My leisure time is a more scarce and valuable commodity for me than cash. If a game is enjoyable enough for me to play, I'm happy to spend $15/month on it. If it's not enjoyable, I won't waste my scarce leisure time on it even if it is free.

I voted for your lowest price offered but actually I would only pay $3.00 a month if given a choice.  But I would pay it gladly!  I would also be okay with $3 mo plus cash shop pets.  Mounts should be many and wide variety at very low cost game money but npc's from different zones should sell different mounts so you have a reason to explore.  You should also have no limit on the number of pets/mounts you can own.  Next, npc's should not sell ANYTHING ELSE!!!!!!  Everything else in a game should be crafted.  EVERYTHING CRAFTED.  Finally, for this to work the auction house would have to have a 3 digit limit so no one could sell anything for more than $999 in game money max.  This AH would have to employ the methods I saw in Forsaken World where gold sellers or whoever are allowed to trade irl money for game money in game and versa.  Keeps gold sellers out of chat.  Works perfect.

PS

I forgot to mention nothing in the game is "bound" or is on a time limit (except maybe holiday event items).

Whatever the monthy sub fee is it doesnt really matter, its the gameplay. 

Originally posted by Mizzmo

Why is 15 bucks the standard fee for online games per month? If games lowered the amount to 9.99 or 7.99, do you feel that (INSERT GAME HERE) would be doing better? I was thinking that maybe if AAA games had a lower sub fee that people would be more apt to play/sub to them for a longer amount of time. If there are two games that you like, you don't want to spend 100 bucks buying both of them and then paying 30 bucks a month to play them both. But maybe with a lower sub fee you would sub to more than one game?

 

Share your thoughts and opinions.

 

EDIT meant to post on the main general forums for MMORPG.com

Look, if the game is good, sub pricing doesn't matter.  If a game fit's your particular style, it shouldn't matter.  $14.99 isn't bad, and lowering it right now given the state of many country's economies sounds good to us, but not so to businesses who are dealing with inflation.  I think having multiple ways of paying for gametime is great, though.  EVE online is a decent example.

Originally posted by Banquetto

My leisure time is a more scarce and valuable commodity for me than cash. If a game is enjoyable enough for me to play, I'm happy to spend $15/month on it. If it's not enjoyable, I won't waste my scarce leisure time on it even if it is free.

This is a false dilemma.

There are plenty of f2P games out there and some are fun for me. I don't see why i cannot have fun *and* free at the same time.

I'm skeptical that reducing a subscription fee from $15/month to $10/month would gain more than a handful of players.  It's extremely unlikely that it would gain the 50% increase in the playerbase merely needed to break even on the switch.  If you don't like a game, or won't pay a subscription fee on principle, then you're not going to suddenly subscribe because it's $10/month instead of $15/month.

I would prefer it.

Originally posted by Quizzical

I'm skeptical that reducing a subscription fee from $15/month to $10/month would gain more than a handful of players.  It's extremely unlikely that it would gain the 50% increase in the playerbase merely needed to break even on the switch.  If you don't like a game, or won't pay a subscription fee on principle, then you're not going to suddenly subscribe because it's $10/month instead of $15/month.

It'd work best for a game that has players bouncing in and out all the time in my opinion.

I feel that City of Heroes could've seen a population rise by switching to something like 7.99 a month. Tho' if you do the math their F2P is comprable to a lot of B2P prices so it works out that way too.

I do think a game would have to launch with the 9.99 tag for it to be more effective at bringing a significant playerbase due to the price point, and it had comparable content or something unique compared to the 14.99 alternatives.

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

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Originally posted by Banquetto My leisure time is a more scarce and valuable commodity for me than cash. If a game is enjoyable enough for me to play, I'm happy to spend $15/month on it. If it's not enjoyable, I won't waste my scarce leisure time on it even if it is free.

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This is a false dilemma.

There are plenty of f2P games out there and some are fun for me. I don't see why i cannot have fun *and* free at the same time.

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Originally posted by Banquetto

 

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

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Originally posted by Banquetto My leisure time is a more scarce and valuable commodity for me than cash. If a game is enjoyable enough for me to play, I'm happy to spend $15/month on it. If it's not enjoyable, I won't waste my scarce leisure time on it even if it is free.

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This is a false dilemma.

 

There are plenty of f2P games out there and some are fun for me. I don't see why i cannot have fun *and* free at the same time.

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Oh, indeed it is possible. I play F2P games as well as sub games, I've often had fun and free at the same time. But I'm not sure that I've ever played a sub game and thought "ehh, this is kind of fun, but not fun enough to pay for, I'd play it if it was free." If I feel that meh about something, it's not worth spending my leisure time on, free or not free.

 

Well, i guess you and me are different.

Take DCUO as an example. It is fun and i will play it. But why would i pay for it when there are OTHER fun & free games out there?

While if nothing else exist, i probably will pay for it, there is no reason to when there are free & fun ALTERNATIVES (like DDO). It is not about whether a game is fun enough to warrant payment, but about if there are fun enough alternatives that are free.

My time is more valuable to me then the $10 or $20 a month that most MMO's charge. At this point I'm not playing any MMO's out there....but that's NOT because there aren't any that aren't worth my MONEY.....it's because there aren't any that are worth my TIME.

Make a good quality product....and it's a bargain in terms of entertainment dollars at $30-$40 a month.  Heck, I could easly wrack up more then that on Pay-Per-View movies...etc....

A hobby that costs maybe $200-$400 per year...that's dirt cheap as far as most working adults go.

I will never pay a monthly sub again unless it is a huge open world sandbox game with no classes or instances. and it must have monthly content updates.

i will never again be suckered into paying for these trash themepark, wow clone, garbage, half assed, broken games again. im done with them.

Give me Asherons Call 3.

I'll pay wahtever the cost if it is worth it.

Currently the state of MMOs isnt worth it to me. By state I include content, community, game play...all of it. SOMe have 1 or two of the facets, but I cant see any that are worth more than a month or two, which in the long run with a 50-60 dollar upfront is fail. I learned not to pre-order with AION, and RIFT. Now I am leaning in the direction of not playing, after SWTOR and TERA. TSW is a definate maybe, but I had some closed BETA of that, and just can't toss my hat in that ring yet. GW2 maybe because of the pricing model, but it is still my bane of "High Fantasy".

I did pay 15 a month for CIty of series for almost 4 years. I would still pay for that, but it was just time to move on.

I've been hapily paying $15/month for quite a long time.  I don't mind paying developers who return the favor.  It says a lot that I'm not currently paying any monthly fee.  I'm beyond disgusted with the genre.

What I don't appreciate is a developer recycling content that usually ends up being raids or dungeons with ancient mechanics.  Add a new mechanic or something that doesn't revolve around combat for a change!

The price is pretty much irrelevent to me, because I do enjoy spending time in these games.  Time enjoyed is not time wasted and it's more than within reason to charge someone for a nice service.  The difference is I wouldn't even play most of these games if they were free and that's the rub,  I guess.

Originally posted by uohaloran

......Add a new mechanic or something that doesn't revolve around combat for a change!........

J0in me - playing Sims 2 right n0w.  0hh, I kn0w it's n0t an mm0, but y0u can use y0ur imaginati0n and pretend th0se little simmies are real pe0ple.  I d0!

I think some games need a $4.99 monthly fee -- I mean I liked that game NCsoft had for a while called dungeon runners that had a $4.99 per month monthly fee.

Other games would be best with a $39.99 monthly fee -- which is far less than many people spend on "free" to play games but would be enough to significantly improve a game vs a standard fee game. 

For the rest of them the standardish $14.99 is fine.

It all depends on the type of game and level of service.

Originally posted by DrunkWolf

I will never pay a monthly sub again unless it is a huge open world sandbox game with no classes or instances. and it must have monthly content updates.

i will never again be suckered into paying for these trash themepark, wow clone, garbage, half assed, broken games again. im done with them.

Give me Asherons Call 3.

I think we both know that Asheron's Call 3 wouldn't be AC1 redux. If anything, AC2 was the groundwork for modern themepark games, and Turbine made idiotic decisions with both DDO and LotRO. Turbine is not the same company that it once was. I would love AC3, but it just won't ever happen :(

On topic: I would probably sub to multiple games if they were 7.99 or 9.99 monthly. It's not that I can't afford multiple 14.99 accounts, but most games in my eyes aren't worth 14.99 per month.

If anything, I think if a game like TSW went to a 7.99 price point, you would probably see a helluva lot more folks playing it. Kinda like how most people didn't have the internet until AOL had their 19.99/month unlimited access. Sure, they potentially could have made more money charging by the minute or hour, but they made profit out of quantity.

For me any subscription rate above $0.00 equals me not playing.  My personal feelings are that subs are just an easy way to suck money out of my pocket.  A sub also leaves me with no choice on whether I want to give up my money for that game.  I bought it, but yet I have to pay for the privilege of playing it?  No thanks.  I'll stick with Buy 2 Play.  Or even F2P (minus a pay2win cash shop) that I'll end up treating like B2P. (see if I like it, then if I do, spend say $50/year - if that - in the CS).

So, the price isn't the problem for me.  I can easily afford probably 3 or 4 subscriptions.  The fact that you are paying to play a game you already paid for is what keeps me from playing subscription based games.

Originally posted by dreamscaper

Originally posted by Grahor

No-more-subs, thankyouverymuch. I'm through with that model. 

 

I've never understood this mindset. You do realize that servers, maintenance and updates aren't free? F2P models usually end up costing more unless you're immune to grind-annoyance, and B2P models just release expansions quickly enough to cover cost. In all of the above you're still paying roughly the same amount over time, so what exactly is so wrong about subs?

That's not true at all.  I've been playing GW1 for 6 years and have spent less than $200 total. (3 games, 1 expansion, 1 inventory and cosmetic items purchase)  Can anyone say the same about WoW, or any other sub based game?  No.  In fact WoW will cost you just about $200 in the first year of play just buying the basic game.

Another point:  I've played LotRO for about 1 1/2 years now using the F2P model and have spent a total of $60.  And that was to get the deal with the ROI expansion.  With that deal I also opened up 2 other quest areas and got some decent gear to boot.

As for the server maintenance, etc., that argument may have worked years ago, but it doesn't really fly anymore.  Those things are a negligible part of an MMO's operating costs and are easily made up by the box sales and limited CS items.

Yes, there are those who can't handle taking a litlle bit of time to get things they want and blow a bunch of money in a CS, but they are not the norm.  Most normal players wouldn't spend $200 per year on a game if there weren't sub fees.

To answer your question, what's wrong with subs is that they are completely unnecessary, but many people are still willing to pay them out of some misinformed notion of covering the company's server costs.  Once people wise up to the scam that subs are nowadays, they will stop paying them and MMOs will stop requiring them.

tentonhammer has a good article from 2009 about the history of sub pricing

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/75692

it used to be 9.99 with UO

 in 2003, EQ raised it to 12.99 

finally WOW and EQ2 raised it to 14.99 and many other companies did likewise