Age of Conan

AoC is one of those games I've been looking at with growing interest, but I was a little stunned to see the recently released subscription prices for the game.

In the UK players will be asked to stump up £12.20 per month (that's 12.99 euros (or £10.43) plus VAT).

In the US, it's looking like $14.99 (ironically, with the exchange rate the way it is that's a mere £7.50, but there'd  be VAT on top of that).

The question is: are they nuts?

I realise there will be many die-hard fans of this game that will happily upgrade their rigs and trump up that much to play, but to those UK players who are interested in trying it out, do you think £12.20 is a fair price? Personally, I think they've shot themselves in the head with this kind of pricing, but I'd be interested to see what everyone else thinks.

EDIT I've tacked on a poll of suggested UK subscription prices to see how much you reckon is fair. If you're American, it's (very roughly) two dollars to a pound, so feel free to add your mark as well. Mind you, $14.99 seems okay to me.

Cheers,

$14.99 is a pretty standard monthly price for mmo's, although there are a few which are less, like EVE.   Its about what I pay every month for both WoW and Vanguard (although with exchange its usually a little higher), and used to pay for EQ2.  Prices may be different in the UK, but the AoC prices seem pretty standard from a North American point of view. 

This situation was same with Hellgate:London(mostly with other mmos) and at that time they explained this as european taxes is higher than US taxes so price is a bit higher in euro. I think same thing is valid for AoC.

Originally posted by Eveningsong

$14.99 is a pretty standard monthly price for mmo's, although there are a few which are less, like EVE.   Its about what I pay every month for both WoW and Vanguard (although with exchange its usually a little higher), and used to pay for EQ2.  Prices may be different in the UK, but the AoC prices seem pretty standard from a North American point of view. 

It's obvious he's in the UK, and £12.2 is over $24 USD, which seems pretty crazy to me. Sure, it's business as usual for those of us in North America, but there's no way in hell I'd be paying $24/month for an MMO subscription. It seems like the normal UK subscription fee is £9, World of Warcraft and the other major industry players included, so for Funcom to charge so much more is a little arrogant, if you ask me.

£12 a month? I'm glad I got to try it first because I'm not paying that much for it.

All mmo's are charging like this now u noticed that? in AoC? Come on.
It is the same in WoW.

Using the Igoogle currency converter, I found that 12.20 euros is about 19.39 USD.

12.20 GBP is about 24.16 USD.

IF it is GBP, then yeah, that seems excessive, but if it is euros, i'd say that this is a trend that will be taking place.

It is bound to hit America at some time, there just has to be a game company daring enough to do it.

Blizzard would be one i'd expect to up prices (probably on their next MMO) just because any other company that does it, faces ridicule, rejection, and will likely lose players to WoW or some other game.

In order to raise prices, you need to be certain you have 

1. A quality product worth it
or
2. An audience that has to pay that price.

So long as some competitor tries to keep it at 15, any game that releases at 20 (here in the US) is doomed.

Now if every company came together and decided (yeah let's raise it 5 dollars) the outrage of the players would be heard for miles... but they would still pay it.

Originally posted by Eveningsong

$14.99 is a pretty standard monthly price for mmo's, although there are a few which are less, like EVE.  

EvE is 14.99 as well, pretty much the standard for any games the past 2-3 years.

I dont know if you realize that dollar was dropping like a rock for a year now. $$$ is at worse place than it ever was. While Euro is steady.

Last year 12EU was about same as 15$

Today 12EU is 19$

....

Since MMO prices are not affected by inflation - they are steady - we are paying same amount we always did,

just $$$ hitted the garbage can