$130-150/yr. for a game you never "own" is too cheap?
Okay, guy...
People don't want to pay for game subscriptions because too much is on a subscription now. Games simply aren't high on the list of priorities for a lot of people. They offer very little, if any, real-life benefit.
It doesn't help that people like Seagull (ex-OWL player) talks about how he sat on his ass playing a game and gained like 30+ pounds. Parents don't want that for their kids, and they certainly aren't going to pay for it...
Many of us have "grown up," and we try to be a bit more "responsible" with our money. Telling us that it's only as much as a Latte at Starbucks doesn't work. An MMORPG doesn't quench my thirst or soothe my hunger. "Pixel farming" won't feed the family. You also can never get back hours wasted in a video game. What seems "fun" now, but isn't healthy or beneficial, often doesn't become clear until hindsight kicks in.
Subscribing to a video game comes with a LOT more scrutiny than it used to be. Money doesn't grow on trees, and not all of us want to be debt slaves :-P You must offer something amazingly innovative and world-changing to get me to shell out a subscription for a video game. There are too many cheap games that don't have a subscription, which I can own forever, especially on Console Platforms (which are cheaper to buy and maintain than PCs, which see developers raise system requirements arbitrarily to help sell Sponsor hardware).
$130-150/year for something I will never own, which can be destroyed on a whim by developers; and which isn't making me any money or otherwise providing any real, material value or productivity increase in my real life is "too much money," IMO.
Many people agree, which is why subscription games are so hard to pull off, these days.
With digital sales increasing that cuts out a lot of middle money production. Most games now have micro transactions and DLC. It might be that games could be sold cheaper. This industry is now bigger than the movie industry so the sales now are massive compared to years ago.
How about video cards? Have they "kept up with inflation?"
Thats an interesting one indeed, computers and their parts might be an exception, as are some other electronics. However, I could also easily name literally hundreds of products that have kept up with inflation correction, you pointed out another exception to the norm. Good find though, I guess I knew it but never took it into account.
EDIT: To save people from doing the actual math on inflation correction, here its goes: 50 bucks in 1995 should be 94,50 in 2018.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
I had this debate out in another thread, but you have to remember that income hasn't increased very much since 1995 either. Not even enough to keep up with inflation.
What happens when products keep up with inflation, but income doesn't? Many industries have to deal with that. If video game prices had kept going up to keep up with inflation, it's going to change the entire landscape. You think people would wanna pay $40-60 for something like Foxhole? Not a chance.
Although I understand what you are saying I really can't agree. Income not being able to keep up with inflation correction is not a sign of faulty pricing, its a sign of a struggling/faulty economy. It also doesn't mean that production costs haven't gone up. With forcing of cheap products you as a consumer keep wages low, its the first thing being saved on. Furthermore, the situation of income not going up since 95 is not a global phenomenon, on the contrary.
And of course you can't increase game prices from 60 to 90 all of a sudden, no one will accept that. But 2 bucks a year for AAA? I don't see a problem with that.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
It's applicable because gaming isn't a need. Consumer purchasing power has the greatest effect on elective purchases. The less the purchasing power, the more often the consumer goes "nah, it's not worth that much."
It has nothing to do with faulty pricing, it has to do with determining the pricing in the first place. Markets take consumer purchasing power into consideration.
They definitely take it into consideration, but half of the landscape has already died out because they couldn't keep the lights on, the AA sector has effectively died. Exceptions being games like Hellblade, but the landscape is very, very barren. Somehow there is this idea that gaming should be an affordable hobby for everybody and that a rise in prices is unacceptable, I find this strange, why should it? With prices and wages rising worldwide (not for every country so I learned) games, by keeping the same price, have actually become cheaper, not the same.
Now F2P pushes prices straight to the bottom making it effectively impossible to raise prices on regular games without public outcry but I don't find it strange at all. Now we get flooded with Special Editions, P2W, day one DLC, mini expansions etc. We cry that this is because of a rise in greed but it are just new ways for companies to make up for that difference financially. And yes, they want to make a profit, but thinking that all of this is done because production costs haven't gone up and companies simply became more greedy and evil is very childish and a gross simplification.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
Which looks better, in your "business eyes?"
1) 60 * 1,000,000 = 60,000,000
or
2) 90 * 500,000 = 45,000,000
Raise prices and numbers sold drop. How much that number drops varies from product to service and how much the price increases. Which of those two examples makes more "business sense?"
It depends on player retention. You don't seem to have much business sense.
If 6 months later 80% of those 1M users quit the game, is that really better than if you retained 75% of the 500k users who paid a higher price and are maintaining a subscription?
Assuming a $14.99 subscription, after 6 months this will be your income from the playerbase via subscriptions, moving forward:
$2.998,000 per Months Gross from the initial $60 sale price scenario.
$5,621,250 per Month Gross from the initial $90 sale price scenario.
That's an extreme example, but it's done purposely so you can see clearly just how this can play out, long-term. Even if the difference was only $500,000; that's 6M/year in additional income. That's a lot of money, and it has everything to do with player retention.
Box sales don't mean shit. Retention is what matters. That's why almost all of the WoW killers from the late 2000s are either dead, or on life support, despite ridiculous sales numbers.
That, or they went F2P with a cash shop and probably some sort of optional subscription with benefits tacked onto it.
ESO is the latest, greatest failed experiment in trying to launch a subscription game. And it utterly failed. The only reason why it still sales a lot of games is because of the lack of a subscription and the fact that the base game is [very] often on sale for dirt cheap prices.
This dynamic is understood, even if not explicitly, by players as well. There is a reason why players get so rabidly defensive of the games they play. They know that if people are put off by bad press or reviews, it will stifle the influx of players... and the size and activity-level of the player base is the only thing keeping those who are well-invested in these games playing them.
An MMORPG can be the best thing since the invention of fire, but it is utterly worthless with a tiny, casual player base. When this happens to MMOs, we tend to call them dead (or, at best, dying).
No one with "good business sense" assumes that players will continue to subscribe to their MMORPG simply because they bought it. The box sales are often to cover development costs. You don't really start raking in profits until the subscriptions roll in, and most development studios have a general ballpark re: what they need to stay afloat and turn a profit.
The "sales" fallacy have been debunked by reality dozens of time.
$130-150/yr. for a game you never "own" is too cheap?
Okay, guy...
People don't want to pay for game subscriptions because too much is on a subscription now. Games simply aren't high on the list of priorities for a lot of people. They offer very little, if any, real-life benefit.
It doesn't help that people like Seagull (ex-OWL player) talks about how he sat on his ass playing a game and gained like 30+ pounds. Parents don't want that for their kids, and they certainly aren't going to pay for it...
Many of us have "grown up," and we try to be a bit more "responsible" with our money. Telling us that it's only as much as a Latte at Starbucks doesn't work. An MMORPG doesn't quench my thirst or soothe my hunger. "Pixel farming" won't feed the family. You also can never get back hours wasted in a video game. What seems "fun" now, but isn't healthy or beneficial, often doesn't become clear until hindsight kicks in.
Subscribing to a video game comes with a LOT more scrutiny than it used to be. Money doesn't grow on trees, and not all of us want to be debt slaves :-P You must offer something amazingly innovative and world-changing to get me to shell out a subscription for a video game. There are too many cheap games that don't have a subscription, which I can own forever, especially on Console Platforms (which are cheaper to buy and maintain than PCs, which see developers raise system requirements arbitrarily to help sell Sponsor hardware).
$130-150/year for something I will never own, which can be destroyed on a whim by developers; and which isn't making me any money or otherwise providing any real, material value or productivity increase in my real life is "too much money," IMO.
Many people agree, which is why subscription games are so hard to pull off, these days.
I pay $180 a year for HBO. I don't own the movies. They can change on a whim. I pay $144 a year for Netflix. I don't own the movies. They can change on a whim. I pay something around $80 a year for Kindle Unlimited. I don't own the books. They can change on a whim.
I also can't get back hours wasted watching movies or reading from those services...
Last time I checked Netflix, HBO and Amazon were doing OK financially.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
$130-150/yr. for a game you never "own" is too cheap?
Okay, guy...
People don't want to pay for game subscriptions because too much is on a subscription now. Games simply aren't high on the list of priorities for a lot of people. They offer very little, if any, real-life benefit.
It doesn't help that people like Seagull (ex-OWL player) talks about how he sat on his ass playing a game and gained like 30+ pounds. Parents don't want that for their kids, and they certainly aren't going to pay for it...
Many of us have "grown up," and we try to be a bit more "responsible" with our money. Telling us that it's only as much as a Latte at Starbucks doesn't work. An MMORPG doesn't quench my thirst or soothe my hunger. "Pixel farming" won't feed the family. You also can never get back hours wasted in a video game. What seems "fun" now, but isn't healthy or beneficial, often doesn't become clear until hindsight kicks in.
Subscribing to a video game comes with a LOT more scrutiny than it used to be. Money doesn't grow on trees, and not all of us want to be debt slaves :-P You must offer something amazingly innovative and world-changing to get me to shell out a subscription for a video game. There are too many cheap games that don't have a subscription, which I can own forever, especially on Console Platforms (which are cheaper to buy and maintain than PCs, which see developers raise system requirements arbitrarily to help sell Sponsor hardware).
$130-150/year for something I will never own, which can be destroyed on a whim by developers; and which isn't making me any money or otherwise providing any real, material value or productivity increase in my real life is "too much money," IMO.
Many people agree, which is why subscription games are so hard to pull off, these days.
I pay $180 a year for HBO. I don't own the movies. They can change on a whim. I pay $144 a year for Netflix. I don't own the movies. They can change on a whim. I pay something around $80 a year for Kindle Unlimited. I don't own the books. They can change on a whim.
I also can't get back hours wasted watching movies or reading from those services...
Last time I checked Netflix, HBO and Amazon were doing OK financially.
To be fair, I don't need to deal with Ginormous assholes that need to fuss about maximizing their Movie watching time, and how watching movies are too easy, a need to be more challenging, and cry like little shits if I get to enjoy the same movie they did in the same 2 hours on HBO.
I also don't need to group up with people to enjoy Kindle, or deal with the type of shit, or deal with people that brag like snots that they can read 50 books a day, and that somehow must entitle them to more books and exclusive books then I should have access to, because I read like 2 this month.
Yah.. I think it's community that really makes people question that $15 a month, and if it is worth putting up with the shit to try and enjoy a game.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
$130-150/yr. for a game you never "own" is too cheap?
Okay, guy...
People don't want to pay for game subscriptions because too much is on a subscription now. Games simply aren't high on the list of priorities for a lot of people. They offer very little, if any, real-life benefit.
It doesn't help that people like Seagull (ex-OWL player) talks about how he sat on his ass playing a game and gained like 30+ pounds. Parents don't want that for their kids, and they certainly aren't going to pay for it...
Many of us have "grown up," and we try to be a bit more "responsible" with our money. Telling us that it's only as much as a Latte at Starbucks doesn't work. An MMORPG doesn't quench my thirst or soothe my hunger. "Pixel farming" won't feed the family. You also can never get back hours wasted in a video game. What seems "fun" now, but isn't healthy or beneficial, often doesn't become clear until hindsight kicks in.
Subscribing to a video game comes with a LOT more scrutiny than it used to be. Money doesn't grow on trees, and not all of us want to be debt slaves :-P You must offer something amazingly innovative and world-changing to get me to shell out a subscription for a video game. There are too many cheap games that don't have a subscription, which I can own forever, especially on Console Platforms (which are cheaper to buy and maintain than PCs, which see developers raise system requirements arbitrarily to help sell Sponsor hardware).
$130-150/year for something I will never own, which can be destroyed on a whim by developers; and which isn't making me any money or otherwise providing any real, material value or productivity increase in my real life is "too much money," IMO.
Many people agree, which is why subscription games are so hard to pull off, these days.
I pay $180 a year for HBO. I don't own the movies. They can change on a whim. I pay $144 a year for Netflix. I don't own the movies. They can change on a whim. I pay something around $80 a year for Kindle Unlimited. I don't own the books. They can change on a whim.
I also can't get back hours wasted watching movies or reading from those services...
Last time I checked Netflix, HBO and Amazon were doing OK financially.
To be fair, I don't need to deal with Ginormous assholes that need to fuss about maximizing their Movie watching time, and how watching movies are too easy, a need to be more challenging, and cry like little shits if I get to enjoy the same movie they did in the same 2 hours on HBO.
I also don't need to group up with people to enjoy Kindle, or deal with the type of shit, or deal with people that brag like snots that they can read 50 books a day, and that somehow must entitle them to more books and exclusive books then I should have access to, because I read like 2 this month.
Yah.. I think it's community that really makes people question that $15 a month, and if it is worth putting up with the shit to try and enjoy a game.
That's great but utterly irrelevant to the person I responded to.
He said: They offer very little real-life benefit. Just like HBO and Netflix. I guess you can stretch and say you can find self-help books on Kindle Unlimited. We have grown up and are more responsible with our money. Netflix, HBO and Kindle Unlimited are no more responsible purchases than a game sub. 130-150/year is too much money for something we don't own. Which is in the ballpark of the other services which we also do not own the content in.
So to respond to you: If the community of a game is bad, I would not enjoy it if I paid $15/mo, $100/mo or $0/mo. Maybe you see things differently. But if I have to "put up with shit to try and enjoy a game" the $15 is irrelevant. I can't see a lot of people saying "Man this place sucks but it's free so I will play it for a few hours every day". But then again I have also not really found a community that was so bad it affected my playing. I generally find a group of (or bring my own) people to play with and we play. If someone in game is "complaining that the game is too easy... or cry like little shits"... I guess I would just hit the ignore button but other than some gold-spammers I can't remember anyone really needed to be ignored in game. I'd do that if I were paying a sub or not... Are you confusing in game conversations and forums per chance?
I guess when I play a game I generally stick to guild chat and don't sit in some broadcast channel looking for something to be offended by.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Slapshot1188 said: I can't see a lot of people saying "Man this place sucks but it's free so I will play it for a few hours every day".
Believe this or not.. This is really a cornerstone for F2P game, as players are far slower to leave (stop playing) a F2P game, even if things are vastly sub-par or there are pretty hefty game changes they don't like, because it's free. Where they are very quick to shitcan a sub game at the first sign of even perceived being slighted.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Slapshot1188 said: I can't see a lot of people saying "Man this place sucks but it's free so I will play it for a few hours every day".
Believe this or not.. This is really a cornerstone for F2P game, as players are far slower to leave (stop playing) a F2P game, even if things are vastly sub-par or there are pretty hefty game changes they don't like, because it's free. Where they are very quick to shitcan a sub game at the first sign of even perceived being slighted.
Yup, I often see people say they only play it because its free.
I guess if someone gave them a pile of cow pie, they'd take it because its free and has pie in the name
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
Often times I bet most of us are just looking to waste some time so we jump on a f2p for a few minutes....When you pay for a sub, you feel more obligated to play longer but it also leads to quicker burnout and a feeling you arent getting your moneys worth...if we dont pay anything then we are getting great value.
Slapshot1188 said: I can't see a lot of people saying "Man this place sucks but it's free so I will play it for a few hours every day".
Believe this or not.. This is really a cornerstone for F2P game, as players are far slower to leave (stop playing) a F2P game, even if things are vastly sub-par or there are pretty hefty game changes they don't like, because it's free. Where they are very quick to shitcan a sub game at the first sign of even perceived being slighted.
Yup, I often see people say they only play it because its free.
I guess if someone gave them a pile of cow pie, they'd take it because its free and has pie in the name
From what I understood, it was More an after the fact kind of deal. Like say, WoW does something a player does not like, they nerf their Epic Green Sword of Kill Everything to only Killing Humans, or whatever, so they have a Nerd Rage break down and Quit the game.
Well.. since it is a sub, they cancel the payments.. and are now far less likely to come back and play, even sporadically, because to return requires them spend money and they are still butthurt.
With a Free Game, they are more likely to drift back to the game, even if they do not like it's development/direction or whatever it is was that pissed them off to start with.
Case in point. When DDO opted to make some Changes I didn't like, mainly they nerfed the hell out of wizard, I canceled my Sub. But because the Sub was optional, I still ended up logging in from time to time to play and chat, and played for another year or so..
Then they nerfed Raid gear and I uninstalled the game.
At the same token, I didn't like Planes of Power from Everquest, took a break for a month and just never built up the urge to dump the 15 to go back. Had it been F2P, I would was meandered back to it from time to time, and maybe ended up playing it for a while longer.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
How about video cards? Have they "kept up with inflation?"
Thats an interesting one indeed, computers and their parts might be an exception, as are some other electronics. However, I could also easily name literally hundreds of products that have kept up with inflation correction, you pointed out another exception to the norm. Good find though, I guess I knew it but never took it into account.
EDIT: To save people from doing the actual math on inflation correction, here its goes: 50 bucks in 1995 should be 94,50 in 2018.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
I had this debate out in another thread, but you have to remember that income hasn't increased very much since 1995 either. Not even enough to keep up with inflation.
What happens when products keep up with inflation, but income doesn't? Many industries have to deal with that. If video game prices had kept going up to keep up with inflation, it's going to change the entire landscape. You think people would wanna pay $40-60 for something like Foxhole? Not a chance.
Although I understand what you are saying I really can't agree. Income not being able to keep up with inflation correction is not a sign of faulty pricing, its a sign of a struggling/faulty economy. It also doesn't mean that production costs haven't gone up. With forcing of cheap products you as a consumer keep wages low, its the first thing being saved on. Furthermore, the situation of income not going up since 95 is not a global phenomenon, on the contrary.
And of course you can't increase game prices from 60 to 90 all of a sudden, no one will accept that. But 2 bucks a year for AAA? I don't see a problem with that.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
It's applicable because gaming isn't a need. Consumer purchasing power has the greatest effect on elective purchases. The less the purchasing power, the more often the consumer goes "nah, it's not worth that much."
It has nothing to do with faulty pricing, it has to do with determining the pricing in the first place. Markets take consumer purchasing power into consideration.
They definitely take it into consideration, but half of the landscape has already died out because they couldn't keep the lights on, the AA sector has effectively died. Exceptions being games like Hellblade, but the landscape is very, very barren. Somehow there is this idea that gaming should be an affordable hobby for everybody and that a rise in prices is unacceptable, I find this strange, why should it? With prices and wages rising worldwide (not for every country so I learned) games, by keeping the same price, have actually become cheaper, not the same.
Now F2P pushes prices straight to the bottom making it effectively impossible to raise prices on regular games without public outcry but I don't find it strange at all. Now we get flooded with Special Editions, P2W, day one DLC, mini expansions etc. We cry that this is because of a rise in greed but it are just new ways for companies to make up for that difference financially. And yes, they want to make a profit, but thinking that all of this is done because production costs haven't gone up and companies simply became more greedy and evil is very childish and a gross simplification.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
Which looks better, in your "business eyes?"
1) 60 * 1,000,000 = 60,000,000
or
2) 90 * 500,000 = 45,000,000
Raise prices and numbers sold drop. How much that number drops varies from product to service and how much the price increases. Which of those two examples makes more "business sense?"
It depends on player retention. You don't seem to have much business sense.
If 6 months later 80% of those 1M users quit the game, is that really better than if you retained 75% of the 500k users who paid a higher price and are maintaining a subscription?
Assuming a $14.99 subscription, after 6 months this will be your income from the playerbase via subscriptions, moving forward:
$2.998,000 per Months Gross from the initial $60 sale price scenario.
$5,621,250 per Month Gross from the initial $90 sale price scenario.
That's an extreme example, but it's done purposely so you can see clearly just how this can play out, long-term. Even if the difference was only $500,000; that's 6M/year in additional income. That's a lot of money, and it has everything to do with player retention.
Box sales don't mean shit. Retention is what matters. That's why almost all of the WoW killers from the late 2000s are either dead, or on life support, despite ridiculous sales numbers.
That, or they went F2P with a cash shop and probably some sort of optional subscription with benefits tacked onto it.
ESO is the latest, greatest failed experiment in trying to launch a subscription game. And it utterly failed. The only reason why it still sales a lot of games is because of the lack of a subscription and the fact that the base game is [very] often on sale for dirt cheap prices.
This dynamic is understood, even if not explicitly, by players as well. There is a reason why players get so rabidly defensive of the games they play. They know that if people are put off by bad press or reviews, it will stifle the influx of players... and the size and activity-level of the player base is the only thing keeping those who are well-invested in these games playing them.
An MMORPG can be the best thing since the invention of fire, but it is utterly worthless with a tiny, casual player base. When this happens to MMOs, we tend to call them dead (or, at best, dying).
No one with "good business sense" assumes that players will continue to subscribe to their MMORPG simply because they bought it. The box sales are often to cover development costs. You don't really start raking in profits until the subscriptions roll in, and most development studios have a general ballpark re: what they need to stay afloat and turn a profit.
The "sales" fallacy have been debunked by reality dozens of time.
Lots of "ifs", "make believes" and "assumption"s here. What did you just "prove" again? e cpould go around and around forever, making up numbers to "prove" our points. Mine was ther simplest example, taking only 2 lines. You come by and massively complicate things just to say, "You're wrong!" Fine. You win. This kind of logic astounds me. I'm out.
(and what if 3million subscribe, but they're not the same 3 million, and then 4 months down the road 1 million die, and then 2 more million make they're mom's mad and they ground them and stop paying paying their subscription and then a disease hits New York and another 1.5 million stop subbing, and then.... )
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Comments
Okay, guy...
People don't want to pay for game subscriptions because too much is on a subscription now. Games simply aren't high on the list of priorities for a lot of people. They offer very little, if any, real-life benefit.
It doesn't help that people like Seagull (ex-OWL player) talks about how he sat on his ass playing a game and gained like 30+ pounds. Parents don't want that for their kids, and they certainly aren't going to pay for it...
Many of us have "grown up," and we try to be a bit more "responsible" with our money. Telling us that it's only as much as a Latte at Starbucks doesn't work. An MMORPG doesn't quench my thirst or soothe my hunger. "Pixel farming" won't feed the family. You also can never get back hours wasted in a video game. What seems "fun" now, but isn't healthy or beneficial, often doesn't become clear until hindsight kicks in.
Subscribing to a video game comes with a LOT more scrutiny than it used to be. Money doesn't grow on trees, and not all of us want to be debt slaves :-P You must offer something amazingly innovative and world-changing to get me to shell out a subscription for a video game. There are too many cheap games that don't have a subscription, which I can own forever, especially on Console Platforms (which are cheaper to buy and maintain than PCs, which see developers raise system requirements arbitrarily to help sell Sponsor hardware).
$130-150/year for something I will never own, which can be destroyed on a whim by developers; and which isn't making me any money or otherwise providing any real, material value or productivity increase in my real life is "too much money," IMO.
Many people agree, which is why subscription games are so hard to pull off, these days.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2018/02/13/here-are-3-reasons-why-video-games-should-actually-cost-less-than-60/#5dbd3b432977
It depends on player retention. You don't seem to have much business sense.
If 6 months later 80% of those 1M users quit the game, is that really better than if you retained 75% of the 500k users who paid a higher price and are maintaining a subscription?
Assuming a $14.99 subscription, after 6 months this will be your income from the playerbase via subscriptions, moving forward:
$2.998,000 per Months Gross from the initial $60 sale price scenario.
$5,621,250 per Month Gross from the initial $90 sale price scenario.
That's an extreme example, but it's done purposely so you can see clearly just how this can play out, long-term. Even if the difference was only $500,000; that's 6M/year in additional income. That's a lot of money, and it has everything to do with player retention.
Box sales don't mean shit. Retention is what matters. That's why almost all of the WoW killers from the late 2000s are either dead, or on life support, despite ridiculous sales numbers.
That, or they went F2P with a cash shop and probably some sort of optional subscription with benefits tacked onto it.
ESO is the latest, greatest failed experiment in trying to launch a subscription game. And it utterly failed. The only reason why it still sales a lot of games is because of the lack of a subscription and the fact that the base game is [very] often on sale for dirt cheap prices.
This dynamic is understood, even if not explicitly, by players as well. There is a reason why players get so rabidly defensive of the games they play. They know that if people are put off by bad press or reviews, it will stifle the influx of players... and the size and activity-level of the player base is the only thing keeping those who are well-invested in these games playing them.
An MMORPG can be the best thing since the invention of fire, but it is utterly worthless with a tiny, casual player base. When this happens to MMOs, we tend to call them dead (or, at best, dying).
No one with "good business sense" assumes that players will continue to subscribe to their MMORPG simply because they bought it. The box sales are often to cover development costs. You don't really start raking in profits until the subscriptions roll in, and most development studios have a general ballpark re: what they need to stay afloat and turn a profit.
The "sales" fallacy have been debunked by reality dozens of time.
I pay $144 a year for Netflix. I don't own the movies. They can change on a whim.
I pay something around $80 a year for Kindle Unlimited. I don't own the books. They can change on a whim.
I also can't get back hours wasted watching movies or reading from those services...
Last time I checked Netflix, HBO and Amazon were doing OK financially.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I also don't need to group up with people to enjoy Kindle, or deal with the type of shit, or deal with people that brag like snots that they can read 50 books a day, and that somehow must entitle them to more books and exclusive books then I should have access to, because I read like 2 this month.
Yah.. I think it's community that really makes people question that $15 a month, and if it is worth putting up with the shit to try and enjoy a game.
He said:
They offer very little real-life benefit. Just like HBO and Netflix. I guess you can stretch and say you can find self-help books on Kindle Unlimited.
We have grown up and are more responsible with our money. Netflix, HBO and Kindle Unlimited are no more responsible purchases than a game sub.
130-150/year is too much money for something we don't own. Which is in the ballpark of the other services which we also do not own the content in.
So to respond to you:
If the community of a game is bad, I would not enjoy it if I paid $15/mo, $100/mo or $0/mo. Maybe you see things differently. But if I have to "put up with shit to try and enjoy a game" the $15 is irrelevant. I can't see a lot of people saying "Man this place sucks but it's free so I will play it for a few hours every day". But then again I have also not really found a community that was so bad it affected my playing. I generally find a group of (or bring my own) people to play with and we play. If someone in game is "complaining that the game is too easy... or cry like little shits"... I guess I would just hit the ignore button but other than some gold-spammers I can't remember anyone really needed to be ignored in game. I'd do that if I were paying a sub or not... Are you confusing in game conversations and forums per chance?
I guess when I play a game I generally stick to guild chat and don't sit in some broadcast channel looking for something to be offended by.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I guess if someone gave them a pile of cow pie, they'd take it because its free and has pie in the name
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Well.. since it is a sub, they cancel the payments.. and are now far less likely to come back and play, even sporadically, because to return requires them spend money and they are still butthurt.
With a Free Game, they are more likely to drift back to the game, even if they do not like it's development/direction or whatever it is was that pissed them off to start with.
Case in point. When DDO opted to make some Changes I didn't like, mainly they nerfed the hell out of wizard, I canceled my Sub. But because the Sub was optional, I still ended up logging in from time to time to play and chat, and played for another year or so..
Then they nerfed Raid gear and I uninstalled the game.
At the same token, I didn't like Planes of Power from Everquest, took a break for a month and just never built up the urge to dump the 15 to go back. Had it been F2P, I would was meandered back to it from time to time, and maybe ended up playing it for a while longer.
(and what if 3million subscribe, but they're not the same 3 million, and then 4 months down the road 1 million die, and then 2 more million make they're mom's mad and they ground them and stop paying paying their subscription and then a disease hits New York and another 1.5 million stop subbing, and then.... )
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR