way to gain a return on their investment (even with the box price considered, most fail to gain a return on those investments).
People keep talking about greed, yet completely neglect to take into consideration the amount of game content you're receiving when you purchase an MMO. Add to that, for fifty bucks, the same price single-player games have been since the snes and sega era. Where is the greed in that?
For continued development and service, you pay 15 bucks a month. Where is the greed in this?
Look at any other entertainment market, DVDs, music, software etc... Prices have gradually risen over the last decade. Games have remained roughly the same price since I was a kid (I'll be 32 this year). If they were as greedy as people make them sound, this would not be the case.
Personally I didn't buy APB, so i really don't have an opinion to offer the OP. However, I think my point fits somewhere into the topic of discussion.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I made this point years ago on another message board. People thought I was out of my mind.
Buying something that will never really be yours Is stupid in my opinion. But if you want to play a P2P MMO you simply have to put up with it bottom line.
I have two issues with the above sentiment. First is the underlying, almost unconscious assumption that these companies are doing this TO us. They don't want to close. The companies that made APB, Tabula Rasa, AC2, etc wanted to stay open and keep those games going. But they can't do that if they don't make a profit. When the money runs out that's it, it's over.
Second. This isn't just directed at the person making the quote above, but everyone who feels this way. FAIR DOES NOT EXIST. Fair is a social concept that folks like to talk about, but NO ONE applies it all the time, and lots of people NEVER do. Is it fair that who knows how many folks have lost their life savings in the stock market? No. Is it fair that folks have lost their jobs? No. Those ones are easy. Is it fair that you got better grades in school than the person next to you, when he/she worked harder but just couldn't grasp the material? No. Is it fair that you got the promotion at work over the other guy, because he spent more time with his family? No.
Life is not fair. Things and people we like go away, and good people lose out to utter bastards all the time. Please do not mistake my argument here. I totally, completely and enthusiastically despise this concept. But the sooner one learns to recognise reality and accept it, the better off you'll be in the long run.
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
~Omar Khayyam
Short and simple answer is no. But seriously, what can you do about it?
I don't know about laws in USA. But according to consumer protection laws in Finland (Consumer protection law 5:12§):
"Unless otherwise agreed, a product has to...
5) Product's sustainability/validity has to be what a consumer has reasons to normally except in the sale of similar product"
When an average customer buys a new MMO from the shop, he excepts it to last for years before the servers are finally shut down. When the game becomes unusable after 3 months, it's clearly not what the person has reasonably excepted when buying the box. The product is faulty, and the buyer can bring it back to the shop and get refund/replacement/price reduction.
Do EULA or TOS change this somehow? I don't have ABP box, so the following is taken from World of Warcraft game box:
"The use of this software is subject to the terms of and End User License which you must accept before you install this product, and all use of the product is subject to the World of Warcraft Terms of Use which you must accept before you can register an account."
Please not the parts in bold. EULA and TOS are agreed when you install and start playing, but they are not printed on the box nor visible anywhere in the store. When purchasing the game you basically agree to "I can only play this game by agreeing to and following EULA and TOS", but you do not agree that EULA or TOS would prevent you from playing the game no matter what you do. EULA can not reverse your original contract with the seller whom you bought the game from.
I don't see any problems with MMOs charging box price.
EDIT: Edited because of bug in the message editor /EDIT
First of all FAIR is what we set it to be.
The saying goes "Fool me onece shame on you , fool me twice shame on me"
I have feeling that MMO players fit "shame on me". Not only that is the driwing force of MMO players gullible bunch of suckers - buying games that are not even developed ( Mortal , Xylon) , buying lifetime subscriptions based only on screenshots of a game that is under NDA.
But driving force of MMO players is also vocal in debasing themselves.
"Its only 50$" , "Poor company" , "They never said lifetime is for whole life" , "you probably got your money worth"
Its sad because:
We are the customer. We stand there with money in our hand.
WE SHOULD BE ONES TO SET WHAT IS FAIR.
In case of APB.
Go - flood their forums with posts demanding private servers. Flood all the forums. Post everywhere about it. Write emails.Demand
And if it does not happen for APB. I bet you the next publisher will take this public outburst in account.
Slowly we can make tings turn in our favor.
I suppose to be fair you do get at least 6 months-1 year of entertainment. (ie prior to finding out they're closing down) However. It is a complete and utter waste so many manhours has gone into the game and noone can play it. Its ridiculous theres games like Earth and Beyond and AC2 that there were at least 10k people who wanted to play it. (and maybe more that was just their subs on closing). In reality maybe there should be an offline mode you can play, though mmos will argue that (1) content will be uncovered offline (2) it could be engineered to not even need to play online- therefore voiding it being online.
Agree with that.
Well, theres no proof he actually said that at all, and many claim it came from another source, and was based off the conman's saying of 'theres a mark born every minute'.
Make of that what you will, but what I think is that if we accept 'capitialism' as synonymous with 'con' we are in deeper trouble then even I thought.
As for are customers being 'unfairly', illegally or dishonestly served when it comes to MMOs shutting down their service.. well, no they arnt. We all know the deal, we all know these games can go under any time, thats just the nature of the beast. To complain about it after you have made the informed choice to buy into it is kinda lame imo.
As long as they last the the first month you have really had your box cost value anyhow.
I would consider it good ethics if the dev allowed it to be picked up by their customers to run private servers or whatever though.
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
~Omar Khayyam
Going forward when these companies develop MMORPGS they really should take into account their game could fail right out the gate. As a result make it possible for the game to be converted into a single player game (final patch with stat changes and making the client run stand alone should do this) or for buyers to setup private servers (releasing server code). Sure this could only go into affect once the game closes as a final act if they wanted to. The idea that once the servers close that's it is wrong. It's not as if the game can't be installed. It's fully possible to do so and even by in some places with stores having no idea they are selling a defunct product at times (Tabula Rasa).
Its b/s ... but what can you do? They charge for the box ... people buy it. Therefore they continue to sell the box at the full price of a regular game you can infinitely play.
I do think this opens up the door for greedy b/s companies like EA and NCSoft to release a game. Make the profits from the box sales. Then decide to shut down and screw everyone over not because the game is losing money ... but because it isnt making enough. I highly doubt a fun game like APB was so low on subs that it couldnt even support a single server. The reviews werent even that bad and the few friends that played in beta before release said it was really fun. Thats more than I can say for many other games that are still in play even today.
I doubt itll ever happen but I think as soon as its decided a game is going to shut down, they should either (A) release a stand alone client (B) offer the server data, (C) not sell a game which is completely inaccesable without a server at the full price of a game you can play for an unlimited amount of time. Again, not going to happen, specially while people keep buying them as such (and WoW expansions for %80 the price of the FULL original game).
Companies can do whatever they like, and if we as consumers dont like it, many times we are screwed. I understand whatever the EULA etc. says, goes. But there really ought to be some recourse for the consumer if an MMO shuts down say, before six months. MMO's as they are now are a bit odd as products go in this regard. You buy the intitial software, and then whether or not you get to use the product that you already paid for depends on the vagarities of the production company (not the original point of sale), and perhaps the vagarities of the business climate at the time.
I think the ideas postulated here of giving the consumer that spent their money some way to use the product they paid for after product/product company shutdown (server code, offline usage code etc) as a final act is a great idea. Companies that would state that they would support such a practice for MMO products in case of product server/company/etc shut down would go a long way toward having my long term support of their products. Companies that would scoff at such an idea would simply not.
Or you just play MMOs from companies with a track record or great financial help.
Few company would bother to plan for things after its DEMISE.
This won't stop until consumers stop buying things on launch date based on hype. All games should be held to higher standards, this means all games should have a beta, open beta, and a period of time where people can talk about whether a game is good or not. People need to get smarter and not buy things based on impulse. Things rarely turn out well when you twitch purchase something.
Do I think it's fair business? No. Much like Vanguard, these company CEO's KNEW ahead of the time that they are going to fail. They know they are nowhere close to delivering a good product. They know they over ran their budget and they are 1-2 years behind schedule. They pushed a product out because they'd rather make some money before folding, rather than fold and make nothing at all. So really, it's bad business. It's companies selling a bad product that they know is bad, but this is about the only industry where you can't get your money back and you aren't guaranteed to be able to use the product you purchased.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Honestly if you bought a game and it closes shortly after, you deserve losing your money and the PR company deserves a hard-earned bonus.
If your game closes down after a couple years, you still got your 'monies' worth.
You wanted my time, so I played you. You wanted my money, I forked it over. You wanted my soul, I gave it willingly. Not to complain... but when do I get my end of the deal? And no, I don't want your flippin' carrot. If you can't do that give me back my youth and keep the change. Why don't you try chasing your own damn carrot for a change? I'll gladly hold the stick.
Written into every MMO is the "We can change/stop the service at anytime without warning."
If the game were to shut down within the first month I would probably have something to say. But given most people play console and non-mmo pc games for 3 months or less it seems fine.
Another thing that would probably have room for a discussion would be if they allowed something like a lifetime membership and then shut down two months later so that you just waste $200, but that didn't happen either.
My pearls of wisdom that I always add to topics like this:
-Do not preorder any MMO, ever.
-Wait until the game has a free trial, do not bother paying for the box. Every MMO hits the point in time where it allows the free trial and then you can just start paying the sub once the trial is up without having to buy a box. This means you get to see if you like it and save money. Also by that point in time most of the major bugs and gameplay issues will be fixed or the game will be dead. So either way you just helped yourself.
-Do not buy lifetime subs. The vast vast vast majority will not play long enough to get their money's worth out of it when compared to subbing while playing (this obviously is a different situation for non sub games but I wouldn't expect to see a f2p game have a lifetime sub for sale). Also it takes away your ability to speak with your wallet/sub since you've already paid them.
Well it's hard to compare MMO's to console/pc games, because you don't pay monthly subscription to play these games... AND the fact that you could go back to play them anytime you wish. MMO's are a whole new beast, thus far protected by a stupid EULA or fine prints which currently is their license to do bad business. Shutting a MMO down in 3 months is pretty ridiculous considering there's no refunds, and that not only did people purchase a retail box, they paid for 2 additional months of subscriptions.
It's really inexecusable. But I do believe it's the consumers that need to stop feeding these bad companies money. It has to start with us.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
While I don't think a company owes the consumer of an MMO anything, as they put all that disclaimership in their ToS and other legal documents... I think it WOULD be a good show of respect for the customers that they release the code for the servers for others to use. I'm sure there's a ton of complexities both technical and legal regarding such a thing, least of which, whether someone else can build servers and charge a sub fee to access them.
But yeah, this is one of the things I despise about companies requiring an online connection to play single player games. They can pinky swear all they want to that they'll offer a patch or some other means to access the game if they go OoB, but when bankruptcy is filed, ALL their financial commitments(save gov't debt) go right out the window. You can try to sue, of course, provided the banks haven't already picked the carcass clean. And they usually do.
I'd like MMO's to go to a model that doesn't involve box fees, myself. Even if that means I pay that price out in the first 6 months or so. But I'm not holding my breath for that to happen. The frontloaded cost for developing even a mediocre MMO is just too steep.
Wasn't APB a f2p with no monthly sub? If so it makes the comparison to console games extremely fitting.
Also let's take something like MW2 as an example: I pay the box price to play the game at all. Then to play it online on XBox I need to pay my XBox live membership every month just to play. Subscription MMOs are similar to that. So really all examples between console games and MMOs work.
in this case that is the problem. there was every indication that there would be future support. go to the games website and look under news. one day they announce a patch complete with patch notes to go live the next day. the next day comes and they announce a shut down.
as to bankruptsy, i have been that route personally. it takes months to go through during which you continue as normal but are told to stop paying bills. Months being the key word. they had notice, the players who were still investing in the game up until the shut down did not.
I loved Tabula Rasa it is still my favorite game and i mourn it's death to this day.
If it were still running it'd still be getting my money ,i havent found anything like it since it closed either.
sure ive heard of games like Earthrise but i hear its very pvp heavy (which is a repelling factor for me) and Global Agenda looks good too however my old computer won't run it.
With Tabula Rasa i feel i got what i paid for but not everything I wanted out of it . I place it akin to going to a buffet style restaurant with your family and then there are only a few things you really like on the buffet, sure you enjoy what there is but it leaves you wishing there had been more, hope that makes sense. (i'm not very good at expressing myself in an easily understandable manner :P )
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
If that's the case I had no idea. Did they have RMT cash shops? If so it'd be just as bad as monthly subscriptions lol. But point taken, it was f2p. Kinda weird they sold boxes for a f2p game though.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
EA is now giving refund to people that purchased APB.
As I said here, and always say. We should work together as gamers and customers. If we unite we can make things happen.
Post on forums. Email. Comment. Dont be afraid to speak your mind and complain.
You might be called troll ( and it will often be from company planted posters set to derail the discussion )
But speak your mind.
And demand what you payed for.