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Could paying per month for a game be considered a rip-off?
GmrLeon
Member Posts: 118
I know what the money goes to,but say a million people buy a $50 online game the company would get $50,000,000 or around there. Use some of it to pay the game designers and etc. and the rest for the game. Not to mention they keep getting cash per person who buys the game.
So do you think paying per month is a rip-off?
(If you vote add why you voted for that option if you will..I don't care if it's obvious why.)
"The one who begins with nothing, gains everything slowly."
Comments
If you don't like it, don't pay for it.
I'll gladly pay monthly if I feel the game is being upgraded in content and hardware.
Yea,but I mean I don't know much about WoW,but with the money they rake in they could at least add some end-game content.
Also,I would only pay for a game I liked...who wouldn't? lol
"The one who begins with nothing, gains everything slowly."
Why do people insist on re-starting this topic instead of just going and finding one of the 10,000,000,000 other threads about it and just reading those? The answer isn't going to magically change. MMORPG's have ongoing, recurring costs. As such they need recurring revenue. Companies don't run these games for charity... sheez.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
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Still in: A couple Betas
Profitable? Yes. Ripoof? No.
I worked with a group of people to secure a business license so we could make our own MMO. Before we went out and did so though, we talked with an accountant and a friend in the industry to break down the expenses. Needless to say, we changed our minds. This is why.
MMOGs are about 5 times more complex to make than non-MMOGs. They also have to have about 10 times more content. With non-MMOGs, developers work on the game, produce content, and squash bugs. Once this is done, development is over. The publisher packages and ships the game, and they recoup their losses and make their money.
MMOGs require all that, but development never ends. They have a full staff that continues to work, and get paid, for the duration the MMOG stays operative. They also have to pay for servers, bandwidth, and a larger tech support team. Last I checked, the average MMO (not counting WoW, since this was before WoW topped 2 million subscribers) the average developer spent around $61,000 a month in hosting. Add about $5 to $30 million for development costs, this equals quite a pocket of change they have to spend. So the monthly fee is not just some idea they came up with to take more money from people. It's also to make MMOGs possible. Running one is not cheap.
Games like GuildWars dont have monthly subscriptions, some say. Nor does games like Diablo 2, Starcraft, and whatnot. These rely on either players running the servers themselves, or other forms of hosting that either cost nothing to the developers, or cost so little they can make it up easily in retail sales.
SOE is planning to pioneer a new method of payment other than what we're used to. Their next MMOG will be free yes. Everybody's happy about this. But not all of it is free. It's a combination of the GuildWars model and the regular MMOG model, where the basic content is free, but to get more, you will have to pay either a set fee or a monthly fee.
So, are they ripping us off? Of course not. They're using the money to pay their staff and hosting fees, as well as provide capital for new developments.
And speaking of WoW, yeah they could lower their fee due to the large amount of players in WoW, but not much. More players mean more servers, which means more cost in hosting. And imagining a company not maximizing their profits, well...that's just crazy
I believe the monthly fee seperates the dedicated players from the not so dedicated.
This way there aren't thousands of 10-12 year olds ruining the game for serious players.
Well I never said anything like "All games should be free to play.". Also,I still wonder why some MMOs have a monthly fee like $20 because then each year your pouring in $240 dollars into it.
I think alot of MMOs should lower their fee depending on how many people they have playing.
"The one who begins with nothing, gains everything slowly."
That pretty much covered it. Of course, there can potentially be other models apart from a monthly subscription fee. For instance, what AO is doing by providing the basic game as a free, ad-sponsored service and the full version (with expansions enabled that is) for a monthly subscription. Or providing optional updates for a fee at regular intervals.
In any case, the basic fact remains that MMOGs cannot work on a one-time fee, as they have continuous expenses and continuous development.
Currently playing:
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* City of Villains: Snakeroot, Plant/Thorns Dominator. Server: Defiant.
Eh I dont mind paying for it. You get what you pay for...well sorta
Guild Wars is nice but you can tell that there isn't any monthly fee. While the story is engaging and the graphics very nice, the only time you are "online" is when you enter a town or party with some people (which is hardly ever done...people like to party with the NPCs rather than the PCs because all the loot that is dropped is yours with NPCs)
So, If i have to pay 15 bucks a month to play truly online, I would do that.
I dont necessarily think it is a rip off. I mean McDonald's Double Cheeseburger only costs them 3 cents to make. Yet they sell it for 99 cents. Not a rip off...just good marketing tactics
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
No,10-11 year olds ruin games..only some 12 year olds ruin games. I mean seriously get a hyped up angry 10/11 year old on an online game and see what happens,virtual hell for the people in the area of that kid...
"The one who begins with nothing, gains everything slowly."
Yea,but I mean I don't know much about WoW,but with the money they rake in they could at least add some end-game content.
Also,I would only pay for a game I liked...who wouldn't? lol
all the content wow has ever added has been endgame, when people say "wow has no endgame" it makes me laugh. wow has plenty of endgame, but the problem is that its kinda lame..... its just to get new gear upgrades and nothing more.
i do agree that for all the money they make they could add more stuff than they do. but it they need to fix some things that are already implemented to make it a funner endgame not just add more raid content.
i think if a game is constantly changing and updating, it is well worth a monthly fee....but it depends on the game....
read this http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1044304#post1044304 then come back and talk to me about the vanguard/soe fiasco.....
Well actually, you're never going to see a company offer a monthly fee based on user numbers. For a price scale that goes up with players, this will severely upset those who started from the beginning, as they see it unfair that they have to pay more for the fact more people are joining, even if more people mean better events and increased content. They just dont like paying more. On the other foot, decreased fees with more people, for a reason I dont understand, you will still see complaining, usually by the same group of people who had to start paying the higher fee demanding that they get refunded the difference and that it's unfair for those who started out at the beginning. Hard to understand, really.
You also will never see MMOGs set it just enough to support the game and have enough to pay their staff. Why? Because, companies are profit driven. They make money not only to support their current ventures, but to also provide capital to future ventures.
The best model would probably be a basic fee for basic content with upgrade packages. A system similar to what EverQuest had. Everybody can play the game for one set monthly fee, and with a one-time charge they can buy additional content packs.
The problem really with MMOGs payment though is, they are designed around people playing for long-term. Back when MMOGs were first developed with the monthly fee payment plan, there were very few to choose from, so chances are MMOG players will stick with that MMO. Now, with so many to choose from, and with only so many hours a day to play, people have to sit there and decide what they want to spend their money on. It becomes a difficult situation at times, if they like two or more MMOGs, to pick one to stick with. This is not a problem with non-monthly paid games. You pay the one time fee for a game, and play it as often as you like, without having to worry about justifying the cost. If you buy 4 games, you spend the money for them, and you can play them over a year's worth of time and pay just as much as someone who bought the same number of games and played it for 2 months.
Of course they are milking their fanbase, the money they make it far in excesss of any initial or ongoing outlay of funds.
Everybody and their grandmother is making an MMORPG to suck the financial teat of the multiplayer cow.
And you can tell most of the people on MMORPG are supported by mommy and daddy, they have no respect for the value of money.
For the record, lots of services are ripping us off.
MMO companies. Cable companies. Alienware. Microsoft. Big Oil Companies.
How you think Bill Gates became richer than God? Certainly not by being a shining beacon of consumer value. There's an operating system void. He filled the void, and collected the tolls.
If it is from SOE where you have to pay for content as well then yes.
first off your economics is astoundingly inadequite on this topic....
you buy it for 50 dollars, it is probably manufactured for at most 12 dollars, sold to the stores for 30 dollars then they mark up the price.
i dont know the exact numbers but its prolly something like that.
so at most the company is making a 20 dollar proffit per unit at most but i bet it around 8 dollars.......
then i assume those profits just cover extensive costs of beta, development, and server upkeep and such.
so the 15 a month is the only wya to turn any profit IMO......
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