MMO pricing

[lupi]

We all know WoW is the big gorilla as far as the mmo scene goes, and last I heard lotro was second in NA. And even at second, it's numbers are significiantly behind.

So why instead of trying to mimic the leader, why don't these guys come up with different payment schemes?
If I could pay like $5 a month for SWG, or EQ, War, or D&D, I'd probably do it even if I only logged on for a day or two a month. Wouldn't that have the possibility of seeing many more new eyes on their product than they are going to get otherwise?

 

[MikeyLSU]

My guess is they are still raking in the money with less users.

We found out couple of months ago just how much money Blizzard is making on WoW and their server fees are next to nothing compared to the monthly fee.

But I kind of agree with you, the pricing is the only reason I have never/will never play a MMORPG. I am not paying $150 a year to play a game plus the price of the game, so $200 for the first year.

 

[KeithTalent]

LOTRO at least has a different option with their lifetime subscriptions.

Do any MMOs do a pay-per-play type thing, where they track how long you are logged in for and you only that amount? Sort of like the pay-as-you-go cellphone plans. I think for people that only login once or twice a week, something like that would be better. It would certainly be a way to bring in more casuals.

KT

 

[lupi]

Several do, but only in foreign markets. Some of that is do to local regulations, and the others due to different economics between the markets.

 

[Pepsei]

Originally posted by: MikeyLSU
My guess is they are still raking in the money with less users.

We found out couple of months ago just how much money Blizzard is making on WoW and their server fees are next to nothing compared to the monthly fee.

But I kind of agree with you, the pricing is the only reason I have never/will never play a MMORPG. I am not paying $150 a year to play a game plus the price of the game, so $200 for the first year.

well, technically speaking, at the time i was playing, i paid for six months in advance..... and during those times, i didn't feel like buying any other games, so i actually saved a lot of money. but of course, who knows if you would enjoy it as much. just don't try the free 10 days trial.... you might get addicted.

 

[kompulsive]

I don't mind paying what I pay for WAR.

 

[SpunkyJones]

Originally posted by: Pepsei

Originally posted by: MikeyLSU
My guess is they are still raking in the money with less users.

We found out couple of months ago just how much money Blizzard is making on WoW and their server fees are next to nothing compared to the monthly fee.

But I kind of agree with you, the pricing is the only reason I have never/will never play a MMORPG. I am not paying $150 a year to play a game plus the price of the game, so $200 for the first year.

well, technically speaking, at the time i was playing, i paid for six months in advance..... and during those times, i didn't feel like buying any other games, so i actually saved a lot of money. but of course, who knows if you would enjoy it as much. just don't try the free 10 days trial.... you might get addicted.

This! I typically buy 3 or more games per month, but while I was addicted to WOW, I rarely bought any other games. Every 3 or 4 months I would take a couple weeks off from WOW and pick up a first person shooter, complete it and jump back into WOW.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: KeithTalent
LOTRO at least has a different option with their lifetime subscriptions.

Do any MMOs do a pay-per-play type thing, where they track how long you are logged in for and you only that amount? Sort of like the pay-as-you-go cellphone plans. I think for people that only login once or twice a week, something like that would be better. It would certainly be a way to bring in more casuals.

KT

I was actually contemplating this model, as it would definitely be the way for non-hardcore gamers to go. But then again, from a business standpoint the companies loose out, since casual gamers would no longer have to pay for "dead-air" when they're not playing.

 

[9mak9]

That's why I played GW because it was free. I didn't have the time to play games as much to make it worth the amount of money. I loved the warcraft series, games, books, etc. but I refused to pay that much for a game.

 

[Xavier434]

Keep in mind that in order to fund the creation of an MMO that even stands a minor chance at success you will need some pretty deep pockets and those pockets most likely belong to some big time investors. That means you need to sell a very attractive business plan to them. You need to convince them that your plan will beat all of the other plans which have failed. It will be much harder to sell that plan if the amount of time it takes to get out of the red is a lot larger due to a cheap $5/mo subscription.

I mean, it might work if you combine it with a bunch of other creative and intelligent ideas in your plan, but odds are you won't get the funding needed in order to be successful.

 

[JoshGuru7]

A lot of korean MMO's operate using microtransactions. In a nutshell you can play for free, but it costs money to purchase certain things that make it easier to improve your character. There are a couple of US MMO's that have free accounts with less privileges and paid accounts with advantages, but AFAIK they are all mostly imports of foreign MMO's (Shattered Galaxy).

One model I would like to see is a consolidation of MMO titles into station passes like SOE has. I've played four Turbine games (AC/AC2/DDO/LOTRO) but now none of them really hold my interest enough to be worth a monthly subscription fee. If Turbine followed SOE's lead and let you pay $20/month for access to their entire library then they'd have $20/mo from me that they don't right now.

On a tangent, MMO gaming is still an extremely high value use of your money if you are into them. $14.95/month for anywhere from 30-60 hours of gameplay for a typical MMO player compares very favorably to comparable activities and very favorably to playing other types of computer games which often have closer to 12-20 hours of replayability. One of the major "pros" of Oblivion when it was released was that you got 80 hours of gameplay for your $50, when many MMO gamers get at least twice that for the same cost out of whatever MMO they are playing.

 

[Beev]

If I could play SWG or Eve for $5 a month I would do it immediately. They both aren't good enough to make me pay $15, but they can hold my interest enough for $5.

 

[lupi]

Originally posted by: kompulsive
I don't mind paying what I pay for WAR.

But are you going to be spending money on any other mmos while happily paying for war.

 

[Genx87]

I am surprised somebody hasnt implemented a free to play scheme with in game advertisements.

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: KeithTalent
LOTRO at least has a different option with their lifetime subscriptions.

Do any MMOs do a pay-per-play type thing, where they track how long you are logged in for and you only that amount? Sort of like the pay-as-you-go cellphone plans. I think for people that only login once or twice a week, something like that would be better. It would certainly be a way to bring in more casuals.

KT

I was actually contemplating this model, as it would definitely be the way for non-hardcore gamers to go. But then again, from a business standpoint the companies loose out, since casual gamers would no longer have to pay for "dead-air" when they're not playing.

Yes, but I cancelled my WoW sub because I had not logged in for about 6 weeks. I would have played this past weekend if I could have done it like the model I mentioned above, but I was not up for paying another $15 to play for a few hours.

They would definitely have to do some cost/benefit and break-even to see the profitability of pay-per-play versus the paid for, sunk "dead-air", but I imagine in many of the non-WoW MMOs this would be a bit of a draw to casual gamers and could end up making the game more popular overall.

KT

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: KeithTalent

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: KeithTalent
LOTRO at least has a different option with their lifetime subscriptions.

Do any MMOs do a pay-per-play type thing, where they track how long you are logged in for and you only that amount? Sort of like the pay-as-you-go cellphone plans. I think for people that only login once or twice a week, something like that would be better. It would certainly be a way to bring in more casuals.

KT

I was actually contemplating this model, as it would definitely be the way for non-hardcore gamers to go. But then again, from a business standpoint the companies loose out, since casual gamers would no longer have to pay for "dead-air" when they're not playing.

Yes, but I cancelled my WoW sub because I had not logged in for about 6 weeks. I would have played this past weekend if I could have done it like the model I mentioned above, but I was not up for paying another $15 to play for a few hours.

They would definitely have to do some cost/benefit and break-even to see the profitability of pay-per-play versus the paid for, sunk "dead-air", but I imagine in many of the non-WoW MMOs this would be a bit of a draw to casual gamers and could end up making the game more popular overall.

KT

I completely agree. But again, from the business standpoint - if it's the "norm" to charge monthly subscriptions and get paid for the time while people sleep, why stop doing it? There are going to be those that point out the premium incurred for going to a pay-per-minute makes it MORE expensive than subscriptions, and then the model falls apart.

 

[ZzZGuy]

Originally posted by: MikeyLSU
My guess is they are still raking in the money with less users.

We found out couple of months ago just how much money Blizzard is making on WoW and their server fees are next to nothing compared to the monthly fee.

But I kind of agree with you, the pricing is the only reason I have never/will never play a MMORPG. I am not paying $150 a year to play a game plus the price of the game, so $200 for the first year.

You can play EvE Online for free you know? CCP sells "time cards" that a person buys in real life money, they can then sell it within the game to other players in exchange for ISK (game money). If you are good enough at making money you play for free, but it'll be at least 6 months before you'd be able to do that from scratch.

 

[lupi]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: KeithTalent

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: KeithTalent
LOTRO at least has a different option with their lifetime subscriptions.

Do any MMOs do a pay-per-play type thing, where they track how long you are logged in for and you only that amount? Sort of like the pay-as-you-go cellphone plans. I think for people that only login once or twice a week, something like that would be better. It would certainly be a way to bring in more casuals.

KT

I was actually contemplating this model, as it would definitely be the way for non-hardcore gamers to go. But then again, from a business standpoint the companies loose out, since casual gamers would no longer have to pay for "dead-air" when they're not playing.

Yes, but I cancelled my WoW sub because I had not logged in for about 6 weeks. I would have played this past weekend if I could have done it like the model I mentioned above, but I was not up for paying another $15 to play for a few hours.

They would definitely have to do some cost/benefit and break-even to see the profitability of pay-per-play versus the paid for, sunk "dead-air", but I imagine in many of the non-WoW MMOs this would be a bit of a draw to casual gamers and could end up making the game more popular overall.

KT

I completely agree. But again, from the business standpoint - if it's the "norm" to charge monthly subscriptions and get paid for the time while people sleep, why stop doing it? There are going to be those that point out the premium incurred for going to a pay-per-minute makes it MORE expensive than subscriptions, and then the model falls apart.

But what is the "norm". Blizz just sold over 2 million copies of an expanion in a week, who knows how many more since then,


That alone easily laps the field by several fold. Unless the other devs start doing something to attract a sufficient number of users away from the "but all my friends play wow" factor, a factor that has a lot of hold currently based on the amount of monthly fees, we're going to be seeing a lot more closings than startings.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: lupi

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: KeithTalent

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: KeithTalent
LOTRO at least has a different option with their lifetime subscriptions.

Do any MMOs do a pay-per-play type thing, where they track how long you are logged in for and you only that amount? Sort of like the pay-as-you-go cellphone plans. I think for people that only login once or twice a week, something like that would be better. It would certainly be a way to bring in more casuals.

KT

I was actually contemplating this model, as it would definitely be the way for non-hardcore gamers to go. But then again, from a business standpoint the companies loose out, since casual gamers would no longer have to pay for "dead-air" when they're not playing.

Yes, but I cancelled my WoW sub because I had not logged in for about 6 weeks. I would have played this past weekend if I could have done it like the model I mentioned above, but I was not up for paying another $15 to play for a few hours.

They would definitely have to do some cost/benefit and break-even to see the profitability of pay-per-play versus the paid for, sunk "dead-air", but I imagine in many of the non-WoW MMOs this would be a bit of a draw to casual gamers and could end up making the game more popular overall.

KT

I completely agree. But again, from the business standpoint - if it's the "norm" to charge monthly subscriptions and get paid for the time while people sleep, why stop doing it? There are going to be those that point out the premium incurred for going to a pay-per-minute makes it MORE expensive than subscriptions, and then the model falls apart.

But what is the "norm". Blizz just sold over 2 million copies of an expanion in a week, who knows how many more since then,


That alone easily laps the field by several fold. Unless the other devs start doing something to attract a sufficient number of users away from the "but all my friends play wow" factor, a factor that has a lot of hold currently based on the amount of monthly fees, we're going to be seeing a lot more closings than startings.

True, but from a business standpoint, most suits will follow the proven model as far as income goes, relying on the "hope" their title somehow is better than WoW.

Gotta remember, business types are the fundamental disconnect when it comes to games. They see $$$, not the overall picture.

 

[Arglebargle]

Prior to WoW, an MMO that had 100K users was a success. Now something like that gets sneered at, even though they may be pulling in a mil a month. WoW is a fluke, and as long as it gets considered the standard, most everything will fail in comparision.

Business investors who look for the next WoW will be sorely disappointed.

Other models can work, with the right expectations.

 

[lupi]

Originally posted by: Arglebargle
Prior to WoW, an MMO that had 100K users was a success. Now something like that gets sneered at, even though they may be pulling in a mil a month. WoW is a fluke, and as long as it gets considered the standard, most everything will fail in comparision.

Business investors who look for the next WoW will be sorely disappointed.

Other models can work, with the right expectations.

:thumbsup:

 

[lupi]

Originally posted by: JoshGuru7

One model I would like to see is a consolidation of MMO titles into station passes like SOE has. I've played four Turbine games (AC/AC2/DDO/LOTRO) but now none of them really hold my interest enough to be worth a monthly subscription fee. If Turbine followed SOE's lead and let you pay $20/month for access to their entire library then they'd have $20/mo from me that they don't right now.

True, and that was partly why I thought of this idea. However even SOE has screwed themselves. At one point the pass was just a little more than a regular subscription, however last I looked they seemed to be jacking that up a couple dollars with every other game they released no longer making it a decent deal if you were just going to spend most of your time with one game and just dabbling with others.