Planetside, Rip off or the future of online gameing

[Broadkipa]

My 14 year old son asked me to buy him Planetside as it has just been released over here in the UK.I was happy to oblige as I am quite a gamer myself and quite like his choice in games. As you can imagine I was horrified to find that after paying £35 to buy the game you are then expected to fork out for an online subsciption just to play the game.
This to me seems to be a complete rip off compared to all the games that I play like BF1942, UT2003 etc. I would be interested to hear peoples views on this subject. Firstly if Sony expect you to pay a subsciption to play there game then it should be free or if they want £35 for the game then online play should be free.
What are your views on this matter.
As a side note, I have taken the game back to the shop and got my monney back.

 

[bunker]

I was in the beta for Planetside and thoroughly enjoyed it. That said, I would not pay to play on a monthly basis.

The reason they charge is because it is different than say BF1942 because you develop your character over time and it's stats/level are stored. Not like BF where you have the same character every time. Also, the online world is constatnly evolving, it's not capture all the flags, game over, start a new round. It's a persistent world they play in.

This could be done without them storing the characters for you, but that would lead to rampant cheating.

I'm not trying to defend their pricing, I pretty much agree with you. I am simply trying to give you my thoughts on why they do charge for it.

 

[DocBartend]

I didnt like PlaNETSIDE all that much. It was fun in the beginning for always looking for a group is tiresome a lot of times. And solo'ing is just a waste of time if you want to gain xp. It is like a giant game of risk(which is cool) but there is no real true goal in it. I may tru SWG but i am back on the EQcrack.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: Broadkipa
My 14 year old son asked me to buy him Planetside as it has just been released over here in the UK.I was happy to oblige as I am quite a gamer myself and quite like his choice in games. As you can imagine I was horrified to find that after paying £35 to buy the game you are then expected to fork out for an online subsciption just to play the game.
This to me seems to be a complete rip off compared to all the games that I play like BF1942, UT2003 etc. I would be interested to hear peoples views on this subject. Firstly if Sony expect you to pay a subsciption to play there game then it should be free or if they want £35 for the game then online play should be free.
What are your views on this matter.
As a side note, I have taken the game back to the shop and got my monney back.

No, you have to pay. Unliked games like BF1942 and UT2003, it's all run by individual servers and individual's bandwidth. Planetside isn't run on your typical P4 server... it's run on $150,000+ server farms. And bandwidth isn't free either for them. You pay $35 for the development of the game, then $13 for the subscription, which goes to server costs, customer support, bandwidth, and i'm sure profit. This isn't anything new... MMOG has been around for years.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: DocBartend
I didnt like PlaNETSIDE all that much. It was fun in the beginning for always looking for a group is tiresome a lot of times. And solo'ing is just a waste of time if you want to gain xp. It is like a giant game of risk(which is cool) but there is no real true goal in it. I may tru SWG but i am back on the EQcrack.

WTF are you talking about? LOOKING FOR A GROUP IS TIRESOME?! SOLOING IS A WASTE OF TIME? It's obvious you haven't even played the game... or even know a single thing about it.

 

[hudster]

ouch... ebgames.com has it for $50, and then i went and looked on www.planetside.com and looked at the faq to find out the subscription fee

Is a monthly fee required to play? Yes, the subscription price is $12.99

$13 per month! That's freaking ridiculuous.

Sorry, but I think if you're paying upfront for the game, then if they're gonna charge a subscription on top of that, it should be like $1-$2 per month, not $10-$15 per month!

I mean, think about if you had 3 games like this, and you like playing all of them. well, if they're all $13 a month, that's ~$40 per month combined, just for 3 freaking games! That is just waaay too high priced in my opinion...

 

[Looney]

Man, some of you guys are cheapasses. I know every visit to the theaters costs me about the cost of a one month subscription, and i only get 2 hours of entertainment out of it.

 

[hudster]

Originally posted by: Moralpanic
...then $13 for the subscription, which goes to server costs, customer support, bandwidth, and i'm sure profit. This isn't anything new... MMOG has been around for years.

have all MMOG games been roughly this much per month? that just seems like a lot per month to me. I just can't bring myself to accepting that it's worth it to pay $156 per year to subscribe to a game like this. $156 per year, for a subscription to one game...

 

[Looney]

Every single one i've played has been $10+... i think they're all $13/mo now... SWG should be $20 a month or so.

Sony is going to have a Sony Passport, where for $23 or so a month, you have access to EQ, EQ2, Planetside, and a couple of other games.

 

[hudster]

Originally posted by: Moralpanic
Every single one i've played has been $10+... i think they're all $13/mo now... SWG should be $20 a month or so.

wow. sorry, i'm still stuck on $50 being too much for a one-time price for buying a game (I think games should cost like $20-$30 at most...), so it's gonna definitely take a while for me to get used to the idea of shelling out another $10-$20 per month on top of the game purchase price

Sony is going to have a Sony Passport, where for $23 or so a month, you have access to EQ, EQ2, Planetside, and a couple of other games.

now this sounds a little better to me. it'd be nice if there were something like this that spanned across publishers/developers, not just limited to Sony. but i know that probably won't happen.

 

[xNoodles]

I don't think i'll ever pay a monthly fee for a game. I understand the differences in maintaining servers, but the idea of monthly costs that easily surpass the original cost of the game is still ridiculous.

 

[wake]

Originally posted by: Moralpanic
Every single one i've played has been $10+... i think they're all $13/mo now... SWG should be $20 a month or so.

Sony is going to have a Sony Passport, where for $23 or so a month, you have access to EQ, EQ2, Planetside, and a couple of other games.

That is even worse. Who has time to play more than 1 MMORPG?
Each game should cost at most $99/year. $156/year is a ripoff, I don't care how good the game is.

 

[astartz]

Originally posted by: Moralpanic

Originally posted by: DocBartend
I didnt like PlaNETSIDE all that much. It was fun in the beginning for always looking for a group is tiresome a lot of times. And solo'ing is just a waste of time if you want to gain xp. It is like a giant game of risk(which is cool) but there is no real true goal in it. I may tru SWG but i am back on the EQcrack.

WTF are you talking about? LOOKING FOR A GROUP IS TIRESOME?! SOLOING IS A WASTE OF TIME? It's obvious you haven't even played the game... or even know a single thing about it.

I spent 2 months playing the game and he is right soloing sucks and it can be a pain finding a group.

 

[rbV5]

I think I'll just pass.

 

[Broadkipa]

thanks for all the input, seems the vote is somwhat 70% against and 30% for. I think that from my viewpoint as a father who has two sons and has to cough up for most of the games we buy the added cost of subscription is just to great. How many 16 year olds have a credit card.

 

[JellyBaby]

From a profit standpoint convincing people to shell out a monthy fee for a gameplay experience that used to be free is pretty amazing.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: astartz

Originally posted by: Moralpanic

Originally posted by: DocBartend
I didnt like PlaNETSIDE all that much. It was fun in the beginning for always looking for a group is tiresome a lot of times. And solo'ing is just a waste of time if you want to gain xp. It is like a giant game of risk(which is cool) but there is no real true goal in it. I may tru SWG but i am back on the EQcrack.

WTF are you talking about? LOOKING FOR A GROUP IS TIRESOME?! SOLOING IS A WASTE OF TIME? It's obvious you haven't even played the game... or even know a single thing about it.

I spent 2 months playing the game and he is right soloing sucks and it can be a pain finding a group.

Soloing?! WTF are you going to solo? There's no mobs in the game... it's entirely player vs player. And finding a group is hard? I've been playing Planetside for 3 months, and i never had a problem finding a squad. Just go to the damn sanctuary, there's always people there.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: JellyBaby
From a profit standpoint convincing people to shell out a monthy fee for a gameplay experience that used to be free is pretty amazing.

It was free because it was beta. EQ has over 500,000 subscribers paying $13 a month, so i think Sony has a clue as to what they're doing.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: wake

Originally posted by: Moralpanic
Every single one i've played has been $10+... i think they're all $13/mo now... SWG should be $20 a month or so.

Sony is going to have a Sony Passport, where for $23 or so a month, you have access to EQ, EQ2, Planetside, and a couple of other games.

That is even worse. Who has time to play more than 1 MMORPG?
Each game should cost at most $99/year. $156/year is a ripoff, I don't care how good the game is.

Then you don't pay for it! There's a HUGE market for MMORPG, and ALL OF THEM charges a subscription. You guys are looking at the point of single player games... but this isn't a single player game. Like i said, how much do you pay cable a month? I can guarantee you that the average MMOG player spends more time playing the game than watching TV.

And i play more than MMOG... i'm currently playing EQ and SWG... and will probably get Planetside sometime this week. If i get even 10 hours a month out of a game, that's a value to me. 5 trips to the theatres can easily reach $100 for me.

BTW, you don't NEED to pay for the passport... you can continue paying only $13 a month if you're only going to play one game. The passports are for those that play multiple games... they're not forcing anybody to pay the passport.

 

[sandorski]

The only game I've entertained paying a monthly fee for was Darkspace. The only reason I considered it was that you don't need to buy the game, just download it and get a subscription. Hell, you can play it without a subscription even, you just are limited in servers and ships.

Paying full price(same price as every other game) for a game that won't work without paying a fee is borderline criminal(exagerated for effect). If they offer the first 3 months free it wouldn't be so bad, but when there are a ton of other games out there that give hours/days/months/years of SP and MP entertainment for a fixed (full price) cost it doesn't makes sense to me to fall for those shenanigans.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: sandorski
The only game I've entertained paying a monthly fee for was Darkspace. The only reason I considered it was that you don't need to buy the game, just download it and get a subscription. Hell, you can play it without a subscription even, you just are limited in servers and ships.

Paying full price(same price as every other game) for a game that won't work without paying a fee is borderline criminal(exagerated for effect). If they offer the first 3 months free it wouldn't be so bad, but when there are a ton of other games out there that give hours/days/months/years of SP and MP entertainment for a fixed (full price) cost it doesn't makes sense to me to fall for those shenanigans.

The first month is free in the game.

And criminal? LOL you can obviously tell somebody lacks an argument when they require an exaggeration to get their point across. You probably do'nt remember, but this is the same whining that was happening when cable TV first appeared... who would pay for a service when they can get it for free?

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Moralpanic

Originally posted by: sandorski
The only game I've entertained paying a monthly fee for was Darkspace. The only reason I considered it was that you don't need to buy the game, just download it and get a subscription. Hell, you can play it without a subscription even, you just are limited in servers and ships.

Paying full price(same price as every other game) for a game that won't work without paying a fee is borderline criminal(exagerated for effect). If they offer the first 3 months free it wouldn't be so bad, but when there are a ton of other games out there that give hours/days/months/years of SP and MP entertainment for a fixed (full price) cost it doesn't makes sense to me to fall for those shenanigans.

The first month is free in the game.

And criminal? LOL you can obviously tell somebody lacks an argument when they require an exaggeration to get their point across. You probably do'nt remember, but this is the same whining that was happening when cable TV first appeared... who would pay for a service when they can get it for free?

Yes, criminal! Hitler would be proud!!

 

[EeyoreX]

I think people just tend to balk at paying for something that was always free. I bet people complained when cable started charging for TV. People complain that web sites charge for access to content. These things used to be free, but for a price, you get more or premium content. Certain games are no different. Someone mentioned Everquest having 500,000 subscribers. Assuming those numbers are correct, that's half a million people paying ~$13.00 to play a game they bought. Obviously there is a market for this. The bottom line is that you can expect more of this before you can expect less. And simply put, if you don't want it. Don't buy it. I don't want access to "premium" web content, I don't buy it. I went 28 years without cable because I didn't want to pay for TV I also don't watch enough to justify the cost. (I have basic cable now only because it is included at my building.) If enough people "vote with their wallets" this trend may change. But if Everquest has half a mill in subscibers, times 13 bux, I don't see Sony suddenly saying "Gee, let's give the subscriptions away free!!" I also agree with the sentiment that you pay nearly $9.00 for a first run movie, plus popcorn/snacks for about 2 hours of entertainment. Many people does this monthly, or several times a month. I'd be willing to bet that most people who do pay for game subscriptions get more than their money's worth out of the cost of just over one movie's worth of entertainment. Just my two cents. I could be wrong.

\Dan

 

[Broadkipa]

How can you say the first month is free when you can't play that "free" month without handing over your credit card details. As for Cabel. I have noticed a trend where by Sky(which I have subscibed to including all the sports channels) now are charging extra to watch certain football games that where included in the sports package to begin with when I first subscribed. The bottom line here is that we must all vote with our wallets by not paying these extra charges and then these companys will have to think again.

 

[Looney]

It's still free since they don't charge you for the first month.

And you can vote all you want with your wallet... i'm already paying $40 a month for various MMOG subscriptions, and i don't plan on reducing that anytime soon. You have NO idea how much MMOGs have saved me.

I pay for my little brother's account too. I'll prefer he spent his freetime doing productive stuff, but he doesn't... and it's better than always going out.