TLDR ; Yes, cost plays a factor, but everyone decides exactly how much they are willing to spend on their entertainment budget based on prior experiences.
To answer the OP yes, the are many games I stopped playing because I felt that 15$/month was no longer the value that I was getting out of the game. There are great older games that I would love to go back to (The Realm Online and iRO being notable ones) if they were less expensive because I simply wouldn't take advantage of everything that there is to do in the game to feel as if I'm getting that value back in return at their full price.
This is where I think the line is drawn ; if you really like a game and are greatly vested into it and play 15+ hours a week, of course 15-20$ a month is peanuts. The cost DOES affect it somewhat because, as someone mentionned beforehand, looking at the current MMO's on the market, I myself cannot justify spending the 15$ because I don't feel the value is there for me anymore. That is completely subjective to my experiences though and will differ from person to person. At this point, I would rather spend the 30-60$ on something like Final Fantasy XIII-2 (which will give me 60+ hours of gameplay) or other single-player RPG's for that awesome quality RPG grindfest/storyline advancement and play F2P MMO's/Steam Games for the social aspect.
Dakilla[666] ~ The Realm ~ Level 1000 enchanter (retired) Maranthoric ~ La 4ieme Prophetie ~ Level 160 (5x) HE/Feu (de retour) Leonthoric[DDC] ~ EVE online ~ <Fire The "Laser"> (retired)
It is about game being fun or not. It could be 5 bucks a month and i still wouldn't play it if gameplay bores me to death.
I'm no coffee drinker but 15 bucks a day? Doese Juan Valdez come your house and grind the beans in your kitchen?
A good black coffee costs 4 euros. I don't like cheap one which costs 1 or 2 uros. I can drink upto 4 cups a day easily. You make it sound as if it so expensive ;p
Eh... I make 1800 a month and i can afford to waste $100 on games per month and still save ~300-600 a month (depeding on my need to use the metro)
If you take care of your budget, you can live pretty securely. Ofc if youre tossing money left and right (like my room mate) youre not gonna save anything. I typically save on clothes since i just make them... I learned to cook too to slash my food bill in half!
''/\/\'' Posted using Iphone bunni ( o.o) (")(") **This bunny was cloned from bunnies belonging to Gobla and is part of the Quizzical Fanclub and the The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club**
Nope, I have left lots of games but cost of subscription has never been a remote factor. Either the game is fun or it is not. If it's fun, I'll pay whatever it costs to play. If it isn't fun, I won't play even if it's free.
Subscriptions are already dirt cheap. An entire months worth of entertainment for the cost of two movie matinees. If you are that strapped for cash, how the heck did you afford a computer, let alone monthly internet access or the box cost of any game. I spend so much less per year on gaming than I did when MMOs didn't exist and I had to buy boxes every month or two to feed my gaming habit. I make less than 18k a year which is not much above the poverty level and yet I can easily afford subscriptions. Maybe your issues is that you spend too much money on other things like junk food and itunes downloads. When you don't make a lot of money, you have to pick and choose where you spend it and not whine about the cost when it is so minimal in the scheme of things.
Since I never sub to more than one game at a time the cost has never been an issue. I play the game I am subscribed to until it runs it's course and then I stop paying for it and go elsewhere...or nowhere like right now. I never saw a reason to sub to more than one game because if I am subscribed to a game I plan on playing it when I have time as often as I can. If I don't have time or want to play something else I don't want to keep paying for something I'm not using.
it's one of the reasons I was hoping a pay by the hour payment model would have come up by now. I play for a couple hours, pay them the money and log off. If I want to come back I play and pay as long as I want and can stop at any point and go play a single player game or any other game for that matter without feeling like I am wasting money.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
Originally posted by Castillle Dude its $15 a month. Thats pretty friggin cheap. The only time I had trouble with paying that was when I was in the middle east and some *cough CoXEvE cough* wouldnt accept my credit card sometimes.
So if you want to play EQ2, WoW, Rift, SWTOR, EVE, Vanguard, LoTRO all at the same time throught the month.. it's only $105 a month right..... Still chump change for everyone? hmmmmmmm
What? all at same time? is that even a serious question?
Really dude? You play one game at a time? If I could, I would play all of the above games monthly , if the subscription wasn't an issue.. I would love to see all games go B2P like GW2, and the cash shop would be for bells and whistles.. I miss all my accounts from time to time, but I'm never going to pay their subs for what time I spend playing them monthly..
I doubt that I'll ever pay a subscription again. I don't have any qualms about supporting a great online game, but there are so many great online games that have alternative business models that I prefer, so I think I'll be playing them.
Originally posted by Tindale111 The reason i ask this is because i pick and choose which games to play but would like to have tried more i believe that mmo players prob pay subscription for a couple of mmos adding up to around £20 a month games such as wow and rift so when we had subscriptions on swotor and tsw (yes i know you still can) it all adds up .I just think that these games that jump to ptp so quickly could have thought about cutting their subs would swotor have doubled its numbers if it was say £5 a month i certainly would have stuck with it .i really dont like cash shops unless they truely only have fluff items in and the complaints i have heard about swotor where you buy extra bars and ptp pvp will def stop me going back ,anyway the long and the short of it is if subs were less the more games i would try these are just my views interested to hear yours
No.
Actually if the theoretical "well balanced" and designed MMO came out, I'd pay more per month to play that.
In the early 2k period, I played EQ - it came out with a "premium" server that was $45 a month (iirc) -- It offered 7x24 GM's online, special "premium" areas to explore and adventure in, GM events daily, etc. I paid for that without blinking.
Then the GM services were cut, the special zones were removed and it became a transfer point to move chars & stuff between servers. I dumped it.
A "well balanced & designed" MMO just doesn't exist.
So, in truth, a well balanced & supported game could easily ask for a subscription of $50 a month and I'd pay it - I've *DONE* this for what I saw as "of value" back then.
I have no problems paying for what I like but what I see these days -- F2P is the fitting path for them -- along with the P2Win model some go with. They really aren't worth a subscription fee.
Like some others, it's not about the cost in absolute terms; it's cost for value/time played.
I play computer games a lot, less than I used to but still upwards of 20hrs a week most weeks. For the most part, these are stand alone games that I have paid $50 or more for...and if I get a month of solid play out of them I am happy.
So would I pay $20, $30 or more a month for an MMO that actually delivered what I wanted in a game? Heck yeah. Will I pay that much (or micro transactions to add up to it) for the garbage that is on the market now...not a chance.
So yes, I think there are a lot of games that price themselves out of the subscription market. I'd be a lot more willing to pay $5, 8 or 10 a month for a game I wasn't thrilled about but still played for a couple hours a week without any problem at all. (I won't do it through micro transactions and cash shops though, but that is a personal shopping preference...feels too much like going to a burger joint and buying one fry at a time to me!)
No - it may become a future issue but atm i dont play mmorpgs bcs they bore me all.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
Originally posted by Castillle Dude its $15 a month. Thats pretty friggin cheap. The only time I had trouble with paying that was when I was in the middle east and some *cough CoXEvE cough* wouldnt accept my credit card sometimes.
So if you want to play EQ2, WoW, Rift, SWTOR, EVE, Vanguard, LoTRO all at the same time throught the month.. it's only $105 a month right..... Still chump change for everyone? hmmmmmmm
What? all at same time? is that even a serious question?
Really dude? You play one game at a time? If I could, I would play all of the above games monthly , if the subscription wasn't an issue.. I would love to see all games go B2P like GW2, and the cash shop would be for bells and whistles.. I miss all my accounts from time to time, but I'm never going to pay their subs for what time I spend playing them monthly..
And so you get players angry that there is nothing to do while at the same time angry that everything takes too long
Anyways, i think we are approaching the area that is cut off statistically, a extreme.
For me, sure, there is a tradeoff between price and interest whenever I'm considering buying something, but the moment I start seeing innovation in the buisness model, I get spooked and become a very skittish consumer.
I was born in a country, where average vages are around 390 euro a MONTH. As Computer Network Administrator, I was getting around 450 eur a month, while I lived there. That's why I left the country. Now I make more money in a week, but I still understand millions of gamers from poorer countries. When your monthly Internet bill is 5eur, but game sub is 15... Plus insane petrol prices, other bills and food... Can of cheap beer is like 0.20eur, so ppl
Originally posted by Castillle Dude its $15 a month. Thats pretty friggin cheap. The only time I had trouble with paying that was when I was in the middle east and some *cough CoXEvE cough* wouldnt accept my credit card sometimes.
So if you want to play EQ2, WoW, Rift, SWTOR, EVE, Vanguard, LoTRO all at the same time throught the month.. it's only $105 a month right..... Still chump change for everyone? hmmmmmmm
What? all at same time? is that even a serious question?
Really dude? You play one game at a time? If I could, I would play all of the above games monthly , if the subscription wasn't an issue.. I would love to see all games go B2P like GW2, and the cash shop would be for bells and whistles.. I miss all my accounts from time to time, but I'm never going to pay their subs for what time I spend playing them monthly..
With a 9 hour job and family yes i play one MMO at a time and maybe another one if i am lucky to have all the time in the world on weekends. Still 30 bucks very cheap for whole month of entertainment. I am pretty sure people who have time to play ALL the MMOS at one time are in minority.
Originally posted by COOKERpl I was born in a country, where average vages are around 390 euro a MONTH. As Computer Network Administrator, I was getting around 450 eur a month, while I lived there. That's why I left the country. Now I make more money in a week, but I still understand millions of gamers from poorer countries. When your monthly Internet bill is 5eur, but game sub is 15... Plus insane petrol prices, other bills and food... Can of cheap beer is like 0.20eur, so ppl
Yowzers, I'm a web developer and network people are supposed to make more than me. I'm closer to 3200USD monthly after taxes. I'd have to eat a ton of ramen with that conversion. Working from home I don't have to commute.
My monthly bills are 300 rent, 160 elec, 70 gas, 40 water, 50 cable, 400 student loan, 60 pets before extras or food.
I couldn't live on those wages and I think I live tightly and don't get paid enough because I'm in the midwest instead of Silicon Valley so we have a lower cost of living. Only time I blow money is on expensive electronics, leather bound books and journals and liquid ink .5mm pens by the gobs because I love them and write tiny plus games I suppose but I don't even consider it blowing money there because I could spend more going to my favorite Greek restaurant that is $30 a plate. Even if I order in pizza for a few days it's $20 for pizza and $10 for a tip. Gaming with a sub it takes two or three months to use up one food outing. Maybe people eat out a lot that can't afford subs if they make decent wages, either that or they get a little overboard with credit cards. It could help not having kids too, I've been adamant about never getting pregnant unless I were married and legally bound it lol Most of the people I know have 1-4 kids.
Different places are different, there are more poor places and more rich ones, as long as we are talking about 4 packets of cigarettes or 10 cans of beer per month it is not excessive, but the game has to show for it, which they rarely do these days.
As for the talk about money, sure 450 is very low, but it is without any student loan, with medical, social, "401k", taxes payed, and in that kind of environment you get a flat/room for 200 euro with all energies.
As for the 3.2k usd being not enough, you can get middle size east european companies to program for 50 bucks a manhour, 100 if you go more to the west, 200 is deemed excessive, so do the math.
I know that because that is what we are paying them.
"Working class" people consider a family income of 1.5-2k usd very good round there (or here, cause its my station atm), but ofc i know my esteemed colleagues who have no problems burning trough 10k a month on food, commute, family dinners and activities.
So, keep that in mind when raging about cheap chinese labor or feeling that you are undervalued
Originally posted by COOKERpl I was born in a country, where average vages are around 390 euro a MONTH. As Computer Network Administrator, I was getting around 450 eur a month, while I lived there. That's why I left the country. Now I make more money in a week, but I still understand millions of gamers from poorer countries. When your monthly Internet bill is 5eur, but game sub is 15... Plus insane petrol prices, other bills and food... Can of cheap beer is like 0.20eur, so ppl
Then these gamers should be playing MMOs that are targeted for their areas and not American servers. Even WoW does subs differently in Asia and other countries and at lower prices (usually enforced by the local government). If even that is too much, then maybe they need another hobby. You don't need money to make up your own games, like I used to when I was a kid. Computer gaming didn't even rear its head till I was 13 years old. It was expensive back then and I was even more strapped for money than I am now and guess what, that meant buying a game or two per year.
As far as I'm concerned, the whole F2P movement has dramatically dropped the quality of online gaming and while it might be wonderful to you guys, it's ruining gaming for a lot of people who can afford it and who were there at its inception and now are being milked of our money in order to support you freeloading crybabies.
Comments
TLDR ; Yes, cost plays a factor, but everyone decides exactly how much they are willing to spend on their entertainment budget based on prior experiences.
To answer the OP yes, the are many games I stopped playing because I felt that 15$/month was no longer the value that I was getting out of the game. There are great older games that I would love to go back to (The Realm Online and iRO being notable ones) if they were less expensive because I simply wouldn't take advantage of everything that there is to do in the game to feel as if I'm getting that value back in return at their full price.
This is where I think the line is drawn ; if you really like a game and are greatly vested into it and play 15+ hours a week, of course 15-20$ a month is peanuts. The cost DOES affect it somewhat because, as someone mentionned beforehand, looking at the current MMO's on the market, I myself cannot justify spending the 15$ because I don't feel the value is there for me anymore. That is completely subjective to my experiences though and will differ from person to person. At this point, I would rather spend the 30-60$ on something like Final Fantasy XIII-2 (which will give me 60+ hours of gameplay) or other single-player RPG's for that awesome quality RPG grindfest/storyline advancement and play F2P MMO's/Steam Games for the social aspect.
Dakilla[666] ~ The Realm ~ Level 1000 enchanter (retired)
Maranthoric ~ La 4ieme Prophetie ~ Level 160 (5x) HE/Feu (de retour)
Leonthoric[DDC] ~ EVE online ~ <Fire The "Laser"> (retired)
A good black coffee costs 4 euros. I don't like cheap one which costs 1 or 2 uros. I can drink upto 4 cups a day easily. You make it sound as if it so expensive ;p
If you take care of your budget, you can live pretty securely. Ofc if youre tossing money left and right (like my room mate) youre not gonna save anything. I typically save on clothes since i just make them... I learned to cook too to slash my food bill in half!
''/\/\'' Posted using Iphone bunni
( o.o)
(")(")
**This bunny was cloned from bunnies belonging to Gobla and is part of the Quizzical Fanclub and the The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club**
The problem comes with older games.
Take a new game release...its very expensive. But over time the price goes down
An old MMO however gets older...and the monthly subscription either stays the same (assuming it stays pay to play)...OR...it even goes up.
Rather the opposite of singleplayer/multiplayer games.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
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Exactly this.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Since I never sub to more than one game at a time the cost has never been an issue. I play the game I am subscribed to until it runs it's course and then I stop paying for it and go elsewhere...or nowhere like right now. I never saw a reason to sub to more than one game because if I am subscribed to a game I plan on playing it when I have time as often as I can. If I don't have time or want to play something else I don't want to keep paying for something I'm not using.
it's one of the reasons I was hoping a pay by the hour payment model would have come up by now. I play for a couple hours, pay them the money and log off. If I want to come back I play and pay as long as I want and can stop at any point and go play a single player game or any other game for that matter without feeling like I am wasting money.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
Really dude? You play one game at a time? If I could, I would play all of the above games monthly , if the subscription wasn't an issue.. I would love to see all games go B2P like GW2, and the cash shop would be for bells and whistles.. I miss all my accounts from time to time, but I'm never going to pay their subs for what time I spend playing them monthly..
Same, if i like the game then i don't really care about the sub, ill pay it.
No.
Actually if the theoretical "well balanced" and designed MMO came out, I'd pay more per month to play that.
In the early 2k period, I played EQ - it came out with a "premium" server that was $45 a month (iirc) -- It offered 7x24 GM's online, special "premium" areas to explore and adventure in, GM events daily, etc. I paid for that without blinking.
Then the GM services were cut, the special zones were removed and it became a transfer point to move chars & stuff between servers. I dumped it.
A "well balanced & designed" MMO just doesn't exist.
So, in truth, a well balanced & supported game could easily ask for a subscription of $50 a month and I'd pay it - I've *DONE* this for what I saw as "of value" back then.
I have no problems paying for what I like but what I see these days -- F2P is the fitting path for them -- along with the P2Win model some go with. They really aren't worth a subscription fee.
Like some others, it's not about the cost in absolute terms; it's cost for value/time played.
I play computer games a lot, less than I used to but still upwards of 20hrs a week most weeks. For the most part, these are stand alone games that I have paid $50 or more for...and if I get a month of solid play out of them I am happy.
So would I pay $20, $30 or more a month for an MMO that actually delivered what I wanted in a game? Heck yeah. Will I pay that much (or micro transactions to add up to it) for the garbage that is on the market now...not a chance.
So yes, I think there are a lot of games that price themselves out of the subscription market. I'd be a lot more willing to pay $5, 8 or 10 a month for a game I wasn't thrilled about but still played for a couple hours a week without any problem at all. (I won't do it through micro transactions and cash shops though, but that is a personal shopping preference...feels too much like going to a burger joint and buying one fry at a time to me!)
No - it may become a future issue but atm i dont play mmorpgs bcs they bore me all.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
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And so you get players angry that there is nothing to do while at the same time angry that everything takes too long
Anyways, i think we are approaching the area that is cut off statistically, a extreme.
Flame on!
For me, sure, there is a tradeoff between price and interest whenever I'm considering buying something, but the moment I start seeing innovation in the buisness model, I get spooked and become a very skittish consumer.
With a 9 hour job and family yes i play one MMO at a time and maybe another one if i am lucky to have all the time in the world on weekends. Still 30 bucks very cheap for whole month of entertainment. I am pretty sure people who have time to play ALL the MMOS at one time are in minority.
Different places are different, there are more poor places and more rich ones, as long as we are talking about 4 packets of cigarettes or 10 cans of beer per month it is not excessive, but the game has to show for it, which they rarely do these days.
As for the talk about money, sure 450 is very low, but it is without any student loan, with medical, social, "401k", taxes payed, and in that kind of environment you get a flat/room for 200 euro with all energies.
As for the 3.2k usd being not enough, you can get middle size east european companies to program for 50 bucks a manhour, 100 if you go more to the west, 200 is deemed excessive, so do the math.
I know that because that is what we are paying them.
"Working class" people consider a family income of 1.5-2k usd very good round there (or here, cause its my station atm), but ofc i know my esteemed colleagues who have no problems burning trough 10k a month on food, commute, family dinners and activities.
So, keep that in mind when raging about cheap chinese labor or feeling that you are undervalued
Flame on!
Then these gamers should be playing MMOs that are targeted for their areas and not American servers. Even WoW does subs differently in Asia and other countries and at lower prices (usually enforced by the local government). If even that is too much, then maybe they need another hobby. You don't need money to make up your own games, like I used to when I was a kid. Computer gaming didn't even rear its head till I was 13 years old. It was expensive back then and I was even more strapped for money than I am now and guess what, that meant buying a game or two per year.
As far as I'm concerned, the whole F2P movement has dramatically dropped the quality of online gaming and while it might be wonderful to you guys, it's ruining gaming for a lot of people who can afford it and who were there at its inception and now are being milked of our money in order to support you freeloading crybabies.
$15 is not "nothing" everywhere. I can afford to have 1 sub going but anything more than that really hurts...
I would've stuck with Rift longer if it was cheaper, but I just can't pay for 2 MMOs. Still prefer sub based games, they're just better overall.
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