So the controversial and ever increasing popularity of developers to charge for beta access goes to a whole new level with Aeria's upcoming localized asian mmo Aura Kingdom. Thought the 100 dollar EQNext Landmark founder pack was insane? Or maybe Neverwinter's before it launched? Feast your eyes on this:
The 2nd tier founder pack - 159 dollars DISCOUNTED from 289 dollars. What a bargain!!! And what does this get you the 50 dollar starter pack doesn't have? One extra pet. Yep, 110 dollar pet.
The 3rd tier founder pack - 300 dollars DISCOUNTED from 550 dollars!! Wow I'm getting 250 dollars off this screamin deal!! What do I get extra from the 2nd tier pack for this steal of a deal? Oh, another pet AND extra character slots, plus a little plushie.
Listening to the dev speak Beau from Massively asks what prompted them to charge so much for their founder's packs. The answer - "Because we are offering so much more!!"
There is a full markets of suckers out there to be milked.
As I always say, the MMO industry is engaged in thinking up every way they can to make more money out of players. In past years you only had betas and a subscription, that limits how much you can increase revenue.
We had collectors editions and the like but to my knowledge beta access was never charged for. Now anything goes and they will charge you to do beta, to buy items in a F2P game before it is officially released, buy P2W items and gamble money on lock boxes.
This is never ending, each time they come up with something new or excessive it is met with uproar. But players still buy the game, so they just go on inventing new schemes like this.
What will they come up with next year to milk more money? I don't know, but they will come up with something of that you can be sure.
I feel like there is something really wrong here. It's a bad trend in the last 7-8 years. A 'Shadup and take my money' trend. We crowd fund games on indie startup sites. We pre-order at game stop. And, now established gaming companies are trying to get us to also pay for something site-unseen as well?
We are more and more being asked to use our dollars to register interest in our entertainment experience. It doesn't feel fair. An indie game might fall before it stands if it doesn't make it's start up goals (people get refunded their money but it's a let down). If a game doesn't get enough pre-orders it's release is canceled, the store you gave your money to secure a copy won't give that money back...but they will let you spend it as credit with them on something else.
We don't exactly truly loose out on this for what we pay. But, these companies are basically asking the people with the most disposable income to decide how everyone will be entertained. If the poor kid can save up enough money for a game by the time it is set to release, but the rich kid next door didn't pre-order it. The poor kid may never get to even play that game because the someone wealthier then him didn't feel it was a good investment.
Their asking us to insure them. Their asking the people with the most money to make decisions for the rest of us. That is what it feels like to me. at least. That the gaming industry is becoming elitist. The 'betters' make the games the 'betters' decide what games get made.
You want 300 bucks from me?...sure, on top of all the intangible things you are offering at some distant point in the future, give 10 stocks of your company, and we will call it a deal. You want me to insure you? Then I need collateral.
3 companies that will never see another dime from me for their games:
I gave up on Aeria's games after I got upset and used the word shit on their forum, they deleted my account with high level characters and gear. Have not even looked back with so many games to choose from in today's market!
Yes they are within their rights to do so, but I am also within my right to never create another account with them or give them any more money!
What I don't understand is the moral outrage. Companies can charge whatever they want for their shitty product. In fact you can expect them to charge as much as possible people are willing pay but also try to offer better value than their competitors. At that balance point you will find the price.
I don't know the perfect price that everyone should pay for their games. All I know is what I'm willing to pay for.
Most gamers will not admit it but they are addicted to gaming.
Since the games have become so short (single player games = 10h, MMOs = 1 month) there is a huge demand but a low supply for new games. It is a sellers market. Just promise to deliver the world and the money starts flowing in.
Thats why star citizen received 34mio $ in funds. Thats why there are so many pre release buy-ins. Thats why so many developers are offering founders packs for insane prices. Just look at POEs 1000$ diamond pack for a unique item. I think it was about 50 people who bought that during early beta.
People are paying for their next gaming fix.
--- Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
While it's hilariously overpriced, it isn't a scam if they clearly lay out what you will get for a certain price and if someone is then willing to pay that price. Whatever floats their boat.
I've been in a few betas and people always yell at you in the forums for making suggestions or not working hard on the goals set for you by the developers to test the game. They say you are free to make suggestions and then tell you not to because the game is already to far into completion. What they really want is a slave to spend hours looking for bugs to fix. Even if the game ends up not being fun to you. Now they want you to pay for it as well? Beta testing is something people should be getting paid to do.
Originally posted by Flyte27 I've been in a few betas and people always yell at you in the forums for making suggestions or not working hard on the goals set for you by the developers to test the game. They say you are free to make suggestions and then tell you not to because the game is already to far into completion. What they really want is a slave to spend hours looking for bugs to fix. Even if the game ends up not being fun to you. Now they want you to pay for it as well? Beta testing is something people should be getting paid to do.
yes beta testing is something people should be paid to do...but the people doing it now for free are not the right people.
So the controversial and ever increasing popularity of developers to charge for beta access goes to a whole new level with Aeria's upcoming localized asian mmo Aura Kingdom. Thought the 100 dollar EQNext Landmark founder pack was insane? Or maybe Neverwinter's before it launched? Feast your eyes on this:
The 2nd tier founder pack - 159 dollars DISCOUNTED from 289 dollars. What a bargain!!! And what does this get you the 50 dollar starter pack doesn't have? One extra pet. Yep, 110 dollar pet.
The 3rd tier founder pack - 300 dollars DISCOUNTED from 550 dollars!! Wow I'm getting 250 dollars off this screamin deal!! What do I get extra from the 2nd tier pack for this steal of a deal? Oh, another pet AND extra character slots, plus a little plushie.
Listening to the dev speak Beau from Massively asks what prompted them to charge so much for their founder's packs. The answer - "Because we are offering so much more!!"
ok ive read all that everyone has said (untell i clocked to post so if anything was in the last 20 min or so sorry i didnt refresh. this hasnt been said yet from what i read 20 dollars for beta accesss. top of the page on your link. not 50 150 300 but 20. and that includes 30 (10 of 1 20 of another) scrolls that you complaned about makeing them and the items with them = to or less valuable then roughly 30 scrolls total. sounds a hell of a lot cheeper then most of the games i have played in the past. asumeing this wouldnt be a compleatly sucky game from the start i thank you for showing me a new game for me to put on my watch list. guess thats not the reaction you wanted but LOL you complaned with out stateing the whole truth or you just didnt read all the previlent data.
sorry i dont like founders packages much but then even when its a free beta as one person said they have the game how they want it its just to hype it up. swtor any one i had beta, i had early accesss. i saw patch after patch of nothing fixed or updated to something better. bottem line is as gamers we have biotch moaned and down right cried our asses off when unable to get a beta key and the game developers didnt want that downing the hype of their game that they sunk untold dollars into. they have families they have to feed as well so they came up with an idea. people love preorders what if with our steaming preorders we allow them a day or to early access. and wow the sales went up dramaticly. so now they give you even longer preaccess to 1000's of players. instead of just a few hundred for a day or 2 or at most a week like we used to get. you pampered pumpous little brats need to get the sliver spoon slapped out your mouth and get a job! you have created this system of entitiled little titty babies and need to grow up and get that the world isnt fair and you makeing it less fair then crying is just oximoronic.
if you call some one a homo, you likely are hitting on them.
Originally posted by Flyte27 I've been in a few betas and people always yell at you in the forums for making suggestions or not working hard on the goals set for you by the developers to test the game. They say you are free to make suggestions and then tell you not to because the game is already to far into completion. What they really want is a slave to spend hours looking for bugs to fix. Even if the game ends up not being fun to you. Now they want you to pay for it as well? Beta testing is something people should be getting paid to do.
yes beta testing is something people should be paid to do...but the people doing it now for free are not the right people.
The numbers would seem high to me if I hadnt just seen marvel heroes prices for new hero/villian sets. Go check that out and you will get a few more kicks.
Originally posted by Flyte27 I've been in a few betas and people always yell at you in the forums for making suggestions or not working hard on the goals set for you by the developers to test the game. They say you are free to make suggestions and then tell you not to because the game is already to far into completion. What they really want is a slave to spend hours looking for bugs to fix. Even if the game ends up not being fun to you. Now they want you to pay for it as well? Beta testing is something people should be getting paid to do.
My son used to complain all the time about similar things with regards to beta tests, until I got him a job at Activision as a tester. I'll give him credit he made it through the 3 month summer break working in "The Dungeon". He has not complained one bit about people paying money for early access to alpha/beta games since that experience. I purchased the $100 EQN:L pack for him so that he can enjoy being a alpha/beta tester on a game he is looking forward to playing when it is released. The "slaves" as you refer them are the Testers that are getting paid ... I know the person that finally sued EA, and trust me EA was not the only company that treated their testers that way. Being a paid tester is literally one of the most thankless job in the industry where you make $10 - $12 an hour and work upwards of 100+ hours a week (during crunch time), and if you don't meet their bug quota then security escorts you out the door. Want to know what happens to paid testers that make too many suggestions? They see that same door that the low bug count tester saw.
People will pay to get into these betas because they want to, and the best part is that they can just chill out, relax, and play around the whole time and no one will care. Developers know that almost all of the open beta testers are not going to be testing, and remember that testing is not making suggestions.
You didn't want subscription so the gaming companies found a new way to get their money upfront thru beta. Welcome to "Free To Play" are you enjoying now. :-!
So the controversial and ever increasing popularity of developers to charge for beta access goes to a whole new level with Aeria's upcoming localized asian mmo Aura Kingdom. Thought the 100 dollar EQNext Landmark founder pack was insane? Or maybe Neverwinter's before it launched? Feast your eyes on this:
The 2nd tier founder pack - 159 dollars DISCOUNTED from 289 dollars. What a bargain!!! And what does this get you the 50 dollar starter pack doesn't have? One extra pet. Yep, 110 dollar pet.
The 3rd tier founder pack - 300 dollars DISCOUNTED from 550 dollars!! Wow I'm getting 250 dollars off this screamin deal!! What do I get extra from the 2nd tier pack for this steal of a deal? Oh, another pet AND extra character slots, plus a little plushie.
Listening to the dev speak Beau from Massively asks what prompted them to charge so much for their founder's packs. The answer - "Because we are offering so much more!!"
Oh, those terrible devs, scamming people out of ... oh wait...
No one is getting scammed or robbed or fleeced or, well anything other than ... let's see.. what's about the most neutral way to put it...
Gamers are being given options to pay for features/content that gamers feel have value at the price that those gamers feel is appropriate. The devs, therefore, can only receive money if gamers voluntarily pay it.
There are two scenarios -
Gamers don't buy them. If gamers don't buy them, the price goes down or they go away.
Gamers do buy them. If gamers do buy yhem, they become more prevalent.
Seems scenario two is what's happening, right? So if you see this as controversial or outrageous, you probably should take that up with your fellow gamers. Making "lol looka da greedy devs lol" posts just makes you look rather silly, unless you really believe that there is some kind of scam going on, at which point you look VERY silly.
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 used to play shot online it is a RPG golf game. The game its self is good, but the company ruined it. The game became extremely cash shop dependent. Anyways the point is that I know several people who spent thousands and thousands of dollars on the game. I placed highly in one of the high end tournament and got this special hat with power and impact stats on it. I was offered 300 real dollars for it at one point. Like an idiot I turned it down cause I was obsessed with the game at the time. I told the guy I worked hard to get that hat and I was proud of it and wanted to hang onto it. I dont know how or why people spend that kinda money on games, but they do.
Then we were expected to buy broken games, that they would later fix for us (patch)
Then we were expected to buy incomplete games, that they'd complete for us with a given price (expansion/FTP)
Then we were expected to buy games before they were ready to be released, so that when they were released, we'd be grandfathered in with perks (Beta buy)
These days, however, we are expected to not even buy games anymore, but promises of games, that we would eventually get to play if enough people bought it (kickstarter).
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
So the controversial and ever increasing popularity of developers to charge for beta access goes to a whole new level with Aeria's upcoming localized asian mmo Aura Kingdom. Thought the 100 dollar EQNext Landmark founder pack was insane? Or maybe Neverwinter's before it launched? Feast your eyes on this:
The 2nd tier founder pack - 159 dollars DISCOUNTED from 289 dollars. What a bargain!!! And what does this get you the 50 dollar starter pack doesn't have? One extra pet. Yep, 110 dollar pet.
The 3rd tier founder pack - 300 dollars DISCOUNTED from 550 dollars!! Wow I'm getting 250 dollars off this screamin deal!! What do I get extra from the 2nd tier pack for this steal of a deal? Oh, another pet AND extra character slots, plus a little plushie.
Listening to the dev speak Beau from Massively asks what prompted them to charge so much for their founder's packs. The answer - "Because we are offering so much more!!"
Oh, those terrible devs, scamming people out of ... oh wait...
No one is getting scammed or robbed or fleeced or, well anything other than ... let's see.. what's about the most neutral way to put it...
Gamers are being given options to pay for features/content that gamers feel have value at the price that those gamers feel is appropriate. The devs, therefore, can only receive money if gamers voluntarily pay it.
There are two scenarios -
Gamers don't buy them. If gamers don't buy them, the price goes down or they go away.
Gamers do buy them. If gamers do buy yhem, they become more prevalent.
Seems scenario two is what's happening, right? So if you see this as controversial or outrageous, you probably should take that up with your fellow gamers. Making "lol looka da greedy devs lol" posts just makes you look rather silly, unless you really believe that there is some kind of scam going on, at which point you look VERY silly.
While talk of greedy devs is nonsense, they don't even price the game themselves, that does not mean MMOs do not have a case to answer. Surely you cannot be defending those prices, $110 for a pet? The way gaming has sourced finance over the last few years has drastically changed, and they are now taking money anyway they can get it.
If we want to talk "scams", the pet is a bad example, you know what you are getting, it is just overpriced. You could call the way players now join a MMO without realising how much money they need to be competitive at top level a scam. Lock boxes which are a form of gambling are also a scam, gambling by its nature is not upfront. Perhaps a better term would be bad practice.
What do I mean by a scam? Simply having a system which obscures how much money you need to spend or how much money you are spending leads you in that direction. In some ways this direction is inevitable, you put a cash shop in, your financial guys are just going to keep pushing for it to be used more and more.
This is relative of course, true scams in the MMO world occur when players are promised a game and get something which is not even in beta. That's a whole different level.
Then we were expected to buy broken games, that they would later fix for us (patch)
Then we were expected to buy incomplete games, that they'd complete for us with a given price (expansion/FTP)
Then we were expected to buy games before they were ready to be released, so that when they were released, we'd be grandfathered in with perks (Beta buy)
These days, however, we are expected to not even buy games anymore, but promises of games, that we would eventually get to play if enough people bought it (kickstarter).
That's where we are now, but of course it won't end there, you can always find a new way to hustle coins from the punters in the MMO fairground.
So the controversial and ever increasing popularity of developers to charge for beta access goes to a whole new level with Aeria's upcoming localized asian mmo Aura Kingdom. Thought the 100 dollar EQNext Landmark founder pack was insane? Or maybe Neverwinter's before it launched? Feast your eyes on this:
The 2nd tier founder pack - 159 dollars DISCOUNTED from 289 dollars. What a bargain!!! And what does this get you the 50 dollar starter pack doesn't have? One extra pet. Yep, 110 dollar pet.
The 3rd tier founder pack - 300 dollars DISCOUNTED from 550 dollars!! Wow I'm getting 250 dollars off this screamin deal!! What do I get extra from the 2nd tier pack for this steal of a deal? Oh, another pet AND extra character slots, plus a little plushie.
Listening to the dev speak Beau from Massively asks what prompted them to charge so much for their founder's packs. The answer - "Because we are offering so much more!!"
Oh, those terrible devs, scamming people out of ... oh wait...
No one is getting scammed or robbed or fleeced or, well anything other than ... let's see.. what's about the most neutral way to put it...
Gamers are being given options to pay for features/content that gamers feel have value at the price that those gamers feel is appropriate. The devs, therefore, can only receive money if gamers voluntarily pay it.
There are two scenarios -
Gamers don't buy them. If gamers don't buy them, the price goes down or they go away.
Gamers do buy them. If gamers do buy yhem, they become more prevalent.
Seems scenario two is what's happening, right? So if you see this as controversial or outrageous, you probably should take that up with your fellow gamers. Making "lol looka da greedy devs lol" posts just makes you look rather silly, unless you really believe that there is some kind of scam going on, at which point you look VERY silly.
While talk of greedy devs is nonsense, they don't even price the game themselves, that does not mean MMOs do not have a case to answer. Surely you cannot be defending those prices, $110 for a pet? The way gaming has sourced finance over the last few years has drastically changed, and they are now taking money anyway they can get it.
[off-topic f2p rant snipped for brevity]
Do *I* think $110 for a pet is ridiculous? Sure. However, this isn't about 'defending prices'. It's about the reality that many MMO gamers DO find it reasonable, which is why the devs charge that. We're not talking utility bills or bottled water at a rave here; we're talking about optional goods for a voluntary leisure activity. There is no need here, only want, and want is on the consumer side.
The only person you can blame for a $110 pet is the MMO gamer. If MMO gamers weren't willing to pay it, devs would charge less. The price would be reduced to... wait for it... whatever MMO gamers were willing to pay.
It really is that simple.
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
Comments
There is a full markets of suckers out there to be milked.
As I always say, the MMO industry is engaged in thinking up every way they can to make more money out of players. In past years you only had betas and a subscription, that limits how much you can increase revenue.
We had collectors editions and the like but to my knowledge beta access was never charged for. Now anything goes and they will charge you to do beta, to buy items in a F2P game before it is officially released, buy P2W items and gamble money on lock boxes.
This is never ending, each time they come up with something new or excessive it is met with uproar. But players still buy the game, so they just go on inventing new schemes like this.
What will they come up with next year to milk more money? I don't know, but they will come up with something of that you can be sure.
I feel like there is something really wrong here. It's a bad trend in the last 7-8 years. A 'Shadup and take my money' trend. We crowd fund games on indie startup sites. We pre-order at game stop. And, now established gaming companies are trying to get us to also pay for something site-unseen as well?
We are more and more being asked to use our dollars to register interest in our entertainment experience. It doesn't feel fair. An indie game might fall before it stands if it doesn't make it's start up goals (people get refunded their money but it's a let down). If a game doesn't get enough pre-orders it's release is canceled, the store you gave your money to secure a copy won't give that money back...but they will let you spend it as credit with them on something else.
We don't exactly truly loose out on this for what we pay. But, these companies are basically asking the people with the most disposable income to decide how everyone will be entertained. If the poor kid can save up enough money for a game by the time it is set to release, but the rich kid next door didn't pre-order it. The poor kid may never get to even play that game because the someone wealthier then him didn't feel it was a good investment.
Their asking us to insure them. Their asking the people with the most money to make decisions for the rest of us. That is what it feels like to me. at least. That the gaming industry is becoming elitist. The 'betters' make the games the 'betters' decide what games get made.
You want 300 bucks from me?...sure, on top of all the intangible things you are offering at some distant point in the future, give 10 stocks of your company, and we will call it a deal. You want me to insure you? Then I need collateral.
3 companies that will never see another dime from me for their games:
Time-Warner
Galanet
And now Aeria games (welcome to the list).
Now that was a shitty way to get treated.
lol , i blame the players....we are buying tha crap , so its normal companys do that
i wonder whats next?
I don't know the perfect price that everyone should pay for their games. All I know is what I'm willing to pay for.
Most gamers will not admit it but they are addicted to gaming.
Since the games have become so short (single player games = 10h, MMOs = 1 month) there is a huge demand but a low supply for new games. It is a sellers market. Just promise to deliver the world and the money starts flowing in.
Thats why star citizen received 34mio $ in funds. Thats why there are so many pre release buy-ins. Thats why so many developers are offering founders packs for insane prices. Just look at POEs 1000$ diamond pack for a unique item. I think it was about 50 people who bought that during early beta.
People are paying for their next gaming fix.
---
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
yes beta testing is something people should be paid to do...but the people doing it now for free are not the right people.
ok ive read all that everyone has said (untell i clocked to post so if anything was in the last 20 min or so sorry i didnt refresh. this hasnt been said yet from what i read 20 dollars for beta accesss. top of the page on your link. not 50 150 300 but 20. and that includes 30 (10 of 1 20 of another) scrolls that you complaned about makeing them and the items with them = to or less valuable then roughly 30 scrolls total. sounds a hell of a lot cheeper then most of the games i have played in the past. asumeing this wouldnt be a compleatly sucky game from the start i thank you for showing me a new game for me to put on my watch list. guess thats not the reaction you wanted but LOL you complaned with out stateing the whole truth or you just didnt read all the previlent data.
sorry i dont like founders packages much but then even when its a free beta as one person said they have the game how they want it its just to hype it up. swtor any one i had beta, i had early accesss. i saw patch after patch of nothing fixed or updated to something better. bottem line is as gamers we have biotch moaned and down right cried our asses off when unable to get a beta key and the game developers didnt want that downing the hype of their game that they sunk untold dollars into. they have families they have to feed as well so they came up with an idea. people love preorders what if with our steaming preorders we allow them a day or to early access. and wow the sales went up dramaticly. so now they give you even longer preaccess to 1000's of players. instead of just a few hundred for a day or 2 or at most a week like we used to get. you pampered pumpous little brats need to get the sliver spoon slapped out your mouth and get a job! you have created this system of entitiled little titty babies and need to grow up and get that the world isnt fair and you makeing it less fair then crying is just oximoronic.
if you call some one a homo, you likely are hitting on them.
100% agree.
My son used to complain all the time about similar things with regards to beta tests, until I got him a job at Activision as a tester. I'll give him credit he made it through the 3 month summer break working in "The Dungeon". He has not complained one bit about people paying money for early access to alpha/beta games since that experience. I purchased the $100 EQN:L pack for him so that he can enjoy being a alpha/beta tester on a game he is looking forward to playing when it is released. The "slaves" as you refer them are the Testers that are getting paid ... I know the person that finally sued EA, and trust me EA was not the only company that treated their testers that way. Being a paid tester is literally one of the most thankless job in the industry where you make $10 - $12 an hour and work upwards of 100+ hours a week (during crunch time), and if you don't meet their bug quota then security escorts you out the door. Want to know what happens to paid testers that make too many suggestions? They see that same door that the low bug count tester saw.
People will pay to get into these betas because they want to, and the best part is that they can just chill out, relax, and play around the whole time and no one will care. Developers know that almost all of the open beta testers are not going to be testing, and remember that testing is not making suggestions.
You didn't want subscription so the gaming companies found a new way to get their money upfront thru beta. Welcome to "Free To Play" are you enjoying now. :-!
Oh, those terrible devs, scamming people out of ... oh wait...
No one is getting scammed or robbed or fleeced or, well anything other than ... let's see.. what's about the most neutral way to put it...
Gamers are being given options to pay for features/content that gamers feel have value at the price that those gamers feel is appropriate. The devs, therefore, can only receive money if gamers voluntarily pay it.
There are two scenarios -
Seems scenario two is what's happening, right? So if you see this as controversial or outrageous, you probably should take that up with your fellow gamers. Making "lol looka da greedy devs lol" posts just makes you look rather silly, unless you really believe that there is some kind of scam going on, at which point you look VERY silly.
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
Once upon a time, we bought games.
Then we were expected to buy broken games, that they would later fix for us (patch)
Then we were expected to buy incomplete games, that they'd complete for us with a given price (expansion/FTP)
Then we were expected to buy games before they were ready to be released, so that when they were released, we'd be grandfathered in with perks (Beta buy)
These days, however, we are expected to not even buy games anymore, but promises of games, that we would eventually get to play if enough people bought it (kickstarter).
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
While talk of greedy devs is nonsense, they don't even price the game themselves, that does not mean MMOs do not have a case to answer. Surely you cannot be defending those prices, $110 for a pet? The way gaming has sourced finance over the last few years has drastically changed, and they are now taking money anyway they can get it.
If we want to talk "scams", the pet is a bad example, you know what you are getting, it is just overpriced. You could call the way players now join a MMO without realising how much money they need to be competitive at top level a scam. Lock boxes which are a form of gambling are also a scam, gambling by its nature is not upfront. Perhaps a better term would be bad practice.
What do I mean by a scam? Simply having a system which obscures how much money you need to spend or how much money you are spending leads you in that direction. In some ways this direction is inevitable, you put a cash shop in, your financial guys are just going to keep pushing for it to be used more and more.
This is relative of course, true scams in the MMO world occur when players are promised a game and get something which is not even in beta. That's a whole different level.
That's where we are now, but of course it won't end there, you can always find a new way to hustle coins from the punters in the MMO fairground.
Do *I* think $110 for a pet is ridiculous? Sure. However, this isn't about 'defending prices'. It's about the reality that many MMO gamers DO find it reasonable, which is why the devs charge that. We're not talking utility bills or bottled water at a rave here; we're talking about optional goods for a voluntary leisure activity. There is no need here, only want, and want is on the consumer side.
The only person you can blame for a $110 pet is the MMO gamer. If MMO gamers weren't willing to pay it, devs would charge less. The price would be reduced to... wait for it... whatever MMO gamers were willing to pay.
It really is that simple.
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