10-13-2003, 08:45 PM
Quote:I think you guys don't really understand how expensive bandwdith is when you're paying for 250,000 people across 13 servers playing a game. Box prices take a decent chunk out of the bills a company has piled up during the development process, but it doesn't cover all of them. You can't expect a company to run on empty for 3 months unless you want to grind it into the ground.
I think how I view it is that the price of the box matches up with the monthly free time you get. What I mean is say you buy a game for $45 and it has a $15 per month fee. Then I say you get 3 months of play time with your purchase. I know this means that the game company isn't making any money off of the initial sale and is even losing money. I also think this is how it should be. I think these companies have to be prepared to take a loss for some time after they are released. Eventually, if its a good game, they will get a big enough user base that the small profit from the monthly fees well cover the assorted costs they have built up and then they can actually start profiting from the games.
With these kind of systems you can't look at the short term when you are the one putting the game out. You have to fully expect to take a loss for a good length of time, gradually (as you get more users and users have been playing and paying for a while) break even, and then eventually start profiting.
So do I expect a company to run on empty for 3 months? Well no, I expect that the $45 I spent on the game will be used to keep it going for those 3 months just like the monthly payment would. I do expect them to eat the loss of the initial box price though. Eventually they will get it back from whatever small profit they make from the monthly fees, but they have to expect to not even break even for a good length of time.