Originally posted by Cecropia It would appear that this new attempt to raise the level of acceptable cash grab even further has finally brought us to the ceiling. Good news, but disturbing nonetheless that it took 200$ for a 60$ game for us to get there.
I don't know what is people's problem with this. Just don't pay it. Why would it bother you that someone else did?
It is their product. Don't you think that they should be able to charge whatever they want?
It is a free world. You are free not to buy.
Do you know how the $15/month came to be for subs games?
I'll skip a few steps here because at one point you paid per hours and whatnot. But when the idea of a monthly fee started growing you'd have games going for about $5/month if I remember correctly, then it increased to $10/month, $12/month etc. There was more or less of a 'survey' at one point that asked players how much they would be willing to pay to play per month, and soon after we settled on a $15 monthly fee.
Say Blizzard for example decided that starting tomorrow, the monthly fee for WoW will be $20/month. Now what do you think will happen if players continue to pay at that higher price? Well it tells developers that it's alright to charge $20/month and more MMOs will appear charging $20/month. And eventually $20 will turn into $25, $30, or more. However what happens if players decide not to pay $20/month and leave the game? Well it will tell developers that players don't agree that MMOs are worth $20/month.
The same applies to F2P cash shop. If you start selling stuff at $200 and players buy it, well for developers that will be a sign that they can charge even more. So that Double EXP Potion you bought last week for $1,99 might cost you $3,99 this week, and maybe next week it will be $4,99 or $5,99
I already know your answer to this. "It's a free world. Don't play it if you don't like it." However if I as a player have invested both money and time in a game I liked, I think voicing my dissatisfaction with the new pricing is an absolutely reasonable action that may force the company to revert to the lower price if enough players voice their opinions. This is exactly what happened with Allods Online (back in 08-09?) where the Cash Shop was so ridiculously overpriced that it nearly killed them until they began to slowly review their CS model (however they still have a relatively weak playerbase in comparison to what they could've had, had they not been greedy).
If players would just shut themselves up when faced with a pricing that they believe is far too high for what it's worth, well developers will think that the pricing is just fine, when in reality it's the complete opposite. And soon we'll be faced with a market full of highly overpriced items that's become the new 'norm'. Something we pretty much all want to avoid, even if we've already fallen for this quite a few times.
That is just a bunch of guess-work. All you need to do is NOT to buy. Yelling on forums won't matter a bit if millions comes out to pay those prices.
No complaining is necessarily if they can sell any. That is the beauty of a free market.
I was there when Kingdom of Drakkar cost $2 per HOUR to play. So what? Some pay .. and it goes away because you can attract more people with $10 a month.
So now most MMO is F2P. I don't see anything to complain about. I doubt most people are paying $200 ... more than likely 90% of their players will be free players.
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That is just a bunch of guess-work. All you need to do is NOT to buy. Yelling on forums won't matter a bit if millions comes out to pay those prices.
No complaining is necessarily if they can sell any. That is the beauty of a free market.
I was there when Kingdom of Drakkar cost $2 per HOUR to play. So what? Some pay .. and it goes away because you can attract more people with $10 a month.
So now most MMO is F2P. I don't see anything to complain about. I doubt most people are paying $200 ... more than likely 90% of their players will be free players.