I would be ok with it. To be honest I am surprised that no MMO has ever raised their sub fee. $15 in 2004 is clearly not worth as much in 2012. Maybe companies are afraid to raise subs because of the F2P competition nowadays. Most MMos are switching to F2P and pulling in more and more customers. A sub fee increase would make P2P even less competitive.
Although I can see how WoW would be able to pull this off. It is after all one of the very few (the only one?) successful P2P MMO.
This isn't personal, but there seems to be a common misonception that MMOs have always been $15 per month. I clearly remember something like $9.95 (I think, fuzzy on this one), then $12.95, then the current $15 per month. This is based on EQ, granted early EQ.
Imo, the only reason we haven't seen a more reasent rise in the sub fee (besides the 400 lb gorilla), is the whole F2P scene right now. There seem to be a great number of people who seem to think that they should be able to play MMOs with no money invested at all. It's caused a sort of cancer, among the others caused by other things, in the industry.
To answer the OP, I would not be surprised at all, nor would I care.
Good question. I currently pay for 3 EVE subs, not sure I'd really want to see them go up, I'd at least expect something of extra value, like you know, lag free fleet fights or something like that. (or a once a day automatic I win button)
But certainly not just to pay for the development of additional titles such as Dust514. (though some money tossed to WOD would be OK)
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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If anything, sub prices should have gone down between 1999 and 2012.
While it is true that the cost of making MMOs has gone up since the early days, the cost of actually running one has gone down, way down. Several devs of various games have commented on this, on several sites, that the cost of bandwidth and game hardware is about 10% of what it was in the UO/EQ days.
The $15/mo number was centered around that: development costs were mostly covered by the box price, and new content by charging for new expansions.
But as time went on, the "upkeep" costs for running MMOs plummeted. But the big (or formerly big) companies, Bliz, SOE, and the others saw no reason to change the price to reflect that, because the market accepted the $15/mo price.
The fact that "F2P" and B2P games exist at all, is largely a function of the "almost free" nature of bandwidth and server hardware, in terms of running an MMO. If the expenses for servers and bandwidth were the same as the old day, there would be no F2P games at all: they could not afford to keep a game running on a small slice of the player base paying.
So, while it is true that $15 in 2012 is worth a good deal less than in 1999, the costs that drove that as a basis for the price of an MMO sub are much, much lower. And thus, the $15/mo is a lot more profitable for the producers (if they only could make a game good enough for people to keep playing).
Well few things. First, it's already been shown by multiple companies that the subscription fees aren't really used much for the process of maintaining the servers, power or utilities of buildings, the medical side of things is pretty much taken care of, insurance costs for companies is going to go down in 2014 to help workers get insurance. Second, the very small percentage of the sub money goes towards support, then to developers, the rest of the hefty bulk of it goes to the execs. And finally, the dollar hasn't changed that dramatically to require a huge increase in subscription costs, come back and talk to be in 20 yrs not 4 every economic model in a credit based economy will tell you that it can't change that quickly without a full on second great depression, we haven't had one of those, it's a dip not a depression. So I ask you, do you really think that if they started asking for more money from the subscribers that it would be due to utilities or medical insurance costs? sorry...not buying it.
Oh and HOLY RUSTED METAL batman! this website is taking forever to load today. sheesh!
This is not a Sub fee vs F2P discussion (there is another thread for that)
How would you feel if your MMO announced that the sub fee was going up $1 per month?
Why would this happen? Well - tell me what's getting cheaper in this world? Utilities, staffing, health care, gas, office supplies - not to mention the changing value of currency.
If your studio launched a game in 2008 with a $15.00 sub, and you maintain the same 500k subscribers - you are making less money! Why? Because that $15 isn't worth the same in 2012.
You must make up for that lost revenue somehow? Why not raise the sub fee to $16.00 per month?
Obviously, sudios won't do that because of the crap-storm that would follow. Or would players understand?
Just some thoughts I was having and was curious about what people thought about it.
You make some good points. If games are going to keep going the subscription route, Logically inflation would have to kick in at some point and the prices would have to go up.
However, I don't think the issue is as much w/ the price, as it is what you get for that price. In short I think the trend set by subscriptions is just not a sustainable one. It reinforces the need to push out more content than the last guy, which isn't possible to do every time. This is how we get rushed, half-finished content that feels 'lackluster'.
Maybe in another 10years I'd be okay with paying an extra dollar or two (if I'm still playing MMOs), but right now, I'm having a hard time justifying paying a sub at all. So the answer would be no, I wouldn't pay a more expensive sub.
What I'd like to see MMOs start doing, would actually be launching with less features, but much more polished. A really solid core gameplay, and then expanding upon that. Once games start doing that I'd probably be more open to revisiting a sub-fee, if it's clear that the money is going towards expanding on the existing content at a decent pace.
This is not a Sub fee vs F2P discussion (there is another thread for that)
How would you feel if your MMO announced that the sub fee was going up $1 per month?
Why would this happen? Well - tell me what's getting cheaper in this world? Utilities, staffing, health care, gas, office supplies - not to mention the changing value of currency.
If your studio launched a game in 2008 with a $15.00 sub, and you maintain the same 500k subscribers - you are making less money! Why? Because that $15 isn't worth the same in 2012.
You must make up for that lost revenue somehow? Why not raise the sub fee to $16.00 per month?
Obviously, sudios won't do that because of the crap-storm that would follow. Or would players understand?
Just some thoughts I was having and was curious about what people thought about it.
Someone has convinced the studio's that raising sub rpices would be the kiss of death and that's precisely the problem . I don't think it would be. Studios use to be able to make money on lower pop numbers and still deliver a product and updates. Inflation has not hit sub prices and hence studio's need larger pops to sustain games. There in lies the problem . Larger numbers means more diverse tastes and opinions and basically problems. If you tailor a game to hardcore fans , ex: EvE and raise prices and still deliver a quality product the playerbase will be much more tolerant. This drive for large pops is killing games ,because devs are attempting to get games to make a big splash ( at least in MMO's ) . The truth is not every game is for everyone taste. If a company can make a game and sustain subs a 250000 at $25/mo , that's a nice chunk of change. Off of something like that , especially in MMO's you can build momentum and a game . Currently what happens , a game is released and within 3 mo it's being announced that F2P is in the offing. Why ? Cash flow is the simple answer and financial sustainablity. Games and titles will have hardcore fans , the idea that devs need to embrace is that they can be the people you cater to , make a profit and use as a base to expand and improve your product into the future.
An upside would be that poeple would be more discerning about where they spend their money forcing devs to actually release a better product. The system as it currently functions is a dumbing down games to maximize profites off of an expectant increasing population sizes too meet profitiblity. The game collapse when it's not met. An MMO should be thought of as a business. You find your market, you cater to your market , you expand and grow based on your market success, but you need to price so that profits can be realized and markets will bear. You start as a mom and pop , and grow to a GM, Walmart , Home Depot etc... No MMO has ever start as the big boy on the block. Devs have forgotten this and lost sight of that principle.
I would be ok with it. To be honest I am surprised that no MMO has ever raised their sub fee. $15 in 2004 is clearly not worth as much in 2012. Maybe companies are afraid to raise subs because of the F2P competition nowadays. Most MMos are switching to F2P and pulling in more and more customers. A sub fee increase would make P2P even less competitive.
Although I can see how WoW would be able to pull this off. It is after all one of the very few (the only one?) successful P2P MMO.
Again, you obviously don't live in Europe, if $20.99 is not a raise then i don't know what is in your eyes. As i stated before, the sub prince is a drop in the ocean, it really is nothing, it's the comparison to North America that get's under my nose. If i thought a MMO was worth $40 a month i would pay it because it's not alot of money at all.
It's 20.99 in Europe? I guess it's a tad more than here in the U.S. then, isn't the coversion rate at about .75 ,Euro/dollar?
Had to go check myself, 20.99 for you is 16 for us, so Europeans are already paying more.
Yup, that's more point. I have no problem paying a sub or how much if the game is worth it but here in Europe we are getting ripped off because Americans pay less. Now taking in tax laws and all we still pay more so it's a bit of a liberty imo.
I am from the UK so I am paying EU prices. However, all the MMOs I have played have charged me 8.99 pounds. DOn't which MMO charges you $20.99 but I certainly haven't played one that charges that much.
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This is not a Sub fee vs F2P discussion (there is another thread for that)
How would you feel if your MMO announced that the sub fee was going up $1 per month?
Why would this happen? Well - tell me what's getting cheaper in this world? Utilities, staffing, health care, gas, office supplies - not to mention the changing value of currency.
If your studio launched a game in 2008 with a $15.00 sub, and you maintain the same 500k subscribers - you are making less money! Why? Because that $15 isn't worth the same in 2012.
You must make up for that lost revenue somehow? Why not raise the sub fee to $16.00 per month?
Obviously, sudios won't do that because of the crap-storm that would follow. Or would players understand?
Just some thoughts I was having and was curious about what people thought about it.
You know, that is a good question. However, I do not think you just because something can happen that everyone should just complacently accept it. Yes, inflation is a BAD THING. However, thing that you pay for that you DO NOT NEED are optional. So, if entertainment goes up to a price that I think it is too high, I will not pay for it. Frankly, I think most MMO's today are if anything today overpriced. Not saying (or wishing to start) that they should be "free". However, I think that people must realise that they are only paying for PIXELS and not anything of value.
If it is a MMO I regulalrly play would keep subbing to it
If playing multiple MMOs, may need to drop one then. A price increase on one MMO and you only play one MMO is fine, but an increase on all MMOs at the same time, all adds up
If the sub fee was increased on SWG when I was playing it, it would mean having to drop an account or two! Instead of subbing about 15, would then only sub 10!
The fact that the sub on The Secret World costs more than £8.99 is preventing me from getting into this one. I would rather play WOW or SWTOR and pay £8.99 than play TSW for more
Burntvet and itgrowls both described how I see the situation. Hardware is much cheaper as is bandwidth.
I prefer a true subscription model but I dont' think any of those exist anymore. Every place that charges a sub also either has some form of microtransaction (even if it's just expacs) or sells gold. They all supplement their income. If I'm going to pay a subscription going forward then it better cover everything.
So not only would I not be okay with a price increase, I'm not okay with the current fee schedule. Most sub games are around $150 to $200 per year. At $10/mo with an expac cost averaging about $40 per year you hit $160/year. If the game cost $16/mo (up from $15) it would come in at a minimum of $232/year, if not more. I mean if they're going to up the monthly fee why not the xpac fee too? No game out at the moment is worth that per year. From my perspective, none of them deliver the goods for that price.
completely agree, the vast bulk of mmo companies who require a sub are severely lacking on the content updates and usually make the players wait a long time before releasing major updates and charge on top of the monthly fee for the xpacs. Just happened with WoW and they've been doing the exact same model for the past 7 years. The only one i can truly say that's been using the sub money wisely to improve content and gameplay for players is Trion.
Burntvet and itgrowls both described how I see the situation. Hardware is much cheaper as is bandwidth.
I prefer a true subscription model but I dont' think any of those exist anymore. Every place that charges a sub also either has some form of microtransaction (even if it's just expacs) or sells gold. They all supplement their income. If I'm going to pay a subscription going forward then it better cover everything.
So not only would I not be okay with a price increase, I'm not okay with the current fee schedule. Most sub games are around $150 to $200 per year. At $10/mo with an expac cost averaging about $40 per year you hit $160/year. If the game cost $16/mo (up from $15) it would come in at a minimum of $232/year, if not more. I mean if they're going to up the monthly fee why not the xpac fee too? No game out at the moment is worth that per year. From my perspective, none of them deliver the goods for that price.
completely agree, the vast bulk of mmo companies who require a sub are severely lacking on the content updates and usually make the players wait a long time before releasing major updates and charge on top of the monthly fee for the xpacs. Just happened with WoW and they've been doing the exact same model for the past 7 years. The only one i can truly say that's been using the sub money wisely to improve content and gameplay for players is Trion.
Frankly, I am surprised not one company has come out and said: "Look, we are going to run things like an old school game: Buy the box, pay for expansions, but no cash shop. And we are cutting the sub fee in half because the cost to just keep the thing running have gone way down."
Assuming the game had any longevity (which most lately don't) I would think they'd do well.
At least, there is a certain market segment that could appreciate running things that way, instead of with a bunch of gimmicks and/or nickle and diming.
If it was a small increase I wouldn't mind. If it was a dramatic increase ($10 or so) I wouldn't mind as long as that meant more frequent updates, faster servers and "free" content more often.
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I wouldn't mind a fee increase, but with it has to come a service increase. I have no problem paying more if I get more.
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It'd really depend on how happy I was with the game. If I was over the moon for it, $1 wouldn't be a big enough issue to merit cancellation. If I was treading water, bordering on burnout, $1 would give me a nice little push over the edge. If I hadn't started playing it yet, I'd look more closely at the game to see what I'd be getting for that extra dollar; if I wasn't getting anything better or significantly different from what I'd get in other MMOs, I'd just play those other MMOs.
Are there other MMOs where I would get close to as many hours from for less?
Have they been cutting back in content?
Do they have an explanation such as: We've lost some subscribers but want to continue giving you the same amount of content.
In the end it depends on if I think it's worth the subscription. You can get a lot of good games these days for close to $15. Especially if they don't have to have stellar graphics or have been released in the last year.
I'm not swimming in money :-), but would gladly pay even double sub ammount for swtor, wow, rift, ... if they keep same quality as is now. Only now b2p game that is f2p that would deserve to be sub based, imo, is gw2.
Burntvet and itgrowls both described how I see the situation. Hardware is much cheaper as is bandwidth.
I prefer a true subscription model but I dont' think any of those exist anymore. Every place that charges a sub also either has some form of microtransaction (even if it's just expacs) or sells gold. They all supplement their income. If I'm going to pay a subscription going forward then it better cover everything.
So not only would I not be okay with a price increase, I'm not okay with the current fee schedule. Most sub games are around $150 to $200 per year. At $10/mo with an expac cost averaging about $40 per year you hit $160/year. If the game cost $16/mo (up from $15) it would come in at a minimum of $232/year, if not more. I mean if they're going to up the monthly fee why not the xpac fee too? No game out at the moment is worth that per year. From my perspective, none of them deliver the goods for that price.
completely agree, the vast bulk of mmo companies who require a sub are severely lacking on the content updates and usually make the players wait a long time before releasing major updates and charge on top of the monthly fee for the xpacs. Just happened with WoW and they've been doing the exact same model for the past 7 years. The only one i can truly say that's been using the sub money wisely to improve content and gameplay for players is Trion.
While I agree the cost of running a game have gone down on the hardware end, you neglect the one cost that does have an impact. It the cost of running a business and employing those to design and create. Since 2000, inflation has run about 4% , and in the last four years even higher. Although gov stats and QE's have expressly devalued the currency to hide inflation it is nevertheless there. No amount of hardware saving is going to offset those costs. The current sub business model is unstainable as it currently is without price increases. MMO use to have time and money and manpower to dev content in the past. The current sub model makes it difficult unless you large pops.
I would be ok with it. To be honest I am surprised that no MMO has ever raised their sub fee. $15 in 2004 is clearly not worth as much in 2012. Maybe companies are afraid to raise subs because of the F2P competition nowadays. Most MMos are switching to F2P and pulling in more and more customers. A sub fee increase would make P2P even less competitive.
Although I can see how WoW would be able to pull this off. It is after all one of the very few (the only one?) successful P2P MMO.
Again, you obviously don't live in Europe, if $20.99 is not a raise then i don't know what is in your eyes. As i stated before, the sub prince is a drop in the ocean, it really is nothing, it's the comparison to North America that get's under my nose. If i thought a MMO was worth $40 a month i would pay it because it's not alot of money at all.
It's 20.99 in Europe? I guess it's a tad more than here in the U.S. then, isn't the coversion rate at about .75 ,Euro/dollar?
Had to go check myself, 20.99 for you is 16 for us, so Europeans are already paying more.
Yup, that's more point. I have no problem paying a sub or how much if the game is worth it but here in Europe we are getting ripped off because Americans pay less. Now taking in tax laws and all we still pay more so it's a bit of a liberty imo.
I am from the UK so I am paying EU prices. However, all the MMOs I have played have charged me 8.99 pounds. DOn't which MMO charges you $20.99 but I certainly haven't played one that charges that much.
The secret world was $20.99 at releaee in Europe it's now $18.45, yes you haven't payed that because you have not played TSW lol.
Frankly, I am surprised not one company has come out and said: "Look, we are going to run things like an old school game: Buy the box, pay for expansions, but no cash shop. And we are cutting the sub fee in half because the cost to just keep the thing running have gone way down."
Assuming the game had any longevity (which most lately don't) I would think they'd do well.
At least, there is a certain market segment that could appreciate running things that way, instead of with a bunch of gimmicks and/or nickle and diming.
On the purchasable extras: They've been around for a decade. They are more common now because more people like them. There isn't a form of entertainment that doesn't have optional extras. They add value and they generate revenue. I don't see what removing that would do other than appease an ever-shrinking part of the audience that doesn't like it and wouldn't have spent money on it to egin with.
On pricing: If an MMO is $9.99 a month and all the other MMOs are $14.95 a month, the assumption is that the $9.99 MMO is inferior. That's just how people are wired. I've had people in the past reply to that using the Steam strategy as an argument, but that situation is unrelated, as it is a combination of impulse buy with temporary price drop of a standard pricepoint product.
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If they were charging 15.00 in 08 they were overcharging. the only way I can see this being acceptable is if MMO's that are just starting out and have little content charged less at first and ramped it up as they add more content.
One of my biggest gripes is that a game like Rift (just an example) at release cost's the same as WoW after like 4 years of content development. How can these two games be equal?
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If they were charging 15.00 in 08 they were overcharging. the only way I can see this being acceptable is if MMO's that are just starting out and have little content charged less at first and ramped it up as they add more content.
One of my biggest gripes is that a game like Rift (just an example) at release cost's the same as WoW after like 4 years of content development. How can these two games be equal?
Many people would argue that because WoW is old game it should cost less than new games. You will never get consensus in this thing.
Well - tell me what's getting cheaper in this world?
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I guess that means that image size spec/requirements are due to explode (again) soon.
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I would be ok with it. To be honest I am surprised that no MMO has ever raised their sub fee. $15 in 2004 is clearly not worth as much in 2012. Maybe companies are afraid to raise subs because of the F2P competition nowadays. Most MMos are switching to F2P and pulling in more and more customers. A sub fee increase would make P2P even less competitive.
Although I can see how WoW would be able to pull this off. It is after all one of the very few (the only one?) successful P2P MMO.
Again, you obviously don't live in Europe, if $20.99 is not a raise then i don't know what is in your eyes. As i stated before, the sub prince is a drop in the ocean, it really is nothing, it's the comparison to North America that get's under my nose. If i thought a MMO was worth $40 a month i would pay it because it's not alot of money at all.
It's 20.99 in Europe? I guess it's a tad more than here in the U.S. then, isn't the coversion rate at about .75 ,Euro/dollar?
Had to go check myself, 20.99 for you is 16 for us, so Europeans are already paying more.
Yup, that's more point. I have no problem paying a sub or how much if the game is worth it but here in Europe we are getting ripped off because Americans pay less. Now taking in tax laws and all we still pay more so it's a bit of a liberty imo.
I am from the UK so I am paying EU prices. However, all the MMOs I have played have charged me 8.99 pounds. DOn't which MMO charges you $20.99 but I certainly haven't played one that charges that much.
The secret world was $20.99 at releaee in Europe it's now $18.45, yes you haven't payed that because you have not played TSW lol.
So you are saying that a sub price for tsw is 11 pounds well almost 12 pounds, thats quite a markup.
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This isn't personal, but there seems to be a common misonception that MMOs have always been $15 per month. I clearly remember something like $9.95 (I think, fuzzy on this one), then $12.95, then the current $15 per month. This is based on EQ, granted early EQ.
Imo, the only reason we haven't seen a more reasent rise in the sub fee (besides the 400 lb gorilla), is the whole F2P scene right now. There seem to be a great number of people who seem to think that they should be able to play MMOs with no money invested at all. It's caused a sort of cancer, among the others caused by other things, in the industry.
To answer the OP, I would not be surprised at all, nor would I care.
Good question. I currently pay for 3 EVE subs, not sure I'd really want to see them go up, I'd at least expect something of extra value, like you know, lag free fleet fights or something like that. (or a once a day automatic I win button)
But certainly not just to pay for the development of additional titles such as Dust514. (though some money tossed to WOD would be OK)
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If anything, sub prices should have gone down between 1999 and 2012.
While it is true that the cost of making MMOs has gone up since the early days, the cost of actually running one has gone down, way down. Several devs of various games have commented on this, on several sites, that the cost of bandwidth and game hardware is about 10% of what it was in the UO/EQ days.
The $15/mo number was centered around that: development costs were mostly covered by the box price, and new content by charging for new expansions.
But as time went on, the "upkeep" costs for running MMOs plummeted. But the big (or formerly big) companies, Bliz, SOE, and the others saw no reason to change the price to reflect that, because the market accepted the $15/mo price.
The fact that "F2P" and B2P games exist at all, is largely a function of the "almost free" nature of bandwidth and server hardware, in terms of running an MMO. If the expenses for servers and bandwidth were the same as the old day, there would be no F2P games at all: they could not afford to keep a game running on a small slice of the player base paying.
So, while it is true that $15 in 2012 is worth a good deal less than in 1999, the costs that drove that as a basis for the price of an MMO sub are much, much lower. And thus, the $15/mo is a lot more profitable for the producers (if they only could make a game good enough for people to keep playing).
Well few things. First, it's already been shown by multiple companies that the subscription fees aren't really used much for the process of maintaining the servers, power or utilities of buildings, the medical side of things is pretty much taken care of, insurance costs for companies is going to go down in 2014 to help workers get insurance. Second, the very small percentage of the sub money goes towards support, then to developers, the rest of the hefty bulk of it goes to the execs. And finally, the dollar hasn't changed that dramatically to require a huge increase in subscription costs, come back and talk to be in 20 yrs not 4 every economic model in a credit based economy will tell you that it can't change that quickly without a full on second great depression, we haven't had one of those, it's a dip not a depression. So I ask you, do you really think that if they started asking for more money from the subscribers that it would be due to utilities or medical insurance costs? sorry...not buying it.
Oh and HOLY RUSTED METAL batman! this website is taking forever to load today. sheesh!
You make some good points. If games are going to keep going the subscription route, Logically inflation would have to kick in at some point and the prices would have to go up.
However, I don't think the issue is as much w/ the price, as it is what you get for that price. In short I think the trend set by subscriptions is just not a sustainable one. It reinforces the need to push out more content than the last guy, which isn't possible to do every time. This is how we get rushed, half-finished content that feels 'lackluster'.
Maybe in another 10years I'd be okay with paying an extra dollar or two (if I'm still playing MMOs), but right now, I'm having a hard time justifying paying a sub at all. So the answer would be no, I wouldn't pay a more expensive sub.
What I'd like to see MMOs start doing, would actually be launching with less features, but much more polished. A really solid core gameplay, and then expanding upon that. Once games start doing that I'd probably be more open to revisiting a sub-fee, if it's clear that the money is going towards expanding on the existing content at a decent pace.
Someone has convinced the studio's that raising sub rpices would be the kiss of death and that's precisely the problem . I don't think it would be. Studios use to be able to make money on lower pop numbers and still deliver a product and updates. Inflation has not hit sub prices and hence studio's need larger pops to sustain games. There in lies the problem . Larger numbers means more diverse tastes and opinions and basically problems. If you tailor a game to hardcore fans , ex: EvE and raise prices and still deliver a quality product the playerbase will be much more tolerant. This drive for large pops is killing games ,because devs are attempting to get games to make a big splash ( at least in MMO's ) . The truth is not every game is for everyone taste. If a company can make a game and sustain subs a 250000 at $25/mo , that's a nice chunk of change. Off of something like that , especially in MMO's you can build momentum and a game . Currently what happens , a game is released and within 3 mo it's being announced that F2P is in the offing. Why ? Cash flow is the simple answer and financial sustainablity. Games and titles will have hardcore fans , the idea that devs need to embrace is that they can be the people you cater to , make a profit and use as a base to expand and improve your product into the future.
An upside would be that poeple would be more discerning about where they spend their money forcing devs to actually release a better product. The system as it currently functions is a dumbing down games to maximize profites off of an expectant increasing population sizes too meet profitiblity. The game collapse when it's not met. An MMO should be thought of as a business. You find your market, you cater to your market , you expand and grow based on your market success, but you need to price so that profits can be realized and markets will bear. You start as a mom and pop , and grow to a GM, Walmart , Home Depot etc... No MMO has ever start as the big boy on the block. Devs have forgotten this and lost sight of that principle.
I am from the UK so I am paying EU prices. However, all the MMOs I have played have charged me 8.99 pounds. DOn't which MMO charges you $20.99 but I certainly haven't played one that charges that much.
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You know, that is a good question. However, I do not think you just because something can happen that everyone should just complacently accept it. Yes, inflation is a BAD THING. However, thing that you pay for that you DO NOT NEED are optional. So, if entertainment goes up to a price that I think it is too high, I will not pay for it. Frankly, I think most MMO's today are if anything today overpriced. Not saying (or wishing to start) that they should be "free". However, I think that people must realise that they are only paying for PIXELS and not anything of value.
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If it is a MMO I regulalrly play would keep subbing to it
If playing multiple MMOs, may need to drop one then. A price increase on one MMO and you only play one MMO is fine, but an increase on all MMOs at the same time, all adds up
If the sub fee was increased on SWG when I was playing it, it would mean having to drop an account or two! Instead of subbing about 15, would then only sub 10!
The fact that the sub on The Secret World costs more than £8.99 is preventing me from getting into this one. I would rather play WOW or SWTOR and pay £8.99 than play TSW for more
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completely agree, the vast bulk of mmo companies who require a sub are severely lacking on the content updates and usually make the players wait a long time before releasing major updates and charge on top of the monthly fee for the xpacs. Just happened with WoW and they've been doing the exact same model for the past 7 years. The only one i can truly say that's been using the sub money wisely to improve content and gameplay for players is Trion.
Frankly, I am surprised not one company has come out and said: "Look, we are going to run things like an old school game: Buy the box, pay for expansions, but no cash shop. And we are cutting the sub fee in half because the cost to just keep the thing running have gone way down."
Assuming the game had any longevity (which most lately don't) I would think they'd do well.
At least, there is a certain market segment that could appreciate running things that way, instead of with a bunch of gimmicks and/or nickle and diming.
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It depends.
Are there other MMOs where I would get close to as many hours from for less?
Have they been cutting back in content?
Do they have an explanation such as: We've lost some subscribers but want to continue giving you the same amount of content.
In the end it depends on if I think it's worth the subscription. You can get a lot of good games these days for close to $15. Especially if they don't have to have stellar graphics or have been released in the last year.
While I agree the cost of running a game have gone down on the hardware end, you neglect the one cost that does have an impact. It the cost of running a business and employing those to design and create. Since 2000, inflation has run about 4% , and in the last four years even higher. Although gov stats and QE's have expressly devalued the currency to hide inflation it is nevertheless there. No amount of hardware saving is going to offset those costs. The current sub business model is unstainable as it currently is without price increases. MMO use to have time and money and manpower to dev content in the past. The current sub model makes it difficult unless you large pops.
The secret world was $20.99 at releaee in Europe it's now $18.45, yes you haven't payed that because you have not played TSW lol.
On the purchasable extras: They've been around for a decade. They are more common now because more people like them. There isn't a form of entertainment that doesn't have optional extras. They add value and they generate revenue. I don't see what removing that would do other than appease an ever-shrinking part of the audience that doesn't like it and wouldn't have spent money on it to egin with.
On pricing: If an MMO is $9.99 a month and all the other MMOs are $14.95 a month, the assumption is that the $9.99 MMO is inferior. That's just how people are wired. I've had people in the past reply to that using the Steam strategy as an argument, but that situation is unrelated, as it is a combination of impulse buy with temporary price drop of a standard pricepoint product.
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If they were charging 15.00 in 08 they were overcharging. the only way I can see this being acceptable is if MMO's that are just starting out and have little content charged less at first and ramped it up as they add more content.
One of my biggest gripes is that a game like Rift (just an example) at release cost's the same as WoW after like 4 years of content development. How can these two games be equal?
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Many people would argue that because WoW is old game it should cost less than new games. You will never get consensus in this thing.
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You know, I paid more than $800 for a hard drive once...20 megs. Yes, Really.
~$100 per Terabyte, as of today. $130 for a 2TB external...damn, the day is coming when no one will ever bother to 'make room' on their drives again.
I guess that means that image size spec/requirements are due to explode (again) soon.
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Me: "But but but you only display 72 dpi...you got a monitor that's 83 feet wide?"
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So you are saying that a sub price for tsw is 11 pounds well almost 12 pounds, thats quite a markup.