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Never forget what that subscription money is designed for...
admriker4
Member Posts: 1,070
The reason we all pay a subscription fee for an MMO is well established. Its meant to...
- add content
- fix bugs
- server maintenance
Thats it, 3 simple reasons.
The box sales are of course there to cover development costs and hopefully make a profit as well. If they want to generate more profits, expansions are launched. Profit isnt supposed to come from subscription money.
However we are lately seeing some disturbing trends within the MMO industry that arent following the rules. I equate it to what the US goverment does with social security money;
The govt taxes us for social security retirement. Instead of putting that money aside though for our retirement the govt spends it on other things. They even lend it out or borrow against it. And when it comes time to pay that money back out to us, we get basically ripped off. There might not even be any money left by the time we retire.
The same thing is now happening to the MMO gamer. His or her money isnt going back into the game. Some examples....
World of Warcraft - they make an insane amount of money from their 10+ million subscribers. Yet very little content is added. There arent many bugs to correct as the game launched fairly clean. So what is that 150 million dollars per month being spent on ? Since it clearly isnt going back into WoW, Im gonna guess and say the secret MMO in the works. Kinda unethical isnt it to use WoW money to pay for another game and then later make people in essence re-buy the new game ?
Star Wars Galaxies - yes even a game like SWG with its low population is making a profit. Assuming 20k subscribers paying $15 = 3.6 million dollars a year in revenue. SOE has 5 devs working on SWG and very little content coming out. Bugs are still around since launch. So again I ask where is that money going ? Even if they paid those fresh-out-of-college hacks working on Galaxies 100k each, that still leaves 3.1 million dollars to cover the electric bill. Im quite sure there is a surplus of cash left not going back into the game where it belongs.
SOE first violated this policy of spending our subscription money on a new revamp not intended for the people paying the bills. Now it appears NCSoft is following suit. And clearly Blizz isnt spending the money they get where its meant to.
If Blizz spent the money as it should, WoW should be getting a new island every month full of content. Unfortunately and dangerously the players at WoW are new to MMO's and perhaps not aware that you dont pay $15 just for the privilage to log in. Thats what the box cost is meant for.
And if players continue to give money to SWG, CoH, and WoW it sends the message that developers can do whatever the hell they want with that money. Soon we wont see any content going into a game unless we pay an additional fee.
We are at a crossroads here my friends. Its time to remind these greedy corporations that subscription money isnt their personal expense accounts to be use on a new ivory back scratcher. Its not acceptable to use my money to create a new product and then later resell it to me.
Comments
If I remember correctly, the subscription fee was origionally introduced so we would never have to buy an expansion. Sub fees were supposed to offset the cost of all new content.
UO:T2A and UO:R were both free.
The Kunark expansion to EQ was "justified" because it was too much content to download over a dial up connection...
But now that we are in the broadband age, I see no reason that we should have to continue to pay for expansions.
Sorry, but that doesn't have to be your way. Even if it is true for 100% of the industry, guess what, a new company isn't legally bound by that definition. they can come up with their own meaning for what it means, such as access to the server beyond the trial period.
you should add a fourth purpose..profit. To complete the first things assets need to be deployed and thus a return on those assets is needed. You would have very short run games if they did not also make a profit on the subs.
Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. As long as people continue to buy buggy, broken, unfinished games, or just games that are lacking in content, or even just games that have features they don't agree with, developers will continue cranking out these same games and selling them to us. Corporations only have an ethical obligation to their wallets; they care about nothing else.
Customer support is the largest expense and always will be.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
Actually what it comes down to is, I want to play X game and the company behind X game says I can't play it unless I pay X for it each month.
Thats really all it is. People say it's for this and that, but it's simple because we the consumer are williing to pay for it.
Might be silly on our part, but if I want to play it, thats what I have to do.
Venge Sunsoar
Side note, Blizzard doesn't charge its more than 6 million chinese subscribers $15/mo, they pay 6 cents an hour and received the game for free via a video game marketing group called The 9, but yes WoW, and all mmos of any decent quality are very profitable, and thats no crime. To expect them to spend the majority of their profits, let alone all, on an already successful game, that is very simple at that, sounds rather childish. I mean who says what they, or any company, "has" to do with the money they earn? They earned it, its theirs. So if an ivory backscratcher is what they want, its what they'll get. Until the market demands more from them by unsubscribing, then they will continue to operate to provide just enough content to keep people playing, and not a stitch more. Which, if you think about it, makes sense. I mean, they just hit 11 million. It seems to be working.
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." -Edmund Burke
Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?"
(Psalm 94:16)
UO:T2A was NOT for free and Renaissance was free because they COPIED the original lands.
Though one developer stated it would not be a mirror (well technically it is not Mirrored, just copied which makes it even cheaper)
EA with UO is a very good example to collect fees with NO content or blow the fees away on sims online or 3+ not published UO clients/games.
Well KR client was free but so buggy rumor has it that less than 50% use their new client and it will be reworked and released under a new name.
what do mmo companies care- if people are willing to fork up that money then why change that? They are perfectly entitled to use it for profit- and that profit go wherever. The only way if we have an objective to this is simply not to subscribe in the first place.
Forget the thousands of customer service reps who take the calls the emails and other in game complaints, the server maintenance crew, secretaries, the janitors, those in billing and accounting who make sure the money comes in hell forget about all the other people blizzard employees since I am sure 5 developers can do it all.
This is why their are different terms for the definition of profit.
Monthly fees replaced the by the minute fees of the past... and represent payment for use of the service. Most people dont remember when this took place. Most publishers at one time promised that they would give 'more' for this, but, well, anyone with any common sense knew that this would not be the case.
MMO monthly fees are becoming pretty expensive. WoW is around $15 a month I believe. I can understand paying for server maintenece/access, but there should be more to it then that. There should be set dates when new content will be added to the game IMO. Right now it seems MMOs are just milking you dry and giving little in return after the initial game release.
MMO fees are mostly a scam. Guild Wars provides a comparable game for no monthly fees. It's a much more honest model: You pay for the content. If they don't release acceptable content, you don't pay. MMOs are just an excuse to charge for the privledge of a server-side character that cannot be hacked.
Now, for MMOs that do provide regular, free content updates (Eve Online), a subscription fee makes sense. And it might also make sense for a game that provides a true world experience, but not for the crappy theme park MMOs we're used to. Those would would work just fine as Diablo-like buy-once multiplayer RPGs. Hell, they might work better because then you could always have a party as you could just use the matchmaking lobby and insta-teleport to where you want to play.
couldnt agree more
Umm, we pay a subscription fee so people make money and have jobs. That's it. Anything else the company decides to do with the revenue is on them. Consumers don't get to dictate what companies do with their revenue.
I remember when EQ1 was $9.99 a month.. then it crept up to $12.99 - then finally $15.00 a month. The good old days of cheaper subscription fees. However, I always figured the fees went towards profit, along with the other things you mentioned. If I was a MMO developer, then I would like to see that money go into the profit fund..
Blessings,
MMO migrant.
This isnt my opinion, this is what developers have told us for a decade. Ask any developer why we have to pay a monthly subscription fee and the response is always the same.
the $50 we plunk down to buy the game pays for the development costs and hopefully a profit. However to maintain servers, fix bugs, and add content the devs say requires monthly fees.
That $15 a month we spend is meant to run servers, add content, and yes pay employees. What it should never be used for is developing another game or building an expansion. My money already pays for content and should not be used to create an expansion that will later be resold to me.
Instead whats happening since SOE started doing it is devs take our money and spend it elsewhere. My money is for my game. Devs should and could use box sale profits, selling licenses, etc to pay for expansions or new games. Using my money to pay for something else is unethical.
I guess it doesnt suprise me to see the responses here. The govt has been screwing over american taxpayers for almost a 100 years now and nobody seems to care. They take taxpayer money and use it to build roads. Then they sell that road to a foreign private corporation who turns around and charges us a toll fee to use the same dam road we already paid for !
I guess people just accept and expect to be screwed over these days. sad....
Blizzard revealed that all the costs combined to run WoW is $200 million a year. Customer Service being the most costly.
Also, what some people neglect(people like the OP) is that the profit doesnt go to Blizzard, it goes to Activision Blizzard Inc and Vivendi SA.
Whatever profit Warhammer makes wont go to Mythic, it will go to Electronics Arts.