Where does our $15 a month go to?

[HelinCarnate]

 

Get your facts straight. The obligations of employees and employers are very different. When you pay for a service, you need to know exactly what it is being paid for. Such is the customer's right. That is what the OP is confused about. So please stop using your ridiculous example of employer/employee relations where it is not applicable. Differences between employer, employee and customers are vast.

However there is merit to the joker's argument that we do not need to know every little detail. I myself believe that the monthly subscriptions are just what it is. A subscription. Which probably goes for server costs, updates, new content, bug fixes etc. And do not forget that this is a 'for-profit' company. They as the supplier and provider have laid out their prices for us, the target audience, and we have deemed it appropriate and purchase it.

 

When you pay for a service, you decide what service you expect to get.

When an employer hires an employee, they decide what is expected of the employee.

 

While you can certainly speculate as to what BW does with the money ie pay for servers, buildings salary and such, you have no right to know every detail of where that money goes because it is no longer yours once it comes out of your account.

 

An employer can certainly speculate as to what their employees do with their money ie pay for rent, food, transporation and such, they have no right to know every deatil of where that money goes because it is no longer theirs once it comes out of their account.

 

Yes there are complex laws regarding employment but the basic principal of any legal right to know how money is being spent is the same. If it is not your money, you can only guess unless the other party decides to tell you.

[Darklighter]

You are paying for access to the game. What they do with the money after you give it to them?

 

NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

 

Move along.

[Kaedian]

Its the lack of subscription that caused the fall off in the rate of new content and the eventuality of micro transactions.

 

The studio that actually made GW was very small and their box sales covered a lot. Mostly, box sales cover the initial investment. If their model was sustainable, it wouldn't have had to resort to cash shops.

 

Also, that studio runs CoH which makes them more consistent money with a subscription model

 

 

Don't forget Lineage I and II which were HUGE in Asia

[Lord_Scythe]

The "other things" sure does not include fixing the game engine

 

How do you know they are not fixing the engine?

 

Just because every fix is not listed amongst what is being worked on does not mean they are not working on it.

 

Thank god I invested heavily in tin before the launch of SWTOR. This community is making me a fortune! Conspiracy! Conspiracy! Conspiracy!

[MMornard]

After reading the OP, the ghosts of both Karl Marx and Adam Smith are drinking heavily.

[Holden_Dissent]

50 cents for a soda? Its 2012 calling. Where in the world are you getting sodas for 50 cents? It costs a $1.35 here. Not only do you have to find a quarter but you also need to find a dime for that infernal machine.

 

cans typically cost .50 out of a machine. $1 for a 20oz.

[Jederix]

You are paying $15 a month for access to play a game you enjoy. What EA/BW does with it is none of your business. If you don't like the game stop playing it. If you do, don't worry about it.

 

The brutal truth. I love it!

[heikaze]

You provide a service to your employer.

Bioware provides a service to you.

 

Your employer pays you for that service.

You bay Bioware for their service.

 

If you spend the money on beer and chips, it is no business of your employer as long as you continue to provide that service to your employer. You decide what to do with that money.

If Biowares spends the money on beer and chips it is no business of yours as long as they continue to provide access to SWTOR. They decide what to do with that money.

 

If you decide to not do your job and make ice cream when you are being paid to make cotton candy, you would get fired by your employer.

If you no longer like the product that Bioware is offering, you can fire them.

 

I don't even understand what you are trying to say, expect the first 2 lines.

 

I am not sure if you even understand what you, yourself, are trying to say. Like i sad, bad comparison.

 

When we play the game, we are looked as the consumer, the people that are paying Bioware for their services. We are NOT getting paid to do service for them.

 

"Your employer pays you for that service." - in this case we are the employee. Ones that are doing the services to receive income.

 

"You pay Bioware for their service" - In this case Bioware are the employee, the ones that getting income for doing services.

 

How are we employee in one situation, and then become the employer in the other. Your comparison fails on so many degree.

[Jederix]

He has agreed to buy the game and pay for at least a month in subscription, yes. But now that 4 months later when only one new (ridiculously easy even on NM) raid and minimal bug fixes have been implemented, I think he has every right to question where his money is going.

 

It allows him access to the game, the same that everyone's $15 does. This is all it entitles you to, despite what you think.

[LizardSF]

Let me start by saying I love this game and I don't have a problem affording the subscription fees, but what am I paying $15 a month for?

 

First, paying off the estimated 250 million invested into the game in the first place.

Second, ongoing maintenance of the infrastructure and bug fixes.

 

Third, development of new content.

 

Fourth, development of new content that doesn't go anywhere and is pulled prior to release -- people work six months on something, get paid for that six months, and, at the end, it doesn't meet the cut and no profit is earned from it -- but the people who worked on it don't give back their salaries.

 

Fifth, investment in new projects -- the 250 million that paid for the development of SWTOR came from the profits from prior games. Further, many new projects will never see the light of day -- see above -- but still need to be paid for.

 

In addition to salaries, you have to consider infrastructure (offices, buildings, hardware), insurance, support personal (HR, lawyers, the company nurse, the guy who mops the restroom), etc. Most of those people don't directly produce anything for sale, but they need to be paid, so they get paid from the profits from what the people who produce things for sale generate.

 

And, of course, all the people who invested money in BioWare want to make money -- meaning, it goes into their bank accounts -- and the money they get back has to be better than they would have gotten investing in something else with similar levels of risk. If I can invest a million dollars in a game, and get back 1.1 million, or invest a million dollars in a different product, and get back 10 million, with the same general likelihood of payoff, what do you think I'm going to choose?

 

This is not doctorate level or college level economics. This is lemonade-stand economics. You should not need to ask this; it should have been taught to you in middle school. (Grade 6-8 in America, or the equivalent in other nations.)

 

Ultimately, though, it doesn't matter -- you're paying 15.00/month to play a game. If it's not worth 15.00/month to you, stop paying it. If it is worth 15.00/month to you, then, pay it. It's utterly and completely irrelevant to you where the money goes once you pay it, unless you're concerned it's being used to fund drug smuggling operations or something. Either you feel you're getting your money's worth, or you don't.

 

If your boss asked you to break down how you spent the money he paid you, and then said, "I think you're spending too much on fast food, so I'm cutting your salary", how would you react? All he should be concerned with is if you're earning your salary or not -- not how you spend it. The same applies to you and to game prices.

[heikaze]

When a game company can come to your house and demand that you pay them at the point of a gun if needed and throw you in jail if you don't, then you have a right to know what they do with that money..

 

I'm not even going to respond this, because it's so ridiculously compared.

 

If you own shares of the company, then you have the right to know what they do with their money as it is also your money.

 

Actually since I bought the game, and I have subscribed each month, I am paying for a product. Therefore it's in my rights to know what is going on with the game.

 

If you are worried about the direction of the game, that is fine. (Plenty of threads for that, but not this one) However, that does not give you the right to know where each dollar is being spent. Once you pay for the game, it is not your money anymore and you have no right to know how it is being spent.

 

I'm sorry, but you are not the one that started this thread. So what gives you the right to tell me where I can post and I cannot. Once I paid for the game, yes my money is not mine anymore. But the product I paid for is, in this case, for every month I decide to pay them for, the month that I have paid for I have as much right as anyone to know what is going on.

[LizardSF]

 

Get your facts straight. The obligations of employees and employers are very different. When you pay for a service, you need to know exactly what it is being paid for

 

That's easy.

 

You're paying for access to the game you play when you log in to your SWTOR account.

 

That's the service you agreed to pay for, and that's the service they provide. (Granted, according to the EULA, they're under no particular obligation to provide it and are not responsible for compensating you if they can't/don't. EA could pull the plug on SWTOR tomorrow and owe you bupkis.)

 

How Bioware spends the money you pay them isn't remotely your business; all that matters is if you feel the service you're paying for (the game as it is, right now, on your screen) is worth what you're paying right now.

 

If it is, have fun and play!

 

If it's not, cancel your account.

 

This isn't complicated.

[Rodane]

All mmos get there money, either through subscriptions or cash/item shops.

 

That is why I don't play so calles f2p games, they are gimmicks.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Rodane

[Darth_Vicente]

50 cents for a soda? Its 2012 calling. Where in the world are you getting sodas for 50 cents? It costs a $1.35 here. Not only do you have to find a quarter but you also need to find a dime for that infernal machine.

 

At the vending machines at my job, soda is 40 cents. And yes, I'm 100% sure my job isn't home to a time traveling nexus, for if it was, we'd be trying to utilize it for profit.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Darth_Vicente

[LizardSF]

But the product I paid for is, in this case, for every month I decide to pay them for, the month that I have paid for I have as much right as anyone to know what is going on.

 

This is true.

 

You have as much right to know what's going on as any other player.

 

That is, "no right at all".

 

Show me in the EULA where it says "BioWare agrees to disclose all funding, budgeting, and development plans on demand." It doesn't say that in mine. Does it say that in yours? I don't think so.

 

Your right, as a consumer, is this, and only this: The right to choose to pay, or not. That's it. If you think you're not getting your money's worth, if you think BioWare is not developing the game in the direction you'd like them to, if you think the game is too buggy or too boring or whatever... you let your subscription lapse, and that is that, and you can come back in a month or a year if you hear it's gotten better.

 

You have no more right to know anything else than I have a right to wander into the kitchen of a restaurant and conduct an impromptu health inspection, just because I ate there once -- or walk into WalMart HQ and demand to see all of their financial records just because I bought a soda there last week.

 

Whence comes this inordinate sense of self-important privilege? Who told you that you had these "rights"? They lied to you. You don't. Your rights in any commercial transaction are those spelled out by the contract you agreed to, and any prevailing laws that may grant additional rights within your country. That's it. Deal, or prepare to spend your life being very frustrated.

[LizardSF]

At the vending machines at my job, soda is 40 cents. And yes, I'm 100% sure my job isn't home to a time traveling nexus, for if it was, we'd be trying to utilize it for profit.

 

This is called a "subsidy". It's a fringe benefit for employees. Enjoy it.

[TheOnlyKyrenS]

It goes to people keeping their jobs in this tough economic time.

[heikaze]

This is true.

 

You have as much right to know what's going on as any other player.

 

That is, "no right at all".

 

Show me in the EULA where it says "BioWare agrees to disclose all funding, budgeting, and development plans on demand." It doesn't say that in mine. Does it say that in yours? I don't think so.

 

Your right, as a consumer, is this, and only this: The right to choose to pay, or not. That's it. If you think you're not getting your money's worth, if you think BioWare is not developing the game in the direction you'd like them to, if you think the game is too buggy or too boring or whatever... you let your subscription lapse, and that is that, and you can come back in a month or a year if you hear it's gotten better.

 

You have no more right to know anything else than I have a right to wander into the kitchen of a restaurant and conduct an impromptu health inspection, just because I ate there once -- or walk into WalMart HQ and demand to see all of their financial records just because I bought a soda there last week.

 

Whence comes this inordinate sense of self-important privilege? Who told you that you had these "rights"? They lied to you. You don't. Your rights in any commercial transaction are those spelled out by the contract you agreed to, and any prevailing laws that may grant additional rights within your country. That's it. Deal, or prepare to spend your life being very frustrated.

 

I was not stating the "rights" as in my amendment of rights. It was more toward a privileged right toward what's going on in the game. Not as in, who do they pay, who gets bonus or what not. Why would I care about that. I am interested as in, what content they putting out or why the bugs have not been fixed. I never said they were obligated to tell us, but stating it is their duty to let us know why these changes have not been taken place.

 

 

"Consumer rights - Generally accepted basic consumer rights are (1) Right to safety: protection from hazardous goods. (2) Right to be informed: availability of information required for weighing alternatives, and protection from false and misleading claims in advertising and labeling practices. (3) Right to choose: availability of competing goods and services that offer alternatives in terms of price, quality, service. (4) Right to be heard: assurance that government will take full cognizance of the concerns of consumers, and will act with sympathy and dispatch through statutes and simple and expeditious administrative procedures." -quote; http://www.businessdictionary.com

 

It is however, in my "rights" to be heard, to complain

Edited April 5, 2012 by heikaze

[Revelationjp]

I swear this is a new award winner for silliest argument ever. some of you people must have really busy lives, constantly bugging your corner grocer for how he spends the money you pay him for your cornflakes, and emailing the cable company for their business model after you pay your HBO bill, and then calling up amazon.com to make sure you approve of the way they handle the cash they get after you bought the first season of Game of Thrones online. I'm sure your neighborhood florist had no problem showing you her checkbook after you bough your girlfriend flower during valentines day in February either. I applaud your dedication to consumer awareness. Edited April 5, 2012 by Revelationjp

[LizardSF]

I was not stating the "rights" as in my amendment of rights. It was more toward a privileged right toward what's going on in the game. Not as in, who do they pay, who gets bonus or what not. Why would I care about that. I am interested as in, what content they putting out or why the bugs have not been fixed. I never said they were obligated to tell us, but stating it is their duty to let us know why these changes have not been taken place.

 

No, it's not their duty. It might be good from a marketing perspective and building goodwill, but they're under no obligation to do so. You, in turn, have the right to stop paying them if they fail to satisfy you. Not complicated.

 

"Consumer rights - Generally accepted basic consumer rights are (1) Right to safety: protection from hazardous goods. (2) Right to be informed: availability of information required for weighing alternatives, and protection from false and misleading claims in advertising and labeling practices. (3) Right to choose: availability of competing goods and services that offer alternatives in terms of price, quality, service. (4) Right to be heard: assurance that government will take full cognizance of the concerns of consumers, and will act with sympathy and dispatch through statutes and simple and expeditious administrative procedures." -quote; http://www.businessdictionary.com

 

It is however, in my "rights" to be heard, to complain

 

According to what you quoted above -- and what's the source? It says "Generally accepted consume rights", but in what country, and is this a listing of the LAWS, or just what's considered "typical" or "normal"? -- you have the right to be heard BY THE GOVERNMENT, that is, by whatever legal or regulatory agencies are responsible for prosecuting fraud, settling disputes, enforcing regulations, and so on. Please, by all means, go to your local government office and demand they take legal action against BioWare because you don't think they're fixing the bugs fast enough. Please, bring a recording device and share with us the results of this endeavor.

 

Your "right to complain" means only that the government is obliged to let whine to them about it and can't put you in jail for it. It doesn't mean BioWare has to listen to you, nor does it even mean you have a right to post here -- the forums are private property, and BioWare can censor them as much as it wishes, or remove your posting privileges at a whim. Again, your only option in such a case is to cancel your subscription. Read the EULA you agree to when you log in. You pretty much grant BioWare the right to do anything. They, in turn, explicitly state they make no promises of fitness for any purpose or of any minimum level of access to the game. You agreed to the contract; blame yourself if you don't like it. If you don't think such contracts are fair, convince enough gamers -- millions of them -- to refuse to play any game which contains such terms, and companies will be forced to comply. Good luck.

[arestesian]

Let me start by saying I love this game and I don't have a problem affording the subscription fees, but what am I paying $15 a month for?

 

Now I pulled up FY 12 financial reports for EA (since they have to post that stuff for share holders) but I gotta say I don't really know exactly how to find my answers if any one is willing to inform me. It can be found at

http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=618768

Or if I am even looking in the right place.

 

-server costs- is it justifiable in 2012 to pay a subscription fee to support and maintain the servers it runs on nowadays? Maybe back in the eq days.. (ie. early 90s)

 

-patches and content updates- are we paying for the bug fixes, balancing tweaks, and maintenance?(obviously maintenance is required after a game release) Stuff that should honestly have been fixed or taken care of before the game was released. In any other genre games tend to get updates all the time that I'm not paying for.

 

-new content- this is a little more tricky.. (almost every game that comes out with new content usually costs)I'm patiently waitin for 1.2 but how often do you think they will be coming out with new content after? Every 3 months or so?(So We're paying $45 for 1 wz and 1 new fp?) on top of possible expansion packs that we're going to most likely pay $50+ for?

 

 

Or is our monthly fee just simply to fill their wallets?(not knocking a company that's out to make money)

Also I know most f2p mmo's are garbage with cash shops but how is charging a monthly fee what makes a "good game".

Now like I said above I am a little unfamiliar with reading the FY12 reports so I could be totally wrong and it could cost that much to maintain the game, but I highly doubt it.

And lastly they just charging a monthly fee because we're willing to pay it?

 

Sorry for the grammatical errors and the sporadicness of this post.(did it on my iPhone at work..)

 

Well, based on my knowledge from other buisnesses. The subscription fee that everyone pays goes to an accounts receivable account. From there it is on paper divied up between the various buisness groups and departments to cover things such as operating costs (salaries, building rent, pens, paper, computers, etc). So that means your money hypothetically is getting shared out to everything EA, (or depending on how they structure their accounting Bioware does).

 

So that means your subscription money can be realistically be though of as paying for:

The new Mass Effect 3 ending,

Servers for TOR,

New Content for TOR,

The moderators in this very forum,

Command & Conquer Generals 2 Dev and testing,

Wrath of heroes Dev and testing,

If the money comes into EA instead of Bioware specifically

NFL licensing for the new Madden game,

Advertising for many games,

and so on.

 

So depending on your perspective, and considering all the places the money could wind up. What aren't you getting for you monthly sub money?

Edited April 5, 2012 by arestesian

[Alavastre]

You're paying for all the artists, programmers, engineers on staff to provide new content to the MMO. They are there to do little things like fixes, and large things, like big patches and expansions. Not to mention maintenance. You also have PR people, business people, accountants, managers, ect all needed to make BW run. That is where your $15 dollars goes to .

[Sirsri]

Let me start by saying I love this game and I don't have a problem affording the subscription fees, but what am I paying $15 a month for?

 

Now I pulled up FY 12 financial reports for EA (since they have to post that stuff for share holders) but I gotta say I don't really know exactly how to find my answers if any one is willing to inform me. It can be found at

http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=618768

Or if I am even looking in the right place.

 

-server costs- is it justifiable in 2012 to pay a subscription fee to support and maintain the servers it runs on nowadays? Maybe back in the eq days.. (ie. early 90s)

 

-patches and content updates- are we paying for the bug fixes, balancing tweaks, and maintenance?(obviously maintenance is required after a game release) Stuff that should honestly have been fixed or taken care of before the game was released. In any other genre games tend to get updates all the time that I'm not paying for.

 

-new content- this is a little more tricky.. (almost every game that comes out with new content usually costs)I'm patiently waitin for 1.2 but how often do you think they will be coming out with new content after? Every 3 months or so?(So We're paying $45 for 1 wz and 1 new fp?) on top of possible expansion packs that we're going to most likely pay $50+ for?

 

 

Or is our monthly fee just simply to fill their wallets?(not knocking a company that's out to make money)

Also I know most f2p mmo's are garbage with cash shops but how is charging a monthly fee what makes a "good game".

Now like I said above I am a little unfamiliar with reading the FY12 reports so I could be totally wrong and it could cost that much to maintain the game, but I highly doubt it.

And lastly they just charging a monthly fee because we're willing to pay it?

 

Sorry for the grammatical errors and the sporadicness of this post.(did it on my iPhone at work..)

 

Off the top you have infrastructure (servers and bandwidth), the hero engine general licence takes 30%, figure EA has their own licence, but it works out to roughly that much.

EA seems to be hosting the servers near the simutronics site (so not in austin) meaning they have to have dedicated hardware staff there.

 

Then you have support costs. Everytime you file a ticket it first goes to an outsourced call centre (insofar as SWTOR isn't already outsourced from Canada to the US), from what I understand these outsourced call centres are mostly temporary, triage and to deal with stupid people and do some basic filtering. If you want to know how to turn on shadows and you file a ticket, these are the people who you talk to, if you file a ticket that is "EMERGENCY HELP NEEDED RIGHT NOW" and your ticket is actually about companions falling off elevators, these are the people you talk to. From there support goes to either the EA mythic call centre (North america), or the BioWare-Galway call centre (Europe). The galway site I believe has several hundred employees (about 400 last I heard), and I would expect the EA-Mythic one to be in a similar boat. Support is important, because its expensive. If you need to have a boss kill verified (because you didn't get loot) or some other 'restoration' problem you could easily be looking at an hour of someones time. There goes 2 months of your subscription fee.

 

Then, as you say, is ongoing development. 1.2 isn't free. There are 400 employees at bioware austin, and they run about 12000/employee at bioware (I wouldn't be surprised if that is low for austin, since they have to provide health benefits at 2x the price of health benefits in canada, and you need to pay a premium to get people with brains to voluntarily move to austin texas). Some of the team in austin will be working on SWTOR 2.0: Expansion 1, the rest are working on live game patches and so forth.

 

Oh and LucasArts gets a cut.

 

 

You can't run that for 'free'. It doesn't work. They probably have 1200 people working full time on SWTOR between BioWare austin, Galway, EA mythic, that can easily run into the 12 million dollars a month range, and if they have 1.7 million subs at what is really about 10 dollars a month after hardware and bandwidth they could be only bringing in 17 million. And you figure LucasArts wants a cut, and then the outsourced call centre needs to be paid etc. I bet their break even point is around 1.5 million after lucasarts takes a cut.

 

So how would 'free to play' work? Simple, they have to find some way to either get 170 000 people to pay 150 dollars a month in novelty or play to win items, or they need to get 15 dollars a month in content unlocks and services from the 1.7 million who are currently playing. Or, obviously some combinations of those. What can you do? Well you can have a 'premium' support service (EQ had a server like that, that was 40 dollars a month). Or you can just only offer support to people who pay, so anyone can play but if you have a problem you're SOL. You can sell novelty items (mounts, customizable gear sets, pets, Blizzard does this kinda thing). You can sell 'play to win' items, which might also be earnable in game. Think world of tanks. You can play a lot and earn an awesome tank, or you can just pay cash and get said awesome tank. You can sell premium variants of existing items (or just plain variants that are different but not necessarily much better), think star trek online, where you can buy ships that are reasonably balanced with the free ships, but they're iconically cooler. Free to play can generate a lot more revenue than 15 dollars a month. But it also alienates a large portion of your playerbase. Would you really like 1.2 to be 'new customizable UI, and for 10 dollars, you can buy a new raid tier, for another 10 dollars you get a new flashpoint and new daily hub on corellia'?

[HelinCarnate]

 

Actually since I bought the game, and I have subscribed each month, I am paying for a product. Therefore it's in my rights to know what is going on with the game.

 

Earlier you stated that I am what is wrong with the community. I believe the opposite. You are what is wrong with the community. You do not understand the difference between something you want and something that you are entitled to.

 

You have a want to know what is going on with the game, not a right. You have no right to know where the money you give them is being spent. A right is something that you are entitled to that cannot be taken away. Since there is no legal requirement for BW to tell you how they spend their money, it is not a right.

 

I'm sorry, but you are not the one that started this thread. So what gives you the right to tell me where I can post and I cannot. Once I paid for the game, yes my money is not mine anymore. But the product I paid for is, in this case, for every month I decide to pay them for, the month that I have paid for I have as much right as anyone to know what is going on.

 

I have no right to gell you where you can or cannot post. It is not my forum so I cannot enforce the rules. I just stated that this is not the thread to go into detail about what changes you think BW should make. BW has the right to edit or remove posts that are off topic.

 

And no, you do not have any right to know what is going on, you have a want. It is in Biowares best intrest to let people know what updates are coming through in the future and to communicate changes, but they are doing this because it makes them more money, not because they are required by law to tell you.

[LizardSF]

Off the top you have infrastructure (servers and bandwidth), the hero engine general licence takes 30%, figure EA has their own licence, but it works out to roughly that much.

EA seems to be hosting the servers near the simutronics site (so not in austin) meaning they have to have dedicated hardware staff there.

(Deletia)

 

Good answer, not that your target audience will read it, or, if they do read it, understand it.

 

Anyway, to add just a few points:

a)Don't forget that a big chunk of all present income goes to paying off the initial investment, which was huge. You have to earn all that back before you can even begin to make a profit.

 

b)In generally, the cost of an employee is usually 2 to 3 times his annual salary. (Benefits, support, training, recruitment, etc.) Even the most underpaid drone in the testing department is going to be getting 16-20K a year, so that's a minimum of 32-40 K in expenses, just for one guy out of dozens in that division, and he's the lowest-paid person on the tier, possibly even including the cleaning staff if they have a good union. Programmers, artists, and musicians are going to range from 30-35K up to 100K-150K base salary, and then there's managers and all the non-developers who are still needed so that the developers can do their jobs... then there's marketing expenses (those trips to PAX ain't cheap), etc.

 

c)In addition to paying off the cost of the current game, and funding ongoing development for it, some of the income needs to be socked aside for the NEXT game... and/or to cover expenses if revenues dip for any period of time.