I've noticed that a lot of people are against paying for MMOs, why? I really don't understand this mind set, do they just like getting something for nothing. How do they think these companies can run an MMO - on fresh air. I know there are free ones out there but they're all cartoony and from what I've heard they try to get money out of players in other ways or are just free to start with, to get people hooked.

I have come to a conclusion though, most of the complainers are kids, they just don't have enough pocket money to go around.

It's a valid complaint I'd say, for both children and advlts. Most MMOs, while fun, generally consist of the same gameplay set up in a way that it's persistent, obviously. You can drop a one-time payment for most normal games and play it as long as you'd like, most even have multiplayer that's completely free. Why should you have to pay $15 a month for what any other genre does for free (for the most part)? They get your money from the initial sale, as well as any expansion packs. Also, it doesn't cost them $15,000,000 a month to run a handful of servers and make patches (just using random numbers, $15 a month multiplied by 1 million players). Even MMOs with significantly smaller install bases are no exception to this.

I'm not against it though, I played Star Wars Galaxies and Final Fantasy XI for the better part of 5 years at $10-30 a month each, and I'll be playing The Old Republic when it comes out. Monthly fees just aren't for everyone.

I'm not against paying one large fee for an MMO, I just hate the drip drip drip charge on a credit card. Charge me $300 for a good MMO once and I'll pay it.

I've only played two MMOs, one free and WoW. I was hooked on WoW for a few months, then I just lost interest. Took me about 4 months to finally give up reviving interest and cancel my account. As for the other game, I play Guild Wars and I must say it is better. Sure it's a little cartoony, but I find the gameplay to be much more involved. More strategy based than grind, as well as more diverse content. That's just me though. I've always wanted to try Star Wars Galaxies though.

Eh... would you really want to pay $300 for an MMO you may not like? That's a huge risk.

I don't play MMOs (mostly), and one of the many contributing factors to that is the monthly fee. I would be more willing to pay $20 a year, but I hate paying $15+ a month.

only mmo i pay for is eve, and by pay i ofcorse mean gather enough ingame money to buy game time codes off people (which there is a 100% secure method to do so ingame), i only had to pay for it for the first few months then i learned how to make cash ingame, and dont need to anymore =D

Dude thats awesome

Well let's see. We pay 50 - 60 dollars for a game when we first buy it. And then we are expected to pay another 15 - 30 dollars a month just to play it? It can svck you dry in no time. It is a very valid complaint. Until WoW or any other super awesome MMOs with monthly fees become a one time pay (when you buy it) I am happy with Guild Wars.

I am not against it all. Its the price of a couple of magazines or two - three drinks. With a good mmo like Lotro or everquest 2 I feel its worth it for the hours of fun I get back. I think lotro has a good idea with its one off lifetime subscription option though. Of course the risk there is paying for something upfront. With hindsight, lotro would have been worth it whilst something like Age of Conan would have left me feeling cheated.

If there's regular extra content, an evolving world and a good player base to keep it interesting, i have no problem with monthly subs. I wouldnt speculate how much it does cost to maintain, run, update and introduce new content as its probably a lot more than we think, though of course, they have to build in a profit margin.

I paid for SWG for two years, and while I enjoyed it it was never worth the $15 per month. After I quit there I still had the MMO bug, and found out about the free WoW servers. Been playing on those ever since. I donate to the servers I play on when I can, and it just feels better having the money going to people who care enough to fix a lot of the games problems (faster leveling, better drop rates, multiple crafting prof's, custom mounts, flying mounts in azeroth, custom events, etc).

I paid close to that for Hellgate: London and had no issue with the price. I was just saddened when they shut down the servers.

On that topic:
Don't they have lifetime subscriptions to most MMOs?
I know you can get one in Star Trek Online.

and by learn how to make cash ingame i of corse mean learn how to steal and scam it from other people (which is also allowed ingame) :hubbahubba:

There are other reasons for being careful with money like not thinking they are good value (compared to games you buy once then get unlimited play from), not having much money, having other priorities, or having children (expensive little horrors that they are).

As a business model they make sense from the companies POV so I don't complain about them, I just choose not to use them.

I only buy games that I will be playing for a long time to come. Usually a new game costs about 60$. If I were to pay that much for a game that I would play for a long time, and that game is an MMO, priced at 15$ a month, I will have reached the already expensive price of 60$ in just four months. Lets say that I play it for a year- thats 240$ dollars if my math is correct. I refuse to pay 240 dollars a year for a game when there are 60$ games out there that can provide me with as much entertainment.

depending on the mmo, your also always getting new material in expansions, take eve for example they do 2 expansions a year with many many smaller update and fixes inbetween (dont have to pay extras for expansions like in wow ether) , also is one of the largest games ive played. so i find the subscription costs for this game acceptabl

I don't mind paying a monthly fee for MMOs. The fee covers servers and free content updates. At least it is supposed to. Companies like Blizzard (even if I don't like WoW, they do offer alot of free content) and Turbine (LOTRO) both over free content on a somewhat consistent basis. I don't mind paying for that at all. Then you have companies like Cryptic (new Star Trek Online, Champions Online) Who not only charge the fee, but charge for quite a bit of content along with some pretty shady business practices. Like charging for content that should have been there from the start. As much as I would like to play a Star Trek MMO, I would not pay a company like Cryptic, where they take my fee then turn around and charge for minor content updates.

I'd estimate that Blizzard would cover all of their costs for 12 months in 5 or 6, maybe less.

yes thats true, I'm not sure even Blizzard thought they would have such sustained success on a pretty much global scale. I still dont mind paying a tenner a month. The minute it starts to bore me is when I stop paying.

I have no problem with paying for an MMO,and I agree that free ones are usually low quality.

Guild wars was(i say was because it's dead/dying) a great game,and i expect GW2 to be the same-that's the only acception I know of.

I really liked the deal i saw recently-can't remember what game it was..but you paid one large price for a life-time of play,which I think is awesome and should be done more.


Comparing Guild Wars to WoW really does make you see the difference-while I found the game play of GW's much better then WoW,the quality of the freely released things was really much higher in WoW.

So yeah,i don't mind paying for a quality MMO-but I'd really love to see more one-time fee deals on new MMO's. :3

I don't mind at all. WoW is very much worth the 15 bucks I spend a month. The amount of content they add is quite a lot. Can't wait for Cataclysm.

How ironic is it that you've summed up the very answer to your question in a wannabe-sarcastic remark? "Running an MMO" is not really much of a problem actually, unless you're trying to imply that running a couple of servers is a serious problem. All the maintenance and upgrades that need to be done to an MMO server could be financed from the money they get from people buying the MMO in question, the only serious thing that needs to be taken care of for a 24/7-running server is cooling of the system - so yes, all they need is fresh air indeed.

It seems that some of you don't like the drip, drip approach to paying, which in the long term does mean you pay more than if you had bought the game out right but there's one thing you must realise these companies (any company infact) are there to make money, not provide a non-profit service for gamers and besides a good MMO offers a lot more content than any standard game could.

Someone also mentioned about buying the game upfront and then paying a monthly fee on top of that but from the games I've played there's always been the option to download the game for free, so why buy it from the shop in the first place?

you have never seen the eve online server cluster then, with several hundred ibm blade servers im sure it costs quite alot for power cooling upgrade backups and repairs, as wel lthey dont charge you for the game client at all, only the 15 a month

Take my advice don't try to start up your own company or at least take courses in business and economics first.