Monthly fees: Why the hate?


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IMO No game is worth paying a monthly fee for access.

Name 5 great games that use a P2P model - World of Warcraft (I personally do not care for the game but you cannot deny its popularity)......any other big ones out there?

Name 5 great games that use a F2P model - Natural Selection, NS2 (not out yet), Guild Wars, MW and MW2 (don't personally like them but again, you cannot deny their popularity), TF2, etc.

Personally, I have not seen a game that is notably better because its P2P when compared to F2P games, so they are simply not worth it.

EDIT: What happens when the P2P servers shut down? People who put hundreds if not thousands of dollars into the game get screwed. What happens when F2P servers shut down? You lose a $50 game.

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Your analogy breaks down quickly nag, certain games simply aren't possible without real dedicated servers, which cost someone money and has to be compensated regardless of business model. FPS are shards so its easier to split off unless you go the dangerous route of MW2 and start forcing peer to peer connections which is bad for everybody.

You think that TF2/NS server isn't expensive? Do you have any idea what colo costs and that it takes a bit more cycles to run a DS than to host a silly website?

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I don't think it's right that you should pay to play a game, and that includes micropayments. DLC I can forgive, because that's different - you're not restricted from playing the game as intended, these are just extras. With Micropayments it's more like you're being baited with a free game, and then you're forced to pay for game objects in order to play the game properly.

As for the costs involved in running MMO's - yeah, some of them are expensive, but I'd rather pay an amount of money upfront for the game and then not pay anything extra to play it, like a few have.

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Your analogy breaks down quickly nag, certain games simply aren't possible without real dedicated servers, which cost someone money and has to be compensated regardless of business model. FPS are shards so its easier to split off unless you go the dangerous route of MW2 and start forcing peer to peer connections which is bad for everybody.

True, but look at Guild Wars. It is probably one of the best examples of a F2P non-FPS game that you can get. ArenaNet hosts ALL GW-related servers and does so without forcing the customers to pay for them.
You think that TF2/NS server isn't expensive? Do you have any idea what colo costs and that it takes a bit more cycles to run a DS than to host a silly website?

Did I say it was cheap to run a TF2 or NS server? *goes back and re-reads his post* Nope, in fact, I have ran an NS server in the past, I know how expensive they can be. My point is the server owners cover the cost of the servers, not the people who buy the game to play it. Large game companies should be able to easily cover the cost of the servers, if not then maybe they are in the wrong genre of games?

So no, my analogy doesn't break down quickly, what breaks down quickly is the value you get playing a P2P game when there are many F2P games that do just as well, without forcing the customer to cover the server operating costs.

Honestly, paying monthly for a game that the developers can revoke your access to at any time for any reason they so choose? No thanks, I'll stick to games that I pay for and play when I want without worrying about what losing my ass when they shut down the servers or decide to revoke my access.

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Do you really think Valve has a swarm of TF2 servers they are paying for? If you hosted a NS server in the past I got news, you paid a sub to play a game, so pot, kettle..something. Sorry, but they can't even keep simple servers for Demon Souls up for a year and you think Blizz is going to sign off on 10 years of 'free' hosting and updates? GW simply isn't an MMO, or even much of a game for that matter.

It really comes down to those who like/understand the value of an MMO and those who don't as its the only genre that demands that hardware we are really talking about. Not to mention the free updates to the game between expansions which is usually more sizable than multiple DLC packs.

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I would personally never ever buy a game that would require me to pay an extra monthly fee

+1

That about sums it up for me anyway :)

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I decided to write a simple walk-through:

Month 1.

You buy your new Crysis game for $60.

I buy my Everquest game for $60.

Month 2.

Your game says 60 hours of game time. Assuming you beat it, you need another game. $60

I still like my game, so $15 this month for me.

After 2 months, you've spent $120 whereas I've only spend $75.

Month 3.

Again assuming you only buy 1 game a month, you buy your next game. $60.

Still going on my MMO, so $15 for me.

You've spent $180 to my $90.

That's all assuming we both liked our game. Let's assume we both hate our first game.

Month 1.

You spent $60 on Crysis and it sucks.

I spend $60 on Everquest and it sucks.

We're both out $60. It's an equal match. If we both like our next game, refer to the

like example above. I still win out with my "hiway robbery" monthly fee.

You're assuming you don't want another game on top of your first. Just because you like a game doesn't mean you won't buy another. I even know people that have played WoW and City of Heroes at the same time. That's not counting other games they tried out. On top of that, he had a son that was playing WoW and CoH. I also know people that have a couple of kids that game. Throw in Xbox Live. That might be extreme to you, but I know several people that do that exact same thing.

It's fine if YOU want to do it that way. Be my guest. It is NOT something I will ever do. I'll stick to single-player games before I pay on online fee.

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Do you really think Valve has a swarm of TF2 servers they are paying for?

I recall mentioning another game called Guild Wars that DOES have a swarm of servers that the creators are paying for, funny how you COMPLETELY avoid that game which goes against your posts and highlight specific points of specific games that help back your posts.

If you hosted a NS server in the past I got news, you paid a sub to play a game, so pot, kettle..something. Sorry, but they can't even keep simple servers for Demon Souls up for a year and you think Blizz is going to sign off on 10 years of 'free' hosting and updates?

No, I wasn't forced into paying a subscription, I honestly didn't even play on my own NS server very often. Subscription means the customer MUST pay a price for access. Hosting a FPS game server is NOT a subscription unless your server is the only one running (and you are then having to pay that server cost just to play the game). Knowing the games Blizzard has created, I guarantee you they could make money on WoW with a free-to-play business model. I know I, and many other people would likely buy it just because of the quality of the game. But despite its high quality, it is still not worth paying to play.

GW simply isn't an MMO, or even much of a game for that matter.

A bit subjective, no? GW is a massively played game (or at least was years ago) and they still constantly update it. It may not have as many players as it use to, but it still has a very large userbase (probably larger than most other free-to-play RPG-based games). Pushing it aside simply because you do not think much of it on a game level is quite subjective. Fact is they still have many servers and must pay for them all without relying on the customers to flip the tab.

It really comes down to those who like/understand the value of an MMO and those who don't as its the only genre that demands that hardware we are really talking about. Not to mention the free updates to the game between expansions which is usually more sizable than multiple DLC packs.

I am a fan of MMO games and I have not seen a single MMO that is worth monthly fee...I'm not going to pay $10-15 a month for a game when I can pay $50 now (or even less) and have a game that lasts for years. What about Steam in general? They have huge bandwidth requirements and likely have multiple high-end servers to both serve and store the tons of games and content they host. Why do they not charge people to use Steam? They also provide tons of free updates for all their games, some more than others, and some only to fix bugs. But some games (such as TF2) are constantly getting new content absolutely free.

Sure MMOs are generally more likely to have high hardware requirements, but that doesn't mean they are the only case where high-end hardware is required. Do you see other companies who require high-end hardware and loads of bandwidth (such as Valve) force their customers to pay simply to access the service? Didn't think so.

Take a look back at some of the older games, even Blizzards own Diablo 2. For its time it had hundreds of servers and huge bandwidth requirements, yet they never charged a single penny for access. Do you think they lost money on that? I doubt it, if they did they wouldn't have had the money to develop WoW or SC2, and they wouldn't have bothered going for a D3 either.

I decided to write a simple walk-through:

Month 1.

You buy your new Crysis game for $60.

I buy my Everquest game for $60.

Month 2.

Your game says 60 hours of game time. Assuming you beat it, you need another game. $60

I still like my game, so $15 this month for me.

After 2 months, you've spent $120 whereas I've only spend $75.

Month 3.

Again assuming you only buy 1 game a month, you buy your next game. $60.

Still going on my MMO, so $15 for me.

You've spent $180 to my $90.

That's all assuming we both liked our game. Let's assume we both hate our first game.

Month 1.

You spent $60 on Crysis and it sucks.

I spend $60 on Everquest and it sucks.

We're both out $60. It's an equal match. If we both like our next game, refer to the

like example above. I still win out with my "hiway robbery" monthly fee.

How about this:

Month 1.

I buy Guild Wars for $60

You buy EQ for $60

Month 2.

I enjoy GW and pay nothing.

You pay your $15 EQ fee.

Month 12.

I am finally getting bored of GW - I stop playing and spend a total of $60

You still enjoy EQ. You continue playing and (at month 12) have paid a total of $225, nearly 4 times the price I paid.

The same can be said for many, many other F2P games. Lets say you find a game that you do not have to pay a subscription for and enjoy it for 12 months or more with 1 out of every 3 purchases (that is, you do not buy every game you see just because it looks cool, but you actually look into the games and pay attention to the price to get them at their best deal). I end up paying less than $200 a year give or take while having multiple games I can switch back and forth to when I get bored of one. You end up paying more than $200 a year and that EXCLUDES any additional games you think you may find interesting and buy.

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You're assuming you don't want another game on top of your first. Just because you like a game doesn't mean you won't buy another. I even know people that have played WoW and City of Heroes at the same time. That's not counting other games they tried out. On top of that, he had a son that was playing WoW and CoH. I also know people that have a couple of kids that game. Throw in Xbox Live. That might be extreme to you, but I know several people that do that exact same thing.

It's fine if YOU want to do it that way. Be my guest. It is NOT something I will ever do. I'll stick to single-player games before I pay on online fee.

Yes, because folks that get involved in an MMO-type game- as many have argued- tend to stick with that game. (Given that it's good)

But do your research JUST on these forums alone... and you don't hear folks talking about that ONE single-pay game they bought for this

quarter. (3-month period).

But back to the MMO, even if I'm playing two of them that's only $30 a month. Still cheaper than if you bought even ONE game in a given month.

So my point still stands.

Nag:

You have a single example? Guild Wars? I don't know many folks that consider that an MMO by any means.

Regardless, great. Let's add TF2 to that list. It's an online game that doesn't have a subscription fee. Jump into a server and ask if that's the

only game they're playing.

My break-down is not only correct, it's relevant. If you compare the cost a single-pay game that get's played to such

an extent that it continues to get played past its life expectancy- which for MOST single-pay games is around 60 hours- to the

costs associated with an MMO then the MMO is more "expensive". But how rarely does that happen? I don't know anyone

still playing Guild Wars, but even I still jump into TF2 occasionally to get my pyro fix. So yea, I would consider TF2 to be

an AWESOME value... but it's a singlular example. Nowhere near the average, or the "state" of current games.

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I don't mind. ?I pay for XBox Live and Netflix now. ?If I think it's a good value, I'm fine paying. ?But I refuse to buy a $60 for one game and then pay a monthly fee. ?

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Nag:

You have a single example? Guild Wars? I don't know many folks that consider that an MMO by any means.

Regardless, great. Let's add TF2 to that list. It's an online game that doesn't have a subscription fee. Jump into a server and ask if that's the

only game they're playing.

My break-down is not only correct, it's relevant. If you compare the cost a single-pay game that get's played to such

an extent that it continues to get played past its life expectancy- which for MOST single-pay games is around 60 hours- to the

costs associated with an MMO then the MMO is more "expensive". But how rarely does that happen? I don't know anyone

still playing Guild Wars, but even I still jump into TF2 occasionally to get my pyro fix. So yea, I would consider TF2 to be

an AWESOME value... but it's a singlular example. Nowhere near the average, or the "state" of current games.

Thats my point, hold on to your money and only spend it when you know a game is going to keep you busy and you will not spend NEARLY as much on F2P games as you if you played P2P games for the same duration. Guild Wars, NS, TF2, Diablo II, Starcraft, Warcraft, all are games which I spent at LEAST 1 year playing constantly, Diablo II and NS were both 5 years (both being the ONLY game I played at the time), while TF2 was about a year of constant play, then on and off after that. SC and WC were both on and off play for multiple years.

Say on average the game cost $60, thats $5 a month to play those games, and thats a combined total of nearly 15 years. Compare that to WoW at, lets say $10 a month, and if you play that and only that for 15 years, it would STILL cost you double what I paid for the same amount of enjoyment over the same duration.

I guess it depends on what games interest you the most (I enjoy RPG games but not nearly as much as I enjoy FPS games), but I just do not see P2P games even coming close to comparing to the value a good solid replayable game will get you.

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It's about FINDING that quality single-pay game.

I look at folks that have a STEAM account full of games they clock maybe

20-30 hours on. And that's a nice estimate. Then they turn around and buy another

game. Thus the reason I threw in the example of games someone actually enjoys.

It took 12 years for the next Starcraft game to come out. That will more than likely,

given it's track record, keep folks occupied for a LONG time to come. To such an

extent that they'll hardly look at another game. (Especially in Korea) But given

the average buy-cycle for gamers, I spend a HELL of a lot less than my non-MMO

friends. They run through games like mad- either to try out the latest and greatest

something-or-other, or because they beat their game and it's time to move on.

Whereas I played EQ for years, I played Ultima Online for a couple of years, etc.

In the meantime, I've bought very few games: Dragon Age and Fallout 3 come to mind.

But once I beat them, I never went back. I MIGHT go back for Fallout Vegas, but we'll see.

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Obviously not, or we wouldn't be having this discussion.

As to your comment, why pay every month for TV or internet?

It's either worth it to you, or it's not.

I went to the theatre to see Star Trek... twice. Then I bought the Blu-Ray.

It was worth it.

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Because they are too stupid to realize DLC is the true threat?

Actually so far I have managed to never buy a single DLC and never purchase a game that required a monthly fee :D

I don't mind paying the initial fee at the store but I hate extra fees

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I'm completely fine with monthly fees if they...

1.) Reasonably priced,

2.) Add new content on a regular basis

I have no problem funding development of future content for the games I love (e.g. WoW, Fallout 3).

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It's about FINDING that quality single-pay game.

I look at folks that have a STEAM account full of games they clock maybe

20-30 hours on. And that's a nice estimate. Then they turn around and buy another

game. Thus the reason I threw in the example of games someone actually enjoys.

It took 12 years for the next Starcraft game to come out. That will more than likely,

given it's track record, keep folks occupied for a LONG time to come. To such an

extent that they'll hardly look at another game. (Especially in Korea) But given

the average buy-cycle for gamers, I spend a HELL of a lot less than my non-MMO

friends. They run through games like mad- either to try out the latest and greatest

something-or-other, or because they beat their game and it's time to move on.

Whereas I played EQ for years, I played Ultima Online for a couple of years, etc.

In the meantime, I've bought very few games: Dragon Age and Fallout 3 come to mind.

But once I beat them, I never went back. I MIGHT go back for Fallout Vegas, but we'll see.

it just took me few demos to find 3 MMO i like and i paid ~140 dollars for 3 games... i have been playing it for 10 months now still it interest me a lot.

how about you paying monthly subscription for two games????? it would be expensive....

we still have the option of renting games $15 monthly(one game at a time)... I tried few games before i bought some for the MMO's so compared to that it cheaper.(only for console gamers)

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It's about FINDING that quality single-pay game.

I look at folks that have a STEAM account full of games they clock maybe

20-30 hours on. And that's a nice estimate. Then they turn around and buy another

game. Thus the reason I threw in the example of games someone actually enjoys.

It took 12 years for the next Starcraft game to come out. That will more than likely,

given it's track record, keep folks occupied for a LONG time to come. To such an

extent that they'll hardly look at another game. (Especially in Korea) But given

the average buy-cycle for gamers, I spend a HELL of a lot less than my non-MMO

friends. They run through games like mad- either to try out the latest and greatest

something-or-other, or because they beat their game and it's time to move on.

Whereas I played EQ for years, I played Ultima Online for a couple of years, etc.

In the meantime, I've bought very few games: Dragon Age and Fallout 3 come to mind.

But once I beat them, I never went back. I MIGHT go back for Fallout Vegas, but we'll see.

I have clocked more hours in non p2p games than I have p2p games. The only pay to play game I have clocked significant hours in is Phantasy Star Universe but honestly I more religiously played free games with excellent MP experiences such as Chromehounds, Halo and honestly Maple Story, Gunbound, etc. The ONLY MMO I see fine to pay to play at all is EVE and that is specifically because the game gives you everything it can offer for free. But, even then, I am sitting here waiting for LotRO to go free to play, that way I can play when I want and not have to worry about micromanaging my time to make the money I spent worth it.

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Aren't you over-rationalizing yourself: cost per hour of entertainment. Because you're paying a monthly fee, would you not go out with friends to the club or would you not take a date to a movie? Obviously not.

I have been playing an MMO on&off for about the last 6-7yrs with 4-years actual subscription time; in the meantime I've played other games as well, when I want to take a break, I simply do not pay and when I want to return, everything is there as it was. One of the reasons I've often returned is because of the many expansions it has received over the years. Sometimes I think I would've completely forgotten about it if it weren't for them keeping me on a mailing list when said expansions were coming up.

I don't even know if I'm getting "my money's worth", I wouldn't know how to evaluate such an expression for my personal entertainment without objectivity (read: peer perception).

maybe you're right to an extent. but tbh playing an mmo regularly has never stopped me from going to movies or the bar or w/e. but for the money spent vs time spent the mmo is the better value over both of those activities.

The problem isnt that MMO's are now launching incomplete, they've basically always been doing that. The problem is that we now have MMO's which are complete, If you're bringing out a new MMO.. the reality is that the bulk of your new players will be coming from WoW or ex-WoW players. If a player has been playing a game like WoW and has decided to try out your new MMO, they're going to expect it to be at least WoW quality (they probably expect it to be better) which of course, no-one can match as WoW has had 5+ years of pure development.

As MMO's become more and more complex with better graphics and different options, launches are going to get worse, as they have to cut corners somewhere to get the game out. WoW is unbeatable at the moment as no Develop is willing to sink in the money and time upfront thats required to create a MMO to rival WoW. Instead, they're sinking in just enough money and time to get a working MMO with the first few levels complete and little/no endgame and then if it proves popular, they will put the money in. Unfortunatly, this means that when players try out the game at launch, they're disappointed and quit.

I honestly dont see how anyone can rival Blizzard on the MMO scene in the future. They have WoW setup nicely and they're more than willing to put the cash upfront for the next-gen MMO as they're highly confident that it will be a success.

As far as monthly fee's go, i dont mind them as long as its a game where i can get my moneys worth out of it. I played WoW for 2 years, loved those 2 years and didnt buy any other games. Playing WoW saved me alot of cash, i actually got out of debt by playing WoW which i would of struggled otherwise. Its hard to stay in most nights when you're forced to due to debt but its extremly easy when you're basically choosing to as you've found something enjoyable to do which passes the time and provides you with at least some social interaction. Infact, even my holiday was pretty cheap that year, went to blizzcon!

i more or less agree, but i try to compare new mmo's to wow when it was released. wow definitely had major issues, but blizz bent over backwards with PR coups to mitigate the damage, such as iirc a free month of play past the first free month. and it had few content gaps until near max level, and quickly filled in those gaps with a huge abundance of quests to teh degree you can never do them all leveling normally within the first year. so maybe wow is more of a role model of how to launch an mmo.

i've seen industry leaders such as ncsoft on teh other hand not only fail to learn from their past mistakes in games such as lineage 2, going into aion, with terrible community communication with outright lies to desperately hold onto a few subs for just one more month, to poor CS both online and phoning in(their phone line is 11-5 cst m-f and has no power to do anything). and aion was out for a almost a year in korea before launching in teh west, and yet it's content stat even now is poor compared to not only wow at launc but even say AOC or WAR, which players complained about content gaps if they even bothered to explore the game past tortage or tier 1.

and then there was STO where they bragged about being able to churn out massive amounts of content over the course of two years due to reusing their champions online engine, when there were people beating the game in a week of relatively normal play.

I like having extra money to spend on other things, aside from games. Whether it be gaming accessories like a new mouse to play said game(s) or say I want to take a nice lady out to dinner. Paying monthly lowers my budget on said accessories/dinner. Not only does it lower my budget, it forces to me, and I'm sure a few of you are like me, to try and get as much out of my money as possible. What does this mean? It means I'm going to become anti-social for the next few years as I focus on "beating this game" and beating it again on my next set of characters. I'm looking at you World of Warcraft. So you have less money to spend on dining, which is fine. You don't have a social life anymore. So why should you care? Well it's nice having a social life and having extra money. I've made this longer than I expected, so to conclude myself: Monthly fees = playing more and spending time outside of the game less. Obviously I'm a gamer and this doesn't bother me a whole lot, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Which explains why I don't play WoW, but **** would I love to.

if 15$ monthly impacts your social/entertainment budget that much you have other financial issues to deal with let alone being able to go out at all. when i date a girl i'm automatically spending at least $40 a week/per date minimum for dinner at a cheap restaurant no alcoholic drinks and no movie, plus transportation costs for the two of us.

and mmo play has never impacted my irl social life. it's called balance. raid or grind or pvp 3-7 days a week but spend a few hours away from teh game doing irl stuff like partying and having a life. in teh time i played wow i was just as competitive, and a better player, than my guild mates that had no job and spent 16 hours a day grinding multiple characters. i probably had more fun too, and this was as an officer in my guild planning out bi weekly guild events for fun for my guild.

Your analogy breaks down quickly nag, certain games simply aren't possible without real dedicated servers, which cost someone money and has to be compensated regardless of business model. FPS are shards so its easier to split off unless you go the dangerous route of MW2 and start forcing peer to peer connections which is bad for everybody.

You think that TF2/NS server isn't expensive? Do you have any idea what colo costs and that it takes a bit more cycles to run a DS than to host a silly website?

even if you buy the server hardware, you're still paying for electricty, dedicated internet connection, and spending your time mataining and admining it.

dedicated servers are miles above peer 2 peer connections such as mw2 in quality, but they also cost a fair amount per month. even if you gto a DS set up for absolutely free, you'd still be spending yoru time taking care of it, plus the other costs i mentioned.

people just don't realize the hidden costs of these games.

You're assuming you don't want another game on top of your first. Just because you like a game doesn't mean you won't buy another. I even know people that have played WoW and City of Heroes at the same time. That's not counting other games they tried out. On top of that, he had a son that was playing WoW and CoH. I also know people that have a couple of kids that game. Throw in Xbox Live. That might be extreme to you, but I know several people that do that exact same thing.

It's fine if YOU want to do it that way. Be my guest. It is NOT something I will ever do. I'll stick to single-player games before I pay on online fee.

playing multiple mmo's is not typical. but for him it's obviously worth it to pay for multiple monthly sub games.

non monthly sub games that are good are even rarer than good mmo's that are worth the sub, let alone the cost of the box. how many games have you spent $50 for and put down after less than 20 hours without even bothering witht he multiplayer, or liked the game and gone to try the multiplayer within the first month only to find maybe 5 servers in teh server browser and no one playing teh game? i can't count how many times this has happened to me since 1998.

I recall mentioning another game called Guild Wars that DOES have a swarm of servers that the creators are paying for, funny how you COMPLETELY avoid that game which goes against your posts and highlight specific points of specific games that help back your posts.

No, I wasn't forced into paying a subscription, I honestly didn't even play on my own NS server very often. Subscription means the customer MUST pay a price for access. Hosting a FPS game server is NOT a subscription unless your server is the only one running (and you are then having to pay that server cost just to play the game). Knowing the games Blizzard has created, I guarantee you they could make money on WoW with a free-to-play business model. I know I, and many other people would likely buy it just because of the quality of the game. But despite its high quality, it is still not worth paying to play.

A bit subjective, no? GW is a massively played game (or at least was years ago) and they still constantly update it. It may not have as many players as it use to, but it still has a very large userbase (probably larger than most other free-to-play RPG-based games). Pushing it aside simply because you do not think much of it on a game level is quite subjective. Fact is they still have many servers and must pay for them all without relying on the customers to flip the tab.

I am a fan of MMO games and I have not seen a single MMO that is worth monthly fee...I'm not going to pay $10-15 a month for a game when I can pay $50 now (or even less) and have a game that lasts for years. What about Steam in general? They have huge bandwidth requirements and likely have multiple high-end servers to both serve and store the tons of games and content they host. Why do they not charge people to use Steam? They also provide tons of free updates for all their games, some more than others, and some only to fix bugs. But some games (such as TF2) are constantly getting new content absolutely free.

Sure MMOs are generally more likely to have high hardware requirements, but that doesn't mean they are the only case where high-end hardware is required. Do you see other companies who require high-end hardware and loads of bandwidth (such as Valve) force their customers to pay simply to access the service? Didn't think so.

Take a look back at some of the older games, even Blizzards own Diablo 2. For its time it had hundreds of servers and huge bandwidth requirements, yet they never charged a single penny for access. Do you think they lost money on that? I doubt it, if they did they wouldn't have had the money to develop WoW or SC2, and they wouldn't have bothered going for a D3 either.

How about this:

Month 1.

I buy Guild Wars for $60

You buy EQ for $60

Month 2.

I enjoy GW and pay nothing.

You pay your $15 EQ fee.

Month 12.

I am finally getting bored of GW - I stop playing and spend a total of $60

You still enjoy EQ. You continue playing and (at month 12) have paid a total of $225, nearly 4 times the price I paid.

The same can be said for many, many other F2P games. Lets say you find a game that you do not have to pay a subscription for and enjoy it for 12 months or more with 1 out of every 3 purchases (that is, you do not buy every game you see just because it looks cool, but you actually look into the games and pay attention to the price to get them at their best deal). I end up paying less than $200 a year give or take while having multiple games I can switch back and forth to when I get bored of one. You end up paying more than $200 a year and that EXCLUDES any additional games you think you may find interesting and buy.

guildwars and tf2 are the very rare exceptions. and GW has the must have expansions that you have to buy all of them as they come out to keep up with everyone else, some of which aren't even in teh battle chest. yeah for sure GW is a great value with great support for how much it costs to play, but it's far from typical. and many GW players i'm aquainted with refused to play it after certain changes were made, balance, content and other updates which for them destroyed the game.

tf2 does get alot of patches, but none of them really compare to just a balance patch for wow. and valve makes money from licensing dedicated server rentals and cyber cafes. why doesn't valve follow this example for css? which got one patch in how many years despite being far more played than tf2, a patch that many cs vets are dead set against?

I'm completely fine with monthly fees if they...

1.) Reasonably priced,

2.) Add new content on a regular basis

I have no problem funding development of future content for the games I love (e.g. WoW, Fallout 3).

+10

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I don't mind monthly fees, up to a point. Let's take WoW as the example.

It's been out for, what, 6 years? Lets use some 'rough' average figures here.

$15/month, every month, with 1 million players.

That's over one BILLION dollars. Now we know there are FAR more players that play WoW, and while not all have played every month for 6 years, many have. That figure doesn't count in the fact you had to buy the game (or its expansions).

So what can a developer do with a billion dollars? A lot, believe me. Even if you subtract maintenance fees (such as servers, staff, devs, etc) that's still a lot of pocket money.

Now you have it in rough perspective. Tell me again why I should be paying 15 bucks a month to a company that's earnt that much money in the last 6 years.

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Because you're getting HOUR AND HOURS of entertainment from it.

and you're forgetting the money to pay developers for the continual development of the game. granted in WoW it's mostly balancing, but in most other MMO's There's a huge development of extra content being developed fro the game, outside of expansions. I already mentioned EQ2. the content that's been added though the years as free upgrades to the game, is greater than the content added to WoW as paid expansions.

Personally, I think all MMO developers should band together and do what SoE already does with their Station Pass. one slightly larger monthly fee. and you can play all the games in the portfolio. and the money you pay get divided on a percentage basis to the games you play that month, based on how much you play them.

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I'm against monthly fees for a game because I just think it is stupid. I don't play games 24/7 so I wouldn't be able to get a good return on that money. I play games for a few hours here and there so I would be best served paying one time and upgrading when I feel it is worth it.

tf2 does get alot of patches, but none of them really compare to just a balance patch for wow. and valve makes money from licensing dedicated server rentals and cyber cafes. why doesn't valve follow this example for css? which got one patch in how many years despite being far more played than tf2, a patch that many cs vets are dead set against?

You answered your own question. CS gets few updates because everytime it gets one the players moan like the world just crashed down on them and killed their first born.

They grumbled about CS:S so Valve left them with CS1.6 & CS:S now the first major patch and cries again.

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I'm against monthly fees for a game because I just think it is stupid. I don't play games 24/7 so I wouldn't be able to get a good return on that money. I play games for a few hours here and there so I would be best served paying one time and upgrading when I feel it is worth it.

You answered your own question. CS gets few updates because everytime it gets one the players moan like the world just crashed down on them and killed their first born.

They grumbled about CS:S so Valve left them with CS1.6 & CS:S now the first major patch and cries again.

if you play an mmo for 2 hours a month after the first month you've gotten about the same bang for your entertainment buck as a night at the movies for one person.

funny csss has needed minor gameplay/bug fixes such as fixing the hitbox lag for like ever to the point where players just had to get used to aiming behind a moving enemy, instead of game play changing changes such as dynamic weapon pricing, or most of what the new big patch offers, including the fact that for many who ran css from launch just fine it is now unplayable on their older systems they built/bought for hl2/css. if valve had fixed what needed fixing while living fundamental aspects of the game alone then the css community would've been super happy about things.

as well looking at wow forums before and after balance patch going by that logic blizz should just stop rebalancing classes or content or just nerf every class or only rebalance in ways that totally change how you play each class in every way or that make the game unplayable for people who have been playing since day 1. and inb4 you say cataclysm.

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if you play an mmo for 2 hours a month after the first month you've gotten about the same bang for your entertainment buck as a night at the movies for one person.

It is all in the value you attach to it. For me, I see the movies as too expensive so I usually go to my school's student run theater where me and my wife can see a movie, have snacks, and a drink for around $6...

I just don't see a value in "renting" a game into perpetuity... As I can never pay the game unless I pay the fee. To me that just isn't a smart deal.

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