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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.

3 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

  2. 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.
  3. 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.