Thank you Orlac!!! It's very true how people think they are owed something cuz they spent $60 on a game. If that were the case I would sure like to have all the money I've spent on lotto tickets that didn't pan out back.
I only think its unfair if it happens with a MMO that gives out lifetime subs and it shuts down within a year or so. These subscribers should be compensated.
With a normal sub you only pay for access to the game, because you dont own the game. But giving out lifetime subs implies that the game is garantueed to last for a minimum amount of time after purchasing the sub (depending on the costs of the lifetime sub).
If you buy a life-time sub, you are rolling the dice...
That doesnt make sense.
It doesn't make sense that you are taking your chances buying a life-time sub for a game?
Are you serious?
I never bought a lifetime sub and I dont even know if APB offered them for that matter.
Also, its not a gamble.
No matter for what service, a lifetimesub's costs are usually based on a certain period. If the service ceases to excist long before that period passes, you normally have right on compensation. If you actually get compensation is dependant on many other things, but buying a lifetime subscription for any service is not a gamble. A company cant just shut down a service right after release without compensating lifetime subscribers. Even if its put in their agreement.
There is no judge that would tell you its a gamble. Offering a lifetime subscription for a service automatically implies a guaranteed period of time that the the service is available. The length of this is depending on what the lifetime sub costs compared to the normal periodical subscription.
I only think its unfair if it happens with a MMO that gives out lifetime subs and it shuts down within a year or so. These subscribers should be compensated.
With a normal sub you only pay for access to the game, because you dont own the game. But giving out lifetime subs implies that the game is garantueed to last for a minimum amount of time after purchasing the sub (depending on the costs of the lifetime sub).
If you buy a life-time sub, you are rolling the dice...
That doesnt make sense.
It doesn't make sense that you are taking your chances buying a life-time sub for a game?
Are you serious?
I never bought a lifetime sub and I dont even know if APB offered them for that matter.
Also, its not a gamble.
No matter for what service, a lifetimesub's costs are usually based on a certain period. If the service ceases to excist long before that period passes, you normally have right on compensation. If you actually get compensation is dependant on many other things, but buying a lifetime subscription for any service is not a gamble. A company cant just shut down a service right after release without compensating lifetime subscribers. Even if its put in their agreement.
There is no judge that would tell you its a gamble. Offering a lifetime subscription for a service automatically implies a guaranteed life for the service. The length of this is depending on what the lifetime sub costs compared to the normal periodical subscription.
I'm not sure where you pulled this from, but if someone purchases a lifetime sub, then the game goes down in flames 3 months after launch, the purchaser is screwed.
Unless there are people that want to sue over $200 or whatever, they aren't getting that money back. And even if they sue, it seems to me like there is very little chance they'll see any of that money.
I only think its unfair if it happens with a MMO that gives out lifetime subs and it shuts down within a year or so. These subscribers should be compensated.
With a normal sub you only pay for access to the game, because you dont own the game. But giving out lifetime subs implies that the game is garantueed to last for a minimum amount of time after purchasing the sub (depending on the costs of the lifetime sub).
If you buy a life-time sub, you are rolling the dice...
That doesnt make sense.
It doesn't make sense that you are taking your chances buying a life-time sub for a game?
Are you serious?
I never bought a lifetime sub and I dont even know if APB offered them for that matter.
Also, its not a gamble.
No matter for what service, a lifetimesub's costs are usually based on a certain period. If the service ceases to excist long before that period passes, you normally have right on compensation. If you actually get compensation is dependant on many other things, but buying a lifetime subscription for any service is not a gamble. A company cant just shut down a service right after release without compensating lifetime subscribers. Even if its put in their agreement.
There is no judge that would tell you its a gamble. Offering a lifetime subscription for a service automatically implies a guaranteed life for the service. The length of this is depending on what the lifetime sub costs compared to the normal periodical subscription.
I'm not sure where you pulled this from, but if someone purchases a lifetime sub, then the game goes down in flames 3 months after launch, the purchaser is screwed.
Unless there are people that want to sue over $200 or whatever, they aren't getting that money back. And even if they sue, it seems to me like there is very little chance they'll see any of that money.
I never claimed that it would be easy to get your refund. But its still not a gamble. I mean how many MMO companies sold many lifetime subs and then shut down their game right after release?
If a company shuts down a game because its not profitable because of low sub numbers, but its still financial healthy, you can safely expect that they will compensate lifetime subs. The MMO websites would be all over it if they didnt and getting a bad rep like this, would kill any MMO company.
In the case of a bankrupt its different of course. But from the MMO's that offered lifetime subs, which one do you know that shut down very fast after release and didnt compensate their lifetime subs?
I only think its unfair if it happens with a MMO that gives out lifetime subs and it shuts down within a year or so. These subscribers should be compensated.
With a normal sub you only pay for access to the game, because you dont own the game. But giving out lifetime subs implies that the game is garantueed to last for a minimum amount of time after purchasing the sub (depending on the costs of the lifetime sub).
If you buy a life-time sub, you are rolling the dice...
That doesnt make sense.
It doesn't make sense that you are taking your chances buying a life-time sub for a game?
Are you serious?
I never bought a lifetime sub and I dont even know if APB offered them for that matter.
Also, its not a gamble.
No matter for what service, a lifetimesub's costs are usually based on a certain period. If the service ceases to excist long before that period passes, you normally have right on compensation. If you actually get compensation is dependant on many other things, but buying a lifetime subscription for any service is not a gamble. A company cant just shut down a service right after release without compensating lifetime subscribers. Even if its put in their agreement.
There is no judge that would tell you its a gamble. Offering a lifetime subscription for a service automatically implies a guaranteed life for the service. The length of this is depending on what the lifetime sub costs compared to the normal periodical subscription.
I'm not sure where you pulled this from, but if someone purchases a lifetime sub, then the game goes down in flames 3 months after launch, the purchaser is screwed.
Unless there are people that want to sue over $200 or whatever, they aren't getting that money back. And even if they sue, it seems to me like there is very little chance they'll see any of that money.
I never claimed that it would be easy to get your refund. But its still not a gamble. I mean how many MMO companies sold many lifetime subs and then shut down their game right after release?
If a company shuts down a game because its not profitable because of low sub numbers, but its still financial healthy, you can safely expect that they will compensate lifetime subs. The MMO websites would be all over it if they didnt and getting a bad rep like this, would kill any MMO company.
In the case of a bankrupt its different of course. But from the MMO's that offered lifetime subs, which one do you know that shut down very fast after release and didnt compensate their lifetime subs?
Your comment was based on nothing.
Ok, it's not a gamble.
It's more of a risk than the way every other player is paying.
What sort of server resources are we looking at to keep the lights on in a modern MMO? Would you pay extra up front for a game that promised to set up an independant fund that would guarentee that even in the worst case scenario a data center could be employed to keep the servers up and running in an "as is"/unmoderated/unpatched state in perpetuity? Would the accumulated quirks, bugs and hacks rapidly overwhelm the usefulness of any such zombie-game setup? Would there be too many complications of IP/3rd party software licensing to make it work?
Maybe one day tech will be good enough to run MMOs on dedicated servers like most of the multiplayer shooters do. Just let the players run the servers, that way they can set options however they want and don't have to worry about not ever being able to play the game again at all.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I only have to point in the direction of what i call the best game ever and definitely one of the best developers on the planet>>>>Epic games/Unrealtournament
Unrealtournament was designed to be a great multiplayer game as well as a great single player game.It was designed to be modded,adjusted,game engine and tools for us all.It was designed so that it could in essence last forever,but of course advanced graphics and the ongoing desire to want something new will eventually kill it.The funny thing is thta UT99 still lives and there is still players playing online every day 11 years later.
This is what we call good game design,everyone is happy and players get their money's worth.MMORPG's are a total rip off.thy are meant to be played like single player games,everyone in a race to level and finish to some magical end game ,that doesn't really exist.Then these developers charge us an ongoing fee that they use to charge us again for the next xpacs or to fund some other venture they are working on.
You purchase any of these MMORPG's now and you are lucky to get your money's worth ever,especially when you consider you are paying more money every month.There is absolutely no value to the game if it closes down,and imo not much value even if it survives.If developers were to follow the pat hof Epic games,then we would all be in for a treat and even if the game fails online ,we have a single player game and tools/engine to play with on our own,so the value is well worth it.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I only have to point in the direction of what i call the best game ever and definitely one of the best developers on the planet>>>>Epic games/Unrealtournament
Unrealtournament was designed to be a great multiplayer game as well as a great single player game.It was designed to be modded,adjusted,game engine and tools for us all.It was designed so that it could in essence last forever,but of course advanced graphics and the ongoing desire to want something new will eventually kill it.The funny thing is thta UT99 still lives and there is still players playing online every day 11 years later.
This is what we call good game design,everyone is happy and players get their money's worth.MMORPG's are a total rip off.thy are meant to be played like single player games,everyone in a race to level and finish to some magical end game ,that doesn't really exist.Then these developers charge us an ongoing fee that they use to charge us again for the next xpacs or to fund some other venture they are working on.
You purchase any of these MMORPG's now and you are lucky to get your money's worth ever,especially when you consider you are paying more money every month.There is absolutely no value to the game if it closes down,and imo not much value even if it survives.If developers were to follow the pat hof Epic games,then we would all be in for a treat and even if the game fails online ,we have a single player game and tools/engine to play with on our own,so the value is well worth it.
This is the part i want to touch on. MMOs are not meant to be played as single player games. A lot of people play them this way and that route is viable but in no way is that what they are meant to be, it's the exact opposite actually. They are meant to be played with others. Thats why the shove everyone into the world together, in hopes they will team up and help. I will agree that some developers are straying from this idea but the general idea of MMOs are to be worked out together. A lot of players have lost this idea though but thats not really the genre fault.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
You are out of 50 bucks,Realtime worlds is out of 100 million because APB didn't make that money back ,The company basically had to close as well,People loss jobs,People when looking for a job on their resume work on 100 million dollar failure and one of shortest mmo lifespan ever.You are worry about if it is fair too you because lost a couple bucks.
Realtime Worlds isn't out 100 million. Their investors are and I bet they're pissed. Beyond that, I agree with the rest of the comments.
Yes, it's fair.
So you paid for a game you can't play? Did you get to play it for a full month? If so, you have nothing to complain about and your $50 isn't any more valuable than the $50 of the person who bought it, played it and didn't like it, so canceled his/her subscription before the free month was up.
If you didn't even get a full month before it shut down, take the game back and get a refund. If the store gives you a hard time, tell them the game doesn't exist anymore and that they sold you a useless box FYI - I still saw copies of Tabula Rasa for sale after it shut down...
No, its not fair, and I can give you another example of what I consider to be underhanded tactics for lifetime items.
I was playing a small game called Earth Eternal, and the Dev's offered a 'sale" of some items that would last for the lifetime of the game. (an item grinder and reagent generator specifically). So a bunch of us bought them (cost me about 30 or so bucks for both as I recall) thinking it was a great deal for a lifetime F2P game (which granted, was still in 'beta').
Well, like 3 weeks later the Devs announced they were broke and going to have to sell or close down the game. While they did announce the game was eventually sold, it still closed down about 2-3 weeks ago and no sign of a rebirth or whether or not we'll ever get our money's worth from those items.
I know companies go broke, but these folks knew they were in dire straights and went and took our money with full knowledge which I'll always feel was dishonest on their part.
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
No, it is not fair. On the other hand this happens and I can understand the publisher too....
But I agree that they should allow private servers to anyone that bought the game, they could just put out the server software as a torrent download, that would be both cheap and fair.
It is always sad for anyone who loses their favorite game but the thing is that online games at least needs to go even and few companies can afford running a game with very few players.
The reality is people get screwed all the time. Any time a business (or for that matter an entire industry) goes under lot's of folks, including customers get hurt. Have all your favorite movies on VHS? Too bad. If your favorite restaurant closes, your sad, but the folks that worked there are out of a job. If your favorite TV show goes off the air (especially without resolving all the big storylines) your going to be upset.
For the OP, and all who agree with his question: the term "fair business" doesn't really apply. Most folks don't ask "is this business fair?" They only ask two questions. Is it legal? Is it profitable?
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
You take a risk by investing in a mmorpg, Lifers spending 300+ bucks thinking the game will last a lifetime need to wake up.
Hell... we play in a videogame genre that basically has us renting characters for 15 bucks a month. We never really keep anything and when we stop playing that game we have no tangible item to show for that X amount of years we spent tossing money at these developers.
Man... Thats depressing just reading it. I need to leave this genre asap lol.
You take a risk by investing in a mmorpg, Lifers spending 300+ bucks thinking the game will last a lifetime need to wake up.
Hell... we play in a videogame genre that basically has us renting characters for 15 bucks a month. We never really keep anything and when we stop playing that game we have no tangible item to show for that X amount of years we spent tossing money at these developers.
Man... Thats depressing just reading it. I need to leave this genre asap lol.
Gotta agree with you, esp. on the depressing part. But let's face it, more and more of our entertainment is heading that way. Music companies for years have been pushing the legal concept that we are "licensing" the music, not owning it. That way they can restrict what we do with it, can't copy it for a backup, and even limit what devices and formats we listen to it on.
As the technology improves I can see game companies moving away from pure monthly subscriptions. Instead we'll have a monthly access fee, allowing us X minutes of play time per month, with an additional charge of 5 cents a minute for overtime. Add in the kind of stuff we are seeing in the F2P movement. Want to play in this zone? fee. Want this class/race? fee. Want a mount or world travel (teleport/portals etc)? fee.
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
If the game stays afloat for your free 30 days play then there is no reason to bitch. You buy a single player game how long does it last? Nobody owes you anything, the sooner you realize that the sooner you will grow up. Socialized gaming, what a concept.
Look, If they said on the cover you are only gaurenteed 30 days of play, I'd say you are right. Sure, we as mmo players do take the risk of shutdowns, but we should be given say 30 days notice. Again I have to point out, what about those who bought APB say last week?
What about those? The company is BANKRUPT. What are you going to do? Sue them for money that you will never collect?
This is a fact of life. Same thing if your insurance company went under, you get into an accident and you are left dangling. You may feel pretty bad about it, but there is little you can do about it.
It is a free world. You have the choice of NOT buying any product that you think there may not be support in the future.
I have at home a box of Tabula Rasa standing on my shelf looking at me. Its useless paperweight. All other game boxes - be they good or bad games. I can install and play them if i wish too. But not this one.
It was a MMO that closed.
I ask myself is this fair buisness. 50$ standard price for something that stops functioning whenever the manifacturer decides to ?
But with Tabula Rasa we were lucky. NC soft let it run for around one year time.
APB !
3 months! People bought the game that became disfunctional paperweight after 3 months.
I am suprised that we as MMO player comunity are not vocal about this. We are effectively treated as lowest type that has no rights whatsoever. Scams , half finished products - but this tops it
Denial of service after mere 3 months !
Question here is.
Should MMOs ask for box price, if they can be closed any time. Thus making this boxed game disfunctional ?
Should closed MMOs offer posibillity of running private servers ( you purchased the game, so it should work)
Or maybe offline mode ?
Whatever it is. I think MMO community should be vocal about it. And not let themselves being treathed as lowest type of consumer there is.
I can't possibly agree more. I think this applies in the case of SWG also, yeah yeah I am beating on that dead horse again. But they did effectively close down the game so many of us bought and were happily paying to play.
All these cases though they treat MMO players with very little respect and we really should be more vocal about it.
RTW told it how it was. *snip...they treated us unfairly by not giving us any warning about when they were shutting down. They screwed over a bunch of people by the release of 1.4.2.
RTW are swindlers; bottom-line. Players that re-subbed are less than intelligent; bottom line. RTW never told their player-base "how it was". The player-base 'read' about it on blogs and wire sites.
I resubbed once, and once that month was over, never did again. Having been in the tail-end of beta with 50 out of 10,000 beta invited players contributing to the testing, the writing was on the wall early-on. But it was too good of a concept to pass up and not enjoy for a short-lived period. I just didnt feed them cash.
I had a helluva lot of fun for the 2-months it lasted for me, but I also play my single-players games for about the same amount of time; so I didnt lose out on anything.
RTW are sheisters and complete morons for putting up a game-advancing patch one-day to hook a bunch of people into resubbing, making the money-grab and shutting it down the next day.
As far as business people go, they are expletive expletive expletive expletive.
Striving for Silver Stars since Gold is so effeminate.
the way I see it, RTW might as well just file bankrupcy and close shop because after a move like the one they did no one is going to trust them again. As far as it not being fair well thats business. As a suber..never throw your money in thinking the company is going to last forever.
I owned two, I got TR CE for free basically(30 buck amazon visa signup, 30bucks game christmas 07)
AA I purchased normally
Hellgate London I purchase CE and a Lifetime, sold my lifetime on Ebay around christmas 07 for 180bucks.
I do wish they would allow servers to be brought up by the player base. I remember NC and Netdevil about AA and if I recall correctly, NC basically said sorry about your luck since Netdevil wanted to run it. I would of been a happy camper as I enjoyed the game.
As for fair, yeah its fair. Its it crappy? Yep. Should go into knowing that anything with the two letters: A and E combined like EA are a bad mixture with all the closings of MMO's they do. I imagine they had a hand in it shutting down and knew after 2 months the game was a bust and wanted to just move on. So between EA and NC you roll the dice for any MMO they release as it will be short lived if not a success.
It always has been and always will be "buyer beware". And that goes for anything you buy.
But I do think they should pull the item off the shelf if it's not supported.....that is just stright up wrong.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Comments
Thank you Orlac!!! It's very true how people think they are owed something cuz they spent $60 on a game. If that were the case I would sure like to have all the money I've spent on lotto tickets that didn't pan out back.
I never bought a lifetime sub and I dont even know if APB offered them for that matter.
Also, its not a gamble.
No matter for what service, a lifetimesub's costs are usually based on a certain period. If the service ceases to excist long before that period passes, you normally have right on compensation. If you actually get compensation is dependant on many other things, but buying a lifetime subscription for any service is not a gamble. A company cant just shut down a service right after release without compensating lifetime subscribers. Even if its put in their agreement.
There is no judge that would tell you its a gamble. Offering a lifetime subscription for a service automatically implies a guaranteed period of time that the the service is available. The length of this is depending on what the lifetime sub costs compared to the normal periodical subscription.
I'm not sure where you pulled this from, but if someone purchases a lifetime sub, then the game goes down in flames 3 months after launch, the purchaser is screwed.
Unless there are people that want to sue over $200 or whatever, they aren't getting that money back. And even if they sue, it seems to me like there is very little chance they'll see any of that money.
By the way.
Talking about fraud:
Did you know that Realtime worlds tried hard to sell APB. And there was interested parties ( Namely EPIC games )
But they refused to buy the game if it was still active !!!
Now there are rumours of EPIC went on and bought APB. (probably only to use its technology)
Could it be that Realtime Worlds killed the game and closed servers. Just in order to please EPIC games, and sell APB?
( Although they could run in "zombie" mode cheaply. And keep game live for people that purchase it )
Is this not in a way fraud ? Or at least non ethical buisness ?
Should RTW not answer for this (if its true) ?
I never claimed that it would be easy to get your refund. But its still not a gamble. I mean how many MMO companies sold many lifetime subs and then shut down their game right after release?
If a company shuts down a game because its not profitable because of low sub numbers, but its still financial healthy, you can safely expect that they will compensate lifetime subs. The MMO websites would be all over it if they didnt and getting a bad rep like this, would kill any MMO company.
In the case of a bankrupt its different of course. But from the MMO's that offered lifetime subs, which one do you know that shut down very fast after release and didnt compensate their lifetime subs?
Your comment was based on nothing.
Ok, it's not a gamble.
It's more of a risk than the way every other player is paying.
I would like a Off Line mode patched in
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Maybe one day tech will be good enough to run MMOs on dedicated servers like most of the multiplayer shooters do. Just let the players run the servers, that way they can set options however they want and don't have to worry about not ever being able to play the game again at all.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I only have to point in the direction of what i call the best game ever and definitely one of the best developers on the planet>>>>Epic games/Unrealtournament
Unrealtournament was designed to be a great multiplayer game as well as a great single player game.It was designed to be modded,adjusted,game engine and tools for us all.It was designed so that it could in essence last forever,but of course advanced graphics and the ongoing desire to want something new will eventually kill it.The funny thing is thta UT99 still lives and there is still players playing online every day 11 years later.
This is what we call good game design,everyone is happy and players get their money's worth.MMORPG's are a total rip off.thy are meant to be played like single player games,everyone in a race to level and finish to some magical end game ,that doesn't really exist.Then these developers charge us an ongoing fee that they use to charge us again for the next xpacs or to fund some other venture they are working on.
You purchase any of these MMORPG's now and you are lucky to get your money's worth ever,especially when you consider you are paying more money every month.There is absolutely no value to the game if it closes down,and imo not much value even if it survives.If developers were to follow the pat hof Epic games,then we would all be in for a treat and even if the game fails online ,we have a single player game and tools/engine to play with on our own,so the value is well worth it.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
This is the part i want to touch on. MMOs are not meant to be played as single player games. A lot of people play them this way and that route is viable but in no way is that what they are meant to be, it's the exact opposite actually. They are meant to be played with others. Thats why the shove everyone into the world together, in hopes they will team up and help. I will agree that some developers are straying from this idea but the general idea of MMOs are to be worked out together. A lot of players have lost this idea though but thats not really the genre fault.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Realtime Worlds isn't out 100 million. Their investors are and I bet they're pissed. Beyond that, I agree with the rest of the comments.
Yes, it's fair.
So you paid for a game you can't play? Did you get to play it for a full month? If so, you have nothing to complain about and your $50 isn't any more valuable than the $50 of the person who bought it, played it and didn't like it, so canceled his/her subscription before the free month was up.
If you didn't even get a full month before it shut down, take the game back and get a refund. If the store gives you a hard time, tell them the game doesn't exist anymore and that they sold you a useless box FYI - I still saw copies of Tabula Rasa for sale after it shut down...
~Ripper
No, its not fair, and I can give you another example of what I consider to be underhanded tactics for lifetime items.
I was playing a small game called Earth Eternal, and the Dev's offered a 'sale" of some items that would last for the lifetime of the game. (an item grinder and reagent generator specifically). So a bunch of us bought them (cost me about 30 or so bucks for both as I recall) thinking it was a great deal for a lifetime F2P game (which granted, was still in 'beta').
Well, like 3 weeks later the Devs announced they were broke and going to have to sell or close down the game. While they did announce the game was eventually sold, it still closed down about 2-3 weeks ago and no sign of a rebirth or whether or not we'll ever get our money's worth from those items.
I know companies go broke, but these folks knew they were in dire straights and went and took our money with full knowledge which I'll always feel was dishonest on their part.
"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
No, it is not fair. On the other hand this happens and I can understand the publisher too....
But I agree that they should allow private servers to anyone that bought the game, they could just put out the server software as a torrent download, that would be both cheap and fair.
It is always sad for anyone who loses their favorite game but the thing is that online games at least needs to go even and few companies can afford running a game with very few players.
The reality is people get screwed all the time. Any time a business (or for that matter an entire industry) goes under lot's of folks, including customers get hurt. Have all your favorite movies on VHS? Too bad. If your favorite restaurant closes, your sad, but the folks that worked there are out of a job. If your favorite TV show goes off the air (especially without resolving all the big storylines) your going to be upset.
For the OP, and all who agree with his question: the term "fair business" doesn't really apply. Most folks don't ask "is this business fair?" They only ask two questions. Is it legal? Is it profitable?
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
~Omar Khayyam
Yes it is.
We all know that mmos wont last forever.
You take a risk by investing in a mmorpg, Lifers spending 300+ bucks thinking the game will last a lifetime need to wake up.
Hell... we play in a videogame genre that basically has us renting characters for 15 bucks a month. We never really keep anything and when we stop playing that game we have no tangible item to show for that X amount of years we spent tossing money at these developers.
Man... Thats depressing just reading it. I need to leave this genre asap lol.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Gotta agree with you, esp. on the depressing part. But let's face it, more and more of our entertainment is heading that way. Music companies for years have been pushing the legal concept that we are "licensing" the music, not owning it. That way they can restrict what we do with it, can't copy it for a backup, and even limit what devices and formats we listen to it on.
As the technology improves I can see game companies moving away from pure monthly subscriptions. Instead we'll have a monthly access fee, allowing us X minutes of play time per month, with an additional charge of 5 cents a minute for overtime. Add in the kind of stuff we are seeing in the F2P movement. Want to play in this zone? fee. Want this class/race? fee. Want a mount or world travel (teleport/portals etc)? fee.
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
~Omar Khayyam
What about those? The company is BANKRUPT. What are you going to do? Sue them for money that you will never collect?
This is a fact of life. Same thing if your insurance company went under, you get into an accident and you are left dangling. You may feel pretty bad about it, but there is little you can do about it.
It is a free world. You have the choice of NOT buying any product that you think there may not be support in the future.
I can't possibly agree more. I think this applies in the case of SWG also, yeah yeah I am beating on that dead horse again. But they did effectively close down the game so many of us bought and were happily paying to play.
All these cases though they treat MMO players with very little respect and we really should be more vocal about it.
RTW are swindlers; bottom-line. Players that re-subbed are less than intelligent; bottom line. RTW never told their player-base "how it was". The player-base 'read' about it on blogs and wire sites.
I resubbed once, and once that month was over, never did again. Having been in the tail-end of beta with 50 out of 10,000 beta invited players contributing to the testing, the writing was on the wall early-on. But it was too good of a concept to pass up and not enjoy for a short-lived period. I just didnt feed them cash.
I had a helluva lot of fun for the 2-months it lasted for me, but I also play my single-players games for about the same amount of time; so I didnt lose out on anything.
RTW are sheisters and complete morons for putting up a game-advancing patch one-day to hook a bunch of people into resubbing, making the money-grab and shutting it down the next day.
As far as business people go, they are expletive expletive expletive expletive.
Striving for Silver Stars since Gold is so effeminate.
the way I see it, RTW might as well just file bankrupcy and close shop because after a move like the one they did no one is going to trust them again. As far as it not being fair well thats business. As a suber..never throw your money in thinking the company is going to last forever.
What i find funny is my gamestop still has copies for sale.. I feel bad if someone buys them and finds no game to play
Wow i just remembered I own:
Tabula Rasa Collectors
Auto Assault Collectors
Hellgate London Collectors
APB
What can I say MMOs are my genre..
I owned two, I got TR CE for free basically(30 buck amazon visa signup, 30bucks game christmas 07)
AA I purchased normally
Hellgate London I purchase CE and a Lifetime, sold my lifetime on Ebay around christmas 07 for 180bucks.
I do wish they would allow servers to be brought up by the player base. I remember NC and Netdevil about AA and if I recall correctly, NC basically said sorry about your luck since Netdevil wanted to run it. I would of been a happy camper as I enjoyed the game.
As for fair, yeah its fair. Its it crappy? Yep. Should go into knowing that anything with the two letters: A and E combined like EA are a bad mixture with all the closings of MMO's they do. I imagine they had a hand in it shutting down and knew after 2 months the game was a bust and wanted to just move on. So between EA and NC you roll the dice for any MMO they release as it will be short lived if not a success.
It always has been and always will be "buyer beware". And that goes for anything you buy.
But I do think they should pull the item off the shelf if it's not supported.....that is just stright up wrong.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
I agree that all mmos should be downloads and have atleast 2-3 days trial. It is unfair that they could just shutdown at anytime