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$15 monthly fee... too cheap?
FastTx
Member UncommonPosts: 756
Why is every pay per month game using the same payment system? It's either 9.99 per month or 14.99 per month and maybe expansion pack fees and startup fees. Companies should get more innovative and increase monthly subscription fees and add more quality or features and monthly event content to the games they market. Is it really that much to ask if a company starts asking for 24.99 or 29.99 per month? You get what you pay for, I hear time and time again players complaining about customer service, or the lack of good events in a game, or the lack of content updates. You get what you pay for, which is everyones flat rate of 14.99 maximum, how much does that give you per month? It pays enough to allow 1 general event per month for everyone, a "few" bot bans and automated support ticket messages. If game companies would realize the market there is for a more "expensive" than the standard 14.99 per month, there wouldn't be as many customer support complaints, there would be better content and quality in general.
How much would you say you spent per month before you started playing your favorite MMO? I'm pretty sure playing your favorite MMO has saved you money in the long run even. Less movies you rent from your local Video rental store. Less console and PC games you buy not of the MMO genre and less of everything else you'd buy. For me I was buying one PC/Console game about every month, usually cost me about $40 a month on average just buying new games, now I might buy one every 6 months while playing my favorite MMO, and that alone has considerably lowered how much I spend on my entertainment.
I think everyone else feels the same way, which helps contribute to buying Gold online and 2boxing accounts. To most people $15 a month is a brush off compared to them playing 15+ hours a week. For their favorite entertainment they are willing to pay a bucket load to enjoy the game all the more, they invest in more accounts and buy Gold online. They do this obviously to increase the entertainment value of their MMO, to decrease in doing the jobs they hate (usually grinding levels/gear) and increase in doing the jobs they have fun doing (usually pvp/raids). All the money being made by 3rd party gold sellers could be put to use in an increased monthly rate and increase as I've said before the quality of the game overall.
Anyone else agree with me on this?
Comments
Well sorry to tell you (I do not want to argue), but I am more with the free to play system, so I could probably not agree with you less. I think that you should buy the game retail at most, and thats it.
I wouldn't have a problem paying 30 bucks per month for a game, but it'd have to be worth it.
This is the problem though, people have different values of things.
15usd is the standard and I think it'll stay that way for quite a while.
There certainly isn't anything wrong with the Free to Play model, there certainly is a market for it. My post is just concerned with people who would pay more for better quality and live in game support, but currently there are no games who have taken the chance to offer a better quality customer service.
Giving them more money is not going to make a better game, just larger paychecks.
If you consider the rule of thumb that prices double every 8 or so years then $15 per month is rather cheap considering I paid $10 per month 9 years ago.
I would be more than willing to pay $30 or so per month for a good sandbox MMO.
Alright, well...I think that 30 bucks a month could work, but it also might not. Games are not just for kids...I agree, but I think that a lot of kids play mmo's. Though with 30 dollars a month...a lot less kids will be able to play. This could be good..because the community may be less imature, but it may not work..if you see what i'm saying.
first of all, "kids" dont pay the fee, parents do.. an i think they will pay more to keep their kids out of their sight all day.. and i guarantee, every one person that will pay $30, theres 20 that won't.. and no business is going ot limit their market that way
Very open minded aren't you? Larger paychecks also allows for a game company to increase their budget when making another game. If people would only pay 50 cents to see a movie in theatres, you certainly wouldn't see some of the special effects and quality of movies Hollywood puts out. It's simple logic the more money you give to an industry, the more effort game companies will put in to earn your money. Before they used to ask for $9.99 for a 2d MMO. Now they are asking 14.99 for immersive 3d MMO's which take much longer to create. Games with a 14.99 plan could still exist, but other MMO's looking to buy customers on their quality can open a new market for more expensive monthly plans by offering better customer service and better content updates and patches. Everyone is trying to be the next gen MMO, why does it necessarily have to do with new game mechanics and graphics? Most of the problems I see are lack of customer support, enforcement against botters, and thus what I see is a lack of monthly income to supply the staff to minimize these issues.
The next gen MMO should be more about polishing problems with current generation issues such as Customer support, events and patches.
How about .... they make better games to attract more customers to pay the fees ....
I think this is the silliest post if have read on MMORPG.com. Why don't you guys just start shoveling the money out your windows. No wonder oil companies are making hundreds of billions of dollars a year in profits.
You sheeple are literally begging these companies to soak you for all you are worth.
I could see it increasing over the next few MMOs but double?
This argument that it would lead to more content and better games is so far off base from reality I do not even know where to start in explaining it. I don't hurt for money but this idea sounds ludicrous to me.
The next time you feel the urge to throw money a way just let me know... I will take it. No wonder 90% of NAs wealth is held by the richest 1% when you want to blindly line their profit belts without prompting.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
I'd pay 30$ a month for EVE. No more than that, though.
I second this. Unfortunately i havent seen a good one yet :P Just a bunch of rehashes or dumbed down games.
"Do not fret! Your captain is about to enter Valhalla!" - General Beatrix of Alexandria
"The acquisition of knowledge is of use to the intellect, for nothing can be loved or hated without first being known." - Leo da Vinci
Thats pretty much the point here. With more money coming in on a monthly basis, and there being a market for it, companies will be encouraged to try to take control of this market with better games. Players certainly won't pay $30 a month for a game when theres a better one at $15 a month for sure. It would have to go hand in hand, it would have to be one of the top games in terms of quality but the $30 per month can give more live events, live support and better enforcement of the EULA.
Some people are already paying for multiple accounts, some people aren't actively playing their account but don't bother unsubscribing, some players spend $100 or more a month on cash shops or 3rd party gold sellers because $15 is nothing for a game developers design for you to play 3-4 hours a day average. That extra $15 is still affordable since the MMO genre has made your kids "needs in entertainment value" significantly cheaper. A $5 movie you rent will last you for 2 hours, maybe 4-5 with extra features dvd included. MMO's provide you with a cheap medium of entertainment even at $30 a month.
That's not a good rule of thumb. Current consumer goods inflation rate is 3%, so it prices double only every 23 years or so.
The only way I see anyone willing to pay $30 a month or more when they can play F2P or $15.99 a month just as easy would be for a niche game like GSIV.
A small server niche game with lots and lots of lore and roleplay, gm events, gm's popping in as gods to answer clerics summonings, etc and so on would do it, but it would not be a mass market game like WoW or even EQ2. Most people would not want that.
You could potentially have a separate server with the double fee or even triple fee that had dedicated GM's and multiple events ala gemstone.
For example, fairs and festivals where people could get weapons, armor and fluff for role play, gm run storylines such as invading cities with armies of monsters, quests to "beat the bad guy" propelled by lore, role play and gm intervention with results that actually changed the game world with things like statues commemorating the heroe's of said quest in town square, etc.
As for the typical mmo such as WoW or EQ2, or even ones coming out like AOC and WAR, I don't see this working.
You will never get the masses to pay double what the average is for an online game, they'd be too pissed off because the companies would never be able to deliver service on a level with what they are paying.
For a couple thousand people max, sure, its possible..when you are talking multiple servers, upwards of 100k people...its not gonna happen. People would go back to their F2P or $15.99 a month games.
I for one would only pay that kind of money if enough attention was paid to me personally enough to make me really FEEL the game world, and really feel my character has a lasting effect on the game. That's just not gonna happen with thousands and thousands of people playing all the time.
Just my 2 cents.
D.
I think this is the stupidest troll post I've ever read on MMORPG.com. It's not shovelling money out of windows, it's all about knowing MMO companies can actually make it worthwhile to spend more per month to play a game. Increasing by double would have to go a long way for sure to compete with existing $15 per month games and make it successful. Like you've seen here there are many people who would pay more per month for a game better than this generations in terms of quality. No one here said it should change to $30 per month overnight. Games like Guild Wars and Fury are going the F2P model but don't expect ANY customer service out of them, as long as you can log in it's good enough. For sure I wouldn't spend $30 a month for any game currently on the market, maybe I'd pay $30 a month for Lineage 2 if they put that $15 towards banning more bots/farmers and more live CS support, but theres no game right now I'd pay $30 for. Why? Because they are all successful with $15 a month, game would have to make IMPROVEMENTS to earn their "$30" (just an example of a number people may pay for a "high quality mmo"). The game would darn well have to prove that the other $15 isn't going into their pockets and nowhere else.
All a higher monthly fee guarantees is a higher monthly fee.
Whether Vanguard charged 15 a month or 50 a month, it would still be what it is today.
Archlord originally started out with the "tiered pricing" model 10 / 20 and 40 a month. You see where that went. Right down the pooper.
Fees don't promise anything to the consumer. A company needs to justify the fees and as it stands MMOs are hardly worth the monthly fees they are changing now.
Go get yourself a station pass and tell us if its worth the 30 a month to play a load of broken games.
A higher monthly doesn't guarantee anything as far as gold buying or farmers is concerned other then the fact you get ot pay a higher monthly fee for the game.
Adding profit to a company promises nothing but more money in their pocket. If they thought they could get away with it, they would charge you more money to play the crap we already have.
[quote]Originally posted by FastTx
[b][quote]
I think this is the stupidest troll post I've ever read on MMORPG.com. It's not shovelling money out of windows, it's all about knowing MMO companies can actually make it worthwhile to spend more per month to play a game. Increasing by double would have to go a long way for sure to compete with existing $15 per month games and make it successful. Like you've seen here there are many people who would pay more per month for a game better than this generations in terms of quality. No one here said it should change to $30 per month overnight. Games like Guild Wars and Fury are going the F2P model but don't expect ANY customer service out of them, as long as you can log in it's good enough. For sure I wouldn't spend $30 a month for any game currently on the market, maybe I'd pay $30 a month for Lineage 2 if they put that $15 towards banning more bots/farmers and more live CS support, but theres no game right now I'd pay $30 for. Why? Because they are all successful with $15 a month, game would have to make IMPROVEMENTS to earn their "$30" (just an example of a number people may pay for a "high quality mmo". The game would darn well have to prove that the other $15 isn't going into their pockets and nowhere else.[/b][/quote]
I firmly believe that no game with multiple servers and 100k subscribers or more can do this. The only way I see it happening is to have 1 dedicated "premium" server with a ton of dedicated gm's interacting constantly with the smaller player base (couple thousand max).
Anything on a larger scale would fail massively.
Say you have 2,000 players to appease on a premium server, more lore related live quests (gm's playing bad guys, interacting with the players, etc.) events that actually change the landscape of the world, things of that nature. You have a small player base, so they will start hearing of each other when they accomplish things...you'll get your famous and legendary people this way, gm's can make crazy things happen that players will remember for years, and at some point and time pretty much every one can get involved. Players can end up with unique items, etc, role play against each other picking sides with gm's helping to push them along a bit. This would be worth the money.
For this to work you would need probably 20 or 30 full time gm's to pull it off. All of which would have to be paid. You would need a game engine that could be modded on the fly for random events. (things like that proverbial bolt of lightning striking down a liar, blah blah). that would cost extra money.
That is just to do it for a few who want to pay more, on one server.
Now try that for 15 to 20 servers and over 100k people. How many people do you think you'd need to hire on a full time basis to make that work in addition to what an MMo would normally have?
And that's not even counting programmers and developers....
D.
I wouldn't pay $30 per month for any current MMO right now. That's almost like buying a new game every month, which I would very much rather do if that was the case. That maybe due to me living outside of the US/EU, in Singapore, and the amount would be much greater after factoring currency exchange rates.
Giving them a larger sum of money does not guarantee an improved game. The money probably be spent in other ways such as marketing, poured into another franchise, or simply a pay rise for a few management people. The individual devs would probably not see any direct returns themselves. They may "promise" better events or support but there's nothing to stop them from breaking it.
With games like Lineage 2, where expansions are free, charging a little MAYBE rationalized, but for games like WoW or EQ2, they're already milking every cent possible from expansions already. There's no other reason to be throwing more money at them.
Actually i have been thinking on this for quite some time. I believe it is quite possible. But not with the current games based around leveling. First it would need the right game mechanics to be in place then just scripted AI/NPCS. This would make its own quests in a sense. Sadly though alot of devs can't see past the old dialog box with the "go kill x number of this and ill reward you with this" type of thing.
Lots of potiential being flushed down the toilet.
"Do not fret! Your captain is about to enter Valhalla!" - General Beatrix of Alexandria
"The acquisition of knowledge is of use to the intellect, for nothing can be loved or hated without first being known." - Leo da Vinci
I think that'd be bad for the player community as you are effectively segregating those who don't want to pay/can't afford the "premium" subscription rates. It's kind of like, "paying for the unfair advantage". What could be worst is that over time, more resources will be dedicated to this premium service and the other servers would get neglated.
The game would have to be amazing and nothing less than groundbreaking. I would also expect the best customer service ever with GMs contacting players immediately when there is a problem. The game would also have to be nothing but pure fun (not busting ur ass for days, weeks, or months to get one item). It would also have to come with a free 2 month trial since its double the price. Also the actual game should be free (doesnt have to... but it would make me feel better about paying $30 instead of $15). I highly doubt we will be seeing a $30 sub. fee anytime soon. I also doubt we will see anything worth paying $30 a month untill 5 or 10 years later. By that time it would probably be worth $15 a month.
This is a very real possibility, which is why it will probably not happen, or only happen in some niche game that most people don't want to play.
I think for the time being we are simply stuck with what we currently have.
In the end, the massive part of MMO is what kills the quest thing. I don't really think quests will ever be all that great. The best you can hope for that I can see is some kind of random generator thing, which has been done before.
There will never be too many great quests mostly due to spoilers being posted, etc.
As for server maintenance, and customer service..giving games more money for that won't help. I say lower the CEO's paychecks and dump that money into the game.
D.