Where does our $15 a month go to?

[Jandi]

f2p means you have to shell out hundreds to be any use to anyone. If you just want to mess around and poke at stuff, fine but for those that actually want to play a game, f2p is a horrible system that encourages you to either pay high amounts of money every time new stuff comes out or stop playing at any meaningful level.

 

Companies use f2p for the same reason casinos offer free drinks and a few chips on the house when you go in. It's a scam.

 

Monthly sub means you have access to everything. Not necessarily instant access like in f2p, but access regardless. What it does is keep a level playing field which is what the real gamers want. If you just want to go in, enable all the cheats and lol, fine, that's not what makes games fun for most people.

 

Arguing what you get for a sub vs f2p is dumb, both models are aimed at getting YOUR money, f2p caters to the people who buy a game and while it's installing, look up all the cheats. Sub caters to people who want to enjoy the process and "getting there".

[Artthen]

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[heikaze]

Good read OP.

 

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.

 

It's people like you that are ruining the community, with the standard "don't worry about it" or "if you don't like it, then quit."

 

I paid the initiate cost to access the game, and the monthly fee is suppose to help the company to do all those things the OP said. How can we NOT worry about it when we like this game and the direction of it is going downhill?

 

Don't we pay taxes to keep us safe? To build roads and school for our kids and family? Off course we are going to worry about where our taxes go. Sorry to break it to you, but basically saying, "well you live here, so don't worry about where your money for taxes are going. If you don't like it, leave". is well mindbogglingly. What kind of mentality is that? It is in our rights as a community to see where this game is going.

 

It's people like you that probably do not support their own lifestyle. Asking mommy and daddy for funds when it runs out. Hey, that's fine with me, who are we to judge? But you are the last person that have the right to even judge someone else. If you don't care where your or your parents money are going, then just keep quiet instead of trolling someone else when they do care.

Edited April 5, 2012 by heikaze

[heikaze]

If you work for company XYZ, does your boss or anyone at XYZ have a right to know what you do with the money they give your for your services? Can't they just be curious?

 

It such a bad analogy , I mean really astonishing. Taking your example, company XYZ hires you and pay you for the service you do. In this case you're right, they don't ask what you do with your money, because they are the employer and you are the employee. They pay you to do service for them.

 

In this case, the community is the one PAYING Bioware to do their job. Now we have it in our rights to know what kind of job they are doing and how good of a job they are doing.

 

Company XYZ pay the employee, in this case you, to do the job. They are paying you to make cotton candy and you go off and make ice-creams. Make any sense?

Edited April 5, 2012 by heikaze

[heikaze]

The subscription model is an archaic relic left over from EQ, and adopted by current mmos because they want the same gravy train WoW sees every month. Within the next few years you will see a huge change of mmos adoping a F2P model with a micro-transaction/cash shop component. Off the top of my head in 2012 we have:

 

Guild Wars 2 - F2P, Cash Shop

The Secret World - F2P, Cash Shop

Planet Side 2 - F2P

 

And all the existing mmos that recently went f2p:

EQ, EQ2, Vanguard, Age of Conan etc etc

 

And of course all the f2p MOBAs like LoL, Dota etc. Then you have social gaming (Facebook games) which is the fastest, largest growing segment of the video game industry. And again: they're all f2p with a cash shop.

 

Considering Tor is an EA title, and EA LOVES micro-transactions and DLC, my guess is Tor will go f2p with a cash shop by the end of the year.

 

A lot of those cash shops are no way p2win situation, at least Guild Wars 2 and Secret World. They are mainly cosmetics and items that have no direct impact on the statistical part on gears and such on.

[MisterData]

Why is every one so quick to say that? I stated I love the game.. Can't I just be curious?

 

No, you have to follow the post guidelines set forth by the apologists.

[Kaphik]

Good read OP.

 

 

 

It's people like you that are ruining the community, with the standard "don't worry about it" or "if you don't like it, then quit."

 

I paid the initiate cost to access the game, and the monthly fee is suppose to help the company to do all those things the OP said. How can we NOT worry about it when we like this game and the direction of it is going downhill?

 

Don't we pay taxes to keep us safe? To build roads and school for our kids and family? Off course we are going to worry about where our taxes go. Sorry to break it to you, but basically saying, "well you live here, so don't worry about where your money for taxes are going. If you don't like it, leave". is well mindbogglingly. What kind of mentality is that? It is in our rights as a community to see where this game is going.

 

It's people like you that probably do not support their own lifestyle. Asking mommy and daddy for funds when it runs out. Hey, that's fine with me, who are we to judge? But you are the last person that have the right to even judge someone else. If you don't care where your or your parents money are going, then just keep quiet instead of trolling someone else when they do care.

 

Comparing taxes to a subscription for an online game is a pretty far stretch my friend. We have input into where taxes go (or at least we are supposed to) because that is money that is taken from us without choice and divided up by officials that we elect to try and represent our best interests. We do not have direct control over where that money goes, nor can we opt-out of contributing. That is very different from paying for an optional entertainment service.

 

Things are no more simple, nor more complicated than this: if you feel that the subscription fee is justified, then continue playing, if you feel it is too much for what you get then don't continue paying. Quit and spend your money elsewhere. Don't continue to pay for a product that you feel does not meet your standards solely because of the IP or the fact that it's an MMO.

[Malifae]

You don't know much about capitalism, do you? EA is a public company whose shares are traded on the NASDAQ exchange. It is owned by its shareholders and is obligated to do everything it can to maximize profits for them, as is every publicly traded company. U.S. law requires that all public companies disclose their finances in order to be transparent to their shareholders. If you really want to know where every dollar goes, the information is out there for anyone to see. They even have to disclose the compensation paid to their executives.

 

EA's CEO, John Riccitiello, was compensated $5,910,500 over the last fiscal year, of which $2,400,000 was in salary, the rest in exercised stock options. He is holding 1,416,400 stock options worth about $29,955,650 based on the current trading price of EA stock.

 

EA is trading at $16.26 per share at the time that I am writing this, which is very close to their 52 week low. This is not good. They have 331.39 million shares outstanding, which gives them a market cap of $5.39 billion. Their net profit margin is down 19.32% over the last quarter. In other words, they are losing money. Their total gross income last quarter was $1,061,000,000 with a total operating expense of $1,244,000,000.

 

Bottom line, they lost $205,000,000 last quarter after taxes. If you want to see their financials for yourself, click here:

 

http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:EA&fstype=ii

 

That is where your $15 goes.

[heikaze]

Comparing taxes to a subscription for an online game is a pretty far stretch my friend. We have input into where taxes go (or at least we are supposed to) because that is money that is taken from us without choice and divided up by officials that we elect to try and represent our best interests. We do not have direct control over where that money goes, nor can we opt-out of contributing. That is very different from paying for an optional entertainment service.

 

Things are no more simple, nor more complicated than this: if you feel that the subscription fee is justified, then continue playing, if you feel it is too much for what you get then don't continue paying. Quit and spend your money elsewhere. Don't continue to pay for a product that you feel does not meet your standards solely because of the IP or the fact that it's an MMO.

 

I agree with you it might not be the best comparison as to where you have no direct control as where our taxes go and have to give taxes each year. Where as this game you can choose to play or not.

 

But the point I was making when comparing the two was, the two both take funds from community and both uses those funds to supply the needs of the community, whether that be pay-roll or broken roads or broken in-game bugs. I choose to play this game and I want it to see it successes. Therefore I expect them to fix bugs or add features that was suppose to be in at launch. That is where I EXPECT my 15$ is going.

 

Heck, a lot of feature was actually in close beta, and they took it out at launch.

Edited April 5, 2012 by heikaze

[Twaggy]

Electricity bills

heating bills

water bills

internet service provider

landline for telephones

telephone costs

insurance for contents and building

rent for buildings that house servers & offices

maintenance of servers and staff computers

all staff

advertising (online & tv & mags)

cost of making the disks, covers, cases, boxes, shipments, packing, unpacking

license to Lucas Arts for the names

profit (they are a business, get over it)

[Frostyforce]

too long, didn't read. but to answer the question in ur title... a bunch of different people's bank accounts.

[LrdScorpio]

I take issue with anybody that expects the game to launch bug free or who expected all beta features to be included in the game

[monkeydud]

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..)

 

Let me just say I really love this game but ..blah blah stupid developers.... ughhh mum it's not fair... half assed theory about development costs... boo hoo this game should be free... blah de blah EA, Bioware, all big businesses suck..... corporate money suckers.... i want my cake and eat it.... moan moan.. randomly compare SW to [insert years old MMO]... post a link about EA.. whinge whinge

 

 

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

[HelinCarnate]

It such a bad analogy , I mean really astonishing. Taking your example, company XYZ hires you and pay you for the service you do. In this case you're right, they don't ask what you do with your money, because they are the employer and you are the employee. They pay you to do service for them.

 

In this case, the community is the one PAYING Bioware to do their job. Now we have it in our rights to know what kind of job they are doing and how good of a job they are doing.

 

Company XYZ pay the employee, in this case you, to do the job. They are paying you to make cotton candy and you go off and make ice-creams. Make any sense?

 

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.

[NevesNET]

It goes into a great big pile of cash that the devs all get naked and roll around in after work every day.

 

Bunga Bunga Parties! YAH!!

Edited April 5, 2012 by NevesNET

[Dee-Jay]

Make no mistake,

 

the Lion share of your monthly subscription is straight up profit for EA.

 

 

Severs, maintenance and staff account for less than 50% of your subscription fee.

 

To be fair, this early into the game they tend to reinvest a lot of money back into the game. But the older it gets, the more is just for profit.

[HelinCarnate]

Good read OP.

 

 

 

It's people like you that are ruining the community, with the standard "don't worry about it" or "if you don't like it, then quit."

 

I paid the initiate cost to access the game, and the monthly fee is suppose to help the company to do all those things the OP said. How can we NOT worry about it when we like this game and the direction of it is going downhill?

 

Don't we pay taxes to keep us safe? To build roads and school for our kids and family? Off course we are going to worry about where our taxes go. Sorry to break it to you, but basically saying, "well you live here, so don't worry about where your money for taxes are going. If you don't like it, leave". is well mindbogglingly. What kind of mentality is that? It is in our rights as a community to see where this game is going.

 

It's people like you that probably do not support their own lifestyle. Asking mommy and daddy for funds when it runs out. Hey, that's fine with me, who are we to judge? But you are the last person that have the right to even judge someone else. If you don't care where your or your parents money are going, then just keep quiet instead of trolling someone else when they do care.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

If you no longer like the game, and would like to see it go in a different direction then feel free to start a thread outlining what you would like to see changed. If BW does not change those things that you feel are game breaking then you should stop paying them to provide a servce that you do not enjoy.

[Trenter]

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..)

 

Why do I have to pay my TV license in order to watch the telly? Why can't I just walk right into the cinema without paying? Why do I have to pay a subscription in order to recieve my favourite magazine? Why do I have to pay monthly for access to my gym? It's a business. I'm sure there are costs that need a steady income of money in order for Bioware to be able to support TOR the way they are doing. You have free access to a fully supported entertainment service for 15 dollars a month. A service that employs a lot of people. You can cancel anytime you want. Is it really that big of a deal where the cash lands eventually?

[Tahana]

No business has to justify a cost to a consumer. Unless you're doing work for the government where they require you to break out your costs. As a business owner I won't tell you my model for doing business. Your comparison of the prices I offer against my competitors should be enough for you to determine whether or not you wish to conduct business with my company.

[infinitum]

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..

 

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.

Edited April 5, 2012 by infinitum
meh..corrected some grammatical errors -_-

[Galbatorrix]

I pay 50 cents a day to play a game I love that Bioware is constantly working to improve. How can you complain about "OMG, this game needs more content!!" and at the same time complain that you have to pay a sub? How will they pay people to create new content if they're not able to... you know.... pay them?

[DarthTHC]

$5 goes straight to George Lucas's wallet. Every month at renewal time the influx of $5 bills into his wallet nearly launches him into orbit. No lie.

 

The remaining $10 goes into:

• Customer service staff
  
• Ongoing feature development
  
• Server maintenance and support
  
• Profit
  

[Oteefo]

.....(since they have to post that stuff for share holders)....

 

"Share Holders" only hold shares to make money off of them, either in the payout of dividends or as rise in the value of the stock itself.

 

Your "$15" goes, in part, to help rich people make more money for doing nothing other than having money to invest....

 

Same reason your Gas is near $4 a gallon......investors and speculators....

[netskink]

Yeah dude. I don't question where the 10 bucks I spend at the Redbox goes to. I don't ask where the 136 dollars I spend on groceries goes. I don't question the 50 cents I spend at the soda machine goes to. Why should anyone care where the money goes? You get what you wanted. Move on.

 

 

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.

[Catch_TwentyTwo]

Let me just ask this really, quick how was nc soft able to support guild wars so long before resorting to cash shops years down the road?

I'll keep this simple.

 

Companies go into business to make money, they have overheads, they have staff, they have shareholders.

 

They need your money to pay for all of this. Now I don't know how big the server farms are for this game, but I can take an educated guess and I would imagine that about 20% of our money goes towards hosting, upkeep and maintenance alone.

 

On top of that there are the licence costs to Lucasarts, which are probaly 10-15%

 

Ongoing developement costs - no idea

 

Share Holders

 

Amortised loans for the initial development

 

The list goes on and one.

 

Bottom line, a game of this quality costs money. Guild Wars is and remains rubbish and that is the difference.