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Another advantage Asian gaming has over NA gaming.
Liddokun
Member UncommonPosts: 1,665
They don't pay $50 for the game client cost but instead most of them download the game client for FREE and just pay the monthly subscription fee. Discuss.
Comments
How do they create their accounts?
-Would you like cheddar or swiss cheese?
-Yes.
-...
Thru websites.
They also live in a country that makes way less money than most of us, struggle to find jobs, and live under communist rule.
But if you want to take a huge pay decrease or just go mostly jobless go on and move to Asia
Funny how its those of us that live in countries who's populace is able to make cash are the ones that cry about money.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
Perhaps it is expected they will sustain an active subscription longer, and that there are far more gamers willing to subscribe. Those are just my thoughts on it.
I meant, to create an account you need to buy a key. Since you say they don't buy a box and only pay for the subscription, how do they get a key?
-Would you like cheddar or swiss cheese?
-Yes.
-...
I'd imagine you register and they e-mail you a key and that's that.
Good thing you aren't making blanket stereotypical statements about the world's largest continent as a whole.
Asia is not a country, it's the most populated continent in the world.
Um hate to say it but not all Asian countries are under communist rule. Just saying.
I would like to suggest that it is more based around cultural differneces. The We-ism vs. the Me-ism. Their culture is quite diff. from U.S. and alot of other western cultures that have grown up on capitalist ideals. (and no im not saying one is better than the other so save it please) But the aim is diff. We here in the states are out for the money for ourselves. While, dont get me wrong they are in it for money, i see alot more free to play with microtransactions etc... free software etc... seems to make it more available to the population income over time from a larger player base, as opposed the the States more money now for me! Though this i think has created another trend. I see almost no innovation in Asian MMO's. I think the price for this form of software distribution is something of a lack of creativity. They work with the tools at hand, and with what thye know works, b/c it lowers the risk, and saves money on development. Now here in the US we get more innovtion and risk taking in our MMO's in fact because we expect to pay $50 for the software we will not accpet or excuse a game that isnt innovative. You can take my opinion how you want, but those are some things i have noticed, diff. culture, diff goals, diff expectations.
Just a different economic model is all. Here in the west, buying the boxed copy and then paying a sub is the norm. Over in the east, it is more common to make the original download cheap or free and then start charging fees, either monthly or more recently, via cash shops.
Western made games generally cost more to produce, hence the developers want to recoop some of those early costs more quickly, and they charge us initial fees. (they don't get all that much from them anyways)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Asian gamers often play in internet cafes and pay per hour, while western gamers usually prefer to play at home for a monthly fee or item shop model
There are a few ways that I'm aware of for players to get an account in Asia.
1.) Passport/Identification Number (equivalent to US's Social Security Number). This is required at registration for account. Hence each player may only have one account.
2.) They do still sell box, but it costs only a fraction of what it cost here. (I know in Taiwan an online game cost from $200 NT (~ $6.25 USD) to $500 NT (~$15.63 USD))
I can't recall any more ways to set up account in Asia, but these are the ways I know of.
Current MMO: FFXIV:ARR
Past MMO: Way too many (P2P and F2P)
Some companies are doing that as well. DAOC for example. And LOTRO is so low now its practically free.
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
...and here I was thinking that I have seen all the possible types of ignorance from asians or non-asians that know nothing about asia but pretend to know, or believe what other ignorant people say without questioning.
That's not unique to asia. EVE is completely free to download, and they're based out of iceland, not Asia. Also many other games like planetside or DAoC are currently free to download. Asian games have the enormous drawback of paying real money for in game items. Even if the game doesn't have one of these abominable things to start they often add them in just for kicks, invalidating the work you've put into a character. By that I mean if you've spent hours twinking out a character and they add in item malls that make anyone who buys their items have an insane or even slight advantage over your character.
edit
...and here I was thinking that I have seen all the possible types of ignorance from asians or non-asians that know nothing about asia but pretend to know, or believe what other ignorant people say without questioning.
Pretty sad, she should go to hong kong and see who is giving western people jobs there.
Chinese economy rose 11% in the last quarter. Western economies rose on average 2% or less. http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ That is the US debt, 47% of that is to china and japan, who was making money again?
Per day the US makes an extra $1.43 billion of extra debt. Yes, every day, pretty amazing huh. Once asia decides to stop paying for that the party will be over.
I don't have to tell you what that shows do I? If you don't know, take a wild guess. It's your dollar against the Yuan.
The US economy still has a much longer way to go down before its at the level of Japan or China. Still the over-debting of this current congress worries me. It makes me want Bill Clinton to be president again.
On the Asian Model for distributing games. I actually concieve it as far better and more in-touch with the internet culture. Its a pretty simple method. You make an account and download a fully up-to-date and optimized client. When you compare it to something like SOEs whole line-up you can see the advantage in this method. Where with SOE you will have to patch in the 7+ hour range. With the Asian Model you can be playing in 30 minutes or less, even with games over 6 years old.
They still haven't totally let the market decide it's true value as it would cripple their economy if they did. China still keeps the yuan artificially under-valued as it gives them more buying power in the the exports vs. imports part of the equation.
This correction of the US dollar vs. the yuan isn't all bad. It cheapens the foreign exchange value of the US exports and renders imports more expensive in dollar terms, improving US competitiveness.
Also, the dollar's decline is a problem for the rest of the world as well, especially countries in Europe and in Asia, like China, that are heavily dependent on the US market. Dollar depreciation increases the dollar value of their exports to the US and undermines their competitiveness.
Do a search on the impact of exports and imports vs. the value of the dollar. There is quite a discussion about it in the economics community.
That used to be true, China has pretty much created a buffer for that because they're becoming also the biggest buyer of their economic wealth. Not the US.
And europe is trading heavily with China, analysts look at China first for economic data, not the US.
The dollar crashing will have an economic impact on China, but it won't hurt their economic progress all that much.
Aka they don't care like they used to, there's been talks of China dropping US credits.
Here, got this from an interview.
"The reason why is because if you compare the U.S. market to the Korean market, it's organized completely differently. Over there, NC Soft goes to game rooms first, lets these game room operators operate the game for free. Players then pay them a fee of $1/hr. After you build a clientele, you switch and start charging the game room operator for the service. But things never change on the players' end -- it's invisible, as they still pay $1/hr. There is no retail component. All the home users over there have broadband and just download and play."
This may be about NCsoft but I have read this before, I think thats how it works throughout.
Just a point: different does not translate to better.
And a very good point, btw. I've tried several of the "Asian MMOs" and none have stayed on my computer longer than 48 hours.
And a very good point, btw. I've tried several of the "Asian MMOs" and none have stayed on my computer longer than 48 hours.
So I guess I can buy any game of a certain genre for 2 days, and probably play it a maximum of 6 hours, and then be able to argue that every game of the genre sucks? Oh.
And a very good point, btw. I've tried several of the "Asian MMOs" and none have stayed on my computer longer than 48 hours.
So I guess I can buy any game of a certain genre for 2 days, and probably play it a maximum of 6 hours, and then be able to argue that every game of the genre sucks? Oh.
is that what I did? Wow, thanks for clarifying. See, here, I thought I said that speaking from my personal experience, I had yet to find an "Asian MMO" that I enjoyed after trying several....
Thanks though, often I don't know what I "really" mean, and need some sage advice from a poster on a forum who I've never met to set me straight.