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Why do all game companies feel they should charge the same price?
Talonsin
Member EpicPosts: 3,619
I dont understand why all MMO's feel they need to charge $14.99 a month. There is obviously a huge degree of separation in the quality and content of a game like MO vs WoW. What in the world gets into the heads of some of these developers that makes it ok to charge the same price for less? Lets take Cryptic, it was made absolutely clear when they launched CO that their idea of spitting out MMO's very fast based on an instanced engine and lacking content was NOT gonna fly and yet they did the exact same thing with STO. Had they re-evaluated things and changed the monthly sub fee to $9.99 a month for STO, my guess is that many many more people would have subbed.
It seems to me that MMO's are like cars and some are obviously of a better quality than others and should cost more to own. I feel that developers think a subscriber will pay anything to play a game they like and I dont feel this is true for most people. I think SOE did one thing right when they launched the station and had one price point for playing many games, its too bad they lost many of those games and that right now the station does not seem like a great deal. Why dont other companies learn? If Cryptic would offer a $20 monthly fee and you got premium play in both CO, STO and their new game, many people would jump on that.
What are your thoughts...
Comments
Well one part of me says it's because the market has shown they are willing to pay that price
But then the more rational part of me comes in and says... they don't all charge that price.
True most P2P games do charge that much, but there are now many many good f2p games, and freemium games and I know at least one game (Istaria) that charges anywhere from 9.99 to 14.99 depending on what you want to do in game.
Venge
They charge14.95 because of how most consumers are wired. At 9.95 people will perceive it as an inferior MMO and at 19.95 people will feel the price is too high.
Your point about Station pass and a CO/STO is another topic entirely. Bundle prices are viewed and perceived differently. Also, if you only have two offerings, people aren't going to pay extra to maybe sometimes play the second, therefore if they were going to pay for both, why not get full price for the two instead of leaving money on the table.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Because thats what everyone else does!
Because pretty much all MMO's charge $14.99ish any new MMO feels its has to do the same. Any more and people will think its too expensive, and why would they go less when they know they can get away with $14.99?
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
Same reason that virtually all console games are $60 at release regardless of content. Price fixing resulting from collusion between publishers ensures that undercutting won't be a factor, eliminating an aspect of competition while ensuring that everyone sees higher profits.
It is an old win-win trade agreement that has been illegal in most other business fields for a long time (subject to antitrust laws), but it's been happening in the gaming industry for years, and nobody seems to care.
It's what the market allows, just like anything out there.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
they only charge the 14.99 price if you pay monthly
pay for a year, any SOE game is 10/month (except EQ2X)
http://www.soe.com/gamepass/
RIFT is 10/month for a year too
http://www.riftgame.com/en/products/subscriptions.php
STO, WOW and SWTOR are premium priced, the cheapest you can get is 13/month for 6months
but STO is going f2p
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/09/06/cryptic-uploads-star-trek-onlines-free-to-play-plans/
EQ2 fan sites
Like he said. This largely hold true only for month to month sub plans. I pay £23 every 3 months for my MMO rather than the standard £9.99/ month. if I buy MBUK every month from the news agent it would cost me a fortune. Which is why I have a 12-month sub.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy.
______________________________
"This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
I think that most MMO gamers only subscribe to one MMO at a time (though I don't have anything to back that up). It somehow just doesn't feel right to pay monthly to subscribe to two different games; you could pay half the price and just play one of the games twice as much. It would be pretty tough to choose your game by lowering the monthly fee. It's not like $10 or $15 in a month is a lot of money. But even if MMOs charged $2 a month, I think we would still be very hesitant about subscribing to more than one at a time.
So, by reducing the price to a little less than your competitors, the only customers you'd gain are the ones who actually do care about saving a few dollars a month and are willing to choose one game over the other because of it. That's a pretty small slice.
Also, when you go below a certain threshold, people are bound to think along the lines of "Why are you even charging me for this at all? You really want just two bucks a month from me? If it's that low, can't you just give it to me for free?" Since it takes so long to create an MMO and since they are such a big risk, nobody's willing to experiment and find out how low that threshold is. So rather than finding that threshold and setting the price right above it, it's much safer at that point to draw in people by being F2P instead.
I agree. I feel like if a good quality game offered $10/mo payment they could really get strong numbers. Especially with the number of games transfering to F2P, makes you wonder if it would've been different if they charged something less than the normal $15/mo at launch.
Waiting for: GW2
If you charge more than $15/month, you will lose customers who think it is too expensive. If you charge less, you are probably decreasing your own profit potential. If a company really charged $10/month, do you really think they could boost subscriptions by 50% more to make up for the lower price? Obviously, companies don't think so.
You guys all saying "the market will pay it" or "because customers will pay it" are missing the fact that customers are not all paying it. Rift is a much higher quality game than MO and has many times more subbers than MO.
I dont have any market data to support any conclusions but I would assume more people would play MO at a lower price and the thing that keeps more people from playing is that they dont want to pay the same cost for a low quality product that they would a premium product like Rift or WoW.
It would be interesting to see if MO would drop their sub fee down to $8.99 Assuming they have 5000 paying subs and the price drop gets another 5000 who stopped subbing to play again, they could make an additional $14,950 per month. I'm not saying this is what would happen but it is safe to guess that some who have already purchased the game could be enticed to come back at a lower price point.
Because (surprise, surprise) the cost of maintaining a MMORPG is just a fraction of what players pay in monthly fees. It is not like half of that money goes to maintaining the product, no. World of Warcraft made enough money on box sales alone to maintain it from release to this day, made the expansions and still they would've made a nice profit. Subscription fee is just more profit on top of that. The price is largely artificial ...and it is good to keep it just high enough so that you can make the maximum profit (people are still willing to pay). Or slightly lower if you're feeling it is the only way you can compete.
Yes, maybe the subsciption fee is the lifeline for some subpar MMORPGs, but it is time to let these games go (and let them die).
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
i got rift early and was paying £30 for 6 months play. I found that great. Dont see why no other MMO's do it...
They can charge whatever they want, doesn't mean i'm going to pay it..
Then again, I'd pay $25 a month for a game i thought worth it. Though considering i can't find one worth $15 currently...