General Discussion

The reason we all pay a subscription fee for an MMO is well established. Its meant to...

• add content
• fix bugs
• server maintenance

Thats it, 3 simple reasons.

The box sales are of course there to cover development costs and hopefully make a profit as well. If they want to generate more profits, expansions are launched. Profit isnt supposed to come from subscription money.

However we are lately seeing some disturbing trends within the MMO industry that arent following the rules. I equate it to what the US goverment does with social security money;

The govt taxes us for social security retirement. Instead of putting that money aside though for our retirement the govt spends it on other things. They even lend it out or borrow against it. And when it comes time to pay that money back out to us, we get basically ripped off. There might not even be any money left by the time we retire. 

The same thing is now happening to the MMO gamer. His or her money isnt going back into the game. Some examples....

World of Warcraft - they make an insane amount of money from their 10+ million subscribers. Yet very little content is added. There arent many bugs to correct as the game launched fairly clean. So what is that 150 million dollars per month being spent on ? Since it clearly isnt going back into WoW, Im gonna guess and say the secret MMO in the works. Kinda unethical isnt it to use WoW money to pay for another game and then later make people in essence re-buy the new game ?

Star Wars Galaxies - yes even a game like SWG with its low population is making a profit. Assuming 20k subscribers paying $15 = 3.6 million dollars a year in revenue. SOE has 5 devs working on SWG and very little content coming out. Bugs are still around since launch. So again I ask where is that money going ? Even if they paid those fresh-out-of-college hacks working on Galaxies 100k each, that still leaves 3.1 million dollars to cover the electric bill. Im quite sure there is a surplus of cash left not going back into the game where it belongs.

SOE first violated this policy of spending our subscription money on a new revamp not intended for the people paying the bills. Now it appears NCSoft is following suit. And clearly Blizz isnt spending the money they get where its meant to.

If Blizz spent the money as it should, WoW should be getting a new island every month full of content. Unfortunately and dangerously the players at WoW are new to MMO's and perhaps not aware that you dont pay $15 just for the privilage to log in. Thats what the box cost is meant for.

And if players continue to give money to SWG, CoH, and WoW it sends the message that developers can do whatever the hell they want with that money. Soon we wont see any content going into a game unless we pay an additional fee.

We are at a crossroads here my friends. Its time to remind these greedy corporations that subscription money isnt their personal expense accounts to be use on a new ivory back scratcher. Its not acceptable to use my money to create a new product and then later resell it to me.

If I remember correctly, the subscription fee was origionally introduced so we would never have to buy an expansion. Sub fees were supposed to offset the cost of all new content.

UO:T2A and UO:R were both free.

The Kunark expansion to EQ was "justified" because it was too much content to download over a dial up connection...

But now that we are in the broadband age, I see no reason that we should have to continue to pay for expansions.

Sorry, but that doesn't have to be your way. Even if it is true for 100% of the industry, guess what, a new company isn't legally bound by that definition.  they can come up with their own meaning for what it means, such as access to the server beyond the trial period.

 you should add a fourth purpose..profit.  To complete the first things assets need to be deployed and thus a return on those assets is needed.  You would have very short run games if they did not also make a profit on the subs.

Originally posted by admriker4

Kinda unethical isnt it to use WoW money to pay for another game and then later make people in essence re-buy the new game ?

Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. As long as people continue to buy buggy, broken, unfinished games, or just games that are lacking in content, or even just games that have features they don't agree with, developers will continue cranking out these same games and selling them to us. Corporations only have an ethical obligation to their wallets; they care about nothing else.

Customer support is the largest expense and always will be.

Actually what it comes down to is, I want to play X game and the company behind X game says I can't play it unless I pay X for it each month.

Thats really all it is.  People say it's for this and that, but it's simple because we the consumer are williing to pay for it.

Might be silly on our part, but if I want to play it, thats what I have to do.

Venge Sunsoar

Side note, Blizzard doesn't charge its more than 6 million chinese subscribers $15/mo, they pay 6 cents an hour and received the game for free via a video game marketing group called The 9, but yes WoW, and all mmos of any decent quality are very profitable, and thats no crime. To expect them to spend the majority of their profits, let alone all, on an already successful game, that is very simple at that, sounds rather childish. I mean who says what they, or any company, "has" to do with the money they earn? They earned it, its theirs. So if an ivory backscratcher is what they want, its what they'll get. Until the market demands more from them by unsubscribing, then they will continue to operate to provide just enough content to keep people playing, and not a stitch more. Which, if you think about it, makes sense. I mean, they just hit 11 million. It seems to be working.

Originally posted by Lustmord

If I remember correctly, the subscription fee was origionally introduced so we would never have to buy an expansion. Sub fees were supposed to offset the cost of all new content.

UO:T2A and UO:R were both free.

 

UO:T2A was NOT for free and Renaissance was free because they COPIED the original lands.

Though one developer stated it would not be a mirror (well technically it is not Mirrored, just copied which makes it even cheaper)

EA with UO is a very good example to collect fees with NO content or blow the fees away on sims online or 3+ not published UO clients/games.

Well KR client was free but so buggy rumor has it that less than 50% use their new client and it will be reworked and released under a new name.