On The Rising Price of MMO Subscriptions

An anonymous reader writes "With the ever rising price of online games and special offers like Anarchy Online's free trial where you can play free until September for $9.95. I've been wondering - how much do people feel is too much to pay for an online game? The 'normal' price used to be $9.95 per month, and EverQuest is now $12.95 a month, with Star Wars Galaxies, City Of Heroes and others at $14.95. How much do increasing monthly fees affect your playing habits, and does the price of an MMO subscription affect which game you might choose to play?" Perhaps schemes such as the Sony Online All Access subscription are a possible solution?

Comments

My comments

[metamatic]

Well, to quote my own web site:

Either charge a subscription, or charge for the game, but don't ask me to pay twice.

If I need a subscription to play, I'm very unlikely to pay $50 for the game, because if I decide I don't like it I'm left with a $50 coaster. Games which are offline or online can get away with charging for the game itself, but it's still a bad idea if the main point is the multiplayer: A high up-front cost to join a subscription game screams "We don't think you'll stay a member for long so we'd better get some cash up front".

Monthly subscriptions don't work for me, unless they're really cheap.

Your market is people with broadband and significant disposable income. To me, that says adults with jobs. Like many adults with jobs, there are months when I don't really get any time to play video games at all.

It seems to me that it's not technically hard at all to have a "per hour" fee, capped at the cost of a monthly subscription. That would encourage casual gamers and people who aren't sure they will like the game enough to get really into it and spend hours on it every month.

Re:My comments

[Anonymous Coward]

When we publish, I expect the box set will retail for about $50 US. That's to recoup development costs.

The current thought on monthly pricing is $20 US. Two reasons - we are a service, and there are costs associated with running a MMORPG after the initial sale. Secondly, frankly, we suspect it will cut down on the folks we'd rather not have to deal with (griefers) - we might even rate it "M" ourselves to keep out the 12 year olds.

Those same people who are going to complain about the extra $5-$10 are unlikely to be pleased by anything we do in the game. But at the same time, we intend to have a reduced fee if you want to take a break from playing.

We are aiming for the casual players - I'd rather market to them than to the power gamer. Not that we are against the power gamer, I'm sure we'll get more than enough of those. If you'll let me pull a number out of my ass; 20% of the players (power gamers) take up 80% of the resources and 80% of the players (casual) take up 20% ofthe resources. Now, of course those numbers are not correct, but you get the idea.

We are in the business to make money, sorry, but that's the truth. It just happens that our business is doing something we like and we hope that our game/service will be fun, challenging and enjoyable by many people, but when all is said and done, it still costs money to run things. If you don't agree, you are more than in your right to vote with your wallet. Or better yet, if you think that a MMORPG shouldn't cost both retail and subscription - build it yourself, they will come.

Re:My comments

[base3]

By what logic do you think you'll attract the 80% (casual) you want by charging more? Surely you have something to offer that demographic other than "we charge more to keep out the riff-raff." While that kind of marketing might work for American Express, I don't expect it will sell many MMORPG subscriptions.

Re:My comments

[Chibi]

Either charge a subscription, or charge for the game, but don't ask me to pay twice.

Not sure how other MMORPGs work, but City of Heroes cost $50 for the first month of live playtime (non-beta). So, you can either look at it as the game was $50, and the first month is free, or the game was $35, and you paid for your first month. The montly fee was hard for me to accept as well, especially since most of my gaming has been either PC FPS (free) or console, but I went out for lunch one day and spent $15 on a meal I didn't like. That made me think I waste $15 here and there all the time, so why not use it for something that will entertain me over the course of a whole month?

I guess one reason to put a price on the initial purchase is to discourage people who just want to troll, etc from coming on board. It's not like they can fine your trolling, the worst they could do is disable your account, but if you didn't want to play anyway... I'm not kidding myself, I know the main reason they do this is to get your money. :)

I definitely like your idea of paying per time played with a cap at the monthly fee, though. :)

Re:My comments

[sevensharpnine]

I'd be willing to bet your game is another UO/EQ ripoff. The initial box price, the disdain towards "griefers", and the admitted effort at luring in the casual gamer show where your intentions lie. Maybe you'll have original feature x or y or whatever, but I have no real doubt that your game is of the 90%+ mmorpg's that lack substantive originality.

That said, I'm willing to pay $50 a month for a good game. And while I might be in the minority, I know that I'm not alone. But as long as you want to aim for the casual players, your game will turn into another overly newb-friendly carebear romp. I think your post could have been more accurately phrased by letting people know that your entire development effort is simply a shameless money-grab to ride the coattails of the mmorpg wave that started a few years back. Regardless, good luck.

Re:My comments

[g051051]

I don't have a problem with the idea of a monthly fee, but I strongly object to having to shell out for a box and CD.

I used the Star Wars Galaxies free trial, but found out that, even though I had the full game installed on my machine, there was no way to simply go to a full-time live subscription without going to a store and buying a box. So, I dropped the game right away. What's the point of providing a freely downloadable full game client, then making me go buy a box? Even if they wanted me to just buy a license key for $10 or $15, that might have been acceptable. But the CD and manuals are already obsolete!

Likewise, I'm haven't bought City of Heroes (in spite of wanting to play very, very much) because:

1. I refuse to pay more than $29.99 for a game (and usually wait until the price is $19.99).

2. I won't pay a penny for a MMORPG that I can't try first.

3. I won't buy a MMORPG that requires me to buy the box and CD, instead of letting me download the client.

Re:My comments

[metamatic]

I'm a casual gamer. You know, one of the 80% of people who'll take up 20% of resources. I would have thought those would be the people you'd want to attract to make money, no?

Also, if you want to keep out griefers, require a certain amount of pre-payment for the hourly fee. I don't mind pre-paying for some game time, I just don't want to pay fixed monthly fees or huge markups for a CD in a box.

Re:My comments

[wormbin]

I have a friend who is working working on an upcoming MMORPG and I asked him the same question: "Why not give away the game and just charge a monthly fee?"

He responded with the following points:

1) MMORPGs are extremely expensive to run (new content must be generated so the game doesn't become sterile) so you _have_ to have a monthly fee.

2) In order to sell enough copies of the game so that you reach the critical mass of players in order to be profitable, you have to have a boxed game on a store shelf. To completely abandon retail would be suicide. In order to have a store willing to carry a game on a shelf, you can't also be giving the game away for free on the internet.

So according to him, in order to have a profitable game you have to both sell the game _and_ charge a monthly fee. Of course this is not good news for us game consumers.

Re:My comments

[LordLucless]

That would encourage casual gamers and people who aren't sure they will like the game enough to get really into it and spend hours on it every month.

In my experience, very few of these games encourage "casual" gamers. You need to invest time to increase your character's capability. At the start of a game, the gameplay is usually boring - your character has only a few skills, thus only a few options to use in combat (which is most of the game). It only really gets interesting when your character develops to a point where you have choices that make a strategic difference, and can combine a few such characters into a party. That's when the tactics and strategy of the game starts to come out.

Unfortunately, that's usually only after a significant amount of time invested. It's not like Tetris, where you can pick it up, have a few games, then put it down. It's not designed for the casual gamer.

Re:My comments

[LordLucless]

Most MMORPGs charge twice because they have two types of expense:

1. Development. Just as in a traditional game, developing the client takes money. The cost of the box goes towards the development, just like it does for any other game.
2. Maintenance: Unlike other games,a MMORPG requires continual expense on the part of the company in the form of bandwidth, server upgrades, maintenance, etc. That's what the monthly fee goes towards - the ongoing costs.

It's not a case of developers double-dipping, it's a case of needing to cover their costs - and retain their profits. If they decide to remove one cost, they'll certainly compensate for increasing the other. Which means instead of paying $50 once off and $15/month, you'll pay $20/month. Which means if you play for more than 10 months, you're losing money, despite having not bought a box.

I do agree with you on point number 2, however.

Re:My comments

[Pofy]

>1) MMORPGs are extremely expensive to run (new
>content must be generated so the game doesn't
>become sterile) so you _have_ to have a monthly
>fee.

Sure, but does the added content equal a quarter of a new game each month? For each player?

If not, one simply get more value from buying another (new) game instead every 4th month (and if one go for slightly older games, that are cheaper one can buy one even more often.

Re:My comments

[Lord_Dweomer]

"2) In order to sell enough copies of the game so that you reach the critical mass of players in order to be profitable, you have to have a boxed game on a store shelf. To completely abandon retail would be suicide. In order to have a store willing to carry a game on a shelf, you can't also be giving the game away for free on the internet."

Funny, last I checked, A Tale in the Desert was doing just fine.

Re:My comments

[harlows_monkeys]

Maintenance: Unlike other games,a MMORPG requires continual expense on the part of the company in the form of bandwidth, server upgrades, maintenance, etc. That's what the monthly fee goes towards - the ongoing costs

A large part of that monthly fee is pure profit. Sony has mentioned this in interviews, and it can also be seen by looking at the numbers Mythic has released for DAoC. DAoC has 250k subscribers, so is grossing over $3 million a month. Considering that DAoC cost them $1.5 million to develop and launch (including the cost of buying the servers), it is hard to imagine that game maintenance or server upgrades come anywhere near $3 million a year, let alone $3 million a month. Bandwidth is a few hundred thousand dollars a month, tops.

Re:My comments

[atomicdragon]

I think you can have a boxed game in stores and still get away with a "free" client.

Several years back, a bunch of my friends and myself got Ascheron's Call when it was available in the store for $20, which included a $20 mail in rebate making it free. I know the mail in rebates kind of stink, but it got it in the store while making the client free. I think it even came with a free month to play on top of that, so it fix the two big complaints people and I have: no free client and no chance to try online play for free.

Of course this was well after the start of the game (probably about a year if I remember right). Why pull stuff like this when you have plenty of people that pay anyways? I think stuff like this might have to happen as the market eventually gets saturated (if it isn't already getting close) and games have to try harder to grab new players.

Re:My comments

[Forager]

"... you have to have a boxed game on a store shelf ... in order to have a profitable game you have to both sell the game _and_ charge a monthly fee."

Well, a simple response to this might be to give away the first THREE months of gameplay for free, rather than just one month's play with the initial purchase.

That would be the kick in the pants that I would need to buy a copy. I have never purchased a copy of an MMO simply because of the price - $60-80 for the first three months of a game too much to ask, especially since I could purchase two non-MMO games for that price and potentially get more life out of them (I've been playing the same game for 5 months now).

Just as a side note, I find it curious that these companies always talk about the massive price of running the servers and generating new content. I can understand the servers, but new content? Since when does Everquest (for example) offer new content for free? They charge for that in the form of expansion packs. Are you telling me that players are paying for the expansions twice?

Also, the server maintenance prices have me wondering as well, given that ArenaNet is releasing Guild Wars with no monthly fee (I played the E3 for Everyone Alpha Demo, and it was amazing - I'm buying that one, for certain). Is it so really so different from other MMOs that they can afford not to charge monthly fees?

Just some thoughts.

-A.

Re:My comments

[NotAnotherReboot]

Then why not set the price point to where players get X number of free months until it equals the cost of the game.

For instance, say you charge $10/month and the game sells for $40. Include 4 free months, and you're set. Of course, I'm sure retailers are happy to sell 'bargain games', so is there really no way to set the initial price at $20 and include two months free?

Re:My comments

[rhuntley12]

Lineage2 allows you to download the full client, I think they still do, I did it with both my accounts after beta ended. Although you still have to pay the $50 for not getting a box, which is fairly lame. They give all their expansions away for free though, a month after release they updated all the servers to be up to date with Korean.(Huge update) and Korea is getting their second free expansion real soon, with us to follow before long I hope. Charging for expansions when your paying monthly fee is very lame.

Re:My comments

[stanmann]

Well, you are in luck, for a limited time you can get a free 30 day everquest trial with the first 2 expansions that can be upgraded to full for the montly fee. If you got lucky last month and had a friend currently playing, you could have gotten the first 6 for free. That is how I got my wife playing, And she enjoys it, not as much as I do, but enough so that we understand each other better now.

Re:My comments

[stanmann]

YOu might want to look into everquest... new expansions have always been 29.99 and usually drop to 19.99 fairly quickly. They still have the lowest monthly fees of the monthly fee providers and coming this week is the "platinum pack" for 29.99 all current expansions and a free month.

Sounds like I work for them or something. I'm an addict and YOU CAN BE TOO!

Re:My comments

[g051051]

I did try Everquest. I had a friend who bought it for me as a present, so it was his money, not mine. I played the one-month trial, but it just wasn't enough fun. I spent a lot of time running around from place to place, fighting the same old monsters. The nearly complete lack of any role-playing by the other people was also a big disappointment.

Guild Wars

[th1ckasabr1ck]

The upcoming MMO Guild Wars will have no monthly subscription fee.

Re:Guild Wars

[RotJ]

This seems like a sensible system for a new startup to compete against the bigger MMO games. Guild Wars lets you play online for free after you buy it and they'll keep up the revenue stream by periodically releasing expansion packs.

The traditional monthly fee structure in most games makes some users a bit anxious about how much time they can allot with the game. If they don't have the time or interest to put enough hours into a game, they'll feel that they're wasting money. This is why few people subscribe to more than one MMORPG at a time. But since Guild Wars doesn't have a monthly fee (and because combat effectiveness doesn't rely as much on levelling as skill/spell selection), gamers with existing accounts in other MMORPGs will feel more at ease picking up Guild Wars on the side, even if they don't plan to spend a lot of time in it.

Re:Guild Wars

[Attaturk]

Nor will the historically authentic MMORPG, Roma Victor

Re:Guild Wars

[mrgreen4242]

I would be much more likely to play a game with this type of pricing structure. The main client for maybe $30 give or take $5, and then maybe 6 expansions a year for $20-25 each, than I am not required to buy, but add some significant gameplay or equipment additions that would compell me to do so.

This way I could play even when I don't have any money to spare, and could grab an expansions that I missed later on when I have some extra cash.

Alternatively, they could offer a discounted pre-sale system, say $100 even for all 6 of this years expansions.

With as competitive as the MMORPG market is right now, I would like to see this sort of system succeed, as I think that it would be good for consumers.

Re:Guild Wars

[8tim8]

The upcoming MMO Guild Wars will have no monthly subscription fee.

Really? They'll never charge for using their servers? Do they back that up with some sort of money-back guarantee? Or will it be their position for the first six months or so, until sales plateau and the next expansion pack is eight months off and those servers are soooo expensive...

Hey, they might follow through on it, but it just seems to me like bait-and-switch is alive and well in the world of gaming.

What's yer base value?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine's movies. I compare it all to movies. I'm often willing to pay $10 for two hours of entertainment. Whereas I'll spend the same money for many hours a month playing an MMO (puzzle pirates).

Re:What's yer base value?

[cephyn]

Yeah I do the movie thing too. But my problem is this: if after 2 hours I'm not satisfied with the movie, I want my money back (or at least wish I hadn't spent it)

With an MMORPG, every one I've played, I'm never satisfied, and always wish I hadn't paid.

It might be more quantity entertainment for $10, but the quality....well, that has never lived up to expectations for me.

Re:What's yer base value?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, guess what? You're being fucked in the ass over movie prices too.

Re:What's yer base value?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa! Ass fucking? Can you post the address of the theater you go to? And can you provide descriptions of their "ushers"?

Re:What's yer base value?

[hal2814]

I just figure what I could buy in my big three hobbies (brewing beer, collecting arcade machines, wakeboarding - in no particular order) and if I can buy something major in one of those, I'm not spending the money elsewhere.

For example, if I spend $15 per month on a single MMO game, that's $170 per year that I can't spend on my hobbies. I can buy some pretty nice wakeboard bindings, some arcade boards, or a nice kegging setup for that kind of money. When I think of that, MMOs don't look nearly as appealing to me.

Re:What's yer base value?

[metamatic]

Actually, Puzzle Pirates is one of the few I've considered. $10 a month is about right, and if I recall correctly you can just download the client, there's no initial $50 sting. Plus it's cooperative, which is another big requirement for me, and runs on systems I actually have.

(I don't actually have a surplus of time right now, I expect to get back into gaming later in the year... My comments were from a while back.)

Re:What's yer base value?

[Pofy]

>Mine's movies. I compare it all to movies.

Ehh, mine's other games. I can get a completely full new game for the fee of 4 month (or so. less if I buy older).

any price is too much

[Bad Boy Marty]

I'm not that big a fan of the whole MMO scene, though I do occasionally play BioWare's Neverwinter Nights online for free (many servers can go up to 64 participants). Largely, it depends on the sorts of players the game attracts, and I've seen my share of horror stories about PK (player killers), and generic *ssholes on the big MMO games. How can that be worth paying for?

Re:any price is too much

[SphericalCrusher]

Until the day where a Neverwinter Nights server can main stability and hold more than 500 players, it will never be an MMORPG. You're getting your genres mixed up. ;)

Re:any price is too much

[Mind Booster Noori]

Which leads me to an old question of mine:
Is there any free MMORPG for Linux?

Weak Dollar

[EnglishTim]

I don't suppose the weak dollar is doing you much good. I imagine many things will start getting more expensive if the dollar continues like this.

Certainly when you compare GBP to USD - $15 now only works out as about 1 more expensive than $10 two years ago...

Re:Weak Dollar

[EnglishTim]

That should be one pound (sterling) more expensive...

Damn Slashdot and it's denial of non-dollar currencies...

Re:Weak Dollar

[vehn23]

I think you mean inflation.

Re:Weak Dollar

[Orne]

Eh, to me, this is more of an issue of a "price point"... the public perception of "expensiveness"... Music on CD is expensive at $18, but not expensive at $12. Goung out ot the Movies is cheap at $5 matinee, but expensive at $8.75. Now a month's subscription to an online game is cheap at $10 and expensive at $15.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter. It will remain at $15 for a long time, because of the relative price to purchasing a new game... if it goes up to $20, we're talking on the order of your dial-up ISP bill, or more importantly, the value of half of a new game. If people feel that they are not getting enough "content" for their subscriptions (can an old game provide as much new content as a fully new game every two months?), then they will cancel their accounts, and the game loses their income streams.

Now some games push it (Everquest took about 8 months to get the first expansion) and some are actively delivering new content to their users (City of Heroes, with new zones, new costumes, and new enemies, delivered in one month's time). If the customers feel that they are getting enough new stuff to justify the $15, then they'll stick with it, and everyone's happy in the end.

Re:Weak Dollar

[stanmann]

Yes, everquest took about 8 months for the first expansion and has maintained that pace for 5 years. Yes, to some degree mudflation has started to kick in, but even today, new players can get a similar experience to those who started 5 years ago, The more it changes, the more it stays the same.

worth it

[pizza_milkshake]

even if it was $50/month, many people would still pay. consider how it stacks up against other entertainment costs -- $15 CDs, $9 movie tickets, etc. -- a month's worth of unlimited online play for a middle-class geek with no social life and nothing better to do is a drop in the bucket.

no, i don't play MMORGs, but i've had points in my life where i played way too many video games, simply because there was nothing immediately better to do and i didn't have an interest in actively seeking out real life stuff to do.

Cable comparison

[Necromancyr]

Ok, I can get HBO - like 8-10 stations of it - 14$ or less a month with my digital cable or satellite. I can tape shows, or TiVO them, and watch them over and over as much as I want. AND I don't have to pay 50$ startup to initiate the channel. (Ok, cable installation, but you can get around that with promos all over...I've yet to see a big MMO give the game away for free). It's just too pricey.

Re:Cable comparison

[jocmaff]

and TIVO isn't ?

Re:Cable comparison

[PhoenixOne]

> Ok, I can get HBO - like 8-10 stations of it
>
And 95% of it is almost unwatchable.

But you can also say that 98% of EQ is a boaring "grind-fest" so...

Re:Cable comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to know where you can get 8-10 stations of HBO for just $14, as most (that would mean all) cable/satalite providers require you to have at the very least their basic packages before you can add premiums. So your $14 example is really more like $30-50. By my math that would get you 2 or 3 MMORPG subscritions, or one continuisly and a new one every month or two to try out for a month...

Re:Cable comparison

[rhuntley12]

But do all the dudes have huge boobs?

15 seems reasonable; but don't push it.

[2Flower]

The harsh reality of the matter is that MMORPGs cost a metric ton of money to develop and maintain. You can't just push the boxed product out and then maybe do a few bug fix patches, you have to actively develop new content for it over the span of multiple years, while paying your bandwidth bill, and supporting the massive customer service department you have to have. So, I don't think it's too much to ask for a boxed copy fee, PLUS a monthly. That's the extra cost of playing a game experience that goes beyond what you got in your initial money dump. Some smaller MMOs which can't support huge audiences can charge nothing or next to nothing, and you've got Guild Wars which is ostensibly free but asks for money to access certain content -- but you're never going to get a truly free MMO.

But that said, look at the economics of it; a 15 a month subscription is the absolute maximum, and that's assuming you don't play any other MMORPGs. (I can't see a casual player playing more than 1-2 of them, anyway. There's just not enoguh hours in the day.) 15 is not that much of a step up from 13. All you have to do to make the extra two bucks is not supersize it once a month. :) After 15, you're pushing it, since most luxury monthly-fee services like Tivo and such tend to pile up and are all in the same 15 range. You want to keep them small enough, or folks will start looking for ways to trim the fat.

Re:15 seems reasonable; but don't push it.

[code-e255]

You can't just push the boxed product out and then maybe do a few bug fix patches, you have to actively develop new content for it over the span of multiple years, while paying your bandwidth bill, and supporting the massive customer service department you have to have. True to a certain extent, but to me it seems that some MMOG developers don't pay the current game enough attention. Rather, they have most of their guys work on a bloody expansion pack which people have to pay for, while they only fix some bugs and address some balance-issues every now and then.

Re:15 seems reasonable; but don't push it.

[vehn23]

I agree. I thought 5 years ago we would have "discovered" that you can't have something (content) for nothing on the internet and expect it to last. I would assume that in particular that "half life 3" or whatever will not be playable multiplayer without some sort of fee.

Re:15 seems reasonable; but don't push it.

[Shazow]

You're right but I think most MMORPGs that have been released recently and the ones that saw how well everquest, ultima online and the suches did and want to join the party, they're focusing too much on "new content for it over the span of multiple years" instead of getting plenty of content for it during launch. I think the reason MMOGs tend to make such a hassle over monthly fees is because they see it as their primary source of profit. Especially after a year or so, they start offering the game for free, just give them the monthly (ie. Anarchy Online, with a small lump sum attached to it).

If they would concentrate more on the initial impression of the game and treat it like a real GAME instead of a service, maybe they'd have more people buying it and actually sticking through with it. On that note, if they already have a complete game at release, they wont have to scramble for the forthcoming 8 months to iron out all the bugs that should have been fixed in the alpha, and by the time they're done with the bugs, they start releasing good content, which by then everyone has forgotten about it. So now that the game is in the shadows, they forget the content, and just push an expansion set onto everyone and start the whole bloody loop over again.

A good, complete game at release would reduce the stress of maintaining it which would allow for lower monthly prices. I realize bandwidth it still an issue but it's only a small fraction of the $15 they're pulling from our pockets.

- shazow

Re:15 seems reasonable; but don't push it.

[2Flower]

True to a certain extent, but to me it seems that some MMOG developers don't pay the current game enough attention. Rather, they have most of their guys work on a bloody expansion pack which people have to pay for, while they only fix some bugs and address some balance-issues every now and then.

It depends on the game, and this is also part of the balance of whether or not you keep paying them the 15. If you're not seeing results for your money, they stand a chance at losing a customer; this is good and normal and in keeping with things. If they're doing their job and you see routine attention paid to issues, even if it's not 100% bug free and perfect, then they're using your money wisely.

City of Heroes is using the money wisely. Developers post every day and recently they've been starting open discussion threads for suggestions of how to balance the classes, what the players want to see. Changes occur frequently. Even with an expansion on the way regular content pushes are in the works.

Then you have the Star Wars Galaxies. Eek. There's no rhyme or reason to why they address some issues and ignore others, and some (smugglers) have been shoved back repeatedly and even told directly that they wouldn't be addressed in favor of the expansion.

The money issue is one of service, and if service isn't what you're getting, money isn't what they're going to get in return.

Re:15 seems reasonable; but don't push it.

[JVert]

What new content? All the mmrpgs I know release new content via expansion packs. The only thing they release monthly are bug fixes and balance issues.
Bandwidth should not cost more then $5 for the ubermost power gamer.
All customer service that is not related to account billing is from people who feel justified in tying up the lines because they are paying $15 a month.

MMRPG's are charching the very most that they can. Its capitalisim at its worse. Yes people CAN AFFORD $15 A MONTH. So the logic would work like this, if everyone switched to $5 a month the subscription rates would at least double, and those who are used to playing $15 a month will subscribe to other game services (because they can now afford to). Suddenly MMRPG's aren't so doomed to failure because there is a much bigger market.

Re:15 seems reasonable; but don't push it.

[jafuser]

All the mmrpgs I know release new content via expansion packs. The only thing they release monthly are bug fixes and balance issues.

You've not played City of Heroes then. The first update added levels 41-50, two new zones, the ability to change your costume, some new mobs, new social abilities, and some new missions/tilesets.

The next update will bring us the ability to re-assign our powers, new mission objective types, at least two new zones, new character customizations (capes, particles, etc), new mission art, new mob AI, customizable missions, instant trade ability, etc.

CoH is quite refreshing. They started right off from release with a very bug-free and highly playable game.

The box price for most MMOs usually drops after a few months from release, as it should.

The high cost at the beginning is used to recover the initial development costs, but once those costs are covered, it's usually more beneficial to drop the box price so you can draw in more people for the long run. From what I've seen, this is usually what happens.

Time for Playing

[Thyamine]

It really comes down to how much time I have to play the game. I love EQ and can't wait for EQ2 to come out. For $13 or $15, I'll pay that every month np.

The real issue is when I have busy periods (that pesky 'work' thing) or times when I just need a break from the game. I took a few months off (from the game) when I played EQ, and for $10 a month I don't feel too bad about wasting that to hold my account. But if I'm playing $15 or $20 a month, I'll seriously reconsider taking a break vs quitting altogether.

Re:Time for Playing

[Castaa]

You can cancel your EQ account at any time and re-open it at anytime in the future. I've done it many times with EQ and EVE Online. I know friends that have re-opened their account after years of it being canceled.

Technically, Verant/SOE reserves to delete your account's data but I see little reason since the amount of data to store is so small. I know Verant/SOE has said they've never deleted a single dormant account.

Re:Time for Playing

[stanmann]

Correct, I took a 2 year hiatus ending last december, and all my characters and their gear were intact and ready to go, and so was the fun. right now I'm playing 2 out of 12 months, and it stays new and fresh and my characters stay around for the 6 months between sessions I take off.

It doesn't matter

[cephyn]

No matter what they charge, people will still buy it. Works for drugs, works for MMORPGs. Addiction is a terrible and wonderful thing, depending on who you are.

Re:It doesn't matter

[superpulpsicle]

Man that is too true. I just don't understand why it takes so much maintainance expenses to keep these games running? Do they buy and add a new server every month or something? It's crazy.

10000 users x $10 = $100000 a month. That's a ludicrous maintainance expense for any service.

Re:It doesn't matter

[Planesdragon]

* dedicated servers
* TCP/IP connection to dedicated servers
* server backups
* Staff.

Re:It doesn't matter

[stanmann]

google groups discussion of this subjectI did a groups search for everquest server costs subscription since I was involved in this discussion some time ago. It seams like a great deal of money, and it is, but its not that fabulous.

Still a bargain at a per hour basis

[MBraynard]

$12.00 p/h for 5 hours of paintball at $60 total for all costs
$6.25 p/h for 12 hours of day rental for sailing a Flying Scott at $75
$4.50 p/h for 10 minutes of DDR at $0.75
$4.00 p/h for 2 hour movie at $8 ticket
$1.00 p/h for 15 hours of playing a MMO a month at $15 per month.

And lets face it - most of you MMO players are on much more than 15 hour a month. In theory you could play/macro all month, making the cost about two pennies per hour.

Re:Still a bargain at a per hour basis

[base3]

And every one of the things you cited requires a physical storefront and equipment other than a big honking server and a network connection to keep going. Thus, MMO should cost less than those.

Of course, the ultimate arbiter of how much MMO play is worth is how much can be extracted from suckers^W customers willing to buy a boxed game then pay a monthly rental fee on top of that to enjoy it.

Re:Still a bargain at a per hour basis

[Ummagumma]

Get a clue! I would wager the servers / co-location / bandwidth / personnel costs associated with running a MMO are at least as expensive, or more expensive than, a DDR machine, or running a paintball field, etc.

Re:Still a bargain at a per hour basis

[base3]

On a per-user basis? You have got to be kidding me Only one person at a time can play a DDR machine.

Re:Still a bargain at a per hour basis

[metamatic]

On the other hand, I can easily get over 30 hours of gameplay from a $20 video game that doesn't happen to be networked. Which makes MMORPGS look expensive, as I can't spare 30 hours a month to play them.

Re:Still a bargain at a per hour basis

[Luigi30]

Two people can play it at once, only one person can have a game going. DDR machines are imported for over $5000. Someone's gotta make thatt money back.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

MMOG Prices

[100lbHand]

I for one think that the prices are far too high all ready, ~$50 for the boxed cd and a free month of the game, then another $15 a month to play?
I have tried all the free trials of these games and have yet to see one that is worth more that $5 a month, maybe $30 for the boxed game and a free month.
For $25 dollars you can pick up a copy of BF:42 or NWN and play on 64 player servers, hell for free you can download Wolfenstien:ET and play to your hearts content and get 10 times more interaction and gameplay than EQ.
Sadly as long as powergamers and empty souls are willing to pay $15 a month to play with little virtual dolls, i doubt that the prices of these games will be brought under control.

you hardly need disposable income to afford $14.95

[jocmaff]

These games need to charge for both to survive. And from the numbers it looks like if the game is actually good, (EQ, City of Heroes, etc...) they won't have a problem getting the users to purchase and pay a subscription fee.

$14.95 a month is not very much money. I could have afforded that When I was 12 and had a paper route. Heck you could be on the street for a few hours and make that. And we are talking a whole month of fun... or misery for $14.95 depending on how you look at it.

And the fees are cheaper than two movie tickets, about the price for a bottle of wine, way less than a tank of gas. How many other frivilous things do we spend our money on and get very little or limited use out of?

Just pay the money and quit biatchin about it.

You keep using that word.

[mcmonkey]

I do not think it means what you think it means.

you can play free until September for $9.95

Well, which is it? Is it free? Or $9.95?

Re:You keep using that word.

[BTWR]

It's like when people talk about their cell phone plans. My friend always tries to stay off it during the day, saying something like "I only get 400 free daytime-minutes a month!" And I'm like "Dude. They're not free minutes if you have to pay for them..."

Re:You keep using that word.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they call it free because you don't have to pay anything unless you want to keep playing.

Recoup the costs!

[Marc_Hawke]

...or maximize the profits?

The company line is that the only reason they charge a monthly fee is because they have to pay for the bandwidth, player information storage, the CSRs, the constantly updated content. If that was true, it would be an easy task to add up the monthly expenses, and divide by the number of active subscriptions. Presto, instant price.

Anotherway would be to figure out the price per person directly. ((Average bandwidth use per user X cost per bandwidth unit)+{ Monthly wage of CSR/ # of online players per CSR) etc). Add in the valuation of storage and CPU and all that fun stuff as figured that one player would use.

Both of these give us a number. Take this number...add on a healthy margin, (more healthy doesn't mean more bigger, it means reasonable) and presto you have your pricepoint.

The thing is...this price point is different for each game. However, they always seem to match up exactly. I'm really wondering why there isn't a 'price fixing' complaint going on. Seems like this oligopy(sp) is agreeing amongst themselves on an artificial price.

There's another way people think though...this is much less 'consumer friendly.' Instead of even CARING what your costs are, you just charge as much as you possibly can. "We charged 12 last year and made a huge profit. Lets kick it up to 15 and see if the morons will pay that as well." This is the current philosphy of MMORPGs.

With this type of pricing, people don't look at profit margins, or expenses, they look externally, like to 'movies.' (The worst MMORPG comparison there is.) They say, "This Apple cost me $10, so it's reasonable to pay $12 for these two Oranges." I'm sorry, but that's insane.

I've always thought if the box price being to pay for the development of the initial game, and the monthly price to be paying for the running of the service. (They don't actually price it that way, but it makes me feel better.)

Thinking of it this way, I can handle that they charge me twice. However, I feel like they are WAY over charging me on the monthly fee.

If you wanted an actual number...Two years ago, given statistics from EQ, making estimations on wages for managers, developers, CSRs. Figuring out data-storage needs (I work for a company that makes personnel databases) etc. I determined that monthly costs were less than $10 per customer. It's not an actual number, but it was the best I can do with the information given.

The numbers have probably changed now, but most of the non-human costs have actually gone down, so I don't understand the 'greater than inflation' rise of the monthly fee.

It can only be explained as 'profit-mongering.' If you think that's fine for a business to do...even expected...then I guess you're happy. If you think a business should try to provide the best value for their customers, and not abuse them...then it's not a good thing.

I cancelled my CoH account because it didn't even come CLOSE to being worth $15/month. It should have been more like 7 or 8, but I might have been able to live with $10.

Re:Recoup the costs!

[Mike Hawk]

The numbers have probably changed now, but most of the non-human costs have actually gone down, so I don't understand the 'greater than inflation' rise of the monthly fee.

Maybe the source of your misunderstanding is right there. Human costs rise. Minimum wages go up. Cost of living goes up. As more players join, you need more reps so you can't just divide a set number among all the players. Why do you wholly dismiss human costs and then claim a lack of understanding?

If you spend your whole life worrying about if you are getting perfect value for your dollar you will only end up bitter and alone. But hey, you'll probably have much more spare change in your change jar than me when you die so it will all be worth it! Right?

Wow, you would have paid $10, but refused $15. If you otherwised liked the game, you stopped playing over a mere $60 per year. I know people who drink that much in latte a month. I'm sure you throw away $60 per year in other trivial things. Who needs the things that make us happy? But hey, its the principle, right? Right?

Re:Recoup the costs!

[cluke]

Yeah, I hate the movies comparison too.
With movies, do you have to spend 95% of your time 'levelling up' waiting for something to happen? Do movies have such absurd demands on your time?
MMPORGs demand a considerable investment of time that is *not* fun. If I play for ten hours, I have not got ten hours of entertainment, maybe only a third of that. Sure you might say the exciting stuff is all that much more exciting 'cos you had to wait, but come off it that's like saying I should batter my face off a wall because it feels so good when I stop.
Plus, with MMPORGs, the customers are supplying a large part of the experience, unlike with movies (and don't mention those idiots who whoop and cheer in cinemas). Without customers, MMPORGs would be NOTHING. (Actually, I'm thinking a better comparison would be charging for entry to a club or bar).
Like you say, apples and oranges.

Re:Recoup the costs!

[Marc_Hawke]

Please go bad and read again.

Both times I calculated human costs as a variable cost fixed to number of players. That means I'm already taking that into account. (Another thing is that the cost per player goes DOWN when players go up.)

Also, the sentence you quoted doesn't discount the human costs, it says that the 'total' has gone up MORE than inflation but the non-human has gone down. So, someone (and I'm betting it's not the entry-level CSR's) is getting a much fatter paycheck.

The overall MMORPG environment...

[HaloZero]

...would have to change before I invest money and time into it.

To begin, it costs way too much to support that sort of habit these days. I'd pay... 4.95 to 9.95 a month for a decent MMORPG. Even if the CD costs me 49.95 to start. (WoW: Blizzard, are you listening?).

I would absolutely love to play World of Warcraft when it comes out, but, when the numbers add up, I'm afraid my 'disposable' income can't take that hit.

Here's another issue. Players who detract from the overall experience. Espicially when game administration refuse to do anything about it. Not a case of 'can not', cases of 'will not'. Albeit, some games are adopting tougher policies on cheaters/assholes and are cracking down on them. Good. Good for them. More of you should be doing it.

RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

while including free game time until the 1st of September 2004.

So you pay $9.95 for the game itself and you don't pay a subscription fee until September 1.

In the time it took you to insert those HTML tags you could have figured that out yourself dumbass.

Re:RTFA

[mcmonkey]

Yes, the deal is buy the game for $9.95, and there is no charge for playing time until September 1. While the phrase "at no additional cost" would be more accurate, this does fall within the stanard usage of "free" in marketing.

Yes, I did figure that out for myself.

However the wording of the story, to paraphrase, 'free for $9.95' is still a mess.

Dumbass.

Re:RTFA

[dmendro]

I was about to post the same thing. If you are going to take the time to submit an article to Slashdot, at least take the time to NOT be a dumbass. lol.

Lineage II

[Trikenstein]

Put out by the same folks that made City of Heros (NCSoft) cost the same per month, $14.95.
On a per month basis.
If you purchase 3 mos at a time it goes down a dollar. 6 mos it goes down another dollar. And a year is another dollar lower.
Also IIRC the first 2 expansions are free.
They already released one expansion free. Although much of the content in it was supposed to be available at launch.
Also this is for the North American release.
No idea how they're handling it for their Asian or European markets.
If they ever do a European server farm.

I played from open beta, thru release and quit right before the first expansion.
I think a lot of people in the NA market did the same.

Here's hoping EQ2 and WoW are more fun.
Like the original EQ was in the beginning.

L2 was kill monsters until you lvl, then run further out the road where there are higher lvl monsters.
The battles were the same at lvl 40+ as they were at lvl 1.

Re:Lineage II

[rhuntley12]

L2 is all about the high level sieging. I was recently in a huge pitched PvP battle in Cruma tower, was atleast 45 people between two guilds. It reminded me of the rush the first time killing those dragons on EQ. L2 is the first I believe that won't ever charge for an expansion, and damn the first expansion was very nicely done. And the second one just entered beta in Korea and that is just jaw dropping. All MMO's have the level grind, it's when that level grind is at an end what there is to do.

Fee Times Nubmer of Games

[Marc_Hawke]

And another thing...

There are many many games. The fee doubles each time you add a game. Play EQ? pay X. Wanna play UO as well? pay 2X. Wanna play CoH? 3X

Finally, you're paying more for games per month than you are for rent. (heh. Guess that's a lot of games.)

Sony had a good idea with their "All Access Pass" except that they didn't include "All", and they charged more than twice.

I would have signed up in a heartbeat if it was "All SOE games for the price of a SW:G account." Of course, you couldn't sign in to two games simultaneously. But that's not how they did it.

I've heard rumors, (but it doesn't match with my experience) that NCSoft is actually doing that with CoH and Lineage2. That would be cool...and I actually thing that's the salvation of the genre. (If the different publishers can work out some sort of deal.)

Re:Fee Times Nubmer of Games

[Tofino]

There are many many games. The fee doubles each time you add a game. Play EQ? pay X. Wanna play UO as well? pay 2X. Wanna play CoH? 3X

Then play less games. I really don't get any of the above posts at all when they complain about the "high cost" of MMORPG subscriptions. If your family has one car, and you want another but you can't afford it, you don't write a letter to your editor complaining about the high cost of cars and the need for a new pricing model for that lease. You don't buy the other car.

MMOs need an up-front fee and a subscription fee. The up-front fee covers the cost of the game development, which is enormous, as well as the costs of advertising, distribution, etc. The subscription fee can't be counted on to cover these costs, for a few reasons. First of all, the investors are antsy and want to see their costs covered by this point. Secondly, on any modern MMORPG, development does not stop once the game ships -- new content and gameplay have to be introduced on a monthly basis or close to it, or players will jump to the newest and shiniest game, and this costs money. Third, server maintenance becomes a serious issue as the server farm you had during development and the server farm you are now running for retail have vastly different upkeep costs. Subscription fees need to go to #2 and #3, meaning that there needs to be an upfront cost to pay for the original development.

An early poster threw out the old chestnut about a shelf cost on an MMO indicating that the game was unlikely to be good enough to keep subscribing to. Well, that is indeed the case. Certain MMOs aren't for everyone -- in that case, both the consumer and the developer/maintainer have to treat that game as a normal retail non-online game. I've purchased nine different MMOs over the years and only played three of them for any length of time. However, I only regretted the purchase of one of those games, and I got my "money's worth" out of the others as I played them as long if not longer as I would have a normal, off-the-shelf game. The "free month" is thrown in there for just this purpose: you can treat the game as an experience of under a month and then move on, or you can keep paying the dosh and stay in-game if you enjoy it.

The costs of developing and maintaining an MMO somewhat defy comparison. Comparing it to moviegoing, or non-online games, or a health club membership just don't stand up. There are reasons for the way the pricing model is set up. Yes, indeed, one of those reasons is greed. You may be shocked to find that the companies that make these games are indeed for-profit companies. If you don't like the pricing model, don't play the games. The vast majority of players are having lots of fun without you.

Re:Fee Times Nubmer of Games

[Pluvius]

I really don't get any of the above posts at all when they complain about the "high cost" of MMORPG subscriptions. If your family has one car, and you want another but you can't afford it, you don't write a letter to your editor complaining about the high cost of cars and the need for a new pricing model for that lease. You don't buy the other car.

Let me turn that logic on its head:

I really don't get any of the above posts at all when they defend MMORPG developers who charge twice for their games. If you want to develop an MMORPG but can't afford it with a subscription fee, you don't ask your customers to pay an arbitrary extra fee for something that's completely useless by itself. You don't develop the MMORPG.

The biggest part of capitalism is compromise. The consumers try to get something for as cheap as possible, the producers try to sell it for as much as possible, and they meet somewhere in the middle. Thus, saying that gamers shouldn't complain about the high cost of MMORPGs is as silly as saying that MMORPG developers shouldn't try to gouge their customers as best they can.

Rob

Re:Fee Times Nubmer of Games

[JVert]

I keep hearing this old excuse "the monthly fee is to cover new content and gameplay have to be introduced on a monthly basis or close to it." what MMRPG actually introduces new content monthly? They patch bugs and balance gameplay but dont add any features. Those are released with the expansion packs that you are expected to pay for.
So what is the monthly fee? bandwidth? I can get a website hosted for $15 a month and suck up a hell of alot more bandwidth then i would ever pull from a mmrpg.
I've heard customer service being an excuse too. I have played a number of mmrpg's and I have never picked up the phone to call for support nor do I expect to. If someone is hogging this "support" feature I'm not interested in paying it. If there are any support calls i'm sure the majority are related to account billing.

Re:Fee Times Nubmer of Games

[Tofino]

Asheron's Call releases significant monthly content and storyline updates. City of Heroes also has content updates about every 6 weeks so far, promised for more like monthly. The monthly fee for these games covers the development costs for these props, in addition to the space the servers are kept (lease/rent), and the admin person or people to maintain those boxes. And yes, the bandwidth, which you should remember is a HUGE pipe on the MMORPG side, even though it's a trickle on yours.

Fair enough in my books. Whether it's fair in games like EverQuest where you don't get the monthly props is up to the consumer.

Re:Fee Times Nubmer of Games

[Tofino]

If you want to develop an MMORPG but can't afford it with a subscription fee, you don't ask your customers to pay an arbitrary extra fee for something that's completely useless by itself. You don't develop the MMORPG.

But this doesn't hold water. As I said in my post, the game is NOT completely useless by itself. You have a month's play to enjoy once you've bought the game off the shelf. I can count the number of computer games I've ever bought that I've played past a month on my fingers, and we're talking hundreds of games over the past 18-19 years (my first Commodore 64 game was Ultima III :)). To make that more relevant, the reason I didn't play those games past a month is because I was TIRED of them after a month. In the same way, I've bought into a bunch of MMOs but I got tired of them all with three exceptions, before the included month of online play was over. After that, I drop the game. Sure, if I want to play again, I have to pony up the $12.95 or $14.95 for another month. However, in the case of games like Asheron's Call and City of Heroes, this means that if I'd taken a 6 month break, now I'm getting not only a month of play, but ALSO six months worth of content and storyline patches for my subscription fee. Bargain!

The REAL bottom line is that the customer speaks with his wallet, if you really want to talk about capitalism. Your "compromise" begins the second the consumer feels like he is not getting value out of a product, and does not spend the cash on it. Currently, the market disagrees with those who state that the current pricing model doesn't work. By stubbornly planting your heels and refusing to invest $40 in an MMORPG, you're just missing out on some great games, and you're not changing anything. Remember this next time you buy a game and shelf it after a week -- ask yourself if you feel ripped off by that.

Incidentally, Asheron's Call is currently available for nothing but the subscription fee. It's downloadable probably via turbinegames.com. The download costs, I believe $12.95, and you get an included month, so really it's "free with your first month's paid subscription". The graphics are obviously 4+ years old, but the game is huge and content-rich.

Subscriptions affect my gameplaying...

[CokoBWare]

because I think they are a ripoff until there is some consolidation. Even though I don't own an XBox, I think XBox Live has it right... pay the monthly price to get access to dedicated servers. Tier this model, and you could add MMORPGs to this as well.

Re:Subscriptions affect my gameplaying...

[Marc_Hawke]

There is a rising disturbance (heh) in that for some future games they are thinking about charging a monthly fee ON-TOP of Xbox Live. So, to play this game, you'll be paying for your ISP, Xbox Live, and then finally the game.

I don't think anyone's actually tried it yet, and it makes sense from an objective point of view (they are all seperate companies that all need to be paid) but it just doesn't look that way to the eyes of the consumer.

There's going to have to be a change.

Perhaps...

Ubiquitous Broadband: Once it becomes normal, like electricity, and is just a small sub-line on your Utilities bill.

The 'Cable TV' route: MS actually buys the game subscription for you. So, an Xbox-live subscription buys you into the programming line-up that MS paid for. Just like a Comcast subscription buys you into the programming line-up that Comcast paid for. There would eventually be competing services, and you'd subscribe to the one that matches the list of games you want to play.

Bypass Xbox Live: There's not an equivalent thing in PC land. As consoles get more functionality, XBox live, or any dedicated gaming service won't be needed anymore, and you connect DIRECTLY to the game service you want, instead of going through MS's intermediary.

Ya know......

[Anonymous Coward]

JumpGate a super cool space sim located at www.jossh.com is only 10 bucks a month with a 14 day free trial. Well worth it!!!

alright, one account.. but five!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just started playing SWG and since I found it on sale at CompUSA for $20 I didn't mind paying for a month after my free trial (I started with the 14 day trial, which I wish more MMORPGS would have), but the guild that I joined has people with more than one account! Our leader has five $15 a month accounts because that is the only way to have more than one character on a server! I would be more happy with paying any fees if I could change my character quickly and easily since I change my mind every two seconds. Oh well!

Re:alright, one account.. but five!?!?

[cluke]

Your leader is a prime example of the addictive personality that these companies just love to suck dry.
Still, on Eve Online, I knew a guy who was buying a new PC to run his second account simultaneously. To grind to get money for his first account, natch.

Re:alright, one account.. but five!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ouch, I like this game and everything but I can't have more than one character to worry about grinding MSE droids with...

Re:alright, one account.. but five!?!?

[silicon not in the v]

What a waste! I just use a VM to run each of my three other accounts.

Re:alright, one account.. but five!?!?

[cluke]

Yeah, well Eve Online was pretty flakey, and you were playing Russian Roulette with the bluescreen if you even dared to so much as tab to the desktop, so you'd being doing well to get multiple instances of it running.

Re:alright, one account.. but five!?!?

[servognome]

why does he need to have an addictive personality, maybe he is having fun.

Re:alright, one account.. but five!?!?

[cluke]

Yeah, maybe. I've just seen too many guys for who these games compose the entirey of their social lives, and as such pump vast amounts of money and time into them in an attempt to gain kudos with their 'peers'.
I mean, this two-PCs guy had a family. I had visions of them eating their dinner, with the empty place. "Dad's off playing EVE online again, he won't be at dinner". Scary resonances with "Dad's drunk again, he won't be at dinner." Though that is taking it to an extreme! ;-)

pay for play time isn't ideal solution

[chaosmage42]

A solution I'm sure has been suggested is paying based on how long you play. This is nice because those casual players {players who have lives?} who don't play as much, don't pay as much. However, note that this payment method favors those who a>power game, and b>have more money. That sucks.

Re:pay for play time isn't ideal solution

[mrgreen4242]

Nothing says that a pay for play model has to be linear... For example, your first 5 hours per month could cost you a buck an hour. Your next 30 hours could be billed at $0.20 per hour. The next 15 at $0.10 per hour. After that, start raising the rate per hour. The next 15 (hours 51-65 for the month) back up to $0.15, and the next 35 for the month (66-100) at $0.20. Put the cap at that point.

The first few hours will pay for the overhead of an account... the CSRs, storage space, billing costs, etc. After that, you're paying for bandwidth, bringing your total cost to about $11/month if you played 35 hours (a pretty high estimate for a casual player, imo), the slightly more hardcore (50 hours per month) would pay $12.50. The even more dedicated (65 hours per month) would hit the current rate of about $15/month. The super dedicated 31337 crazies get stuck with a max bill of $21.75 for 100+ hours a month. But they are the ones who'd be willign to pay that anyways.

This has the added advantage of keeping bots and other macro type cheaters off the system, unless they want to pay the premium price. It also doesn't give an advantage to people with more money, as the difference between playing a ton (65 hours per month) and as much as you want is at most $6.75 a month, not a huge cost. But the 'cost of entry', ie the first few hours, makes up a good portion of the cost for any player, regardless of thier playign habits.

Re:pay for play time isn't ideal solution

[Anonymous Coward]

AHEM. Bandwidth costs less than $0.25/mo for the average player and $2/mo for even the most dedicated player (80 hrs/week). Run the numbers on your favorite MMO and assume you can get a T1 for $600/mo. You'll see that I'm right.

On a server with 10,000 users, it costs less than $1/mo to pay for an admin. Consider that MMOs have 10-100x that many players, and you can see that payroll isn't an issue either.

Basically, everything you pay beyond $3-5/mo goes towards lining the pockets of the producers. It's that simple.

Re:pay for play time isn't ideal solution

[mrgreen4242]

Ok, saying that you were 'paying for bandwidth' was an over simplification.

You are paying for bandwidth, server operation (electricity, building costs, such as HVAC, etc), server and connectivety maintaince, and, yes, PROFIT. (Crazy that these companies would want to MAKE MONEY?!) Note that most of the time these games have servers in several locations, so cost have to be factored for players per server, not per game.

My point was simply that charging a flat rate dissuades a lot of customers from playing, while charging a variable, but linear, rate was also not an ideal solution.

I pulled out some numbers from my ass that happen to line up with current flat rates, as it would allow gaming companies to make approx. the same gross income (which they have clearly demonstrated is a sustainable market value for their product), and at the same time, let the player feel like they are getting a better value for their particular playing habits.

Re:Casual Players? Yeah Right.

[Chibi]

But based on the amount of time I could actually dedicate to another MMORPG? I might be persuaded to pay $5 a month. I'd probably log in four or five times a week, kill a few monsters, make a friend or two, then get stuck behind a term paper and come back to find all my friends are leveled past me and I'm no longer interested in what's going on.

City of Heroes has a nice solution for this - Sidekicking. A player level 11 or higher can sidekick another player, as long as that player is at least 3 levels lower. Once sidekicked, the sidekick fights as if he/she were one level lower than the mentor. You miss out on all of the powers you would have gained over the course of your leveling, but this allows you to play with some of your more dedicated friends and not simply be a leech/tag-along. The only restriction is that you have to be within a reasonable distance of your mentor (I believe 100-200 yards?).

Of course, this doesn't help you if superheroes aren't your thing. :)

My thoughts

[Xlipse]

I was going to moderate the hell out of this thread, but I decided to post instead.

People who claim $15/mo isn't "that much" don't realize that us adults have other living expenses and everything adds up.

I cancelled my CoH account because the game is simply NOT worth $15/month. It was a fun game, but I've played other MMORPG's that provide a lot more content and a greater variety of entertainment, and they cost less per month.

I suspect in 2005, we'll find ourselves paying $17.95 for new games. I also wouldn't be surprised if EQ2 and SWG increased their price to $17.95 a month. It won't be long until we're paying $20/mo. Inflation has gone up steadily 2-3% each year, but MMORPG's subscription costs are inflating by 10-25% each year. Companies like SOE actually want to charge you MORE (they've specifically stated this, Raph Koster in fact) for their MMORPG's.

The cost of the "box" should cover the development cost of the game and kick back a bit of profit, just like any other game. Now, if a game costs $15/mo, I expect an entire new game's worth of content ADDED every 4-5 months (which is NOT unreasonable), otherwise I might as well go out and just buy a new game. Right now, other than maybe Asherons Call 1, no MMORPG has provided content additions that are actually WORTH the monthly subscription. They always come out with expansions that cost you $20-$30 MORE just to "activate". It's all bullshit if you ask me.

It's also very un-wise to pay for an MMORPG in blocks (3 months, 6 months, 12 months), despite the discount. The gaming companies are COUNTING on you to pay in advance, this is what they want.. however when you find out the game totally sucks and you already paid for 6 months, then have fun getting your money back (hope you paid with a Visa!). Or what if "your class" gets so nerfed you want to quit (or something else happens, like .. revealing how RETARDED the Jedi system is for your Star Wars game!).. but you still have 8 months left that you paid for.. oh well!

Thankfully, the market is so saturated with MMORPG's now, we have many choices for where we want to spend our money. Unfortunately, for some of us, developers still haven't managed to get it right. I think SWG was close, but they screwed that game up so bad it's shameful. Here's to hoping for EQ2 (not likely) or WoW (I hope). Both of which will be $15/mo, if not more. :)

Re:My thoughts

[Xlipse]

Another thing I'd like to add.. People are always bringing up the fact that it "costs so much money" to develop and RUN an MMORPG. But what you NEVER hear is how much PROFIT these companies are making off their games. Why? Because they don't want us to know that they are price gouging us. Do you realize how much money EQ makes.. or even SWG? It costs money to make games.. have a support staff, ongoing development, bandwidth.. I think I know roughly what it would cost to run a game. I've worked on enterprise level networks before, many times. I've talked with vendors who want to provide hosting and bandwidth and support that cost in the millions for the contract. I've been around the higher end IT industry AND the gaming industry for years now. Do you really think these companies would be making these games if they didn't turn a profit? Do you really think a shitload of companies jumped on the MMORPG bandwagong because they only make MINIMAL profit?

Re:My thoughts

[Marc_Hawke]

BTW, thanks. I've been trying to get people to see these points for years, but the only response I get is "It costs $10 for a 2 hour movie."

Re:My thoughts

[Reapy]

Well said. I remember people said it was justified to pay the fees because they would be adding new content and continually developing the world. Now they add new content in expansions that cost 30 dollars. What the hell is the 15 dollars a month people are paying for?

Oh well, who am I to tell people where to spend their money?

Re:My thoughts

[silicon not in the v]

I've got a couple of thoughts to weigh in with here. The first deals with the economics of the $10, $12, $15, etc. prices. It's generally called market forces or supply and demand or "what the market will bear". They are charging it because they can. They get thousands of subscribers at that price point. There have been several people say, "Well, the content isn't worth $15 to me. If it were more like 7 or 8, I'd do it." That is trying to say that they can get more subscribers and make more money if they would make the amount reasonable. But really, think of the math there. 7 or 8 bucks more or less doesn't seem like much because it's a single digit dollar amount, but think in a large economic sense. That would be cutting the price in HALF! They would have to generate a 100% increase in subscribers--double their customers--just to break even. So, yes, they are profit-mongering, as someone pointed out. That $15 a month gives them a very generous revenue stream above the costs of running the system. (Which is why I was amazed to hear that they actually charge extra for the expansion packs.)

OK, second point is this. Someone mentioned that they must be making huge profit because everyone is jumping on the MMORPG bandwagon. True, and that is from whence price salvation will come. Right now, the MMO genre is still fairly new, it is growing very rapidly, and there is basically more demand than supply. Give it some time, and there will be more MMO games available, there will be more competition between games for the audience, and companies will start to realize that they can compete better and get more subscribers by lowering their prices some, or creating a much better game. Either or both of those will be a plus for the consumer.

Think of it this way, you're paying the early-adopter fee, like the people who pay some huge amount for the latest processor or video card. Many people will be patient and pick it up in the next year or so and pay much less.

Enemy Territory

[ggambett]

I find Enemy Territory highly addictive and it's free (at least as in beer).

People don't roleplay much though ;) "Oh, my esteemed teammate! You lay on the ground, bleeding, and I remember our friendship while at the boot camp. I shall cure thee with my medi*headshot*"

$200 = Net Present Value/Cost of an MMO Game

[MBraynard]

I once did the calculations on the present value of an MMO subscription in perpetuity. I assumed a ~ $10 monthly expense, a $50 up front cost, and a 10% cost of money.

So the cost of the game in present value is really between $190 or $200 (I forgot the exact charge.) So forget about this complaining about paying each month/paying an upfront fee. Just look at that amount and decide if it's worth it.

Re:$200 = Net Present Value/Cost of an MMO Game

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not calculating in the free time that the MMORPG soaks up that I'm not otherwise bored, so I go out spending money on random crap I don't need.

Over the past year I've gone from having credit card debt and an automobile mortgage, to having no debt, own my car, and enough saved up to spend on a nice vacation where I can perhaps make up for the loss of sunlight =P

Re:$200 = Net Present Value/Cost of an MMO Game

[MBraynard]

eheheh - good point. I also didn't calculate the positive cashflow from selling your character on ebay when you are done with the game.

Tax Bollocks For Europeans

[code-e255]

Yeah, $12.95 or whatever's bad enough, but things get even worse when U.S. publishers rip off their European customers by charging them an extra 17.5% for "tax". Sony Online Entertainment do this, and I terminated my EQ / SWG subscriptions partially due to this nonsense.

What I despise the most is when developers claim the monthly charge is for continuous development, but then they release expansion packs for ~$30-40USD every year. After-sale service should be a standard, not something you have to pay for.

Bandwidth, hardware assets, customer service. Sure, that stuff isn't free, but I bet ~$2/m would cover those costs.

SWG is still in beta-stage, if you ask me - it's still bloody unstable and full of relatively trivial game-balance issuese. If the whole SWG team were working on SWG (and not the expanion), then it would be a much better game.

Re:Tax Bollocks For Europeans

[DAldredge]

Let me see if I understand, you are bitching that you are charged VAT on your subscription? Perhaps you should complain to those that passed it, not those that have to collect it.

MMORPG cost

[Anonymous Coward]

i would like to see some study on the MMORPG cost for the developer/publisher. Everybody says that they have huge maintenance cost, but I have never seen a detailed study about that. Anyone care to clarify me on that?

Re:MMORPG cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is an earnings report for NCsoft in .pdf. Give it a gander to see where the money goes. Very enlighting.

http://www.ncsoft.net/ir_down/other/Conference_C al l_(1QFY04)ENG.pdf

Re:Crying babies?

[Marc_Hawke]

You out-thought yourself. Why does 'already playing a lot' make it just fine to be required to pay more?

And, while I supposed MOST of the posts aren't approached from this perspective, they probably should have been. The question isn't "What is the universal proper price of an MMORPG?" but rather "What do you feel comfortable paying for an MMORPG?"

Notice the difference. Notice how the second question has no wrong answers. Notice how currently that's the question that MMORPG companies are asking.

The price is going to keep going up as long as the subscriptions keep going up. Once the subscriptions plateau then some company will try to get them to start moving again by dropping the monthly cost. Once prices start going down, they will continue to drop until they hit the 'costs+reasonable margin' that the "Invisible Hand" dictates in a competetive environment.

I'm just upset that I have to miss out on all these games just to be an effective cog in the machine.

Pass on the game

[Anonymous Coward]

Guilds and player communities are what drive MMORPG's, from Everquest to SWG's ask anyone that plays those games and they will tell you it's the guild/people that keep them comming back.

Games like City of Heros have quite a bit of difficulty getting people to continue playing beyond the first month. I know quite a few people who bought the game played for a month or two then offered the game up to guildies free although they would have to pay for the monthly subscription.

I think price has less to do with the game than a stable game environment with a well built community. That being said, i'm sure there are certain limits a game can charge a person... IE, anything over $20 a month will quickly lose interest to me...

In my heavier days....

[222]

In my heavier days of online gaming, i used to joke that if you divided the amount of time i played / 10$, i ended up spending 5 cents an hour for entertainment (a good deal cheaper than going to a movie or the local pub).
To the people that really play these games, 10-15 dollars a month is beyond trivial (I paid for 2 Daoc accounts, and even then i never felt shorted), and i have no problem shelling out 40-50 dollars for a new game.

Borderline

[inkless1]

I'm loving CoH, but $15/mo was almost to much for me to sign onto.

And I have a couple of friends who are interested, but they don't want to drop down $50 for a potential monthly. I think it would make more sense to include the free trial month, but drop the price to $35 as well.

Opportunity cost

[servognome]

$15 dollars a month isn't that much for me, I just look at what I could have spent that entertainment money on, and to me its a bargain.
For $15 I can get one of the following:
2 Movie tickets
3 McDonald's Value Meals
4 Starbucks Lattes
4 drinks at the bar
1 trip to the ballgame
7 energy drinks
.3 rounds of golf
1 day of paintball
1 stage play
1 CD
5 CCG booster packs
I get more enjoyment from the 40-60 hours a month I play an MMORPG than I would from any of those other things. YMMV

Re:Opportunity cost

[hsoft]

This is the standard argument. However, depending on your playstyle, not 100% of the 40-60 hours you play are really entertainment. A *lot* of this time is pure grinding, and I personally don't call that "entertainment".

Even if you say that you enjoy grinding. Do you enjoy 1 hour of grinding as much as 1 hour of Lord of the rings? I doubt it.

On the other side, a movie is 2 hours of 100% entertainment (If you choose the right movie, of course).

My personal opinion on the MMORPG prices is that 15$ is ok, but I don't know if I would still pay the fees if it was 20$.

As a side note, I consider my 15$ for "The White Stripes - Elephant" a much better investment than my last 15$ invested in SWG.

Re:Opportunity cost

[jafuser]

I agree. I think the people who complain that they would pay $15/month to only be able to log in for 5 hours a week have a legitimate claim.

MMORPGs aren't generally targetted to people who have a lot of expenses and a lot of things going on in their lives right now. Single-player games would be better suited to entertaining these people.

Seriously, if you don't have a lot of free time, MMORPGs aren't targetted to your demographic.

So it's really quite silly to argue, "I won't pay that because I don't have the time to get value out of it" because you're basically saying "I won't buy X becuase X isn't made for me".

It'd be like me going out and buying gardening tools, when I live on a 3rd floor apartment, and then complaining that gardening tools are useless for me and they cost too much.

Re:you hardly need disposable income to afford $14

[Cro Magnon]

It's not $14.95/month. It's ANOTHER $14.95/month. There's a difference.

Hibernation

[GrnArmadillo]

If there's one feature MMORPG's could add to make me more likely to play them, it's an account hibernation feature where I could quit if I knew I wasn't going to have time to play this month and resubscribe later. This would clearly not be a prohibitive cost, since DAoC has just done exactly this without even having been asked in advance as a "win back players who've left" tactic.

Of course, this feature is the opposite of the MMORPG business model. Those of us who play sufficiently infrequently to consider hibernating an account any given month? We're the customers they want to keep MOST because we're the ones they're making the most profit off of. Fact is, this industry uses the casual players and ones who try and dislike the game to subsidize the ones who make the game their second job. And that, as a member of the former group, I don't like.

Re:Hibernation

[llefler]

If there's one feature MMORPG's could add to make me more likely to play them, it's an account hibernation feature where I could quit if I knew I wasn't going to have time to play this month and resubscribe later.

It's out there, and it's free. You can stop paying your Asheron's Call subscription at any time. Leave for several months, and come right back where you left off. I think they officially say they don't purge accounts inactive less than 6 months. But in practice I can only remember one account purge in the 3 years I've been playing.

Months are also calendar months, not 30 day months like Anarchy Online.

Time/dollar

[Castaa]

Given the amount of time an average MMO player plays a month the subscription cost is fairly minimal.

For a "casual" MMO player playing 5 hours a week, the cost to them is less than $0.70/hour. I recently read in a MMO survey that an average player spends around 20 hours per week playing their MMO of choice. So for those players its literally pennies per hour.

The Daedalus Project is an excellent source of information on this subject.

Re:Time/dollar

[Anonymous Coward]

Time/$ really isn't the best metric to understand what price point gamers are willing to pay. Utils/$ is really the metric for comparison since it varies from person to person. It may only cost $.10 an hour to look at paint dry, but you get 0 Utils.
Utils/$=(Utils/hour)*(hours/$)
So I may get more Utils/hour at a movie, but I only get 4hours/$15. While an MMORPG I get less Utils/hour but I also got 60hours/$15. Of course the utils/hour varies from person to person. Thats why hundreds of thousands say a subscription is worth it and hundreds of thousands say it isn't.

Re:Time/dollar

[metamatic]

Right, but MMORPGS aren't making much money right now. If they want to make money, they need to attract some of the people who are not currently playing MMORPGS.

Nobody (sane) disputes that MMORPGS are great value for the gamers who spend 40+ hours a month playing them; the point is, people with that much spare time as well as broadband represent a pretty small audience, and there are too many games fighting over it.

Another sign of a Blizzard fanboy/purist

[sethstorm]

Here's another issue. Players who detract from the overall experience. Espicially when game administration refuse to do anything about it. Not a case of 'can not', cases of 'will not'. Albeit, some games are adopting tougher policies on cheaters/assholes and are cracking down on them. Good. Good for them. More of you should be doing it.

Obviously, some people dont "just play the game" in mmorpg's. It gets to a point where you just suck it up, wait for the next fix and use that gift in disguise. The games that have gone paranoid have one sign, *buster. If you hadnt complained about it and started just using the bug in the MMORPG, then the world and the game world would be better off. If you want your purist world, go code it yourself, since you dont care for critics, only the rabid at the mouth fanboy purists with your cd key policy.
As it should be said, I am root, you and your code bows before me lest it be forcibly changed in memory to reflect my will, even if for multiplayer games.

A Not-So-Modest Proposal

[way2slo]

I have been thinking about this particular topic for a while, especially since I started playing FFXI. $15 is my limit, due to budget restraints. I can not help but wonder if it would be possible to have an open-sourced, Free as in beer MMORPG. It would not be easy, but stranger things have come to pass.

A game where all content is created by all players that care to contribute. Like the old MUD's, but with graphics. You would need a massively-scaleable server, a client, world/level/item editors.

But who would run and organize this? Where would you host it? Where would you get the initial money required for hardware/storage?

I have no idea. However, due to the fact that I never think of anything first I decided to do FGI and found lists of free MMORPG's: http://www.onrpg.com/mmorpg-free-games3.html
http://www.gamesites200.com/mpog/

Anyone know more about these or other FREE MMORPG's?

Re:A Not-So-Modest Proposal

[Anonymous Coward]

Neverwinter Nights is close. Pay for the box (probably cheap now), but tons of user made content, and from the message boards there are persistant worlds that have been setup.

Re:Casual Players? Yeah Right.

[Blakey Rat]

Neverwinter Nights is just a ripoff of what the MUD community has been doing in text for years and years.

If you *really* care about an in-depth story and roleplay, check out Eternal Struggle MUD (www.esmud.com). The warning is that ES' combat system is crap, the entire MUD is based around roleplay (even levelling.) It's different, and it's the kind of thing no MMORPG maker would EVER take a risk on.

My take

[dancingmad]

I'm sure a lot of people feel differently (more power to them!) but for me, I don't care. I'm not paying ANYTHING for online gaming. I used to play X-Wing Alliance online a bit, didn't enjoy it much, and it was free. I have little interest in playing an MMORPG and paying 10-20 bucks a month, when after a month or two I could buy a 40+ hour console game (and that's at new retail price).

The $50 upfront then 10 bucks a month pricing scheme makes it worse.

I am Nintendo's "not-interested-in-online-gaming" demographic.

Re:My take

[TiggsPanther]

I'm with you on that one. It might be different if my parents were paying for the boradband, or someone else was similarly covering my internet fees.
But as the "internet" bill-payer I can't afford to spend any extra. I spend 25 quid a month on the broadband, the games cost between 20 and 40 (depending on age and platform), and there's no way I'm spending any extra. Certainly not on something I've not even tried.

I know that for most companies the subscription-method makes most sense, and to be honest I'm not sure I can think of a model that would work better. But for me that simply means that I'm never going to play online gaming unless I manage to somehow score limitless money and time.

Now if the games themself cost no more than a tenner the story might be different, as at least it'd be worth giving a try. But at current places? Screw that.

Damn Right!

[DAldredge]

I mean D&D is only 30 years old...Oh damn, that would mean that MUDS are a rip off of D&D would it not?

They don't necessarily need customer service.

[b0r0din]

At least not at the level they have. Usually customer service is responsible for things like billing issues, anyway, so if you didn't make the users pay the 15 bucks a month to play the game you wouldn't need to pay the customer service people. In-game GMs would handle all game-related problems, and the cust could return/trade in the game they bought ONCE.

Re:Casual Players? Yeah Right.

[Seahawk]

Look at www.avlis.org - its NWN, and there are no "younger" players that are just in it for the levels.

Re:Pardon my ignorance

[MBraynard]

Of course you don't unerstand it. This isn't accounting, this is finance (what I have my degree in).

This is a "time value of money" (TVM) calculation.

Example - how much would I have to pay you right now to get you to pay me $1 every day for the next year? In total, you would be paying me $365 - but spread out over a year. So to make up for the benefit of being able to spread it out over so long a period, I would expect to pay you something less than $365, right?

Now think about it in terms of the MMORGP. How much would I have to pay you to get you to pay me $50 right now and $15 a month for a year? How about for two years? Ten Years?

Now think about calculating it for a perpetuity (something that goes on forever). As the number of years increase, the increase in the amount I would have to pay you decreases to almost nothing. You can see how this looks on a chart, similar to an exponent chart approaching but never reaching a line. More info on TVM here.

Re:Damn Right! (MUDs a following D&D)

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be, except that MUDs dont require a DM/GM, so everyone can be player.

In this sense, MUDs brought something new. MMOs only really brought graphics, and the poster above clearly considers function (roleplay) superior to form (eye candy).

NWN for me

[brendanoconnor]

While NWN is not an MMO, the persistant world(PW) out there are nothing short of amazing. And they are all free to play. I paided for the three NWN games, and I can play in as many different world as I like. The choice is astonishing. You can play a story based PW and do lots of DM stuff with a group of people, or you can find an Action based PW with lots of built in quests and hundreds of places to play in.

Also, finding people to play with is not nearly so bad as most MMOs. There is no ideal group, you just join up and have fun. Most classes can solo, and if your base cannot, you can always multiclass (who doesn't do this?) and become more diverse in your abilities.

I do not mind paying an online fee, but NWN is better then all the MMOs I've played, and it is free. Also, it runs on linux. What is not to like?

If your interested in a good Action PW check this out. http://www.worldofamon.com/index.php

Condominium Pricing

[NLJR]

A great analogy for MMORPG pricing is found outside entertainment, condominiums. Your initial condo price gets you in the door and then you start paying a monthly maintainance fee. The monthly fee may "cover" specific costs, but in fact, it can be as high as the management likes short of what makes you walk away from your investment. (With MMORPG's this is a bit distorted because people view the time they've spent PLAYING as an investment. There's some seriously flawed logic involved here.) Fairness is not an issue. It is always fair to charge someone what they agree to pay. In every case, these costs are disclosed up front. (The one time I've seen them increased, the notification has been extremely verbose and complete.) Again, it is absolutely fair to charge the agreed upon amount for a service someone volunteers to use. The user's recourse is exactly what you descibe, you can decline the service. If the game is not fun, or the price is not justified, go play something else. Or take a nap. A two stage system of charges has a lot to do with motivating customers. Having a monthly cost keeps the initial price down and brings in users. If the entire price of the game were charged up front, it would need to include the total hosting cost (guess!) caused by an average user. (For FPS games, this is normal. The small cost of hosting game servers is included in the upfront cost.) Remember, the cost of hosting is proportional to the square of the number of users on each server. A single zone in EQ can have hundreds of players, all receiving updates about some activities of all the others. Since hosting an MMORPG is this expensive, the upfront cost might need to be hundreds of dollars if it included the servers. Very, very few players would take the risk. Keeping the initial cost up ensures that players are commited and have an initial investment. If the initial game were free, "grief players" would create hordes of throw-away accounts. For the company, those could be written off as advertising costs, but they create a real problem for users, since some sociopaths want nothing else but to ruin the experience for other people and leave. So, the current system gives people an incentive to think before the purchase, while limiting the risk, then collects more based on how long someone continues to play. The incentives are well placed. Now, there's certainly some other behaviors I'd love to see encouraged/discouraged by pricing. Hourly rates would be nice. :) Those uber-players who demand concessions from the company might actually pay thier share of the game's expenses.

"Methinks he doth protest too much"

[geminidomino]

Or: "Another sign of a cheating asshat"