10-12-2003, 06:28 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-12-2003, 06:30 PM by Mithrandir.)
The price for the monthly fee is easily justified, you just have to examine it from an objective point of view instead of just repeating "I paid for this game, there's no reason I should have to keep paying for it!" :) The fact is, in the monthly fee you're paying for server maintenance, CSRs (in-game assistance), a regular stream of patches, and new content. There is not a single game ever created that has offered all of these features and not required you to pay for them. How could any company be expected to have full-time content producers, full-time CSRs, full-time customer service reps, full-time teams working on patches, etc. and not go under in 30 seconds if they just relied solely upon the box price?
I have a feeling people are going to point towards Blizzard and Battle.net now and say "But they didn't charge a monthly fee!" - well, they also did absolutely nothing about hacks and cheats for years (and curiously, they start deleting accounts of hackers and cheaters soon before their own MMOG is expected to go into beta... hmmm), their patching cycle was... atrocious... to say the least, they cared little about balance, they did not add a single new piece of content except in an expansion you had to pay for, the servers were often down or when they were up very laggy, etc.
But seriously folks, the average MMOG costs about $12 or $13 per month - that's less than it costs to take two people out to the movies around here. The movie provides, perhaps, 2 hours of entertainment and the MMOG provides an entire month's worth. No real contest there.
I have a feeling people are going to point towards Blizzard and Battle.net now and say "But they didn't charge a monthly fee!" - well, they also did absolutely nothing about hacks and cheats for years (and curiously, they start deleting accounts of hackers and cheaters soon before their own MMOG is expected to go into beta... hmmm), their patching cycle was... atrocious... to say the least, they cared little about balance, they did not add a single new piece of content except in an expansion you had to pay for, the servers were often down or when they were up very laggy, etc.
But seriously folks, the average MMOG costs about $12 or $13 per month - that's less than it costs to take two people out to the movies around here. The movie provides, perhaps, 2 hours of entertainment and the MMOG provides an entire month's worth. No real contest there.
--Mith
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
Jack London
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
Jack London