Would you play an MMO with a very large, one-off fee?

Aryas

Premise

 

A new MMO is released and it's superb. 9.5/10 rating, etc.

 

You've played free trial for say 10 days and you love it.

 

It has almost everything you could possibly want from a game given today's level of technological advancement (i.e. it's not, DX20, full 3D, virtual reality or anything like that).

 

The game is due to be developed further over time but already more content and features than any other MMO to date.

 

Question

 

Would you pay a one-off, fixed, up front fee of $500 to play the full game?

 

Note: Full payment of the fee is mandatory and an installments option would be treated as a 0% loan.

 

Update

 

Thanks for the responses so far everyone.

My main reason for asking was to get an understanding of how gamers felt about paying a large fee up front. The $500 figure was just an arbitrary sum; it could've been more, it could've been less. The same applies to the 10 day trial.

Perhaps I should've reworded the question to: "How much would you be willing to pay up front for your perfect game?" to remove an ambiguity about whether it is actually any good or not.

I guess what a lot of posts reflect is that gamers have little faith in developers ability to a) deliver a game that lives up to their hype and b) develop it further, as is often promised.

Ultimately, I'm trying to get a feel for new ways to get players to commit to games, rather than chop and change. A large intiial investment was one option I'd looked at.

I may run a similar poll shortly based on feedback so far.

Thank you,

 

Aryas

BTrayaL

I assume you never heard of games like Guild Wars?

Edit: I have not voted, the ideea and price is ridiculous when the price for GW2 would be probably about 10% (GW is just as an example)

Althewiseguy

Yes. At the time it was called lord of the rings founder membership. And the great thing is all founders got as many years points theyd been playing when the item store came along with freeplay. Best investment I made. It keeps on giving and I still have all the features and more that I payed for.

Anthur

Ratings are meanlngless (see all those failed MMO launches with great ratings pre-launch).

10 days are not enough to judge if the game is worth $500.

The risk that you just wasted 500$ on a crappy game is too high, and for what benefit ?

Short: No !

 

eye_m

$500 is more then I could justify with the amount of 8/10 games available for $50

Aryas

Originally posted by Anthur

Ratings are meanlngless (see all those failed MMO launches with great ratings pre-launch).

10 days are not enough to judge if the game is worth $500.

The risk that you just wasted 500$ on a crappy game is too high, and for what benefit ?

Short: No !

 

 

Assume the following:

 

The game is definitely the best MMO you have ever played and ever could play at this point in time.

 

The trial may as well be 3 months, I only added that in to indicate you have tried it and can confirm you love it.

Aryas

Originally posted by eyelolled

$500 is more then I could justify with the amount of 8/10 games available for $50

 

Assume:

 

There's no fee from that point onwards.

 

itgrowls

the reason i voted no was due to the high price margin. i've never spent more then $225 for a lifetime membership. The game should be free in these intances. Paying for a game that has lifetime is rediculous.

maskedweasel

Even if the game was everything I've always been looking for,  I would never spend 500 dollars up front on a game.  Even if (or when) I have the money to spend on things like that,  I just don't see myself spending 500 dollars for something that isn't a sure thing.

furidiam

No due to the simple fact that it is proven that once someone has your money the motivation of adding to that product goes down. Why add things if you already have everyone's money?

Aryas

Originally posted by BTrayaL

I assume you never heard of games like Guild Wars? Never assume anything.

Edit: I have not voted, the ideea and price is ridiculous when the price for GW2 would be probably about 10% (GW is just as an example) You effectively just voted.

 

Germaximus_S

No.

People have already had bad experiences with games like Hellgate, Age of Conan and now even DCUO is going free to play after having had a life time sub.

I think its pointless.

Now an annual deal is different, makes more sense.

VirusDancer

$500, not including the "cost" of the original game - would work out to be around 33 months of sub.  For many people, $15 a month is nothing - and they do not think about how much they spend on subs over a period of time.  $500 would appear pricey to some.

There are so many variables involved - so many risks.  For most players, it is simply not worth it.  It is far easier and much safer to go pay that $15 a month.

Things such as SWG's NGE come to mind.  The changes WoW has experienced from Vanilla to what is proposed with MoP.  Even things such as folks spending $100 for the DCUO CE only to have the game to go F2P within around 10 months.  We've had things like EA killing EnB.  We've had various games disappear within the first few months and we've had games that although they persist, are nothing like they were.

It would be one thing to be an investor, risking that $500 to get an actual return on the investment.  It is another thing as a player, to risk $500 where the only return might be fun.  You can't write off that loss...lol.

Ikeda

An annual sub= $150-200, Lifetime sub = 200-300.  Box price 60 bucks.  So at most 360.  So no, I wouldn't pay 500.

Now having SAID that.  If I knew that WoW would have been around for nearly a decade, yea I would have lifetimed it.  But let's look at those people who were screwed by lifetime subs... ANYTHING Cryptic.  LOTRO.  DCUO (went F2p in under a year... so KING of screwing the lifers over).

The problem is, there is no longer a gurantee of quality from companies.  Even a company well established could easily implement a cash shop even after swearing they would never do so (Eve).

Corehaven

500 bucks for one game?  Lifetime subs dont even cost that much.  And I wont even buy them for many reasons, one of which being that I think paying hundreds of dollars for a single dinky game is absolutely insane. 

 

I'll tell you what.  Sell me the game for oh say.....60 bucks or so, and I'll buy it.  And then after that?  Let me play it.   I'll do that.  And when you release extra content and expansions I'll buy those too.  

 

But as far as paying hundreds of dollars to play a game?  For that much the devs better come to my house, and act out the game in real life in my yard for a few months so I can go outside and actually experience it for real. 

elos_rekat

No.  Just because I love it now doesn't mean I'll still be loving it in 30 months.  If there was a guarantee that I would continue to love it forever, then that might be a different story.

Hopscotch73

Nope, I wouldn't.

Even games I really enjoy give me about 2 years fun (averaging it out) before I get itchy feet and want to move on.

So $60 box plus 2 x $125 annual subs (averaging market value for annual sub) = $310, that'd be how much I'd probably end up paying no matter how super-awesomesauce the game is at launch. And I'd rather pay over time, anyway. I no longer trust the first ten (or twenty) levels to indicate what a game is like. Trials tend to lock people in to x number of levels for that reason.

I've bought CEs, and then only spent a month or two playing the game afterwards, the thought of blowing the price of a laptop on a game upfront just makes no sense to me. I'd rather skip it altogether.

Darn, I am getting sensible in my old age.

Ceridith

No.

Lifetime subscriptions are basically handing your money over to the developer and telling them to do whatever the hell they please with the game. Once they already have your money, they have no reason to make any effort to keep you interested in playing. In fact if anything they have reason to get you to stop playing because you're just taking up bandwidth.

Panther2103

No, I would not. That isn't to say I wouldn't pay a large fee upfront for a game that isn't 500 dollars. Maybe 100-200 dollars, if I got it for free forever, and knew they were going to keep adding to it. I hardly spend 500 dollars on anything. Let a lone a video game. I mean I spent 350 on my phone when it came out, but I know it will be supported, it does everything I need. Games are just entertainment.

Homitu

No matter how much I enjoy a game right now, I can't be positive I will continue to enjoy it that much for more than 2 1/2 - 3 years, which is the comparable amount of game time I would get by paying a standard subscription fee.  Sure, if I end up playing the game for many years, it turns out to be a deal compared to games with sub fees, but I just couldn't be sure that I would play for that long.  Things change over time.  Life situations change.  Any game gets old, no matter how great it is.  

 

Also, as others have pointed out, it still remains to be seen how good GW2 is going to be and how much money I'll end up spending on it.  If the box sale + DLC + microtransactions come out be significantly less than the standard sub fee game, which I suspect it will, then this $500 lifetime sub would come off as even more of a stretch, relatively speaking. 

Saydien

No, never ever. As people have already written the risks in games these days are too high. I wouldn't spend that much money upfront without even knowing if there will be a healthy, fun and endurable community for long or even just at all. Doubt such a game could ever have a mentionworthy community just because that's quite a sum to pay in one go. Being a social gamer that would probably kill it for me.

SuperXero89

A lot of games have lifetime subs (money grabs) for people that want them.  I always love listening to lifetime subscribers whine and cry when their game goes F2P like a year after release.  Any sensible person would never put that much money up front for a video game because you just never know what's going to happen over a long period of time.

waynejr2

Originally posted by Aryas

Originally posted by Anthur

Ratings are meanlngless (see all those failed MMO launches with great ratings pre-launch).

10 days are not enough to judge if the game is worth $500.

The risk that you just wasted 500$ on a crappy game is too high, and for what benefit ?

Short: No !

 

 

Assume the following:

 

The game is definitely the best MMO you have ever played and ever could play at this point in time.

 

The trial may as well be 3 months, I only added that in to indicate you have tried it and can confirm you love it.

The best game I could ever play by definition wouldn't have a $500.00 up front fee.  So no.

VirusDancer

Originally posted by Panther2103

No, I would not. That isn't to say I wouldn't pay a large fee upfront for a game that isn't 500 dollars. Maybe 100-200 dollars, if I got it for free forever, and knew they were going to keep adding to it. I hardly spend 500 dollars on anything. Let a lone a video game. I mean I spent 350 on my phone when it came out, but I know it will be supported, it does everything I need. Games are just entertainment.

$500 is 33 months of a $15 sub.  Have you subscribed to a game or a collection of games for 33 months?

Think about it for a moment.  Person spends $50 or so for a game when it comes out.  Two years later there is an expansion.  They spend another $50.  That is $100 right there.  Then we have 24 months of sub @ $15/month.  That is $360.  So you're looking at $460 for 24 months of gameplay and one expansion.  In less than 3 months after that, you've hit that $500 mark.

Think about how much somebody would have spent on WoW, had they played from the start...

And for your phone that you spent $350 on... how much do you spend a month on your bill?  Many people are spending anywhere between $60-100 or more a month.  That is $720-1200 a year.

We were talking about 33 months of game time... compare that to the phone, eh?

$1980-3300...

VirusDancer

Originally posted by SuperXero89

A lot of games have lifetime subs (money grabs) for people that want them.  I always love listening to lifetime subscribers whine and cry when their game goes F2P like a year after release.  Any sensible person would never put that much money up front for a video game because you just never know what's going to happen over a long period of time.

Usually when you see a lifetime sub, the informed consumer should realize something is up.  As we've already discussed in this thread, if $500 is only 33 months of sub time... then if you are getting a lifetime sub for $200 or so; you should be thinking that the game only has about a year left...am I right, eh?

Loktofeit

Originally posted by elos_rekat

No.  Just because I love it now doesn't mean I'll still be loving it in 30 months. 

Same here.

 

Several games that I really enjoyed at release eventually became very different games, for better or for worse, as they were developed. Gambling $500, especially when I know that I will normally play an MMO I enjoy for maybe a year or two, isn't something I'd be interested in doing.