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Why so few business models?
Slukjan
Member UncommonPosts: 265
We are all familiar with a $15 per month sub fee...that was pretty much the standard until recently. Now F2P seems the most common method. And there is also B2P, which is nice but more rare. What I don't get is why we don't see games with say...$7.50 per month sub fees, or $10 per month. Why has $15/month been the the magic number for 14 years? Why not $5/month plus a fair cash shop? There are so many ways it could be structured but it seems like no one is experimenting with this. I am just wondering why...
Comments
14.99 didn't start until Everquest raised its prices from 12.99 sometime in the early 2000s. 12.99 had been the standard but when EQ changed then DAOC changed and UO changed. To be honest EQ may have not been the first to raise its prices, that is the first one I remember, SWG may have started it when it launched at 14.99, but I think it happened a bit before that. But that wasn't my point really, my main point was that it wasn't always 14.99 it had been a bit lower. What I am amazed with is that with 2-3% annual inflation, it hasn't made any increases over the last 9 years or so.
I've been wondering myself. I'm curious why a company that struggles to grab subscribers at $15/month don't reduce sub costs to say $10 or $7.50 per month before abandoning that method altogether for F2P.
My only guess is that once you reduce sub costs you can't really raise them in the future.
How much they charge per month really should depend be based on a maximizing profits, not based on what WOW or EVE charge. The problem is that developers have a hard enough time making MMOs that people want to buy. Sicne they don't even know what makes a solid MMO, they have no chance on figuring out the proper sub price.
if i remember correctly Eq started at $9.89 a month...it had something to do with 989 studios or something...
they should of kept it there. There is something psychological about under 10 bucks...look at nexflix..8 bucks a month..
I've wondered that myself. And one of the potential reasons that I thought of might be that a lower asking price might actually turn some people off. Like it's basically an admission of lower quality.
Another possibility is that a sub (for some, anyway) has more to do with a commitment than the actual cost. I mean, most people would agree that $15 isn't all that much. If that amount is going to make or break you financially, then you probably have bigger problems than your MMORPG.
Something else might be that if a company is going to reduce the monthly price to try and boost sales, then it may actually be more profitable for them to adapt to the F2P model. The thing about F2P (for better or for worse) is that it attracts many people that wouldn't ordinarily try it. F2P makes if money on statistics, so the more they have playing their game, the more money they make, essentially.
Lastly, the $15 price tag has just become a standard. It's been proven that games can get away with charging that to be successful. The argument can be made that server cost isn't near the expense that it used to be, but there's still inflation, increases in employee salaries, not to mention that it takes more people to pump out a big-budget game these days.
Not all games charge $15.
Perpetuum charges less and ryzom too?
I think we will see many more business models in the comming years.
They just have to get imaginative again.
If prices went down why did swtor fail then, if it is so cheap :P
Games need to show they are worth the fee, like other consumables as well.
Average salaries haven't risen at the rate if inflation over the last decade. It's not that much less factoring that in.
Because there wasn't enough content to hold people after they finished their first story and not enough diversity for alts when it came to going through the same areas as their first character.
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Why would someone not pay $15/month for a subscription game? There are a variety of reasons. Maybe they don't like the game. Maybe they refuse to pay a subscription on principle. Maybe they don't have access to buy things online. Maybe they can't afford to pay for games at all.
But you know what all of those are? They're also reasons why someone wouldn't pay $10/month for a subscription game. Very few people who aren't willing to pay $15/month would be willing to pay $10/month. Cut your subscription price and you need 50% more subscribers to break even, and aren't likely to get them. Lots of people might say that they would pay $10/month but not $15/month when trying to convince a company to cut prices, but few will actually do it.
Lowering the sub cost would be really stupid. You will loose alot of money on all thoose who were happy paying 15.
And who really cares about if the sub is 15 or 10? THats not the problem with subscriptions.
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