Why do you have to buy MMO's ?

[Oreo]

It makes no logical sense, developers of MMO's make 98percent of there money from the subscription fee's. If they released the game as free, with a free cd key. Everyone would try it, and many would stay and continue with a monthly subcription.

Jagex is a great example, it's game is free (runescape) and it's subcription service entirely optional. Yet, look at this: "As RuneScape's popularity grew, so did Jagex. By December 11, 2003, RuneScape had 65,000 paying members, and Jagex had 29 employees.[9] As of May 4, 2007, RuneScape has over 6,000,000 active free accounts and over 1,000,000 paid for accounts"

That's a lot of monthly income, £3.2Million a month. Far better than many MMO's which should be far superior, like Age of Conan.

It just seems so ilogical. Shops could still make money on it, devs and producers could give it to the shop for free - and the shops sell it for maybe 50p, or a dollar. People won't care if they have to pay a dollar for a great game, and shops would get alot of orders.

The only time it seems logical to charge for MMO's is expansion packs.

Anyone else agree ?

 

[Harper]

Personally i would rather see that all MMOs would allow you to download the client. Like most people that play MMO have a high speed internet connection all ready. And the devs are really making money from the subscriptions.

I am 50 / 50 about whether expansion packs should be chargable or not.

What I don't like is some of the MMOs is when the purchase price of the client does not include the first month. I remember a freind of mine complaining about how WarHammer Online was like that.

 

[HAVOC]

Actually, If MMO's didn't require subscriptions, I might actually purchase one. But I JUST CAN'T take on another per month charge or subscription.

 

[Harper]

Actually, If MMO's didn't require subscriptions, I might actually purchase one. But I JUST CAN'T take on another per month charge or subscription.

This is one thing that i don't under stand. Non MMO constantly complain about having ot pay subscription, however they will glady pay more money to purchase a lastest came after they got bored with playing the last one.

In the hight of my MMORPGs days, I found that playing a subscription worked out cheaper than it was to constantly pay money for the lastest game titles.

MMORPG - $15 per month and endless hours of play and new content being added.

Standalone Game - $50 and i would have it beat in about 12 to 40 hours. ANd so far, there has only been a handful of games where i have found some reply value in them. And i was going through these games every 2 weeks.

 

[Peter.Cort]

Yeah. The replay value is key. Like the fact that most MMO's never end.. even once you've finished like 99.9% of the quests, there's always something else to do, even if that's create a new class to explore. And by the time you're bored to tears, there's a new expansion.

 

[Harper]

Yeah. The replay value is key. Like the fact that most MMO's never end.. even once you've finished like 99.9% of the quests, there's always something else to do, even if that's create a new class to explore. And by the time you're bored to tears, there's a new expansion.

I do know a few people that are heavy wow players. Once they level up and gear up all thier toons, they go on take a break my casually playing another game for a little period of time while they wait for another patch or expansion to come out.

Also they spend a good deal of time helping the other people in thier guild level up and gear up.

 

[Akubane]

I agree 100%.

Having a free trial helps, I know that it's SLOWLY bringing a lot of people back to AoC for example (I started playing again a couple weeks ago and you wouldn't believe the % of recently returning players I meet lol) but if you want to continue playing, you still have to choke down a 50$ game then look forward to monthly installments.

The games would attract many more people if they were a free digital download, or 1-5$ for the disc or whatnot.

The company would make up for the price of the game in 3 months, and if the game they are offering is any good the play value should be much longer, increasing profits from there.


And I believe it's fine to pay for expansion packs IF the amount of content is actually worth the money. I guess that's a pretty general opinion but I don't want to pay for content like bug fixes and stuff that could be released (SHOULD be released) in a patch.

Expantions for an mmo should include many hours of extra content, a playable class or two, and a possible level cap increase of say 5-10 levels (which also doubles to increase added play hours), As well as an entire new area, including sub-dungeons and a town, minimum.

Think about it, the cost of most expansions is nearly equal to the game price itself, so it isn't unreasonable to ask for enough content to justify a full games price :/

 

[veedubfreak]

You underestimate how much 50 bucks times 10 million is.

 

[HAVOC]

This is one thing that i don't under stand. Non MMO constantly complain about having ot pay subscription, however they will glady pay more money to purchase a lastest came after they got bored with playing the last one.

In the hight of my MMORPGs days, I found that playing a subscription worked out cheaper than it was to constantly pay money for the lastest game titles.

MMORPG - $15 per month and endless hours of play and new content being added.

Standalone Game - $50 and i would have it beat in about 12 to 40 hours. ANd so far, there has only been a handful of games where i have found some reply value in them. And i was going through these games every 2 weeks.

$15 x 12 months = $180 year + Cost of game so what just over $200 for a MMO?

Verse = $50 no subscription. Doesn't matter when I want to play it. I can play it whenever I want and don't have to PAY TO PLAY.

 

[Oreo]

You underestimate how much 50 bucks times 10 million is.

Wow is £10. 13million people play rougly. £130M

Yet every 12 months, they get £1248Million based on a £8/Month subscription. That £130 suddenly seems insignificant.