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Poll: For a great MMORPG you could afford ...
Kopogero
Member UncommonPosts: 1,685
Forget the P2W, early beta access, etc...My $ is useless, that's the worst part. I look at my big stash of $ and how its been there taking dust for 4½ years now, not spent $ on anything new that was delivered and I'm thinking...is this how my life going to end? With so much $ that I never had anything interesting to spend them on?
I do try to donate, but donating for a lost cause, what's the point? So, I'm playing these cheap, low budget, repetitive, grindy, casual F2P themeparks just to pass the time. After all life as a human doesn't happen too often I bet and my $ is useless, which has been the case for all these years.
So, the poll follows how much could you afford to spend right now monthly for a MMORPG that's designed close to the one from your dreams? This is an interesting topic since we keep hearing how great, traditional MMORPG's require big budgets, and maeby...with a saturated/scattered market, it's time a company out there to take a big step, invest big and charge $30-50 monthly at least for a truly great, next gen experience, which I believe would be appropriate given the fact the player base would be much smaller, yet it will be sufficient to continue helping the MMORPG to become a truly next gen game with far more depth, features, polish and feedback after few years from it's initial release.
But then again if the game becomes insanely popular, luring millions of players and massive revenue, I doubt it will lower the fee, since greed is one of the worst flaw in evolution of humanity. Anyways, I don't care if they make insane profit as long as I got a great MMORPG to play, after all they should deserve it.
Comments
Those alternatives...
For the MMO of my dreams I would pay 2000 $ a decade.
A fair price, I think.
Reality is that $15 a month "standard" had 4½ years for me to deliver something interesting, but it hasn't and thus this is the result. It's why this poll/topic was brought in first place. Perhaps, some (most companies) been stuck too long on the $15 a month limit, when clearly there is audience out there who is willing to pay more for something significantly better than what exist out there.
At the end that's another thing that has puzzled me. No one has made a red line, something no one should pass. It's like $15 a month is the limit for a monthly fee they can charge and I don't recall anyone daring to charge more through the last decade, but they instead would rather dare to destroy their quality product with cash shops, P2W models, than increase the sub fee.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I think MMOs need to attract players. Lots of them. We'll pay.
The problem isn't the price.
i.e. Path of Exile does well because it is a very very good game. People pay. Even if there is no price.
An MMO can charge 0$/month or 20$ it doesn't matter, their bottom line is going to reflect how good the game is, not how much they chose to charge for it.
Your alternatives, 30k/decade is a lot, though. I think my wife would object.
$50 is pretty much the sweet spot for a sweet game. I balk at anything beyond that.
There are quite a number of $50ers out there. It is a shame we are sacrificed to the whales in games.
I think your logic is flawed. Everquest started the monthly subscription fee of $14.99 back in 1999. World of Warcraft picked up that price with it's debut in 2004. Blizzard is still proving that this is a viable price point both for the developer and for the player, 10 years later. Newer games have taken on this price point as well, such as Final Fantasy XIV and Wildstar. There is no indication that either of these games would have been better or worse had they charged more per month.
Add to that the fact that a subscription fee isn't a driver for developer productivity anyway. Any decent game needs 2-3 years of development, R&D, Testing, Marketing, etc. before even being close to viable, and people's tastes in games change drastically in that amount of time. Studios have to cover all those costs getting the game to market, long before they can estimate their return on those subscription fees. Suggesting that the studio would somehow make a better game, or get it to market faster, if people were willing to pay a higher subscription is idealstic, but not born of any proof.
You do realize that the Post says monthly, right? I really hope you don't think $50/month is a reasonable fee.....
Actually EQ was $9.99 a month originally.
Also, if higher potential revenue (higher sub) was part of the business plan, it could attract investors to put up the original funding.
None of the above. Would never pay that amount for any game per month.
And all the so called FTP games pretty much guarantee that we will never ( well at least for the foreseeable future) see anything like that price point.
You are talking about the price for a group of games, and even then SOE recently had to drop their library of games down in price to keep people subbing.
The market is continuing to evolve. Right now it is in flux and experimenting with different price points and payment plans. What we have now will continue to jump around back and forth while the companies try out different ways to monetize their games.
Nothing dark and deep going on here we should worry about. Just free market system at work. Things come and go and companies try different things is all. Main flaw in your thinking is that it is all doom and gloom ahead, heck we are just getting started here in this gaming online stuff.
20 years from now people will still be playing and paying to play. And other people will still be thinking that all is lost.
OP you are the perfect audience for greedy companies. Do you really think that paying more for a game will suddenly make it a perfect game? or the game of your dreams? Wake up. Companies have been charging more and more and we keep getting worst games (both mmos and non mmos). Development cost sky rocketed while development quality went literally backwards.
Stop being that guy and demand quality for the price you pay. We pay more than enough.
What's the point in making a poll that doesn't even include any options the majority of people would vote for? I doubt if many people would be prepared to pay $30 or more per month when the trend over the past few years has been for monthly fees to fall or be done away with altogether.
Ten years ago, I was paying for five SWG accounts each month at $15 each. Today, I'm not paying any monthly subs at all and probably never will again with all the F2P and B2P games I have available. So my option would "be none of above"
I could pay a hundred bucks a month for the perfect game but I kinda doubt something exactly like that would be made. I would want a MMO far closer to a pen and paper game than anything we seen so far.
For a good MMO with zero RMT I would pay $25.
In case you didn't read the topic I clearly stated that I would gladly pay significantly more for a significantly better product than what's available now on the market. I'm the perfect audience for greedy companies? Didn't you read somewhere in between the lines that I have not spent $ on a new product for the last 4½ years? Greedy companies are the last that will succeed taking $ from me.
I do not spend $ on new products I don't see myself playing long term, especially if they aren't pushing the genre forward with their concept/design (imo, of course). If you are happy with what's available on the market today you are welcome to continue playing it and pay minimal or none.
I rather pay for one really amazing MMORPG significantly more and enjoy it for years than see myself waiting or playing bad/mediocre F2P products to fill my free time for years. Since it's been almost 5 years and as you said it yourself because cost is going up and quality going backward, I and other players here would gladly pay extra for the right product.
Yes, obviously there will be players like you who are also pleased and contained on the products available today. I on the other hand unlike you I'm more interested to play one truly amazing game long term and pay extra than spend same or less on multiple, different B2P or mediocre/bad F2P products.
I'm also quite aware that budget, $ is not the conclusive thing for a company to deliver amazing product, but it sure helps significantly. I just want to see my $ to see some actual use, that's the bottom line. I have the $ and I'm sure many others out there have them as well, so it's natural to ask a simple question, why then the product is still missing?
The younger I was the more careless I was with spending. I also didn't think much, I was simply buying popular products. So, from my own experience the veteran players as well as older/mature people who aren't interested in today quality of gaming, might be a potential market for the right product. When I was growing up adults were rarely seen playing games. Nintento, PSX, etc...it was something considered for children, but now I'm aware that if games were far more complex/advanced grown up people would be far more involved in them and took em seriously.
So, if the company doesn't take their game seriously, the rest of the potential audience (which is large by the way) certainly won't either.
Now, which one of you will adorn me today?
Yea, but it's not necessary true. The standard of living then was far greater than today. The wages were awesome, there was this thing called middle class, people paid less for general goods, gas, etc. Today, as you can see the reason why "casual" is dominating is because people are too busy working out there to make ends meet for basic bills.
There is certainly far more $ in the market floating today than before, but it's imbalanced (99% vs the 1%) Part of the blame is also those who hold the real $, aren't interested in getting themselves involved in some virtual world only to see themselves get owned, looted and destroyed. They rather feel great and amazing IRL, apparently.
I could pay $250 plus. I wouldn't... I think as it was stated before $50 would be an amount I would be willing to pay.
Only thing is, I am guessing at a $50 monthly subscription it would not be the type of game I want to play because that would remove like 99% of MMO's population.
But in theory if enough players could pay the $50 fee to have a game that is actually a MMO and not a single player game with thousands of players who are meaningless to me, that would be my answer.
Pretty much the same for me, after $100 a month I would begin to think hard about it. But I want value for the money, a game I can enjoy playing 40+ hours a week.
and that is why you are the perfect audience for those companies. You believe that paying more will automatically mean the game will be significantly better when they keep proving that idea wrong with almost every new release.
Yes i know you have said you havent paid a dime in a few years, yet you make a poll with some specific prices that you seem to be willing to pay monthly. No game is worth those amounts monthly. Add that price to an well developed expansion and then we talk about content worth paying extra.
Some companies (like EA and Ubi) dare charge more and milk players because they get away with it selling to people with the "im willing to pay more" mentality yet they dont get content worth of that money. Ive been boycotting those two companies for a while now for the same reason. If they want my money they better give me a full working product with enough quality for the money they are charging because there are others out there offering better quality and better content for the same price and sometimes even less.
Raising prices wont change quality, that has been proven over and over in the last few years. When they see they are making more and more money while providing the same crap content, they wont have to bother moving a finger, they already make the money they want. It only fuels greed.
EDIT: not trying to prove you wrong or anything, you have your views and i have mine.
This pole would be more fair if it started at zero, then 12, 14, 15, before the 30. Cause I would gladly play $12 a month for the game of my dreams. Within the parameters of the pole I would say between $250 to $350 if it was a lifetime sub.
One thing I remember reading in a luxury car forum. People were complaining about some of the problems they were having with their very expensive cars. One guy put it well when he said that people often associate quality with expense. The two don't always go together.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Thank you for your service.
/salute
Just to be clear, I'd pay up to $50 a month but the game would have to be a dream game.
Once upon a time....