Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Why do people hate monthly fees?
codexia
Member Posts: 120
I don't see why people complain so much about a monthly fee...(unless they can't get a creditcard). It's not expensive, especialy if it lasts you 10 months. Think about it...we'll go with the biggest i've seen so far. 15.00 a month. Now, a person with a life plays maybe...1-2 hours a day (probobly more, but were going with near minimum here). So lets leave it at 1 for arguments sake. Thats, in a month (pretending months all have 30 days for ease of math) 30 hours a month. Thats 50 cents per hour of playtime. That's CHEAP!
Compared to most forms of entertainment, paying an online fee for a game, that gives you enjoyment for 10 months, is something you should be happy about. Think about it. A movie is 5-9 dollars (depending where you live i guess) and lasts an hour and a half (in theatre). A toy can cost anywhere from 5-50 dollars, and will normally last about a week (based on personal experience anyway, some people play with the same toys for a LONG time). A video game costs from 15-50 dollars and will normally last about a week until its shelves unless it has good multiplayer options, or if its a huge game. Not that thats a bad thing, since you can always go back to a shelved game and play it again, but most of the time, games (at least new ones, old games seemed to have MUCH better replay value) tend to lose replay value after you've played them once or twice. Note, these are my opinion, not yours, so don't shout at me because I have some skewed view of pricing and times you like to do things. I obviously have NO clue how long you like to keep playing with toys, or whatever.
I just don't see why people scream that it's a huge ripoff. How else do you expect a company to keep updating their games, if you don't keep paying them? If their players all bought a game off the shelf, and they never really saw any income again after that, the game isn't going to be kept up to well (Guild Wars is an exception, since they seem to be releasing stuff on a regular basis, although its only through expansions, which I personaly don't like. To much time between regular updates)
Now, i'm not trying to start a flame war (although i'm sure it's inevitable) but seriously, whats the big deal with paying monthly for a game you like? It's not as expensive as everybody seems to think, and if it only lasts you a few months, thats a good deal (at least in my opinion) since its still a few months of gaming you enjoyed.
Comments
I agree to a degree.. But I mean.. Look at wow for example, they have over 5 million customers. That's 15.00 a month from each of them. Thats what, 75000000$ a month?
That's alot of money, and there is no way they are spending even a quater of that much money on the game every month.
I think maybe 15 bucks might be to much if you look at it in that perspective. Don't get me wrong, If I find a game enjoyable, I will pay whatever monthly fee they ask for.
-
My two cents: Monthly fees are like cheerity to underdeveloped countries. If you suspect there's a fat barontype guy claiming it all for himself you're more against the idea ;D
I'm not against paying to play, but the thought has crossed my mind and I think mmo's should either be subscription-based or based on income from selling expansion packs. Alot do both at the moment.
Oh believe me, I know about 65-70% of the money paid in subscriptions don't go to the game itself, but that's what we call profit and costs for hiring people, maintenence, etc, but thats a topic for a whole other thread :P
And yea, WoW is a good example of one that does both. I see nothing wrong with having a subscription, as well as expansions, but I don't think they should be charging 50 dollars for an expansion, 25 at the most would be how I saw it. Unless it's the size of the original game, they shouldn't be charging me what they did for the original game.
Correct if I'm wrong, but ain't there like hundreds of guys who WORK at blizzard? They gotta have their paychecks you know.. That is a lot of money, yes, but eventually every game is made to make profit. Or at least the "mainstream" games, like WoW and many others.
Blizzard do receive a vast amount of money from the players due to their monthly fees, but you need to look at the bills that Blizzard have to pay out.
Employees Wages
Electric Bills
Building Rent
Server Maintenances at the data centers
Upgrading and buying new computer eqiupment
Advertisments
This list could go on and on. Sure they will still be making a profit from the money the receive from the customers, but that's what a company looks forward too when making a product.
Those that complain about the monthly fee's are those that are brand new to the MMORPG market. You will find it very hard to find MMORPG's on the market which are totally free. Guild Wars is the only one out there, but that isn't a large MMORPG compaired to World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, Everquest II etc etc.
Correct if I'm wrong, but ain't there like hundreds of guys who WORK at blizzard? They gotta have their paychecks you know.. That is a lot of money, yes, but eventually every game is made to make profit. Or at least the "mainstream" games, like WoW and many others.
But that is a huge profit. I'm sure blizzard has hundreds of employees but still..
I mean look at guild wars for example, they are surviving just fine, off thier sells and thier upcoming expantion.
But then again.. they probably have less employees, less bills, and such like that.
-
I think monthly fees sucks because:
when a game costs per month the game becomes more serious, or at least on a more serious level, which means the devs works on it constantly. Game constantly changing! Nerfs, patches ... never really stays the same game for long, usually it just gets worse by time, much, much worse.
And when it costs, it makes every player a customer more than one-time cost games, players suddenly gets 1000'ds of opinions about the game and starts to whine about everything and so on.
And of course it reduces your wallets size.
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "