How long do you need to play a mmo before you feel you've gotten your moneys worth?

Z3R01 · July 2011

I was discussing this with a fellow worker around lunch time yesterday.

usually a mmo game box is around 40 bucks and a sub is 15.

Now how long would you need to play this game to feel you didnt waste your money?

I know with single player games we can spend 60 bucks on 10 hours of gameplay.

I know for my as long as i was able to get to endgame or in a sandbox games case have a powerful enough character to compete I considered my money well spend.

If i had to put a /played to that i would say atleast 15 days played which equals out to be 360 hours.

Thats a lot of gaming.

I know most of you look at that and say "well thats like a two month sub and if i only spend two months in a mmo it was trash!!!"

THis is why im asking. Because i feel around 300 hours is a great deal while my friend said somethign like 6 months sub and thousands of hours played, which i think is pretty crazy considering the genre is so competitive these days.

So what do you guys think?

Adamantine · July 2011

A solo player game is good if it can keep me occupied for 2 months. After 2 months, even the most fascinating games lose their appeal.

A MMO is good if it can keep me for years ... if I accept any less, thats because nothing better is on the market.

Z3R01 · July 2011

Originally posted by Adamantine
A solo player game is good if it can keep me occupied for 2 months. After 2 months, even the most fascinating games lose their appeal.

A MMO is good if it can keep me for years ... if I accept any less, thats because nothing better is on the market.

I think that's interesting.

You say years? I've been playing mmos since the early days and can count the games i've played longer than a year each on three fingers...

Are you saying the entire genre is filled with nothing but games that are a waste of money? if so why are you even here.

Please I am not trying to troll or flame you its really a simple question imo this genre is way too competitive to hold anyone but the most devoted fan to a game for longer than six months.

The days of UO and DAoC are gone where we only had three games to play now there are hundreds of games with many different game types and payment options.

I would love to hear from more of you that share this gamers opinion.

wyldmagik · July 2011

I find the question a bit odd to my way of thinking...

Short explanaiton:

I pay money for a game that "I" have to pay as its the price put out by the publisher..

Now I dont play games and go..."hmm, I think ive reached the point where my money has paid off now for amusement"....

you take you're chances, and play a game or I do to just enjoy it from time to time etc, If one has to rush like a effing looney to "end game" << shit how i dislike that wording these days, then i could probably see why people groan about worth and time spent to cost of said product..

Either way you pay you're wonga you should just enjoy the game, even if its not that great, get in there play it, try and see past any flaws and dont feel you have to be over the moon about every game you play due to the cost..

Sovrath · July 2011

I don't really compare it to "money's worth".

If I buy a game and enjoyed any part of it then it was worth it (games aren't that expensive). If I can't get beyond 15 minutes then it was a bust. Not because of money but because of my time.

I always feel my time is worth more than money.

Z3R01 · July 2011

Originally posted by Sovrath
I don't really compare it to "money's worth".

If I buy a game and enjoyed any part of it then it was worth it (games aren't that expensive). If I can't get beyond 15 minutes then it was a bust. Not because of money but because of my time.

I always feel my time is worth more than money.

Well... thats what i mean.

Lets say I buy a game for 60 buck, obviously this isnt a lot of money but if i only stomach about an hour of it I feel i wasted money that could have gone to another game.

Same for mmorpgs. If i buy a 40-50 dollar box and spend a couple days struggling to like the game and ultimately uninstall i also feel it was a waste and i could have used that casgh in a better place, like extending my sub with another game or giving some other game a go.

So im asking when do you hit that point of considering a game a bust to a good purchase.

If you can spend 60 bucks and after only 15 mintues of gameplay feel its worth it more power to you buddy but i certainly cant say that with a straight face.

wyldmagik · July 2011

But you play eve you are probably not even spending real money no more :P

Sovrath · July 2011

Originally posted by Z3R01

Originally posted by Sovrath

I don't really compare it to "money's worth".

If I buy a game and enjoyed any part of it then it was worth it (games aren't that expensive). If I can't get beyond 15 minutes then it was a bust. Not because of money but because of my time.

I always feel my time is worth more than money.

Well... thats what i mean.

Lets say I buy a game for 60 buck, obviously this isnt a lot of money but if i only stomach about an hour of it I feel i wasted money that could have gone to another game.

Same for mmorpgs. If i buy a 40-50 dollar box and spend a couple days struggling to like the game and ultimately uninstall i also feel it was a waste and i could have used that casgh in a better place, like extending my sub with another game or giving some other game a go.

So im asking when do you hit that point of considering a game a bust to a good purchase.

If you can spend 60 bucks and after only 15 mintues of gameplay feel its worth it more power to you buddy but i certainly cant say that with a straight face.

To be more specific, if I can get beyond 15 or so minutes then I'll play the game to the end. If I can't then I put it down.

So your last statement isn't quite on the mark.

When I cosider it a bust is 15 or so minutes. After that I complete the game.

Z3R01 · July 2011

Originally posted by wyldmagik
But you play eve you are probably not even spending real money no more :P

Haha! I just left rift after four months of playing.

Over 600 hours played, i got to experience quite a bit of the content i was interested in.

I feel overall Rift was a worthy purchase. i had a great time and now i went back to a old standby until another game releases.

I would Consider Rift a worthy purchase where i would consider my 3 day debacle in AoC me not getting my moneys worth because the game blew ass.

dageeza · July 2011

If a game can keep my attention for 3 months then i consider it well worth my time, as far as worth my money goes if i can get my initial included 30 days worth of enjoyment out an mmo than it was worth the money..

These days im more on a crusade to not buy games from companies that try to steal my money with false hype and false claims that dont deliver what they claim persay.....

Nadia · July 2011

i view mmos like any other video game (PC or Console)

if it can occupy me for at least 20 hours -- I got my moneys worth

mmoski · July 2011

For me it’s not about getting my “monies worth”, it’s more the point of not feeling ripped off, I don’t think there is a specific amount of time that can equal the value of a game when it comes to MMO’s, you pay a monthly sub and that’s it, if you continue paying the sub you keep playing so you must be enjoying the game, I can only really put an “not feeling ripped off” to a single no return payment.

For me it’s really rare that I buy a new MMO (that requires a sub) at release, as I know “Spin Dev’s” and bugs can destroy the game, now I just wait for free trials and then evaluate what I’ve played, the problem with this is that trials are gimped sometimes.

Recently I played RIFT, now while this is not a bad game, it misses the PvP that I expect from a game and I could never feel ripped off by buying this game for what I’ve seen, but if this was pre release and the dev’s mentioned some awesome PvP that got me to purchase and in turn this PvP really didn’t work then I would have felt totally ripped off.

I think maybe the only time most people feel the “monies worth” theory is when they are no longer having fun in a game and feel that they need to play for this reason, in which case they are only losing TIME that could be used doing something they could enjoy more, and can you put a price on that ?

seabeast · July 2011

I don't know, maybe it is the wording you used in the title. I would ask, "how long do you need to enjoy an MMO before....". Enjoying a game is more important, to me anyways, than playing it. Nevertheless, I guess each person has a different view on the quesion.

Z3R01 · July 2011

well if im playing a game im obviously enjoying it.

I mean do you normally suffer through a game that you dont like?

Imo if my fun ends really early i feel like i made a mistake buying it. I think we've all felt this way before.

As another example i bought terraria on steam. which imo is the greatest sandboxish adventure game to release in a decade. I put in 60 hours in four days... its epic. the game costed me 7 bucks.

Now thats money well spent for me.

On the other hand I paied around 20 for Two worlds II... I clocked in around 1.5 hours and uninstalled... that was a waste. I assumed the game would be better than that since i enjoyed the first. I would have been better off buying Something else.

Fo me there is a point when i consider a game worth the purchase. Im pretty laid back when it comes to mmos. a few days played isnt asking much. if i dont hit that point then i believe ( obviously this is my opinion) that the game wasnt worth what i paid.

elocke · July 2011

If I get to the end of the free month and I decide to sub, if even only for one more month, as in my case with Rift, then the money was worth it. Anything that makes me uninstall within the first day to that last day of the free month to me was a crap investment.

That being said, I have had exceptions to certain games when it's a year or so later and they release an expansion. For example, LOTRO. Hated the game coming out of Beta so I never bought it. If I had bought it, I would have uninstalled within the first month. Until the Moria expansion, which is when I really did buy the game and was blown away by how good it was. So...expansions CAN reverse the animosity one might have had with a purchase of the base game. I suppose it can go the other way as well, if the expansion sucks so bad it makes people unsub. Gotta love the MMORPG rollercoaster.

Roxette · July 2011

Well, it completely depends on the game. If a game cannot keep me enthusiastic for longer than 3 months, than it was a waste of time for me. I played about 11 MMO games so far. Only 4 could keep me playing. These were GW, Aion, AoC and City of Heroes. All others I quit after 2 or 3 months .

arieste · July 2011

Originally posted by Nadia
i view mmos like any other video game (PC or Console)

if it can occupy me for at least 20 hours -- I got my moneys worth

If i had fun for the free month that came with the game, i got my money's worth.

Even the best single-player games like Mass Effect provide me with less than a week of entertainment for the same price as an MMO. If i get a month out of an MMO, i don't regret buying it. After the free month, if i want to play more, i sub, if not, i don't.

ruonim · July 2011

Originally posted by arieste

Originally posted by Nadia

i view mmos like any other video game (PC or Console)

if it can occupy me for at least 20 hours -- I got my moneys worth

If i had fun for the free month that came with the game, i got my money's worth.

Even the best single-player games like Mass Effect provide me with less than a week of entertainment for the same price as an MMO. If i get a month out of an MMO, i don't regret buying it. After the free month, if i want to play more, i sub, if not, i don't.

If you can count mindless kiling 1000x same mob then im amazed on current generation of players.

Ihmotepp · July 2011

Originally posted by dageeza
If a game can keep my attention for 3 months then i consider it well worth my time, as far as worth my money goes if i can get my initial included 30 days worth of enjoyment out an mmo than it was worth the money..

These days im more on a crusade to not buy games from companies that try to steal my money with false hype and false claims that dont deliver what they claim persay.....

I agree. 3 months, and it's a bargain for the price and hours of game play.

If it sucks so bad I don't sub after the free month, I feel like I got ripped off.

I was promised a month of cool content for 15 bucks, which is a real bargain, but I never got it.

TruthXHurts · July 2011

This kind of thinking is sad. Games used to be captivating enough to hold your attention for years. I guess this is the chicken and the egg question. Are gamers to blame for having no attention spans these days, or are the developers to blame for not being able to create a product that draws you in and keeps you there for any length of time?

arieste · July 2011

Originally posted by TruthXHurts
This kind of thinking is sad. Games used to be captivating enough to hold your attention for years. I guess this is the chicken and the egg question. Are gamers to blame for having no attention spans these days, or are the developers to blame for not being able to create a product that draws you in and keeps you there for any length of time?

Players also used to suck at games. 10 years ago, MMOs as a genre were new. It took time learn the idea of having an avatar, the idea of interaction, the idea of market, etc. Players are much better at the games now, so they consume content at a much higher rate. Most MMOs don't even come with a manual anymore, because the players are pretty familiar with how to do stuff.

An MMO takes a lot more development and resources to creat than a single-player game. Yet we're satisfied with getting 20 hours out of a single-player game.

I'm old enough to remember when most games were offline and you went out and you bought one for $60 and then two weeks later you were back in that store to sell it back for $30 and buy a new one for $60 again. Compared to that, MMOs - even ones that only hold you for a month - are an amazing value.

Unfortunately MMOs have changed very little from 10 years ago, so really, you're always buying a game you've played before, just with minor differences and a different story. Plus the popular model of MMOs is actually shifting further and further away from "Creating a world to inhabit" and more towards "providing set number of experiences". Experiences run out pretty quickly, especially when you know how to play before you even start.

I bought Rift, i played through 50 levels of quests, most of the stories and dungeons, many character types. I enjoyed it a great deal. But then it got to the point that the game was pretty much exactly the same as EQ2 in terms of endgame and i just don't have time to commit to two games like that. So i quit Rift. It was fun, it was exciting, it looked great. I enjoyed it for a bit over a month of play. It was well worth playing and having paid for. But now i'm done with it and back raiding in EQ2. I plan to the same thing pretty much with SWTOR. /shrug.

Z3R01 · July 2011

Originally posted by TruthXHurts
This kind of thinking is sad. Games used to be captivating enough to hold your attention for years. I guess this is the chicken and the egg question. Are gamers to blame for having no attention spans these days, or are the developers to blame for not being able to create a product that draws you in and keeps you there for any length of time?

its extremely rare to find a game that will las for years.

To expect this out of todays industry and use it as a messuring stick whether a game is good or worth it or not will only result in dissapointment.

games like that rarely come along. And if they do they tend to be more of the multiplayer variety like TF2, CS or Even Halo.

TruthXHurts · July 2011

I tend to play games for years. I find one I like and stick with it. That has become more and more difficult though in the last 3-4 years I'd say. I have settled into a small indie project now that offers me the depth and risk vs reward pvp system I crave. I would have kept playing SWG for years to come had they not introduced the NGE. I also played EQ1 for about 3 years before I switched over to SWG. It really wasn't uncommon in the past, but it is almost unheard of in the present day.

Madimorga · July 2011

Originally posted by ariestePlus the popular model of MMOs is actually shifting further and further away from "Creating a world to inhabit" and more towards "providing set number of experiences".

I voted 4 years (or more, really, but if I ever get 4 years out of a game again, I'll be happy. Hell, I'd settle for 3 at this point).

The above quote is the difference for me between being done in a month or less and playing for years.

mrw0lf · July 2011

Until it stops being fun

pierth · July 2011

I'd say two months. It really depends on the time it takes me to get to the level cap- the longer the better. I have no interest in raiding so my options are a bit limited. I've accepted that and (at least in theme park games) once I hit that stage in the game it's time to find a new game. Rift got me to the 2 month mark by hitting 50 on both factions so I could follow the story and I suppose I got my money's worth. I was hoping for something that would last me much longer. I suppose I'll have to move over to eastern MMOs to find something more grindy.

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