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The Nickel & Dime Generation
Phaethon360 sends in a piece that looks at how quickly game costs can add up these days, now that DLC, microtransactions and standalone expansions are commonplace, writing, "If you were trying to the think of the most expensive games to play, Rock Band or a monthly-fee MMORPG would come to mind. But Halo 3 is right up there, too." It's reminiscent of a recent post at IncGamers where the author tallied up how much he'd spent on World of Warcraft over the past several years, and was astonished to realize it numbered in the thousands of dollars.
>>>It is immoral and unethical to leave a fool with any money.
Hey Barak, is dat u? I cant sy I like ur new 80% tax rate, but I love u man! Ur so hot.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
P.S.
And if I ever get tired of DDR, I can always sell it on ebay and recover most of my $20. Good luck trying to recover your $840 worth of online gaming.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Okay so *hundreds* of dollars instead of thousands. Still a ripoff. Meanwhile the music industry is trying to plot ways so you *rent* your songs rather than buy them for life, and the banking industry is hitting Americans with numerous fees, and the electric companies are raising rates to offset carbon credits, and ......
No wonder the typical person carries $10,000 in credit card and $70,000 in mortgage debt. They are being soaked for money such that they can't catch up.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
As an example of a company crippling its games, I heard Windows 7 will include Micropayments for it's classic games. For instance:
Soltaire, Spider Solitaire, and FreeCell come with only half a deck. 99cents for a full one per game.
Minesweeper has only the small board. 99cents for the medium and large ones each.
Pinball, in an effort to be more true to life, will charge you 50cents per game.
Knowing Microsoft this will probably expanded to other areas of the operating system. Maybe, we can pay 2.00 to have images display on our screens, or 1.00 per hour for use of the windows calculator. Start menu clicks going for 5 cents each for a limited time!
who "gets tired" of DDR? My problem is moving to an apartment that wasn't on the ground floor. No more DDR for me.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
>>>baraknaphobia got to him, it appears.
I haven't changed. I've always disliked big spenders that borrow money and drive us deeper into debt ($130,000 per U.S. home and climbing). BTW did you know, due to the recession, Social Security is now projected to go bankrupt in 2017? Yay.
"On pages 201 and 202 of the Medicare report, you will find the conclusive arithmetic: over the next 75 years, Social Security and Medicare will cost an estimated $103.2 trillion, while dedicated taxes and premiums will total only $57.4 trillion. The gap is $45.8 trillion." - Why Social Security Should Go Broke Faster | Newsweek, http://www.newsweek.com/id/199167
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
And only if you are not clever or educated in the matter of WoW...
I pay nothing, there are "private" servers out there you can join for free and you use a simple app to redirect everything for you to the new server. Just as fun and without the monthly fees.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Considering that's almost 5 years of entertainment and actually a good game, is that really so much."
Yes it is, think about all the value people who've been playing diablo 2, starcraft and warcraft 3 for the last 10 year or more. Imagine they had to pay 800 per game to maintain their accounts everytime they wanted to play a game a few times a month, that would add up fast, ~180 vs over 1000 is a no brainer, especially since most people have enjoyed these games for well over a decade, that is INCREDIBLE value and sure beats the pants off any MMO, remember you're sinking all that money into a SINGLE game, that is a hell of a lot of money.
If you're a one game kind of person it's not too bad, but if you like to play lots of game's it's terrible, lets not also forget in console land you can RENT a game and finish it on $5-7 and have the game for week or more at a time without ever having to pay full price for games. If you play a lot of games MMO's are a waste of money.
Those people got way more value out of those games and saved the money not spent MMO's elsewhere. 800 bucks is a lot of money to sink into a single game that is not really any better then many other single or multiplayer games that don't have the monthly fee. Not only that you're telling developers you're willing to pay for games that don't innovate or don't take risks.
Not to mention that MMO's cater to the lowest common denominator to keep the barrier of entry extremely low so any drooling fool can play it.