Would you be OK with P2P if the subscription fee was only $1?

l2avism

DarLorkar

If a game is worth playing at all then a normal sub is fine. If it is not, then no sub is worth it.

So not an answer in poll worth picking.

DijonCyanide

I'd be willing to pay more than $1 if it was entertaining enough to me just like a couple of years ago.  Nowadays there are so many good quality non-subscription games out there with the option to support financially via micro-transactions I'm given more control over when & on what I want to spend my money on to help support a game.  $15 a month, to me, is just not justified anymore in most cases for games overall.

Loktofeit

It depends on the quality of the game.  

Would I pay $1 for ice cream? If it's a flavor I like, sure. 
Would I pay $1 to go see a movie? If it's a movie I am interested in, sure. 

People here make weird polls. 

l2avism

@Loktofeit
I'm asking this because I was actually considering charging $1 to cover server costs.

RPGMASTERGAMER

would be fine pay 30$ a months for a good mmorpg, im not enjoying all these crap game f2p we got

miss good mmorpg with subs

Buccaneer

I couldn't answer your poll.  I never get in a flap over the payment model of a game.  If I find the game fun I will play it even if it is P2P, B2P or F2P.

FomaldehydeJim

I will pay what I think a game is worth. For most of the MMOs I choose to play, $10 - $15 per month is fine, sometimes more.

Claies

The premise of this poll is flawed.  It makes the assumption that the reason people don't like P2P games is because of the cost.  That is only one piece of a much larger puzzle.  You can't boil people's decisions about a game down to a dollar amount.

l2avism

Claies said:

The premise of this poll is flawed.  It makes the assumption that the reason people don't like P2P games is because of the cost.  That is only one piece of a much larger puzzle.  You can't boil people's decisions about a game down to a dollar amount.

Making a game F2P seems to always result in a larger player-base.
Same game + reduced cost = more players
"...can't explain that." - bill o'reilly

Phry

A sub of $1 wouldn't be enough to fund a game, it would still be cash shop dependant as much as any other F2P game out there, and with the same consequences/restrictions, in other words, it would not be possible to play an unrestricted game for just $1, its a meaningless amount, a subterfuge to gain some kind of credibility which would fool none.

SomeOldBloke

l2avism said:

@Loktofeit
I'm asking this because I was actually considering charging $1 to cover server costs.

How do you know you will cover server costs with $1 if you don't know how many people will be on the server?

Woopin

I take it by covering server costs you will not be updating the game? Server costs is one thing but another is covering the cost of updates and the constant patches required.

shalissar

Perhaps op is trying to discern whether or not some of these whiners' gripes are because they can't get access to a game in the first place due to no credito cardu

Nanfoodle

Its not the sub fee thats the problem. Its the fair price, be that F2P, B2P or P2P. So no matter what model is used, if what I get for the price is fair, they have my money. 1 buck sub with a P2W cash shop would not win my business. So IDK

nbtscan

I can't vote because I know $1 isn't going to sustain the maintenance costs of the game.  If the subscription cost were only a $1 you can guarantee it's going to be setup like Star Wars or something that has crap in a cash shop that you'll have to fork money over for because the game will be so inconvenient to play without it.

Manestream

ok I voted No. Would not sustain the server srunnign costs and It will still have cash shops used as a must. If it was more like £5-6 ($7-9) then my reply would be a definate Yes.

Current games that were P2P and have moved to F2P still require you to buy the game and then have you rely heaviuly on purchasing from the cash shop, but now have brought back teh subscription for 10% gold 20% XP 5% extra movement speed and a weekly free chest that can have something (but 99.99% have nothing but crap). So its covering everything (Buy game, buy expansions, pay sub for bonus's (not required) and cash shop use (required). 

After all that the game after a couple of months becomes stagnant and you wonder why you put so much into a heap of junk and can only come up with the reason - Nothing else out there.

l2avism

nbtscan said:

I can't vote because I know $1 isn't going to sustain the maintenance costs of the game.  If the subscription cost were only a $1 you can guarantee it's going to be setup like Star Wars or something that has crap in a cash shop that you'll have to fork money over for because the game will be so inconvenient to play without it.

Cash shops aren't really that profitable. You forget that with a cash shop only a very small amount of people actually buy anything. So even with a cash shop it comes out to less than $1 per player per month anyways.
It's unproven, but alot of people theorize that the gold being sold by third party gold sellers is actually being sold by a proxy company that is setup by the actual game company.

Deivos

l2avism said:

Making a game F2P seems to always result in a larger player-base.
Same game + reduced cost = more players
"...can't explain that." - bill o'reilly

Difference in personal standards between the two. B2P gets a more critical analysis and higher rate of rejection due to it having an upfront demand for cost whereas F2P lets people wander in. It makes them in-general more forgiving of a game's flaws.

Loktofeit

l2avism said:

nbtscan said:

I can't vote because I know $1 isn't going to sustain the maintenance costs of the game.  If the subscription cost were only a $1 you can guarantee it's going to be setup like Star Wars or something that has crap in a cash shop that you'll have to fork money over for because the game will be so inconvenient to play without it.

Cash shops aren't really that profitable. You forget that with a cash shop only a very small amount of people actually buy anything. So even with a cash shop it comes out to less than $1 per player per month anyways.
It's unproven, but alot of people theorize that the gold being sold by third party gold sellers is actually being sold by a proxy company that is setup by the actual game company.

The closing conspiracy theories aside, plenty of MMOs have released info on their ARPU and ARRPU that contradicts your stance on microtranactions. Do you have a link to what you read or watched thast gave you the impression it wasn't a profitable business model?

Hariken

I think its time for sub.prices to drop down to 10 dollars a month. If a game like Wizard 101 can do it so can't other games. The fee is just outdated and its just stuck even though 10 dollars a month is fine for any game. But why should game companies change it if people are willing to pay it. The 15 a month fee in 99/2000 i can understand. The mmo technology was all new. But going into 2016 and its still the same price just doesn't make sense to me. Everything in technology improved and got cheaper but the mmo fee.

l2avism

nbtscan said:

I can't vote because I know $1 isn't going to sustain the maintenance costs of the game. 

Alot of you forget that the largest market for MMO's is in china and korea. You can't expect players there to pay $20 a month or buy $50 horse armors.
They can pay $1 a month which will at least cover the cost of hosting the game servers and make a very small dent in development costs (assuming 20kish players join).
Also I think it would be nice to have global game servers like the good ole days when guilds contained players from several countries.

Superman0X

l2avism said:

nbtscan said:

I can't vote because I know $1 isn't going to sustain the maintenance costs of the game. 

Alot of you forget that the largest market for MMO's is in china and korea. You can't expect players there to pay $20 a month or buy $50 horse armors.
They can pay $1 a month which will at least cover the cost of hosting the game servers and make a very small dent in development costs (assuming 20kish players join).
Also I think it would be nice to have global game servers like the good ole days when guilds contained players from several countries.

If you are going to charge for a game, you need to charge enough to pay for all the expenses. You are not going to get significantly more people at a price of $1 than you would at a price of $5 or $10. You will likely get more than you would at $15, but not 15x more.

The difference with F2P, or a cost of $0, is that you will get both more players, and have a lower cost of acquisition (which if you are not advertising, just results in more players). Even with an optional sub (say $15) you would likely make more. With a lower 5/10 optional sub, you might do better (depending on game).

Albatroes

Honestly, I would pay double the sub fee if it was pay as you actually log in. I do not think I'm alone either.

Superman0X

Albatroes said:

Honestly, I would pay double the sub fee if it was pay as you actually log in. I do not think I'm alone either.

I am not sure what you mean... but it is unlikely that you are alone. However, any untried business model is extremely high risk, and is generally not a good idea, unless you are looking to test business models... not make games for living.

GeezerGamer

I'm all for value and I'll pay for it too. But what does it say about a game that's only worth a buck?
At that point, you areready know there are other monetization methods in place, but the thing with hybrids, I get more when I sub......this would just be throwing a buck in the crapper.