$15 a month for a MMO isnt a bad dead at all. What is a rip off is the $50-$100 that a game company charges to buy the initial MMO game. How do people even know that they will like the game and how do they know how well the game will run on their rig?
Can you return the game if you dont like it? No.
Can you exchange the game for another game of equal value? No.
Buying a MMO these days is like buying a grab bag. You kinda have an idea of whats in the bag but you wont know if it is a gem or a piece of crap until you actual open it up and try it out.
Is there a way to try the game before you drop $50+ on it? Currently, I dont think any developing MMO has a "Try Before You Buy" feature. Yes, there is Open Betas but those are mostly used as a marketing gimic to get folks to Pre-Order their product. It is not like the gaming company even makes an cash off of selling a boxed game. They get only a small fraction of the cost of the game.
What would rather see?

First, let me be able to download a copy of the game for $15 and give me a month free play with the download.(keep in mind this is only for Future MMOs and not existing MMOs)

Next, give me the option of buying a Informational Set that is mailed to me in a large envelop and only has the game manual and a few promotional items. Cost of the Informational Set is $10.
This will effectively drop the cost of the Player Initial Start-Up from $50 down to $25, which IMO is much better for the player who isnt sure he will even like the game.

The game company will also continue to sell game boxes as usual but this gives the player an option instead of the ultimatium of "Buy the game that we are selling for $50 and take the risk or dont play our game" and instead the player will be told "Here is a choice. Pay $50 for the game OR just pay for a one month trial which will only cost you $15 if you just want the download copy".

For what it's worth, I am married and I work for a living and will most likely choose to always pre-order a new game.

Game Development studios and Publishers aren't here for charity.  They run a business.  Businesses have to make a profit or they tank.   A healthy ammount of competition in the MMO market ensures the consumer that if they don't like what a particular company is doing or how much they are charging for thier service/product that they can just go put their money some where else.   Anyone that knows anything about economics knows that the consumer sets the price for a product and not the company.  That's why companies do tons of studies to determine the most sucessful point to sell, not too high or low.

However, considering how much I pay for a month of say Cable TV (over $50 a month) or for unlimited internet on my cell phone ($30 extra a month) I'd say an entire month of all I can handle gaming entertainment for $15 is a pretty damn good deal.   If  there was a game out there that was so mind blowingly awesome that I felt it was worth more than $15 I'd gladly pay it even if I had to get rid of the cable.  Maybe that's just me.   I have a job. Hell, I spend more than $15 a month on Redbulls an coffee for those late night gaming sessions.

I pay less for my online entertainment than I do for TV. I spend more time online than watching TV, it is good value for money. RMT's in F2P and subscription games may change that. I know how much I am spending with a sub, with RMT's you can lose track of what you are spending. Which is why MMO companies would all love to have them!

Yes Subscription system should be redesigned or completey trashed.

I think games like DDO are on the right track.

First of , all games should be "Freemium" - Not being able to play at all if you dont give your CC is putting off many customers that would otherwise try the game and be hooked.

Second - Subscription games favor hardcore player over casual player. If you have no job , kids , study and can play 10+ hours a day , than 15$ is a crazy deeliyo

Casual player plays much less hours. He can play 5 hours a week... Thats 20 hours for 15$ , when Hardcore player got 300 hours for 15$ ... that plainly sucks

On the end its should be about options.

Giving more options to player would make MMOs much more acessible , and much more people will dare to play and try them (instead of only playing one - WOW)

Here is the key

1.Freemium ( able to log in free , and limited play )

2. Several subscription plans based on time , and unlimited one

3. Alternative to subscription - paying for content or levels

Originally posted by Xyfire1

I have a job, buddy.  Great that you're ok with the current pricing. I am seeking insight, not a forum troll to come bitch. Companies, like Blizzard, should lower their prices imo. They can sustain their game just fine with less than $165 million a month.

Hmm, are you living in a non-capitalist country?  Comments like "they can sustain their game just fine" make me think you want the company to intentionally avoid profit out of the goodness of their heart.  Isn't profit sort of the point of making a company?

Nothing will change this until F2P models start taking over (and I get the impression they might.)  If F2P ends up being more profitable, more companies will switch to it.  (ie they will switch to a more profitable pricing scheme, not a less profitable scheme.)

I find the critics of subscriptions are off their rockers.

•  MMO's cost a lot more to develop than single player games.  They also have far more content/depth than single player games.
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• As an example, a regular Bioware game costs $49.99. The new Star Wars mmorpg is being touted as having more content than all the Bioware games ever made put together.  Yet players feel despite this massive undertaking that they should pay $49.99 and nothing else?
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• Servers to house several thousand players / development team updating with patches & minor content / CSR's should also be included for free with this $49.99?
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• MMO's cost far more to develop now than ever before.  Yet we are still paying the same box/subscription fee. Even with basic inflation it should be at leat $17.99 after 10 years of basically being $13-15.
• -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• Do people who complain about a month worth of entertainment in mmorpgs also complain about $10 for a 2h movie or dinner out that will only have them full for a few hours?
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• I'd contend the average mmo gamer spends 1.5h a day playing their game of choice(conservative number).  Thats 45h in a 30 day month. In 2009 paying $15 for 45 hours(a minimum), for premium online entertainment is a steal.  Besides, you are only paying because you are continuing to enjoy the product.  If it's worthwhile of your time and gives you enjoyment then kids, it's worth $15.

Why is there always somebody bitching about the $15/month charge of MMOs? If you don't feel the game is worth the time or money...simply don't play it. Even if you only play the MMO for 15-16 hours a month...that is a dollar per hour. Now how many other things can ya do for a dollar an hour?

Sure some companies can run the game for less...but why should they? They are already charging so little for the amount of entertainment you get.  When I first started MMOs in 98, I was paying 10/month. Now its at 15/month. So over the course of 11 years, the price has gone up 5 bucks. For as many hours as you want to play each month. Think you could watch as many movies you want for 15/month? Go out with friends as much as you want for 15/month? Drive around with your car as much as you want for 15/month? Eat as much as you want for 15/month? Tell me what form of entertainment has stayed pretty much the same price over the past 10 years, that you are free to enjoy it as much as you want.

If ya wanna complain about the price of your monthly fee...then perhaps MMOs are not for you. If anything.. I think we will see a price increase over the next couple years.

This line of thinking could justify just about any subscription price.
If it was 50$ a month , i am sure that many can just as easily justify that.

The problem is:

We have buyer - seller relationship

But this relationship is broken and perverted.

Instead of seller trying to gauge the highest price , and buyer trying to lower it.

We have situation where buyer is actually cheering for any price seller is putting (even to the point of encouraging even higher price - and believe me there was some mad fanboy rants on this forums that suggested 20$ subscriptions for WAR)

This is the product of constant commercial brainwash conducted on people of some capitalist countries since 70'

And this generation is finally showing the fruits of this campaign.

As a consumer your task is to demand lower prices , better quality and improvement.

This way not only do you get better and cheaper product, but also help industry fight against stagnation and monopol.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

This line of thinking could justify just about any subscription price.
If it was 50$ a month , i am sure that many can just as easily justify that.

The problem is:

We have buyer - seller relationship

But this relationship is broken and perverted.

Instead of seller trying to gauge the highest price , and buyer trying to lower it.

We have situation where buyer is actually cheering for any price seller is putting (even to the point of encouraging even higher price)

 

This is the product of constant commercial brainwash conducted on people of some capitalist countries since 70'

And this generation is finally showing the fruits of this campaign.

 

As a consumer your task is to demand lower prices , better quality and improvement.

This way not only do you get better and cheaper product, but also help industry fight against stagnation and monopol.

 

 

 

I think you'll find that if a company lowered it prices they'd maintain the same profit by lowering cost.. ie. they'll fire people and get cheaper people to do the same job... quality will be lower and you'd complain more, but shareholders really don't care about that.

Originally posted by Harabeck

Get a job, 15 bucks is less than a trip to the movies for two. It's less than eating a restaurant. 15 bucks a month for unlimited playtime on an MMO is about the cheapest entertainment you can get.

Except for the get a job, I couldn't have said it better. That said, recently several games, LoTRO and Champions for example, are giving "package" discounts: 6 months for $60.00, which is essentially $10.00 a month. They both have lifetime subscriptions too, which, in the long run, is the cheapest way to go. If you can stomach the $200.00 up front. I can't but....And this is no comment on the quality of either game, just a comment on the pricing.

Originally posted by talismen351

Why is there always somebody bitching about the $15/month charge of MMOs? If you don't feel the game is worth the time or money...simply don't play it.

It is the problem with people who think their opinion matters. I'm tried of hearing shit constantly on these boards about people bitching and complaining that something isn't exactly the way they want it. Simple answer: "Shut up and either play the game that is given to you or don't. Either way I don't care." It is what it is deal with it.

I didn't read all the responses because it seemed fairly standard. But don't forget about the console arguement.

For instance if you want to play Halo 3 on the 360 you buy Halo 3 (console games are $60 on new release normally) then you have to pay the $13 a month for your xbox gold membership or however much it is. Then when Halo releases a crappy map pack that they require you to have it's another 5-8 bucks each time. All of that for a simple fps shooter that doesn't take much to develop and you just play the same 5 maps over and over again.

So if people can pay that much for something so simple they can pay $15 a month for something as complex as an MMO.

It really depends, but my opinion would be about 13-15 dollars a month.

Technically prices have fallen taking inflation into account as it has been $15 a month for some years now.

 I still think 15 per month is fine, but having to buy expansion packs is retarded.

I would pay $60 a month for a game I play 4 hours a day.

That is still a better value than $60 for a single player game that lasts me two weeks.

It's still only 50 cents an hour.

That still about the same price as going out for the night (food and drinks for 2).

It's still a good value.

So $15 is a great value, sorry you complainers are out of your minds.

  I think it's fine the way it is.  $15 is pretty standard for a Pay-to-Play game, but that amount of money seems like a lot to some people that just don't have it to spare.  Personally I often find myself without the $15 needed for my subscriptions, but it's just tough luck, and my games have to be put on the back-burner until I can come up with that amount.  Plus, my having two or three other games going at once, $15 can easily turn into $30 or $45 a month if I can afford it, so sometimes it's a matter of choosing which game I feel like playing for a month.  Even so, I think paying the $15 to be able to play all I want is a more than fair price.  The gaming companies have to bring in profits as much as anyone else.  I can't see myself paying much more than that, though, my wallet just can't handle it.

 Screw 15 dollars a month you guys are over paying drastically for sub par games! Most of the MMO's I play are 14.95 a month! So who is the fools!

Originally posted by beeker255

 Screw 15 dollars a month you guys are over paying drastically for sub par games! Most of the MMO's I play are 14.95 a month! So who is the fools!

Quoted for hilarity.  I think I want my five cents back after reading that.

Originally posted by Xyfire1

I have a job, buddy.  Great that you're ok with the current pricing. I am seeking insight, not a forum troll to come bitch. Companies, like Blizzard, should lower their prices imo. They can sustain their game just fine with less than $165 million a month.

Do you have a 401(k) plan? How about an IRA? I don't know about you, but I want to see these companies make an assload of money. The more profit they make, the higher my retirement portfolio goes as (hopefully) their share prices and dividends increase. Who are you to say Activision Blizzard, Inc. should be a charity??
 

Most mmos aren't even worth the price of the box! Monthly fees are horrible, yes I know $15.00 a month isn't bad but I don't want to feel I have to play 5,000 hours a month just to get my $15.00 worth of gameplay. I work, I have real life responsibilities to attend to and sometimes I won't even get a chance to get some free time. I honestly would pay more for the box and expansions rather than having to justify my $15.00 month.

@GreenChaos: Just because you bought 5 sub-par games (and thanks for pointing out that today's games are more flash than substance) doesn't mean ALL non-MMOs are that bad. Thanks to the internet, honest game reviews are freely available. I do my own research before buying something, gone are the days when I would make random impulse purchases - and the industry has itself largely to blame for shooting themselves in this particular foot. Of all my purchases only a scant few have provided less than a couple week's worth of play. I'm a long-time gamer, and no longer trust trailers, hype, nor even demos. Either I have a friend pass on his/her own firsthand experience, or I trawl through a bunch of reviews, screenshots, and videos. Overkill, removes a lot of the suspense/anticipation? Maybe, but here's the point: you're gonna drop $50+ on it. You don't HAVE to go in blind.

@Herithius:

There's a difference between simple muck-racking haters and people making legitimate complaints. On the flipside I can ask why anyone would be so stupid to pay for a sub, considering that IN GENERAL the average MMO experience is hardly a smooth one. Honestly, can you tell me of any MMO, even pay ones, which didn't have teething problems? And of those, can you claim that all of them eventually got over the initial hurdles? In fact, the opposite seems to be true. It's like if I google any game, I can find stuff on it from the initial hype to launch date to eventual drawn-out fadeout into obscurity. I can't recall off the top of my head of ANY MMO publisher which closed doors on a title simply because the game had ran for too long, they'd made enough money off of it, and are moving on to a newer game.

+ Speaking as a programmer, once the core game engine is done (and it's not bugged to hell), I see very little reason why additional content should take as much effort as getting it started did. New areas? That's just map data, that's the design people's job, not the programmer. New NPCs, items, monsters etc? Ditto. Just more values to plug into the database. Even quests are just flagged db stuff.

Yes, it all takes effort, but getting the engine finished is the major one-time hurdle. Sure, you tweak it as you go along, but i don't see why massive code re-writes should happen on any sort of regular basis. Version upgrades are fine, but those don't happen daily, weekly, or even monthly.

+ Agreed. Server + bandwidth costs are what i see as a huge chunk of operational expenses which are what's stopping small no-name studios from publishing their own MMOs. It's not that it's hard to create games nowadays: it's the ongoing operational expenses, and I'm not talking about stuff like salaries which non-MMO-producing companies have to deal with as well.

I've played some well-done MUD-type games, but I know these are very niche games so I don't bring them up even though technically they're multiplayer online games as well.

+ Who says we don't also complain about movie ticket prices? Also, expectations are different. I pay less for a night out at the local family restaurant than at a swanky place with a dress code and mandatory reservations, despite both of them being basically places where you pay to eat. Price is an important consideration, to be sure, but the entire experience means something as well. I've never encountered an MMO which didn't have it's fair share of problems, whereas sp games are hardly plagued to the same extent. Console games even less - in fact console gaming is pretty much put the cd in and play, none of this update patch crap.

+ That sounds about right, what with the job and the family, i don't really get to game all that much. However, i find myself far more often digging out older games rather than reaching for the wallet for something new. Also, since I like to DIY stuff I tend to mod the heck out of my games, and mods are basically free content. Some game mods are very nearly full-blown expansions or even sequels in their own right, like in games like Morrowind/Oblivion, Freelancer, Titan Quest, etc. Many of them provide multiplay as well, just not MMO-style, and I can honestly say that a LAN party with friends beats partying with a bunch of random strangers any day.

Despite the stigma - plus the feeling that 99% of them are crap - I've enjoyed quite a few freeware / open source games as well. The Battle for Wesnoth, for one. That Battletech remake, done rpg-style. Not to mention the scads of doujin games.

Finally, i multiplay not just for the social experience, but to enjoy a game with like-minded people. MMOs have largely been a disappointing experience, socially speaking. Technologically speaking they haven't been anything that great either. As a programmer, i really hate buggy games, and the general shoddy state of most MMOs is simply appalling.

-

I've ended up not playing MMOs for quite some time now. If devs are gonna get us back into the loop, i'd like to see something new for a change. And by that, i don't mean the same old recycled concepts given another facelift.

Originally posted by Xyfire1

So, I'm sure it is generally agreed upon that P2P MMO's are better than free download-only or browser MMO's. Of course, Guild Wars is an exception because ArenaNet has a different method of making money, this is not the discussion.

Should MMO monthly fee's be reduced? Sure, for a working person the 15 bucks is generally a non-issue, but really, plus 40-50 dollar expansions? As a young male, I like to do other things and don't want to have to feel obligated to get my money's worth.

Perhaps it should be 10 or 12 dollars a month? or perhaps we should pay by hours like the Korean NCSoft does.

I believe it's 18 bucks for 205 hours and 35 bucks for 410 hours. US dollars, that is. I just feel like companies are milking us. I know what our subscription payment goes towards, and thank you, but, for instance, blizzard does not need 10 or 11 million people to pay 15 bucks a month to keep the World Of Warcraft up and running.

What does everyone else think?

Well you get into the argument of overhead vs. income.

In all fairness, your opinion of them charging too much so you can save money so you can spend it on... whatever... is about as valid as them wanting to charge more so they can pay for all their stuff and have more money to spend on... whatever. It's hard to fathom logically what one doesn't understand as a whole, speaking for myself. I'm guessing... servers that devour bandwidth, in buildings that need massive utility bills, along with staff  that needs paid with benefits, to maintain the building(s) servers and backups, development... ect. That's just very basic idea an uninformed person can come up with.

Currently I can't justify cost because of my lack of time to devote to playing a MMO in lieu of other things that require my time. If I could play WoW offline and play solo content without paying a monthly fee... then yes I would play WoW in my spare time. I love playing MMO's and RPG's, but can't play like I used to in early EQ three days straight when my only worry was grabbing a quick enough bio break before the next spawn popped.

Do I "like" spending that much? Eh, for me it's compensation to pay 10-15 a month for a game that is good, than paying $50 for a  RPG game I fly through in 40-80 hours, no extra content, support or replayability, and have to go by another one next month.