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What is the obsession with sub cost?
echolynfan
Member UncommonPosts: 681
I've read about so many people complaining about the $14.95 subscription cost for SWTOR and other MMO's for that matter. Those same people probably think nothing of spending hundreds of dollars on iPads and other crap but when it comes to what is essentially .50 cents per day for 24/7 entertainment they have a freaking cow.
And - most MMO's provide new content on a regular basis in the form of patches included in the monthly fee so you have a never ending game.
Obviously paying for a sub for a game that sucks makes no sense and MMO developers have to produce games and content that customers will WANT to pay for. If they don't ::cough:: Star Trek Online :cough:: they become FTP.
Is .50 cents per day for round the clock entertainment just too much for people to pay? Really?
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
Comments
Moving this over to The Pub. It's a more general topic, and people will likely branch off into discussing many games in regards to subs.
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I'm playing a f2p games now. As far as I know player in there cares. Alot of them play the game because it's free. 15$ a month may not be very much to you, but to some other people it's money they not willing to pay.
My friend was looking for a new mmorpg to play, and as far as I know, he only want to play f2p games, says he's on a budget.
you are essentially correct about people's response to subscription cost, you are wrong in why games go F2P. There is an economic dynamic that applies as sub numbers fall to a certain threshhold then going f2p brings an influx of players who are interested in playing for free and a smaller number of dedicated F2P gamers who enjoy paying large amounts of money to avoid some of the grind. To this point, all of the major games to go F2P have seen an increase in profits by doing so. Nobody is certain what the longterm viability of this strategy is yet.
Hm, well to be fair it's more than just $15, there is usually the purchase of the game also, which is usually around $49. I think that initial cost is a bigger hurdle than the monthly subscription. (just looked up SWTOR, it's $59.99 on amazon)
It'd rather pay $15 a month for a decent game than play a "free" game that has a cash shop.
I don't see any issue with SW:TOR having a subscription based payment plan. If a game is worth playing and there's time enough to play it, the $15 is really a trivial expense.
I've always wondered. It definitely did work for the first major titles to jump the conversion. But will it still work entering a large and competitive field of hundreds of other F2P games?
It appears at some point that the player base becomes too spread out (across many games) to support it being "profitable", and F2P games will start to bankrupt themselves by attrition.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
When I first started playing MMO's when I was 21 years old, (EQ1) and I was very hesitant about paying $15 a month. Even after subbing for a few months, I was still uneasy about it. Then I realized that since staying at home more gaming, I wasn't out as much, not going to the mall out of boredom, not clubbing as much on the weekends, etc.
To make a long story short, my new gaming hobby that costs me expac prices+subs saved me a heck of a lot of money over the course of 6 months when I wasn't spending over $100 during a weekend going out as much and other things like that. Gaming has literally been the causes of me having a decent savings account.
This has been my experience, I know not everyone shares this, but for me at least, it has been good.
"Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it."
I don't know about other people, but for me it's not the price, it's the principle of the matter.
Any developer who wants me to pay for the privelage of playing their game and then is going to lock me out after a certain amount of time unless i pay them more are con artists as far as i'm concerned.
The US economy tanked in 2008 and has not recovered. The Europeans are currently facing a crisis worse than what happened in the US back in '08. People are finding alternatives for their entertainment. Some are playing F2P games, some are going to the library more, some are watching more TV, some are going with Netflix/Blockbuster for movies, some are spending $16 a month to have a single game out at a time with GameFly, etc, etc, etc.
No doubt, 50¢ a day is pretty cheap. What else can you buy for 50¢ a day? For $14.95 though, you could buy several loaves of bread at $1 a pop - buy several packages of mystery meat hot dogs for $1 a pop - buy drink powder to make beverages, etc, etc.
Some people really are that bad off right now...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Er, don't finance a car.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I've never had a problem with $15/month. 2 fast food meals, an hour's wages, 4 beers at a bar, much less than what my internet costs... if some company wants to offer me a good, fun game, they can have my $15, no complaints.
Now, $40-60 for the box, before you even get to play the game, THAT I have issues with. Considering that P2P MMO's have been more forthcoming with trials in recent times, I suspect I may not be the only one.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
How can you say it is the principle of the matter... and then say what you did?
They're hosting the game. They should do that for free? Can they go to the people they have to pay - the folks that work for them, their vendors, suppliers, utility bills, leasing for office space, etc, etc...and just say they do not think they should have to pay?
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
F2P games are more profitable because everyone likes to get something for "free" but then these same companies introduce all these cool cash shop items you either can't live without or need to advance in the game. Now - you're paying a crap ton more for the game than a standard sub. But - since people can decide for themselves whether or not they want to spend the money on these items that somehow seems ok.
"shakes head:
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
On the bright side, this approach leaves you without internet, so you have nothing to worry about.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
LOL - so when that magazine sub runs out and they ask you to renew or you won't get your next issue...they're con artists as well? When your rent is due and you will get kicked out for not paying - your landlord is a con artist?
Occupy somewhere is calling you
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
The problem with F2P is that if the financial boys need money, then the game will goto P2W. This is without any effort from the company.
Look at lotro one of the first to switch to a F2P model. They said there will only be items that make cosmetic changes, etc. But at the launch of F2P it became clear that there are all stat scrolls, and we have seen horses that go a little faster, and food buffs, etc.
We have seen Lineage F2P launch a few days ago. Enix said that the cash shop will be strictly cosmetic. Before launch there were PvP weapons to be found in the shop "that give you an edge in PvP".
Games should be played on equal grounds. If one player has some advantage that is not coming from actual play, than it's not really a game. Imagine yourself stepping into a casino with an extra deck of cards in your sleeves?
LOL - I wish I had thought of that one
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
Games weren't always P2P because they were online. FPS on PC were always free for us, MMO started this whole P2P trend, we had plenty of F2P games before them.
You could argue that P2P pays for the cost of the servers and support, but is it really that costly, FPS and other online games host servers also and also have support.
$15 a month to play a Single Player RPG is a rip-off. Too many companies of late (and Bioware is the latest example) are making single player type RPGs with multi-player elements and co-op gameplay and trying to pawn it off as an MMORPG. sorry, Im not one of the people who is going to play along with that scam. Since MMORPGs are simply turning into RPGs with a sub fee, I am going to stick to traditional single player RPGs (and far more enjoyable) games...thank you Bethesda.
$60 to play TOR for a month. $75 to play for two months if one thinks the game is good enough to keep playing. I know for sure that $60 in EQ2X would last me for several months and from what I understand if one is smart it would in LOTRO as well. Two things make an honest F2P cash shop game ok to play. Dont buy stuff you can get ingame and dont worry about the cash shop mount some fool spent $25 on. WOW has some pretty cool mounts you can get ingame and yet some felt the need to pay for something that to me looks rediculous and still pay a sub fee. Go figure.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
You do know we're talking about games, right? Not cars, not houses, not electricity. Just games.
Free to play games only get money from their cash shop. They only need a tiny portion of the community to buy anything in the cash shop for them to be profitable.
Games like TOR, WoW, Rift, TSW and Tera all generate revenue from box sales. Something that free to play games don't get. On top of that a number of sub based games are also adding cash shops or other microtransactions where they generate continual revenue.
There is no reason at all for a developer to lock people out of a game with a subscription when every justification for one is already covered.
I bet that most of the players on LOTR or Strong Hold kingdoms pay as much if not more than most players who pay for subscriptions in other games. $15 dollars a month for even a bad MMO in my opinion is a better deal than any other form of entertainment I can think of.
Plenty of other companies are doing that so I don't see why not. You should also get your facts straight too. Game sales generate a major amount of revenue for the developers and publishers.
Many players in F2P pay nothing, and a smaller minority pays more. This is from an interview with a Vindictus developers:
"Steparu: Since Vindictus is free to play, how will it affect players who rather play the game and be stingy with cash shop items?
Chris: We always try to make it pretty close to a level playing field. In reality, most of our players don't ever purchase anything in cash shop. Then there are players who purchase items. We still haven't decided on what we will be having in cash shop. None of our games have any game-breaking type of items that you can purchase. The cash shop items are gonna be heavily focused on cosmetics, undergarments, and some potions."