I don't mind paying a subscription and have done so many times in the past (first was Meridian 59).
Not all games are actually worth a subscription though, some games are still good enough for me to play them a bit at times but not good enough to sub.
Right now I play GW2 and I would actually have paid $15 a month for that if it was P2P, but I wont change game to a P2P unless it actually is better (and as good is not enough unless I really burn out).
$15 a month is a bargain for some games but very expensive for others, it all depends on what the game offers. I will however never ever pay a monthly fee for a MMO that sells useful stuff like gears with stats.
I can agree with you.
In the past, sub-based games were actually worth paying a sub for; however, the recent offerings feel more like disposable games rather than something that can be a long-term investment.
Even WoW does not feel worth a sub anymore. I've having terrible issues trying to convince myself to return for WoD. I just don't feel they will put enough content in the game that I'm interested in - especially with their recent blue posts. It's too bad I can't pay a reduced box price or a reduced sub price and they just lock all their raid content away.
GW2 has been a welcome breath of fresh air to me. Feels very nice to not feel "guilty" or like "I'm wasting sub money" if I choose to not log in every single night.
On top of all that - when did we (as gamers) get to the point where it is acceptable for a game developer to only put out 50% of a game that we pay a full box price for ($60) and then trickle the rest of the game content to us in small patches as long as we keep paying the $15/mon sub? While we can certainly jump on and off the tracks between the patch cycles - it seems that we end up paying more like $90-$150 for the entire expansion.
I can't help but feel like I'm the one getting taken to the cleaners in a sub-based game these days. Keep in mind, EQ1's expansions were much cheaper and came out much faster than the current crop of MMORPGs do.
GAMERS PLEASE WAKE UP AND ASK FOR BETTER QUALITY AND SUPPORT AND HAVE WILL TO PAY LITTLE MONEY FOR BETTER ENTERTAINMENT.AND SAY NO TO CASH SHOP FOREVER, YOU DO HAVE THAT POWER USE IT TO MAKE THING BETTER FOR YOURSELF AND OTHERS.
nah .. i don't see a personal reason to support MMOs. I do "support" SP games .. since there is no free one that gives me the same fun, but why do I want to support MMOs?
The OP is confused between "who cannot pay" to "who don't want to pay".
I pay for SP games, IMAX movies, romantic dinner with my wife, but not MMORPGs, why?
Because there is no need to spend a penny when i can get the same, or more fun (in MMOs) for free. That is the reason, not that I cannot.
It is only $15 a month .. less than a good steak ... but just like i don't pay for water in restaurants, i don't pay for MMOs.
That would be all good if the quality of F2P games and P2P was the same but it's not. At least not in my book. ESO love it or hate it is a game that couldn't have be made F2P (although it might convert at some point). The world just took to much time to craft to make sense in a F2P game. What you get in F2P games is things like NWN where the zones are small straight lines with one line quest's to go kill 10 rats to fill you over while you queue into the next event.
If McDonalds gave away hamburgers I still wouldn't eat there over a good steak house where I have to pay. Life is to short to waste it on cheap imitations that might fill your belly but make you feel like crap afterwards.
McDonalds it's crap, I agree. I wouldn't even give it to my dog. I would rather eat dog food.
But your steak might leave you feeling good but it is certainly not the prime example of healthiness lol.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
i replied back on page 1 but i wanted to mention something that i thought of during the day today.
to me, the following is why (a) i dont feel bad subscribing to games (b) when there is a free/mium game such as LOTR that i play i will pay the sub or be a patron or whatever they decide to call it (c) I dont tend to play games without the option to do so.
game manufacturers need money. not because they are evil, necessarily (some are i know!!) but because they are comprised of people, who did hard work making the game and keeping it updated and who need to eat, send their kids to school and the whole shebang.
if the game has a sticker price and/or a sub, then the game company should be able to let the sub fees and /or box prices (plus expacs etc etc) cover their costs + a reasonable profit. if it doesnt, then they are going to have to get money somehow. either they are going to have to advertise in-game, or sell items in an item mall, and they NEED to make sure people are buying the item mall items or else people don't get paid.
i feel that this model of pricing has the side effects of "cheapening" the gameplay as well as causing two sorts of gamer i don't like to deal with to flock to the game: one type being the ptw clowns who want to be the winner at any cost and pump far too much money into the game (which reinforces the company's notion to sell items that appeal to these folks) and the other type being, not to offend anyone in particular, self-important pricks who think they shouldnt have to pay for anything. it also attracts a third kind of gamer: the gamer who cannot afford a subscription based game, and a fourth, the part time gamer who doesnt think they will play enough to justify spending money; both of these folks i have ZERO problem with.
the way mom & pop raised me, if you are provided a service, you should pay for it. I don't sneak into movies to watch for free even though i think the movies are a couple bucks overpriced; i dont stiff my waitor on a check nor would i ever stiff my doctor on a copay. I can afford sub-to-play games and i play them; and in fact i think i'm getting a pretty hot bargain considering i play the games about 12-18h a week each (i sub to 2) and i'm only paying 12 bucks a month due to buying the multimonth packs.
to give an example of a great way to bridge the gap between paying and nonpaying players, look at eve's PLEX (AKA sony's krono) which lets players trade money for time essentially. the player with money buys a plex and sells it to a player with more time than money, who right clicks the plex and gets 30 days gameplay for free.
to give an example of how ftp can slaughter an otherwise amazing game, look up atlantica online. in fact, play it for a few hours. its an absolutely brilliant game, until you get to the levels where you kinda need item shop stuff... and by item shop stuff i mean things obtained by opening boxes which *might* contain something useful until you finally obtain the "something useful". if atlantica cost 15 a month and had no item shop I would lifetime sub.
thx for reading.
Da Skull/Itch
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
The only necessary, plausible reason is that they do not want to pay a subscription. It need not go any further than that.
**
Edit : Comma.
Agree. Then however they should not complain about anything and simply do not play at all. Problem with such folk is that they are very vocal doing their personal crusade agains games with sub.
There are a lot of people on this site that very often complain about subscriptions to MMORPG's and they feel they dont want to pay to play...
For those people, have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, you should rather be working or looking for a means of earning money, in order to pay for your own entertainment?
These are the people that complain that 15 bucks is too much for a potential whole month of entertainment, and yet they dont realise that if they just went out there to do some menial job they could be earning at the very least those 15 bucks in two hours work!
What is really the excuse of people hating subscriptions so much?
The only plausible reason would be that a monthly commitment would make them feel they wasted if they did not play all that frequently... but then again, if you manage to play at lease 2-3 hours of entertainment time per month from your MMO subscription, then you already had much more entertainment (price per minute/hour) than, for example, going to watch a movie or a concert...
Could not agree more, actually my point in many conversations. Not to mention that usually they do not have any problem to spend few times more for smoking and alike.
There is only one exception when somebody would love to pay and play but simply can't because do not have credit card, usually kids of parents that are reluctant to give number of their credit card. Would even pay, but not with credit card they own. Know personally as at end have used at least for 5 of my friends for their kids my credit card and got money back in cash. Later they grown up, got credit card, and can pay on their own.
There are of course prepaid cards but unavailable in many countries or more expensive.
Exactly, this is the self entitlement culture in action ' I see it and I want it for free now!'. These people are also bring dishonest, I find it very unlikely someone in a western culture that can afford to spend time playing games and browsing on forums cannot afford a sub. I call bs.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
The newer generation of gamers is very different from the last one. They are growing up in an environment where gaming is inherently competitive, and needs to have very quick levels of satisfaction. Paying for long-term commitments is a foreign idea for them. They have no problem dropping 5 on a coffee every morning, because it's instant gratification. They could buy the fancy coffee beans and brew it at home for a fraction of the cost, but the whole long-term commitment thing just doesn't compute.
I see it in how some of my younger friends handle relationships as well.
Anyway, paying a subscription for a game just seems like a waste of money for them, no matter how much data you can show detailing the long-term cost per hour. To them, the better deal is to get into a "free" game, where they start dropping money in the cash shop with funny justifications. One girl I know straight out claims that she's budgeted 10 a week for GW2, because she cut back on smoking. That's 40 a month for chest keys or whatever, yet she won't touch a sub game because "they are a ripoff."
This stuff is here to stay, for the same reason McDonalds isn't going anywhere. You can cook at home cheaper in the long run, but it's quicker and easier to feel full with a quick trip to McD's. And as long as quality isn't a factor, it will stay this way.
I see far more crusading coming from sub supporters. For every thread that could be linked where someone is complaining that they don't like subs 10 more (like this one) complaining about F2P, P2W or just cash shops in general could be linked.
That's just because sub games are getting to be very rare. Look at pretty much anything on the horizon past WildStar and it's all F2P. But yeah, that's what players seem to want. I just don't have much sympathy for people complaining about their latest MMO missing features or not being good enough, etc.. You get what you pay for, and with F2P, dev priority will always be on stuff they can monetize in a cash shop.
The newer generation of gamers is very different from the last one. They are growing up in an environment where gaming is inherently competitive, and needs to have very quick levels of satisfaction. Paying for long-term commitments is a foreign idea for them. They have no problem dropping 5 on a coffee every morning, because it's instant gratification. They could buy the fancy coffee beans and brew it at home for a fraction of the cost, but the whole long-term commitment thing just doesn't compute.
I see it in how some of my younger friends handle relationships as well.
Anyway, paying a subscription for a game just seems like a waste of money for them, no matter how much data you can show detailing the long-term cost per hour. To them, the better deal is to get into a "free" game, where they start dropping money in the cash shop with funny justifications. One girl I know straight out claims that she's budgeted 10 a week for GW2, because she cut back on smoking. That's 40 a month for chest keys or whatever, yet she won't touch a sub game because "they are a ripoff."
This stuff is here to stay, for the same reason McDonalds isn't going anywhere. You can cook at home cheaper in the long run, but it's quicker and easier to feel full with a quick trip to McD's. And as long as quality isn't a factor, it will stay this way.
9/10 - One of the better troll posts I've seen in a long while. Very well done.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
There are a lot of people on this site that very often complain about subscriptions to MMORPG's and they feel they dont want to pay to play...
For those people, have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, you should rather be working or looking for a means of earning money, in order to pay for your own entertainment?
These are the people that complain that 15 bucks is too much for a potential whole month of entertainment, and yet they dont realise that if they just went out there to do some menial job they could be earning at the very least those 15 bucks in two hours work!
What is really the excuse of people hating subscriptions so much?
The only plausible reason would be that a monthly commitment would make them feel they wasted if they did not play all that frequently... but then again, if you manage to play at lease 2-3 hours of entertainment time per month from your MMO subscription, then you already had much more entertainment (price per minute/hour) than, for example, going to watch a movie or a concert...
i would say that monthly sub it has been proved to be a scum mechanic from publishers to the players, check the viability of so many AAA free to play games or buy to play. But i will respond in your terms of arrogance .
you are so bad, i could use easily so much abusive language on you without any regret.
you live in a freaking bubble and dont realize that a lot of people arent able to find a job, or they lost their job, or they find jobs for 300-400 euros per month without insurance . Then the 15 euros per month counts seriously, as the cheap coffee, the cheap food, the return to their parents home (if there is one) or living with others .
Originally posted by Seelinnikoi There are a lot of people on this site that very often complain about subscriptions to MMORPG's and they feel they dont want to pay to play...For those people, have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, you should rather be working or looking for a means of earning money, in order to pay for your own entertainment?
Dont confuse the 2 issues.
I WILL not pay for CRAP games, that don't provide a premium service for my sub fee.
Basically, I give you money if your game is GOOD and you provide premium monthly content.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
The newer generation of gamers is very different from the last one. They are growing up in an environment where gaming is inherently competitive, and needs to have very quick levels of satisfaction. Paying for long-term commitments is a foreign idea for them. They have no problem dropping 5 on a coffee every morning, because it's instant gratification. They could buy the fancy coffee beans and brew it at home for a fraction of the cost, but the whole long-term commitment thing just doesn't compute.
I see it in how some of my younger friends handle relationships as well.
Anyway, paying a subscription for a game just seems like a waste of money for them, no matter how much data you can show detailing the long-term cost per hour. To them, the better deal is to get into a "free" game, where they start dropping money in the cash shop with funny justifications. One girl I know straight out claims that she's budgeted 10 a week for GW2, because she cut back on smoking. That's 40 a month for chest keys or whatever, yet she won't touch a sub game because "they are a ripoff."
This stuff is here to stay, for the same reason McDonalds isn't going anywhere. You can cook at home cheaper in the long run, but it's quicker and easier to feel full with a quick trip to McD's. And as long as quality isn't a factor, it will stay this way.
Considering WoW is going 12 months with no new content I tend to agree with her. That's $180 for a year of WoW sub fees with zero new content. Oh and when they finally get around to giving you new content then that will be $40 for the expansion box... so if the expansion pays for itself with box fees what exactly did my $180 in sub fees go to fund?
Perhaps it goes to keep the servers running, customer service, and not having to deal with an in game cash shop... oh wait, the same study that showed SWTOR was making a killing also showed WoW made well over $200 million on it's cash shop last year... $200 million seems like it would cover a lot of servers...
I would say most likely those WoW sub fees are going to fund the $500 million Activision is spending on Destiny, so yes, in this case I would say "they are a ripoff." is an accurate description of WoW sub fees.
There is a bit of a misunderstanding here with my post. I obviously know there are people in a situation where they freely choose not to pay a subscription, but are able to do so.
And then there are those people who dont want to pay a subscription because it is too much money.
My post is aimed to the latter, to the people complaining that 15 bucks a month is too much for entertainment and that also seem to think that everything has to be free in life...
Well, it is not. But I understand completely when a game is not worth the subscription because lack of content, no more fun, etc.... (World of Warcraft is a good example, over 1 year without new stuff)
The other part of the post is also for those people who say they cannot afford the subscription, yet would not mind playing upwards of 60-80 hours a week playing games and not trying to bettering themselves in order to get some cash/build a means of income and be able to subscribe to the game they love. This is merely an observation in the differential of priorities, simply because it is annoying to see them complain and do nothing about it.
All in all, people pay for what they think it is worth, and I think 15 bucks a month for reasonable quality entertainment is very affordable and perhaps an honest reward for the people who put their works and lives into it...
seems that we are moving towards living in a society where everyone expects things to be done for them for free. people complain about the price of games, yet they will happily pay hundreds of quid (or whatever your local currancy happens to be) on mobile phones each time a new one comes out with bright shiney cases and a couple of new bells and whistles on.
the sub' of a game helps pay for the devs to be able to live, they got to earn their living some way or they'd go elsewhere and the industry would lose experienced peope so the quality of games would get even worse and we'd end up playing wow clones until we die of old age or boredom.
these days people will happily complain about having to pay a small sub' to play for a month and yet they will pay for a pack of cigs or a few pints of beer that wont last them a day. they will happily buy bottles of water instead of drinking the free stuff and yet you dont see people on smokers or drinkers forums (are there even such things?) complaining there each year when the prices go up.
if you dont want to spend the cost of a couple of pints on a game, it's simple - dont play it.
stick with the so called f2p games and enjoy your time online.
no one forces anyone to play p2p games (yet) so it's up to the individual if they want to play a game they pay for or not and all this complaining and discusion over subs is just taking up valuable playing time
Here is a question for you, you are hard working person that makes good buck.
On the way to work you always grab a coffee.
There are two shops side by side:
- One is offering excellent coffee for free , and if you want a muffin you can buy it for a 1$
- Second one doesnt sell coffee or muffins. Instead you pay 30$ at start of the month and you get 1 cup of coffee and one muffin each day.
You do not eat muffin each day. And some days you prefer to drink coffee at work ( not to mention you dont work at weekends )
Which coffee shop do you choose ?
Let me correct this for you. You have two coffee shops
One shop has a membership plan which allows you to come in and have a cup of coffee and a muffin whenever you want you dont have to drink a coffee you dont have to eat the muffin you could have tea or perhaps a danish what ever you want you pay this one monthly fee and you have access to all the shop has on offer when ever you want.
The other shop has free coffee but you want a danish or a muffin or tea instead of coffee you have to pay for it what more. Because they give the coffee away for free and a lot of people only come for the free coffee you have to pay double the value for them to counter the costs of the free coffee. Now the coffee is free but comes in thin half size paper cups but for a set price you can but a strofoam cup or even a mug however these are only for the coffee. if you want your tea in a mug rather than a thin paper cup you need to pay extra again.
what people not realizing is there is no F2P, if you play it for free because some one else is paying double to cover the expenses of the game through in game shop, which make things greedy and devs focus on adding best stuff into game shop so people buy stuff.
that being said. it is also about community of so called F2P games, full of stupid kids, lifless nerds. retards, etc to extend that public grouping out of your guild sometimes becomes a pain in ass if you get one of those kind which is very likely to happen in F2P games.
Here is a question for you, you are hard working person that makes good buck.
On the way to work you always grab a coffee.
There are two shops side by side:
- One is offering excellent coffee for free , and if you want a muffin you can buy it for a 1$
- Second one doesnt sell coffee or muffins. Instead you pay 30$ at start of the month and you get 1 cup of coffee and one muffin each day.
You do not eat muffin each day. And some days you prefer to drink coffee at work ( not to mention you dont work at weekends )
Which coffee shop do you choose ?
Let me correct this for you. You have two coffee shops
One shop has a membership plan which allows you to come in and have a cup of coffee and a muffin whenever you want you dont have to drink a coffee you dont have to eat the muffin you could have tea or perhaps a danish what ever you want you pay this one monthly fee and you have access to all the shop has on offer when ever you want.
The other shop has free coffee but you want a danish or a muffin or tea instead of coffee you have to pay for it what more. Because they give the coffee away for free and a lot of people only come for the free coffee you have to pay double the value for them to counter the costs of the free coffee. Now the coffee is free but comes in thin half size paper cups but for a set price you can but a strofoam cup or even a mug however these are only for the coffee. if you want your tea in a mug rather than a thin paper cup you need to pay extra again.
Which coffee shop would YOU choose and why ?
Thanks for answering for me, exactly my feelings!
This is what people have not been understanding. A quality product is worth the monthly fee, whether we use it all the time or only a couple of times (give than the couple of times is more than the stand alone price of a single use).
I think I speak for many of us here, that give the perfect chance of an astounding, fun and compelling MMO experience, many of us here would not mind paying even 30 bucks a month!
The problem is that the market is shifting and the quality titles are dwindling at an alarming rate... leaving us with the aforementioned example Gadareth gave.
Here is a question for you, you are hard working person that makes good buck.
On the way to work you always grab a coffee.
There are two shops side by side:
- One is offering excellent coffee for free , and if you want a muffin you can buy it for a 1$
- Second one doesnt sell coffee or muffins. Instead you pay 30$ at start of the month and you get 1 cup of coffee and one muffin each day.
You do not eat muffin each day. And some days you prefer to drink coffee at work ( not to mention you dont work at weekends )
Which coffee shop do you choose ?
Let me correct this for you. You have two coffee shops
One shop has a membership plan which allows you to come in and have a cup of coffee and a muffin whenever you want you dont have to drink a coffee you dont have to eat the muffin you could have tea or perhaps a danish what ever you want you pay this one monthly fee and you have access to all the shop has on offer when ever you want.
The other shop has free coffee but you want a danish or a muffin or tea instead of coffee you have to pay for it what more. Because they give the coffee away for free and a lot of people only come for the free coffee you have to pay double the value for them to counter the costs of the free coffee. Now the coffee is free but comes in thin half size paper cups but for a set price you can but a strofoam cup or even a mug however these are only for the coffee. if you want your tea in a mug rather than a thin paper cup you need to pay extra again.
Which coffee shop would YOU choose and why ?
One of the poorest attempts to explain f2p I've ever seen. If you want to make a f2p analogy you have to mention the whales, f2p games make their bread and butter off people who drop $100 and up in the cash shop each month not some poor bastard that only spent $5 on an inventory expansion one month.
Here is a question for you, you are hard working person that makes good buck.
On the way to work you always grab a coffee.
There are two shops side by side:
- One is offering excellent coffee for free , and if you want a muffin you can buy it for a 1$
- Second one doesnt sell coffee or muffins. Instead you pay 30$ at start of the month and you get 1 cup of coffee and one muffin each day.
You do not eat muffin each day. And some days you prefer to drink coffee at work ( not to mention you dont work at weekends )
Which coffee shop do you choose ?
Let me correct this for you. You have two coffee shops
One shop has a membership plan which allows you to come in and have a cup of coffee and a muffin whenever you want you dont have to drink a coffee you dont have to eat the muffin you could have tea or perhaps a danish what ever you want you pay this one monthly fee and you have access to all the shop has on offer when ever you want.
The other shop has free coffee but you want a danish or a muffin or tea instead of coffee you have to pay for it what more. Because they give the coffee away for free and a lot of people only come for the free coffee you have to pay double the value for them to counter the costs of the free coffee. Now the coffee is free but comes in thin half size paper cups but for a set price you can but a strofoam cup or even a mug however these are only for the coffee. if you want your tea in a mug rather than a thin paper cup you need to pay extra again.
Which coffee shop would YOU choose and why ?
Yes except that the free coffee shop offers very same cups and very same coffee (sometimes even better) than the subscription shop.
And for all the muffins and coffee i can eat and drink at subscription shop , i anyway only drink 20 cups a month and 15 muffins.
The logic is very clear.
Supposed i was obese gluttonous person , i could clearly see benefit in "all you can eat and drink" shop
But since I am busy working man minding my diet - I simply choose shop that is made with my spending habits in mind.
-------------
You see with all this that the irony is that subscription gaming is tailored made for idle bodies with abundance of time.
Which is often connected with people that do not have their own income.
While F2P/B2P gaming is time conscious - and tailored for people that must manage their time.
Which again is connected with employed and busy people - that have income.
Coming to conclusion that subscription gaming is actually knocking on the wrong door and pissing on its own customers.
Here is a question for you, you are hard working person that makes good buck.
On the way to work you always grab a coffee.
There are two shops side by side:
- One is offering excellent coffee for free , and if you want a muffin you can buy it for a 1$
- Second one doesnt sell coffee or muffins. Instead you pay 30$ at start of the month and you get 1 cup of coffee and one muffin each day.
You do not eat muffin each day. And some days you prefer to drink coffee at work ( not to mention you dont work at weekends )
Which coffee shop do you choose ?
Let me correct this for you. You have two coffee shops
One shop has a membership plan which allows you to come in and have a cup of coffee and a muffin whenever you want you dont have to drink a coffee you dont have to eat the muffin you could have tea or perhaps a danish what ever you want you pay this one monthly fee and you have access to all the shop has on offer when ever you want.
The other shop has free coffee but you want a danish or a muffin or tea instead of coffee you have to pay for it what more. Because they give the coffee away for free and a lot of people only come for the free coffee you have to pay double the value for them to counter the costs of the free coffee. Now the coffee is free but comes in thin half size paper cups but for a set price you can but a strofoam cup or even a mug however these are only for the coffee. if you want your tea in a mug rather than a thin paper cup you need to pay extra again.
Which coffee shop would YOU choose and why ?
One of the poorest attempts to explain f2p I've ever seen. If you want to make a f2p analogy you have to mention the whales, f2p games make their bread and butter off people who drop $100 and up in the cash shop each month not some poor bastard that only spent $5 on an inventory expansion one month.
And the people who spent 100 bucks on items could have easily spent half than that if they were priced accordingly and not being subjected to price spiking because of the free loaders, which in all honestly I loathe.
This is what people have not been understanding. A quality product is worth the monthly fee, whether we use it all the time or only a couple of times (give than the couple of times is more than the stand alone price of a single use).
I think I speak for many of us here, that give the perfect chance of an astounding, fun and compelling MMO experience, many of us here would not mind paying even 30 bucks a month!
The problem is that the market is shifting and the quality titles are dwindling at an alarming rate... leaving us with the aforementioned example Gadareth gave.
BTW total misconception
B2P and F2P titles today are mostly higher quality than Subscription titles.
Here is a question for you, you are hard working person that makes good buck.
On the way to work you always grab a coffee.
There are two shops side by side:
- One is offering excellent coffee for free , and if you want a muffin you can buy it for a 1$
- Second one doesnt sell coffee or muffins. Instead you pay 30$ at start of the month and you get 1 cup of coffee and one muffin each day.
You do not eat muffin each day. And some days you prefer to drink coffee at work ( not to mention you dont work at weekends )
Which coffee shop do you choose ?
Let me correct this for you. You have two coffee shops
One shop has a membership plan which allows you to come in and have a cup of coffee and a muffin whenever you want you dont have to drink a coffee you dont have to eat the muffin you could have tea or perhaps a danish what ever you want you pay this one monthly fee and you have access to all the shop has on offer when ever you want.
The other shop has free coffee but you want a danish or a muffin or tea instead of coffee you have to pay for it what more. Because they give the coffee away for free and a lot of people only come for the free coffee you have to pay double the value for them to counter the costs of the free coffee. Now the coffee is free but comes in thin half size paper cups but for a set price you can but a strofoam cup or even a mug however these are only for the coffee. if you want your tea in a mug rather than a thin paper cup you need to pay extra again.
Which coffee shop would YOU choose and why ?
One of the poorest attempts to explain f2p I've ever seen. If you want to make a f2p analogy you have to mention the whales, f2p games make their bread and butter off people who drop $100 and up in the cash shop each month not some poor bastard that only spent $5 on an inventory expansion one month.
And the people who spent 100 bucks on items could have easily spent half than that if they were priced accordingly and not being subjected to price spiking because of the free loaders, which in all honestly I loathe.
I see you really have no concept of how the f2p model works. Games like AoC, Rift, LOTRO, Tera, Aion, L2, Ragnarok Online, and yes even SWTOR most of which would have had to close their doors and shut down if they had stayed sub based go f2p and start making money again.
Try and wrap your mind around this... these games added a ton of free loaders and became far more profitable in the process. Your perconceptions of how things aught to work are blinding you to how the world really works.
This is what people have not been understanding. A quality product is worth the monthly fee, whether we use it all the time or only a couple of times (give than the couple of times is more than the stand alone price of a single use).
I think I speak for many of us here, that give the perfect chance of an astounding, fun and compelling MMO experience, many of us here would not mind paying even 30 bucks a month!
The problem is that the market is shifting and the quality titles are dwindling at an alarming rate... leaving us with the aforementioned example Gadareth gave.
BTW total misconception
B2P and F2P titles today are mostly higher quality than Subscription titles.
Are you seriously suggesting that P2P titles i mentioned are in any way better than above ones ?
This is about a subscription being worth when the product is. It is not about the quality of free games or pay to play.
I play Rift and perhaps monthly I pay double and sometimes triple of the subscription price it used to cost. The game has changed in some ways, some for the worse but most for the best.
But this is about our willingness to pay the subscription for something that is worth or not.
Comments
I can agree with you.
In the past, sub-based games were actually worth paying a sub for; however, the recent offerings feel more like disposable games rather than something that can be a long-term investment.
Even WoW does not feel worth a sub anymore. I've having terrible issues trying to convince myself to return for WoD. I just don't feel they will put enough content in the game that I'm interested in - especially with their recent blue posts. It's too bad I can't pay a reduced box price or a reduced sub price and they just lock all their raid content away.
GW2 has been a welcome breath of fresh air to me. Feels very nice to not feel "guilty" or like "I'm wasting sub money" if I choose to not log in every single night.
On top of all that - when did we (as gamers) get to the point where it is acceptable for a game developer to only put out 50% of a game that we pay a full box price for ($60) and then trickle the rest of the game content to us in small patches as long as we keep paying the $15/mon sub? While we can certainly jump on and off the tracks between the patch cycles - it seems that we end up paying more like $90-$150 for the entire expansion.
I can't help but feel like I'm the one getting taken to the cleaners in a sub-based game these days. Keep in mind, EQ1's expansions were much cheaper and came out much faster than the current crop of MMORPGs do.
nah .. i don't see a personal reason to support MMOs. I do "support" SP games .. since there is no free one that gives me the same fun, but why do I want to support MMOs?
McDonalds it's crap, I agree. I wouldn't even give it to my dog. I would rather eat dog food.
But your steak might leave you feeling good but it is certainly not the prime example of healthiness lol.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
i replied back on page 1 but i wanted to mention something that i thought of during the day today.
to me, the following is why (a) i dont feel bad subscribing to games (b) when there is a free/mium game such as LOTR that i play i will pay the sub or be a patron or whatever they decide to call it (c) I dont tend to play games without the option to do so.
game manufacturers need money. not because they are evil, necessarily (some are i know!!) but because they are comprised of people, who did hard work making the game and keeping it updated and who need to eat, send their kids to school and the whole shebang.
if the game has a sticker price and/or a sub, then the game company should be able to let the sub fees and /or box prices (plus expacs etc etc) cover their costs + a reasonable profit. if it doesnt, then they are going to have to get money somehow. either they are going to have to advertise in-game, or sell items in an item mall, and they NEED to make sure people are buying the item mall items or else people don't get paid.
i feel that this model of pricing has the side effects of "cheapening" the gameplay as well as causing two sorts of gamer i don't like to deal with to flock to the game: one type being the ptw clowns who want to be the winner at any cost and pump far too much money into the game (which reinforces the company's notion to sell items that appeal to these folks) and the other type being, not to offend anyone in particular, self-important pricks who think they shouldnt have to pay for anything. it also attracts a third kind of gamer: the gamer who cannot afford a subscription based game, and a fourth, the part time gamer who doesnt think they will play enough to justify spending money; both of these folks i have ZERO problem with.
the way mom & pop raised me, if you are provided a service, you should pay for it. I don't sneak into movies to watch for free even though i think the movies are a couple bucks overpriced; i dont stiff my waitor on a check nor would i ever stiff my doctor on a copay. I can afford sub-to-play games and i play them; and in fact i think i'm getting a pretty hot bargain considering i play the games about 12-18h a week each (i sub to 2) and i'm only paying 12 bucks a month due to buying the multimonth packs.
to give an example of a great way to bridge the gap between paying and nonpaying players, look at eve's PLEX (AKA sony's krono) which lets players trade money for time essentially. the player with money buys a plex and sells it to a player with more time than money, who right clicks the plex and gets 30 days gameplay for free.
to give an example of how ftp can slaughter an otherwise amazing game, look up atlantica online. in fact, play it for a few hours. its an absolutely brilliant game, until you get to the levels where you kinda need item shop stuff... and by item shop stuff i mean things obtained by opening boxes which *might* contain something useful until you finally obtain the "something useful". if atlantica cost 15 a month and had no item shop I would lifetime sub.
thx for reading.
Da Skull/Itch
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
Agree. Then however they should not complain about anything and simply do not play at all. Problem with such folk is that they are very vocal doing their personal crusade agains games with sub.
Could not agree more, actually my point in many conversations. Not to mention that usually they do not have any problem to spend few times more for smoking and alike.
There is only one exception when somebody would love to pay and play but simply can't because do not have credit card, usually kids of parents that are reluctant to give number of their credit card. Would even pay, but not with credit card they own. Know personally as at end have used at least for 5 of my friends for their kids my credit card and got money back in cash. Later they grown up, got credit card, and can pay on their own.
There are of course prepaid cards but unavailable in many countries or more expensive.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
The newer generation of gamers is very different from the last one. They are growing up in an environment where gaming is inherently competitive, and needs to have very quick levels of satisfaction. Paying for long-term commitments is a foreign idea for them. They have no problem dropping 5 on a coffee every morning, because it's instant gratification. They could buy the fancy coffee beans and brew it at home for a fraction of the cost, but the whole long-term commitment thing just doesn't compute.
I see it in how some of my younger friends handle relationships as well.
Anyway, paying a subscription for a game just seems like a waste of money for them, no matter how much data you can show detailing the long-term cost per hour. To them, the better deal is to get into a "free" game, where they start dropping money in the cash shop with funny justifications. One girl I know straight out claims that she's budgeted 10 a week for GW2, because she cut back on smoking. That's 40 a month for chest keys or whatever, yet she won't touch a sub game because "they are a ripoff."
This stuff is here to stay, for the same reason McDonalds isn't going anywhere. You can cook at home cheaper in the long run, but it's quicker and easier to feel full with a quick trip to McD's. And as long as quality isn't a factor, it will stay this way.
You make me like charity
That's just because sub games are getting to be very rare. Look at pretty much anything on the horizon past WildStar and it's all F2P. But yeah, that's what players seem to want. I just don't have much sympathy for people complaining about their latest MMO missing features or not being good enough, etc.. You get what you pay for, and with F2P, dev priority will always be on stuff they can monetize in a cash shop.
You make me like charity
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
i would say that monthly sub it has been proved to be a scum mechanic from publishers to the players, check the viability of so many AAA free to play games or buy to play. But i will respond in your terms of arrogance .
you are so bad, i could use easily so much abusive language on you without any regret.
you live in a freaking bubble and dont realize that a lot of people arent able to find a job, or they lost their job, or they find jobs for 300-400 euros per month without insurance . Then the 15 euros per month counts seriously, as the cheap coffee, the cheap food, the return to their parents home (if there is one) or living with others .
so speaking for those people i offer you a :
" FUCK OFF "
Dont confuse the 2 issues.
I WILL not pay for CRAP games, that don't provide a premium service for my sub fee.
Basically, I give you money if your game is GOOD and you provide premium monthly content.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Considering WoW is going 12 months with no new content I tend to agree with her. That's $180 for a year of WoW sub fees with zero new content. Oh and when they finally get around to giving you new content then that will be $40 for the expansion box... so if the expansion pays for itself with box fees what exactly did my $180 in sub fees go to fund?
Perhaps it goes to keep the servers running, customer service, and not having to deal with an in game cash shop... oh wait, the same study that showed SWTOR was making a killing also showed WoW made well over $200 million on it's cash shop last year... $200 million seems like it would cover a lot of servers...
I would say most likely those WoW sub fees are going to fund the $500 million Activision is spending on Destiny, so yes, in this case I would say "they are a ripoff." is an accurate description of WoW sub fees.
There is a bit of a misunderstanding here with my post. I obviously know there are people in a situation where they freely choose not to pay a subscription, but are able to do so.
And then there are those people who dont want to pay a subscription because it is too much money.
My post is aimed to the latter, to the people complaining that 15 bucks a month is too much for entertainment and that also seem to think that everything has to be free in life...
Well, it is not. But I understand completely when a game is not worth the subscription because lack of content, no more fun, etc.... (World of Warcraft is a good example, over 1 year without new stuff)
The other part of the post is also for those people who say they cannot afford the subscription, yet would not mind playing upwards of 60-80 hours a week playing games and not trying to bettering themselves in order to get some cash/build a means of income and be able to subscribe to the game they love. This is merely an observation in the differential of priorities, simply because it is annoying to see them complain and do nothing about it.
All in all, people pay for what they think it is worth, and I think 15 bucks a month for reasonable quality entertainment is very affordable and perhaps an honest reward for the people who put their works and lives into it...
New players can get a welcome package and old/returning players can also get a welcome back package and 7 days free subscription time! Just click here to use my referral invitation
Here is a question for you, you are hard working person that makes good buck.
On the way to work you always grab a coffee.
There are two shops side by side:
- One is offering excellent coffee for free , and if you want a muffin you can buy it for a 1$
- Second one doesnt sell coffee or muffins. Instead you pay 30$ at start of the month and you get 1 cup of coffee and one muffin each day.
You do not eat muffin each day. And some days you prefer to drink coffee at work ( not to mention you dont work at weekends )
Which coffee shop do you choose ?
seems that we are moving towards living in a society where everyone expects things to be done for them for free. people complain about the price of games, yet they will happily pay hundreds of quid (or whatever your local currancy happens to be) on mobile phones each time a new one comes out with bright shiney cases and a couple of new bells and whistles on.
the sub' of a game helps pay for the devs to be able to live, they got to earn their living some way or they'd go elsewhere and the industry would lose experienced peope so the quality of games would get even worse and we'd end up playing wow clones until we die of old age or boredom.
these days people will happily complain about having to pay a small sub' to play for a month and yet they will pay for a pack of cigs or a few pints of beer that wont last them a day. they will happily buy bottles of water instead of drinking the free stuff and yet you dont see people on smokers or drinkers forums (are there even such things?) complaining there each year when the prices go up.
if you dont want to spend the cost of a couple of pints on a game, it's simple - dont play it.
stick with the so called f2p games and enjoy your time online.
no one forces anyone to play p2p games (yet) so it's up to the individual if they want to play a game they pay for or not and all this complaining and discusion over subs is just taking up valuable playing time
i look this wrecked because i've got GIST.
Whats your excuse?
http://deadmanrambling.com/
Let me correct this for you. You have two coffee shops
One shop has a membership plan which allows you to come in and have a cup of coffee and a muffin whenever you want you dont have to drink a coffee you dont have to eat the muffin you could have tea or perhaps a danish what ever you want you pay this one monthly fee and you have access to all the shop has on offer when ever you want.
The other shop has free coffee but you want a danish or a muffin or tea instead of coffee you have to pay for it what more. Because they give the coffee away for free and a lot of people only come for the free coffee you have to pay double the value for them to counter the costs of the free coffee. Now the coffee is free but comes in thin half size paper cups but for a set price you can but a strofoam cup or even a mug however these are only for the coffee. if you want your tea in a mug rather than a thin paper cup you need to pay extra again.
Which coffee shop would YOU choose and why ?
what people not realizing is there is no F2P, if you play it for free because some one else is paying double to cover the expenses of the game through in game shop, which make things greedy and devs focus on adding best stuff into game shop so people buy stuff.
that being said. it is also about community of so called F2P games, full of stupid kids, lifless nerds. retards, etc to extend that public grouping out of your guild sometimes becomes a pain in ass if you get one of those kind which is very likely to happen in F2P games.
Thanks for answering for me, exactly my feelings!
This is what people have not been understanding. A quality product is worth the monthly fee, whether we use it all the time or only a couple of times (give than the couple of times is more than the stand alone price of a single use).
I think I speak for many of us here, that give the perfect chance of an astounding, fun and compelling MMO experience, many of us here would not mind paying even 30 bucks a month!
The problem is that the market is shifting and the quality titles are dwindling at an alarming rate... leaving us with the aforementioned example Gadareth gave.
New players can get a welcome package and old/returning players can also get a welcome back package and 7 days free subscription time! Just click here to use my referral invitation
One of the poorest attempts to explain f2p I've ever seen. If you want to make a f2p analogy you have to mention the whales, f2p games make their bread and butter off people who drop $100 and up in the cash shop each month not some poor bastard that only spent $5 on an inventory expansion one month.
Yes except that the free coffee shop offers very same cups and very same coffee (sometimes even better) than the subscription shop.
And for all the muffins and coffee i can eat and drink at subscription shop , i anyway only drink 20 cups a month and 15 muffins.
The logic is very clear.
Supposed i was obese gluttonous person , i could clearly see benefit in "all you can eat and drink" shop
But since I am busy working man minding my diet - I simply choose shop that is made with my spending habits in mind.
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You see with all this that the irony is that subscription gaming is tailored made for idle bodies with abundance of time.
Which is often connected with people that do not have their own income.
While F2P/B2P gaming is time conscious - and tailored for people that must manage their time.
Which again is connected with employed and busy people - that have income.
Coming to conclusion that subscription gaming is actually knocking on the wrong door and pissing on its own customers.
Funny thing, isnt it ?
And the people who spent 100 bucks on items could have easily spent half than that if they were priced accordingly and not being subjected to price spiking because of the free loaders, which in all honestly I loathe.
New players can get a welcome package and old/returning players can also get a welcome back package and 7 days free subscription time! Just click here to use my referral invitation
BTW total misconception
B2P and F2P titles today are mostly higher quality than Subscription titles.
Only exception being EVE.
Other than that we have on F2P/B2P corner
GW2 , SWTOR , TERA , Rift , Allods , eq1 , eq2 , Fallen Earth , LOTRO , AOC , Secret World , DDO , NWN ... quality list goes on
and on P2P corner
WOW, FF, Darkfall
Are you seriously suggesting that P2P titles i mentioned are in any way better than above ones ?
I see you really have no concept of how the f2p model works. Games like AoC, Rift, LOTRO, Tera, Aion, L2, Ragnarok Online, and yes even SWTOR most of which would have had to close their doors and shut down if they had stayed sub based go f2p and start making money again.
Try and wrap your mind around this... these games added a ton of free loaders and became far more profitable in the process. Your perconceptions of how things aught to work are blinding you to how the world really works.
This is about a subscription being worth when the product is. It is not about the quality of free games or pay to play.
I play Rift and perhaps monthly I pay double and sometimes triple of the subscription price it used to cost. The game has changed in some ways, some for the worse but most for the best.
But this is about our willingness to pay the subscription for something that is worth or not.
New players can get a welcome package and old/returning players can also get a welcome back package and 7 days free subscription time! Just click here to use my referral invitation