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SOE at it agian...
Tinybina
Member Posts: 2,130
I don't think I have ever played a MMORPG or heard of a MMORPG Developer that as time went on actually incresed its monthly rate... But leave it to SOE to become the first.
Starting April 2, 2007 Planetside which has been out since around the summer of freaking 2003 and has been 13 bucks a month is going to start to charge its few subscribers it has left 15 bucks a month...
Now some of you might be like, well whats the big deal.. Well its simple to anyone that has actually played PS for any period of time, there is almost no Development going on in the game. Planetside is basicly operating on a skeleton crew since most of the orginal Developers left along with other PS team members. And we won't even talk about how hardly anyone even plays this game anymore.
15 bucks a month should be reserved for the A list games(WOW, COH, EQ2, Vanguard) that have a pretty big population not for struggling games that are only kept afloat due to the free trial that has been offered for the last year. 15 bucks a month should be charged for the new games that have came out within the past 2 years and continue to offer actually Development and not empty promises and lies like we have seen in Planetside (has taken them over a year to get us deployables)...
If anything you would think a game that is going on 4 years old and one that is struggling to even have 400 people on its biggest server in primetime would go down in its monthly price.. But when its SOE I guess you should expect stupidty.
I
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You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
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Never give up and never surrender!
But, what you are saying is actually reverse economic-rationalisation. Each MMORPG would have a minimum cost associated with it, the amount needed to recoup the costs of the initial development, marketing and deployment of the game, and the ongoing fees associated with making the game available, these costs are fixed, whatever you make above that is profit, whatever you make below that is loss.
Your suggestion that a game with a small base of players should not raise it's subscription price, and that practice should be reserved for popular games, is actually rather wierd. Planetside would have fixed costs associated with it, and less people means those people need to pay more each to make it a profitable enterprise. Only games that are busting at the seams with profit, i.e. World of Warcraft, could actually justify lowering the price to stakeholders. Of course they will not do that, but, a dying game running at a loss, has two choices. Raise prices, or die. The only time you lower prices, is if you believe that will attract more customers, and thus make more profit with a lower price.
Remember I am not suggesting the price rise needs to be done, or whether it is ethical and justified, it is just not overly surprising that a small game charges each individual a little more than if it had twice as many subscribers.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
I just don't know why I post here some times, its like you people are a different species or something....
How can anyone actually come up with valid reasons for increasing the monthly pay for a game that is dying and is close to 4 years old.
Someone please tell me one other MMORPG that has done this, since every MMORPG that I know of that charged a fee actually went down and not up!!!....
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You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
LoL, I agree with you. They could be trying to "force" something. SOE is the suckiest company on the face of the earth when it comes to things like this. I have no clue why anyone even plays their games with the track record they have. If they aren't f**king you over now, they will be........they will be..........sooner or later....
Pick up a copy of BF2142. Screw SOE.
The planetside portion of SoE is evil :P Anyay,s if you may have see, $15 might be a way for them to get funds for feeding the programmers and design team to bring up new content. It happen once in DAoC rate increased and the new content flow is pretty steady after that.
All canceled. Waiting on Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning.
Perhaps but then agian DAOC has like what 15 servers? Planetside has 3 and with the free trial ending in March it probably will be going down to 2 since the population will take a huge hit when those trial accounts leave. Add into the mix that Planetside has 2 developers (I say 2 one has only been around for a month) This game started off with 5 servers and about 4 or 5 developers but suddenly it needs to raise prices to pay for less servers and fewer devs...
I don't get it...But then agian its SOE so I never will.
Im tired of SOE and what they have done to Planetside (and their other MMO's) and one look at the Official PS forums I'm not alone.. Looks like SOE is going to FORCE me to pick WOW back up.
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You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
I wonder if they are raising fees on ALL their games. We know theyr'e raising fees on the all-access pass to 29.95.
Maybe if they raise the fees on all their games they point to their all access pass and say "Look!! it's STILL a bargain".
lol.
Never be afraid of choices. More choices are always good things.
My guess is that they are.. I just think they are strapped for cash and so they won't to squeeze their few remaining customers for all they got.
I however refuse to be a damn lemmon, so come April 2 its back to WOW I go.. Atleast if they raise their price I can understand why.
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You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
I'm sorry Tiny, I think this was the funniest post I've ever read... I lol'd
But anyways, the only caseI know about is Lineage1 NA. For the longest time I had kept my account because it was only costing me $8.99 and that was CDN funds and then at some point they raised it to $12.99f at which point I promptly canceled my account. More out of insult than anything, the game had been reducing in numbers for some time and the patches were coming less and less often, to have the nerve to charge me more for a product that's worse?
Pft !!! I said.
Anyways, I'm right there with you. It sucks but tis life, inflation and all that.
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I think most of us already know MMORPGs are a bad value compared to other games, so maybe people will be willing to pay even more. They obviously are not bargain hunting.
The market takes care of itself and Sony has gotten its ass bit by the market more than once for stupid bully boy tactics.
It's very simple to me.... Vanguard recently came out and was included in the SOE access pass. Now that it has been around for a bit John Smedley opened the file cabinet labeled "Things I Like to do to Screw with the Players." There he found his old notes on SWG. Heres what it read:
"First, take a game that has massive potential then lead people to believe that you will support it. Once the player base is involved to a degree where they are used to the game mechanics and the structure pull the 'ol 'switcharoonie' and charge them more money either by having them buy expansions that do not work or are going to be 'fixed' soon, or charge them more per month to play. Use this new income to do nothing, claim nothing, and then troll the boards claiming WOW is a great game. I can always post on my station-blog that, 'It's only a game.' "
See how smart he is.
http://johnsmedleysucks.usgameroom.com
I've seen a bunch of replies here and I can see that none of ya'll have had a course in Economics. Nor have the people at SOE, apparently.
From a business standpoint, the raising of a fee for an item or service that has decreased in popularity is an elementary business mistake that shows a poor grasp of the law of supply and demand by those that enacted it. Almost always this results in a downward trend of purchases that result in the failure of said business.
Probably what they figure is that Planetside is the only real MMOFPS in production, and that anybody still on Planetside at this point is somebody who *really* wants to play an MMOFPS. Therefore, they can increase the price and lose only an insignificant amount of players, making them more money. As an additional bonus, some players may decide to just go ahead and get a Station Access.
Chris Mattern
I thought that was what the ingame ads were suppose to do, get the team funding so they could design new content.
Now correct me if i'm wrong since it's been awhile since I've played Planetside, but if I was a player still, and they started charging me $15 and had ingame ads, I'd seriously have to reconsider just what I was paying for. Since their are plenty of free FPS as well as plenty of $15 MMO's that are better without ads.
Sorry but this is the opposite of supply and demand.
If no one is buying your product, you sell it for less and less until someone is. If it isn't profitable you don't sell it at all.
Always remember that the price you pay for something bears no relation to the price it cost to make. It is the highest price the market is willing to pay.
Sony is asking $15 instead of $13 because it thinks it can get it.
It thinks that anyone willing to pay $13 dolars won't quit over another $2.
Yeah there lay the problem. The game doesn't feel like it is being maintained or upgraded at a subscription level that high. It certainly isn't updated like it is. $13 per month is already too high.
Planeside is receiving a huge update this month.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Even though they got a low amount of subscribers, it seems like they're holding out just fine. Maybe it's because of the loyal fanbase who donates money to them.
They increased the price on multiple months package last year though.
Planetside was the only good game SoE ever made. Its been dead for a long time, and needs to be let go. So, hopefully, something new can take it's place.
I cancelled my Station Access acount because of Vanguard. The game was too buggy for me. I was paying around 25.00 a month for EQ2 and Vanguard. Got tired of EQ2 (Had a level 48 necro) and Vanguard wasnt worth paying for.
Now I play LoTR (when it comes out, it will only be $9.99 month for founders or $199.00 lifetime). Plus I keep my Beta character.
WoW, I pay in 3 month increments.