What $15.00 a month *should* get you

[NasherUK]

I am still enjoying SWTOR, maybe because I have a very active guild. But $15 is just to much for an MMO these days. Especially when there are "free" ones on the way (e.g. GW2, planetside 2).

 

I don't think they are doing themselves any favours either. I bet if they lowered it to $8-10, or even halved it the increase in players would make up the difference and that would in turn attract more. They should also do regular free weekends.

 

They have already said the game has paid for itself, EA have also sacked a load of their staff, so I don't see any reason for keeping it so high....

Edited May 24, 2012 by NasherUK

[Leggomy]

I am still enjoying SWTOR, maybe because I have a very active guild. But $15 is just to much for an MMORPG these days.

 

I don't think they are doing themselves any favours either. I bet if they lowered it to $8-10, or even halved it the increase in players would make up the difference and that would in turn attract more.

 

$15 a month is too much for something that gives you hours and hours of entertainment? Since when?

[Galbatorrix]

Captain Britain

 

 

Uh...who?

[DiabloDoom]

Legend of Mir charged me £8 pcm 11 years ago, and for a service that was virtually non existent. SWTOR charges me £8.99 per month and for a game where the players don't have to make their own fun. Mir never had maps, instant transportation (well had random and last town teleport), mounts, Auction house, instances, had like 2 quests, had like 8 dungeons and took ages for their first content patch. Bottom line is back then 8 quid back then is like 30 quid today and I happily paid that for a game that never had an ounce of what SWTOR has, and the whole community loved it. Take me back to when MMO's never had all these nubfaces with entitlement issues complaining 24/7 Edited May 24, 2012 by DiabloDoom

[Cerion]

for 60$ i have been playing starcraft 2 for nearly two years. Love that game

 

I still play SimCity 4 and Civilization 4...not sure of your point? MMOs in general have great entertainment value as well at 15$. Single player games are different than MMOs like SWTOR, however, and I expect different things from them. I love the persistent world feel of MMOs like SWTOR, the fact that my character is there waiting for me to play in a world with other players, that my character has a sense of life and purpose. You can't get that in a single player game. As much as I enjoyed Dragon Age Origins...I can't really launch the game after I've completed it and hang out with Morrigan. SWTOR allows my character to persist. That's worth a monthly fee to me.

[DiabloDoom]

Uh...who?

A guy that would slap Superman (awaits the DC fanboys)

 

http://marvel.com/universe/Captain_Britain_(Brian_Braddock)

[Alexi_son]

It's very simple. No vendor (except the government) can force you to invest your dollars in a product when you do not wish. No private industry can require you to partake in a commercial transaction.

 

If you do not feel you are getting the proper value for your investment and cost, then do not continue to support it. Supporting a vendor of a sub-standard product only reinforces their opinion that it meets a specific % of market appeal, and so long as their metrics say that percentage is above their target goal, they have little business justification to improve it.

 

If they do not make their target goals, they will either improve their product or collapse. If they collapse, it allows competition to absorb that market share, and, if open competition, that will be the company that most successfully meets customers desires. Either way, the consumer wins.

 

Paying for a product you do not believe in though, simply lowers standards across the industry and sends a message that good enough is ok.

[ThiborF]

You obviously haven't seen the ones that were deleted.

 

As they've said all along, if you can't post constructively, you risk your post/thread being moderated/removed.

[Selethar]

To paraphrase Alexi_son:

 

 

The door is ----> way if you are not happy.

Edited May 24, 2012 by Selethar

[Nippon]

you dont look at their twitter much do you, their always about to help the longest i have had to wait for an ingame /bug /ticket responce has been 30 minutes on a sunday morning so would be about 4 AM in some parts of US ( 10 GMT +1)

 

i dont no why people have so many problems i have had none!

 

Sorry I must have missed the section that said Twitter was the main source of news, help, I was under the impression SWTOR forums would be the focal point of news and help...Cant actually remember playing Any MMO where they didnt use there own forums to give players information.

 

TBH your reason sums up exactly, what the entire issue is.

[Ironcleaver]

Especially when there are "free" ones on the way (e.g. GW2, planetside 2)..

 

On the subject of Planetside2.... I'd imagine their devlopment costs are lower since there is very little in the way of story and voiceover work.. And gear should be a lot simpler to develop compared to an RPG styled game. But they did create a Game-engine from scratch -- that cost is divided since that same engine is being used for Everquest3.

 

That's what's nice about some sandbox elements.. it lowers devlopment costs and players make their own entertainment.. Though, realistically, it's difficult to compare a RPG with a FPS at the devlopment cost level since they are different beasts..

 

I am looking forward to PS2.. PS1 was some of the best PVP ever to exsist.. Current FPS (and RPGs) that limit battles to just a dozen or more per team in an "arena".. that's just embarassing.. heh.

 

Could TOR work with a free-to-play model? I would. Will it go that road? only time will tell. heck even EQ2 went F2P a year or so ago..

Edited May 24, 2012 by Ironcleaver

[CosmicKat]

What else does $15 get you?

 

1) A ticket to a crappy 2 hour movie.

2) A pack or two (depending where you live) of smokes.

3) A half-decent meal or a crappy meal for 2.

4) A dozen beer.

5) 1/4 of a stand-alone PC game.

6) Half a dozen 2 litre Cokes.

7) A pizza.

8) A previously viewed Blu-Ray of a crappy 2 hour movie.

9) 15 songs on iTunes.

10) Up to 744 hours (minus sleep and patch time) of gaming time on an MMO

 

What's the better value?

[Ironcleaver]

What else does $15 get you?

 

1) A ticket to a crappy 2 hour movie.

2) A pack or two (depending where you live) of smokes.

3) A half-decent meal or a crappy meal for 2.

4) A dozen beer.

5) 1/4 of a stand-alone PC game.

6) Half a dozen 2 litre Cokes.

7) A pizza.

8) A previously viewed Blu-Ray of a crappy 2 hour movie.

9) 15 songs on iTunes.

10) Up to 744 hours (minus sleep and patch time) of gaming time on an MMO

 

What's the better value?

16 Crunchy Tacos

~48 Cans of Coke

[DeltaEkotte]

What we have now minus all the rage/qq/i'm unsubbing threads.

And for the record, I would pay more to keep playing this game.

Edited May 24, 2012 by DeltaEkotte

[Leggomy]

On the subject of Planetside2.... I'd imagine their devlopment costs are lower since there is very little in the way of story and voiceover work.. And gear should be a lot simpler to develop compared to an RPG styled game. But they did create a Game-engine from scratch -- that cost is divided since that same engine is being used for Everquest3.

 

That's what's nice about some sandbox elements.. it lowers devlopment costs and players make their own entertainment.. Though, realistically, it's difficult to compare a RPG with a FPS at the devlopment cost level since they are different beasts..

 

I am looking forward to PS2.. PS1 was some of the best PVP ever to exsist.. Current FPS (and RPGs) that limit battles to just a dozen or more per team in an "arena".. that's just embarassing.. heh.

 

Could TOR work with a free-to-play model? I would. Will it go that road? only time will tell. heck even EQ2 went F2P a year or so ago..

 

EQ2 is free to play yes but not on the same servers as people who pay to play. They also have servers which cost more than $40 a month to play on. So I wouldnt call them typical free to play.

[ThiborF]

I am still enjoying SWTOR, maybe because I have a very active guild. But $15 is just to much for an MMO these days. Especially when there are "free" ones on the way (e.g. GW2, planetside 2).

 

I don't think they are doing themselves any favours either. I bet if they lowered it to $8-10, or even halved it the increase in players would make up the difference and that would in turn attract more. They should also do regular free weekends.

 

They have already said the game has paid for itself, EA have also sacked a load of their staff, so I don't see any reason for keeping it so high....

 

These days? SOE was the company (iirc) to bump it to $15 with Star Wars Galaxies launch ... in 2003. As the price of everything else seems to have gone up over the last 9 years I find it fairly incredible that MMOs haven't crept up another few dollars/mo.

 

TBH, I don't know which pricing model will win in the long term. Perhaps some studio will come along with the right type of microtransaction revenue stream that the majority will find agreeable. But, that certainly isn't this moment in time. I applaud companies like ArenaNet, even though I have zero interest in GW2, for working to deliver a polished game as some form of F2P (few if any are truly free as there will be something to generate an ongoing revenue stream OR little internal resources dedicated to ongoing development post launch.)

 

And I've seen your argument come up in pretty much every MMO I've played.

Consider WoW when it had only 10million subs. For the purposes of this example we'll assume everyone is paying the same $15/mo though via multi-month game cards the price is a buck or two lower I think and I've heard that some foreign countries (particularly some Asian ones) where the pricing structure works differently.

 

So 10m subs x $15 = $150m/mo

Now, let's say you cut that by $5 so you're charging $10/mo

10m subs x $10 = $100m/mo ... pretty simply math ... cut the monthly fee by 1/3 and your revenue goes down 1/3.

NOW, to make up that $50m loss in revenue you need to guarantee ...

$50m/$10 = 5m subs.

In other words they would have to gain half again as many as they have now.

 

Now then, Blizzard would likely have a harder sell with that logic than BioWare at the moment. For Blizzard to jump to 15m subs they would need to eclipse their highest sub levels ever (which would also be an industry record.) Likely hard to get execs to gamble on that happening.

 

With TOR, if you went by their 1.3m number they bandied about to the shareholders recently, it would mean they'd have to bump up to sustaining 1.925 just to break even on your proposal. With the plethora of problems people have complained about, I don't see how anyone would honestly think lowering the monthly sub by $5 is going to suddenly bring them back in droves. Perhaps once the glaring issues for many folks have been resolved that might be something to consider as part of the marketing shtick to get folks to come back and give it a try but, I honestly doubt you'll see it or if so, anytime soon.

[MrRogersNaybor]

$15/month isn't the problem IMO, it's the $60 entry fee on top of that. I have a few friends and co-workers who really want the game but can't really spare $60 all at once.

[Ironcleaver]

EQ2 is free to play yes but not on the same servers as people who pay to play. They also have servers which cost more than $40 a month to play on. So I wouldnt call them typical free to play.

 

Did they change it back? About a year ago they added the F2P model across all their servers.. There is still an option to pay but that just unlocks some features, ok a lot of features. I can jump on my old server right now and play without paying a dime and use all my old characters I've had since launch... Ok, not exactly.. Since there is a restiction on Gear and Races i'd have to pay $10 for both unlocks, then nothing else and enjoy my old characters. Or I could pay the $15 a month and have both unlocked with that subscription fee... Really though, it's wiser to just pay the unlock fees and not the monthly fee.. $20 up front or $15 recurring.. :-/

 

Point taken though - since yeah - the game still technically has both models overlapping one another on all servers now.

Edited May 24, 2012 by Ironcleaver

[Alexi_son]

Also keep in mind that as you add subscribers, you also incur overhead costs for infrastructure, support, customer service, and bandwidth to maintain the same performance levels.

 

So cutting rates by 1/3 then bringing on 50% more subscribers would not break even due to overhead.

 

Since overhead isn't published, I will assume 20%. So you would really need something along the lines of a ballpark 60% more subscribers to break even with a $15 to $10 subscription adjustment.

[Gomuningen]

$15 dolla should get me a steak, beer and hookar!

[jedxix]

15 songs on iTunes.

 

What else does $15 get you?

 

1) A ticket to a crappy 2 hour movie.

2) A pack or two (depending where you live) of smokes.

3) A half-decent meal or a crappy meal for 2.

4) A dozen beer.

5) 1/4 of a stand-alone PC game.

6) Half a dozen 2 litre Cokes.

7) A pizza.

8) A previously viewed Blu-Ray of a crappy 2 hour movie.

9) 15 songs on iTunes.

10) Up to 744 hours (minus sleep and patch time) of gaming time on an MMO

 

What's the better value?

[Holden_Dissent]

Didn't we already come to the conclusion that they already paid off the $2 billion it cost to make the game? That was like.... 2 months ago.

 

also - lol@Wow having 10m X $15 a month.

[Cherly]

Love how everyone has these rose colored glasses about previous games. Since when did EQ1 have a "steady stream of new content"? They once went a year without adding anything new. GMs that came to you and knew your "plight"? Maybe they knew your problem but they were not able to help with it.

 

You guys should google a thing called "euphoric recall". I learned about it when I was at a substance abuse seminar. The drug addicts start to only remember the good times and forget the rest once they start getting clean. If EQ was so awesome why did you ever leave?

 

Final Fantasy XI... then i got to poor to afford multiple subs so EQ had to go..

[Alexi_son]

Didn't we already come to the conclusion that they already paid off the $2 billion it cost to make the game? That was like.... 2 months ago.

 

also - lol@Wow having 10m X $15 a month.

 

This is why Blizzard can essentially assign a project team to incorporate into WoW any "cool" feature brought out in a competing MMO within a couple months of its release. I'm still waiting for goblin engineers to invent "energy-swords" and personal "goblin rockets" to other planets outside Azeroth.

Edited May 24, 2012 by Alexi_son

[Durasturan]

$15 dolla should get me a steak, beer and hookar!

 

It should get me 1/4 of a game every month. Every month should have a patch that adds 1/4 as much content as the original game had.