This is a problem fundamental to marketing folks looking at video games. These guys in suits think "Market Share" and visualize getting a bigger slice of a limited pie. Releasing earlier gets you a bigger slice of the pie so it must be a good thing.
The truth is that the market for games is not anywhere close to reaching the limits of the pie-tin. The hope of an early release is you'll steal the thunder from the competition, which is actually true. The competition loses business when you release a product ahead of theirs, but if you rush it out, so do you! A lot of the folks not who haven't bought a game before look at a buggy, early release and stay away from MMORPGs. Everyone loses!
On the other hand, Sony could wait, watch WoW attract a lot of new gamers to the MMORPG fold, continue to refine their own masterpiece and release it to a larger audience with more confidence in the industry to produce good games. Blizzard makes more money, Sony makes more money, gamers get more great games.
This same fallacy shows in the approach to piracy. If people pirate a game, the fixed-sized-pie crowd screams because that looks to them as a piece of the pie they can't sell. In fact, it's probably someone who wasn't in the pie to begin with, and once they play a pirated copy are likely to become icing on the mixed-proverbial cake.
Sony is a large corporation with a lot of marketing folks who need to prove their worth. I wouldn't expect them to understand.
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.
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This is a problem fundamental to marketing folks looking at video games. These guys in suits think "Market Share" and visualize getting a bigger slice of a limited pie. Releasing earlier gets you a bigger slice of the pie so it must be a good thing.
The truth is that the market for games is not anywhere close to reaching the limits of the pie-tin. The hope of an early release is you'll steal the thunder from the competition, which is actually true. The competition loses business when you release a product ahead of theirs, but if you rush it out, so do you! A lot of the folks not who haven't bought a game before look at a buggy, early release and stay away from MMORPGs. Everyone loses!
On the other hand, Sony could wait, watch WoW attract a lot of new gamers to the MMORPG fold, continue to refine their own masterpiece and release it to a larger audience with more confidence in the industry to produce good games. Blizzard makes more money, Sony makes more money, gamers get more great games.
This same fallacy shows in the approach to piracy. If people pirate a game, the fixed-sized-pie crowd screams because that looks to them as a piece of the pie they can't sell. In fact, it's probably someone who wasn't in the pie to begin with, and once they play a pirated copy are likely to become icing on the mixed-proverbial cake.
Sony is a large corporation with a lot of marketing folks who need to prove their worth. I wouldn't expect them to understand.
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.