Good Day Folks

Is anyone else noticing the increasing cost of playing an MMO?  I mean, each game often requires a monthly subscription, and if not then it's straight up cash purchases.

Now, I'm not saying they should be free, but we as PC gamers, I think we're being "bent over the barrel" so to speak.

Take XBox live.  Those guys can play any multiplayer game they own and for ONE monthly fee, play with other players.  As far as I know, Sony doesn't even charge anything for their network (correct me if I'm wrong, but even so, still just one fee).  And here we are, paying a box purchase AND a monthly fee on something that might or might not be around in six months.

I say it's time for the gaming companies, or even Microsoft themselves (seeing as it's their OS we're using) to start doing something similar.  One monthly subscription fee plus the purchase price of the game SHOULD be enough for anyone. 

Mr. MMO Company? You know why I'm not buying your game or cutting my subscription to your game and going to another? Because I refuse to pay anymore than one subscription at a time.  The company that entertains me the most with one particular game gets my business.  I will not even purchase another game in your stable for the sheer reason that I do not feel like paying 30+ dollars a month to play.  SOE was headed in the right direction, but with XBox Live being half the cost (and the quality of their games overall being somewhat subpar compared to what's out there), I'd have to say that there isn't a viable alternative....yet.

The company that can offer a stable of MMO's for one fee, a decent and fair fee, will get my business.  Otherwise I will only play one game and Mr. Gamecompany?  If you would notice, there are LOTS and LOTS of games coming out, ready to dilute your sales, possibly to the point where you can't get the business together that you thought you'd get.  You might even have a solid game, but people would sometimes rather stay with the devil they know vs. the devil they don't.

Anyone else feel this way?  Anyone else sick and tired of buying an MMO only to have it's box collect dust on the shelf as money wasted?

Originally posted by Binny45

Good Day Folks

Is anyone else noticing the increasing cost of playing an MMO? 

Spent 50 USD on Combat Arms over the past year and a half.

Spent 25 USD on Florensia in the past year.

Currently subscribed to EVE Online and Fallen Earth.

Will be rejoining LOTRO once it goes Free To Play and probably spend maybe 30 USD a year on that as well.

Since I'm normally subbed to 4 or 5 MMOs at a time, I'm actually spending about 500 USD a year less than I would have for the same amount of accounts a  couple years ago.  Saving about double that if I figure in my Wife's accounts as well.

I currently don't share your pain.

With regard to the first two MMO's, I'm not familiar with them, but I'm assuming F2P?  I can't speak for these two, but my experiences with the many F2P MMO's I have played has been horrendous, from bad playing experiences to being told my personal information was for sale to companies in exchange for "free" play, to my account being hacked because of shoddy security.

EvE is one of the exceptions to this as you can literally pay your way with ingame cash.  Smart move and definately an idea, but I don't see the big companies catching on.

LOTRO was a beautiful game, but like most of Turbines work, I found myself falling asleep more often than not.

These are not what I would call the general publics opinions but my personal opinion, take it for what you will.

The fact of the matter remains if I want to play my EQ account and my Vanguard account, it's going to cost me $30+ per month.  Then if I want to play my WoW account, it's another $15 per month.  THEN if I want to play Fallen Earth, it's another sub (plus box purchase), and don't even get my started on SWTOR.

It is well within these companies rights to demand a sub fee for each of their games.  But it isn't 1999 anymore, when there was only four or five MMO's that were mainstream.  There are literally hundreds of games out there looking for your dollar.

I'm just saying that I would play more games (Ahem! Buy more boxes that is) if these companies grouped their subs for a stable of games vs. paying a sub for a single game.

Folks, if you look at the gaming stores these days, you'll notice that the PC gaming sections are getting smaller and smaller, with a lot of stores reluctant to even bring MMO's in unless they are on pre-order due to the fact that a lot of them don't do well and the box  ends up sitting there, faded and dusty and the store loses cash.

If things don't change soon, we may very well see MMO's die as we know it.

At least there's lots of great single player games and multiplayer shooters out then?

MMOs started out at $9.99 a month.

MMOs now cost twice as much or more to make.

MMOs now send far more data over the network, and take up more server space.

Inflation has been significant in the past 15 years.

Now MMOs tend to cost 19.99 a month. So with costs to create double, more space and more hardware used, and inflation making the dollar far weeker then it was back in the day, well sounds fair to me.

I've noticed cable TV costs more then it did 10-20 years ago, the whole world is working together to make everything cost more! Those sneaky bastards.

Originally posted by Binny45

I'm just saying that I would play more games (Ahem! Buy more boxes that is) if these companies grouped their subs for a stable of games vs. paying a sub for a single game.

Which your EQ and VG accounts offer.

If you switch to a Station Pass you get EQ, EQ2, EQ Online Adventures, PotBS, Vanguard, SWG, Planetside and Free Realms for maybe a couple dollars more than what you pay now for EQ and VG. The cool part about that is that you are accumulating the various gifts and veteran rewards that all of the games offer... even the ones you rarely play.

You are paying for a service. We have an accepted rate right now. It may be quite a lot more than is needed, it might not be; I am not particularly well versed in maths. But even if it is too much, if you are willing to pay the fee for one game, you should be willing to pay two fees for two games, because you are accessing different servers, and paying for different people to develop different content. It does not cost less to create and maintain a game if you are playing two. You are trying to justify paying less per item, when the items to do not cost less to produce, and so the logic you are using is very flawed.

And remember, you are paying to enjoy something. If you do not enjoy it, do not pay for it, which is what it seems like you are doing, I suppose, after determining using faulty logic that you are being wronged. For my part, sometimes I like being bent over things (never a barrel, though). If you enjoy it, why do you care why the person doing it to you does it? So play your games, and pay the appropriate fee, per game, and deal with it.

With the norm being around the $15 landmark, I can't complain. Asheron's Call wasn't much less when I picked it up in late '99-earlier '00 and with the time I spend playing, which is roughly 2-3 hours a day, it's still a cheaper entertainment activity than anything else, and I only have to pay it once a month.

I don't think the price is too bad.

Well, you are right in the fact that SOE could as well have the same price on you playing one game and several as soon as you own the games, it doesn't really cost SOE any more money if you play EQ2, SWG and Vanguard 40 hours a week or just EQ2 40 hours. Characters do take some server space but the fee for you to buy the game covers that by far, or they could implement something a small fee for every extra character you creates after a certain number.

Other companies should have similar offers too.

But I doubt we see any cooperation between independent companies, they really have very little to win on that, they would just have to split the profit.

I think the price of playing MMOs are high, but not in money. All my other hobbies costs more. The price is however very high in time spent.

Co-operation between the game companies would be a bad thing.  It would remove competition, so with one massive monopoly, they could all agree to charge a single high price.

Some game companies like Sony already have station access for a range of games.  It is expensive unless you are actively playing a number their games.

Also, servers for some games are only lobbies where people meet to play together.  In these type of games only the lobby (meeting place) runs on the server, the game itself runs totally on players' computers.  This is not the same for games like WoW and LoTRO where the game world runs on the server and players' computers only run the GUI for each player.