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Supply and Demand. Sub prices have to drop.
bcbully
Member EpicPosts: 11,843
I do not believe f2p is the answer, too many quality of life benifits are cut due to on going cost, such as customer service, in-game gms, and hack/bot security. I also feel that the basic ideal of serving you customer is lost. Too often in this model the customer is not right or has no recourse. In addition, when someone is subbed to a game, there is an vested intrest in the well being of the game
That being said sub prices have to drop. There are just too many mmorpgs on the market that are worth playing to be paying 15$ per month for one. I'm currently subbed to TSW and WoW with DF:UW right around the corner. 40+ per month no matter what I can afford is too much for gaming. In all honesty I feel guilty paying 30 per month on subs, but I want the option of playing when I get the urge.
What do you think? If the standard sub was 5$ per month with the AAA services included, would you have a problem subbing, to one or multiple games?
Comments
I never play more than 1 MMORPG at a time so the standard price right now is fine to me. In fact, it actually delivers amazing value tbh.
50 cents a day for 24/7 entertainment........................ no not too much. And free content and updates, not having to worry about cash shops.
If you pay a year up front its like 30 cents a day.
Find cheaper entertainment and let me know. And no F2P games dont count, they milk you dry with cash shops and content costs you. B2P like GW2 = cash shop also.
I can see your logic. There are a few games out there I would consider playing for $5 a month, but at $15 a month, I need to be a bit choosy. My kids like to play with me, and with multiple subs, I need to be picky.
The game companies may lose a bit initially, but the benefit is potentially fuller servers and a more satisfied player base. It also brings in more possible microtransactions, which are common place now. These could potentially ofset the loss in sub payments, if any.
I've never had a problem paying a 15$/month sub as long as I felt the game was worth it.
The 1st mmo game i played called blademistress had a 5$/month server fee, not too bad.
Then I played WoW 15$/month fee for what I was getting was great, and I felt that worth degenerating with each xpac.
Then I found Lotro 15$/month awesome, then it went freemium nuff said.
The last game I payed a sub for was Rift, and I feel it's worth the sub.
So I do agree with you about the sub cost, but for me it boil's down to the game has to be worthy of a sub in the 1st place. Plus anymore I'm a firm beliver in a sub model is the more honest model.
Exactly.
That's the logic of F2P.
The same is true of box prices. They have held steady in the $50-60 range for a long time. They would be closer to $100 if they rose with inflation.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
No, my logic is not f2p. I want to pay something. I want certain services and believe the community benifits from having players invested in it's well being. Its just the market has become saturated with decent to good games. I want the developer to make money, and I do not want to feel the squeeze of cash shops, because its the only way for the developer to make money.
I think a low cost sub could benifit the indusrty as a whole. taking something is better than taking nothing.
I agree with the newer sub price. The quality of WoW's content has been on the decline and they are now relying more heavily on pricey expansion packs. In my opinion, WoW is no longer worth $15 a month when I have to buy a $60 expansion every year or every other year.
However, $5 for AAA titles would constitute a big loss. Maybe $10-$12? Paying only five dollars, you'd get developers and companies relying on RMT and cash shops to compensate for sub prices. Or, you'd have some services restricted.
I wouldn't be surpised if some companies did subscription tiers or something. How much you pay for your subscription is the extent of services, access to goods unobtainable by lower tiers, content access, etc.
Either way, I belive the sub price should be revaluated but not just lowered so people can play more MMO's at once. Kinda keeps you from getting attached to a particular world, which is a big part of MMO's.
I'm a unique and beautiful snowflake.
Certain companies/industries seem to ignore the supply/demand curves. The prices of CD's were basically static even during the napster period. mp3's seem to have static costs as well based on the content producers prices.
MMO companies seem locked on to the same monthly costs, regardless of the quality of their product or number of subscribers. There is little to no experimentation. When they struggle, they choose to go the F2P route rather than lower the sub prices and see what happens.
I just wish there was a way to pay weekly or daily. 15 a month is very cheap. The problem to me is having to pay all of it in 1 go not knowing how much i'll play. This even counts for an mmo i may play every month for years. I still prefer alot more than cash shops, trust me, but this is how i feel.
3.5-4$ per week. 50 cents per day. Sounds good to me. Or maybe even 7.5 for 2 weeks.
Most people have a budget for gaming. There's a lot of competition out there for your money. The only people that don't care how much they pay per month are the utter fanboys. They often only want to play in the world of their most loved IP. This explains a lot of SWTOR and LOTRO current subscribers.
Me, I like the IPs for Warcraft, Star Wars, LOTR and Conan. I'm also open to brand new IPs if they do something special.
I also play in other genres, and so saving on $15 a month for a lackluster MMO means I can buy an extra game every few months.
In my case, I have a lifetime account to LOTRO. In a month or so I can play around in LOTRO, SWTOR or GW2 without paying a dime. If a great game pops up with a sub, sure I'll pay it. But I don't see any on the horizon and I was burned out on WOW a long time ago.
Quality games can charge $15 no problem, hell I would pay up to $30 - $50 a month for a really good game. On the flip side the reason tons of games are going f2p these days is because they are simply not quality games. I have not found ANY f2p game the has held my attention for more than a week or two at a time. But the subbed games I have played in the past have held my attention for YEARS at a time.
If your game is good subscription all the way.
If your game is mediocre or just straight bad, f2p all the way.
You know, I feel the same way.... The only problem is that "right" game is nowhere insight, atleast I wont dare proclaim I know what that game is.
These games that are out now just can't justify $15/month, thus the reason for plumiting or scraping the sub model all together. If there was just WoW, just TSW, or just GW2, they could charge more. There's also eve, lotr, rift, swtor, ddo, DF, mortal, wtih df:uw, neverwinter, the repopulation, teso, arch age, defiance, eqnext all right around the corner, plus the ones I missed.
If they charged $5/month, I might sube to 5 or 6 of them. Something from this gamers veiw point is better than nothing, and I'm willing to pay something in order not to have to feel the cash shop leaning on me.
That's one of the great advantages to F2P. For example, I play Florensia every other month for about a week or so. There's no sub to worry about and it's not like I wasted 15 dollars if I didn't play that month.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I do miss the era when MMOs where only $9.99 a month. While game production costs are up (especially with MMOs), the bandwidth required to run them are much lower. So at the very least we can expect the monthly prices not to go above the $15 mark any time soon.
Legacy members with FFXIV will be happy to know that A Realm Reborn will only cost $9.99 a month. Besides that, they have a system in place whereby you are able to play the game for $12.99 or $14.99 if you want to save a few bucks. The downside to that is that cheaper version only allows you one character per server while the premium gives you eight.
I guess it's good if you're the type to only focus on one character and not have alts. It's a step in the right direction at least (especially with their horrible billing process during FFXI in the past).
@mmowanderer ;
I like that idea, with the option of a monthly sub at whatever.
The right game could get away with it but it wouldn't get that many subs and the graphics would have to be on par with Crysis 3 or better.
i,m sorry but these companies spend a fortune bringing us these games..most of them dont even make it .they just close..i think £8.99 a month is a small price to pay.i dont mean any disrespect when i say this but i bet if you are an adult you spend more than that going to your local bar and buying a pitcher or a few pints of beer in a couple of hrs..if not then you will like most others waste it in another way.i think sub fees should be higher than what they are.warcraft has been £8.99 since release i beleive..thats 8 yrs with no increase.yet the price of everything else has gone up in the meantime whereas these prices have stayed the same.
saying that though..if you do a 12 month sub to conan its costs you £5+ per month,same with rift,and lotro..imo these games are very good value for money.
The reason companies ignore supply/demand curves is that they want to maximise profits, not sales. Rift has quite low subs and they still make big profits, and its doubtful that they would earn as much money if sub cost dropped by half. The issue that games have isn't about the price, its about the quality, longevity and updates, and if thats lacking, it probably wont help by lowering the price.
I have tried to play two mmorpg's at same time and in the end I had to quit one because there just wasn't enough time to play both as much as I wanted, and I was missing out on the social aspects of both games, and in the end I had to quit one. There has also been times when I have quit the only mmorpg I was playing, and the reason was always because I stopped doing things inside the game.
If you don't want to pay subs its really simple, go play gw2 or f2p games.
I agree completely, at least for the people interested in taking in the huge quality improvements that are inherint in P2P games. I think that a good rate would be the cost of a cup of coffee a day. Average cup of coffee is about $2 so they should raise the rates on all P2P titles to $60 each month. It would also get rid of all those freeloaders, and keep the quality of player to a higher standard! No more gold farmers!
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