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SOE to Sell Content Additions to EQII

Posted by Zonk on from the if-you-can-make-a-buck-doing-it dept.

Gamespot is reporting that Sony Online is going to be adding content to Everquest II in the form of adventure packs, essentially mini-expansions. From the article: "The first part of the adventure pack will come as a free download. All of the game's subscribers will be able to sink their swords into a new zone, fight new enemies, and so on. There will also be some new quests in this area for all players. [...] If players want to continue down this story path, they will have to pay what's been described as a "small fee" to download the rest of the adventure pack's content and continue on." Basically they're going to be following the City of Heroes model, but making players pay for part of it.

10 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Whats the monthly fee for then? by Dekks · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I know server bandwith and maintenance isn't cheap, but if you are already paying $15 a month then just what is this money going towards? Anyone got any sort of idea of stats or breakdown of what it costs to run a game like this per person?

    1. Re:Whats the monthly fee for then? by Blackwulf · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'd assume it would be for the level designers and scriptwriters and artists and stuff.

      The way I understand it (someone can correct me if I am wrong) is that the $15/mo or so actually goes towards the upkeep of the server hardware, paying the sysadmins and the in-game support team, and for bugfixes of the sort. The actual game-running team is a seperate team than the programmers/artists that designed the game and it's content.

    2. Re:Whats the monthly fee for then? by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We don't know how much it costs to build a Civic, but I'm sure it's not even close to $13k.

      We don't know how much it costs to build blue jeans, but I know it's not $50.

      You can go on like this for every single object around you. Probably only the subway/bus you ride to work on costs more to operate than it receives in ticket sales.

      Pay the fee if you think it's worth it, don't pay the fee if you think it's not. It's that simple.

    3. Re:Whats the monthly fee for then? by I8TheWorm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I know SWG as ~200,000 players subscribed. If their cost of upkeep is ~$3MM/month, then I think they should reevaluate their maintenance plan.

      Of course, they're in it for profit too, but ~#36MM/year, I would assume, is likely paying for new game development as well. Just a hunch though.

      --
      Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
    4. Re:Whats the monthly fee for then? by macrom · · Score: 3, Informative
      There was an article in Game Developer a while back talking about the business of Everquest. They run over 1,900 servers (this is EQ I, only), employ hundreds of people and (not sure if this was mentioned) probably consume huge bandwidth pipes. Think of some of the costs :

      • probably at least 50 employees to run and maintain the game. Average $50,000/year for each, you're looking at $2.5 million.
      • cost of bandwidth. I would imagine that the bill is $5000+ per month. I suppose a DS3 or 2 would work. Anyone care to theorize?
      • Cost of keeping the servers running at 99% or more. Think of the bill for the datacenter, rack space, electricity, etc.
      • Cost of running the billing system. Maybe that could be counted in the 50 employees, maybe not
      • Cost of marketing -- that's still factored in because you want new purchases
      You still want to make a good profit after all of that. Now, all of what I mentioned could still be way lower than their monthly intake; maybe someone with more reliable cost figures could elaborate.
    5. Re:Whats the monthly fee for then? by Dekks · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I realise there has to be profits, but part of the point of mmorpgs originally was that as well as playing with many people at the same time, the world would be constantly evolving with new content and refinements. That hasn't really happened in many but myself and I suspect many other people are happy to pay a monthly fee because of the promise of new content etc, otherwise whats the point of playing once you've seen everything or got to the highest levels, it just turns into irc chat with a pretty engine. This happened to me in SWG, I enjoyed it buy after a while I had done pretty much everything and used to just hop on to chat to my guild mates. JTL while not interesting me, I feel was a fair expansion to charge for because it was a big engine add-on, but whats most new content? A few new models and a new dungeon. I agree with you on pay the fee you think its worth though. I personally think this is gouging and if wow did it I wouldn't pay and would probably stop playing but others might be salivating at the idea.

    6. Re:Whats the monthly fee for then? by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Dynamic content in most (not every) MMOG is still a dream. I would fully expect WoW to charge for expansions but to offer some bit for free. It turns out that the content of quality considered acceptable to us is expensive to create.

      The question of whether there is some room in our monthly fee to squeeze in some new content development is not answerable, except to say that there are so many MMOGs out and/or coming out, that if someone COULD do it, they SHOULD.

      Personally I think having a scriptwriter who changes some fraction of quests on a monthly basis could work out. I'm annoyed that the EQ world I lived in 6 years ago is the same one I live in now. But fundamentally it was an enjoyable enough game that overlooked it. WoW beat EQ for my money, it offered more and better for the same $.

      Anyhow the only way to get change is to talk with your wallet, and hope some smart person figures out there's money he can grab.

  2. Well... by Dragoon412 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's cool and all, but when are they going to sell a release-quality game to their players? ;)

  3. Re:Guild Wars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Maybe it's a concession they made since Guild Wars is breathing down their back. It's similar to what Guild Wars is plannign but on a small scale.
    - Not really a concession. More like attempt to grab more money. City of Heroes has already a concept that is pretty much similar to this, except that it's free. They call it "Issues". The last issue (Issue 3) gives players new classes, new powersets, new encounters and whatnot.

    Similary, MMOG maker do release free content regulary. Hell, even WoW just recently added a brand new dungeon (Maraudon) with new quests. Free. And more are coming. CoH, DAoC and WoW are giving players regulary FREE content outside expansions. You can download the new DAoC client free, the one in the latest expansion.

    I have no problem with MMOG makers charging money for expansions, but for minor content? One or two dungeons? 5-10 more quests? No thank you.

    Greed pure and simple.

  4. Nothing like the City of Heroes model by Quarters · · Score: 2, Interesting
    First of the "City of Heroes" model would be better named the "Asheron's Call" model, as Turbine was the first to do free content expansions. They did it on a more predictable schedule (monthly) than Cryptic has managaged.

    That being said, given players a small taste and then charging them for the rest isn't anything like a "free content on a regular basis as part of your monthly fees" model. Asheron's Call and City of Heroes offered everything to all players, effectively changing the base-level game for everyone at one time. EQII is going to be more like those vogue "manager's theater" things you see at multiplexes where you pay extra for nicer seats but are still seeing the same content as everyone else.