How Should MMORPGs Be Priced?

There are a lot of different pricing schemes for MMORPGs. Typically, games with the highest production values sell for a retail price and a $15 monthly fee. Other MMORPGs have free to play modes or are completely free to play. Guild Wars started a new "pay once, play as long as you want" pricing scheme. How do you think a MMORPG with high production values should be priced that's fair for the user and the developer? After looking over what $15 a month gets you, I don't think $15 a month is worth it for the player, and a lot more people would play a game for one fee that lets you play forever. I voted for the $110-$150 one-time fee, considering the amount of work put into a MMORPG and server costs.

 

Even though I voted for "A $70-$100 one-time fee to buy the game.", I still feel ok with the idea of game companies charging a monthly subscription fee. Reason being the continuous cost of maintenance etc.

 

I don't mind paying the upfront purchase price and the subsequent monthly fee. However, when it comes to the expansions I would like to see another free month or two included with the initial purchase price of said expansion.

 

a higher one time fee will turn off casual gamers who have no idea how long they are going to play. it appears cheaper, even if it isn't, in its current scheme where we pay $50 for the game and then $10-15/month rather than paying $150 with unlimited play. people buy what's on sale or looks cheap price-wise.

 

I'd rather a higher one time fee. Constant fees are annoying. With the $50 first fee and then $15 a month you end up paying $150 a month in the first 5 months.

 

Free game with monthly fees.


Download online, or pay, say $5-$10 for the shiny box and shiny DVDs

 

How do you figure?

Month #1: $50 initial retail price (usually incl. first month)
Month #2 ~ #5= 4 x $15 = $60

5 Months: $110 total (versus $750 as you state)

You sir are getting hosed!

 

I'm ok with the $15 a month. MMOs are intended for adult players too. But I think the retail price is too high at $50/ $60(Canada)

 

great minds that work for big companies already figured out how MMO's like WoW should be priced

it's actually more unfair to have 1 time fee as opposed to the monthly plan. players who are in it for long haul are benefiting at the expense of casual players. obviously everyone who plan on playing the game for at least a year will prefer one time fee. charging $300-$350 for 3 year contract is more realistic.

 

I'd say I do prefer them to have a low monthly fee of say $3-$10 and a fee for the game itself and also have an option to have lifetime membership or longer subscriptions (Like 6-12 months)

They may also have a sort of Maplestory's cash shop feature where you can obtain fun stuff but seriously, not those that gives major advantage over other players (Like maplestory's 2x exp cards)

 

with how many players are in WoW, they should really drop the price to $3-$5. Alot more players would prolly come back to it.

Although, I have a free subsciption. ;x

 

I like how Eve Online subscription works... You can pay it monthly with money or with ISK ( in-game currency ), peoples can buy GTC and sell it for ISK... like buying gold in WoW from chineses, but legally =D

After two years paying my 3 accounts with money, I lost my desktop computer, so i sold one char ( you can sell char's for ISK legally ) and with that ISK i can maintain 2 accounts for like 2 years =P

And the best part, even me not paying the game with real money, i dont get any disadvantage like others free MMO do .. so i love it =P

 

they should be priced to optimize their profits.

$15 a month makes a lot more sense than $5 a month, unless they seriously think that they will see a 3 times increase in membership by lowering the price. even then, the increased server costs wouldn't merit lowering the cost. you would need maybe 4-5 times the members to make it worthwhile. I think most people who want to play WoW are addicted to it sufficiently to be willing to pay $15 / month.

 

I like add supported games that are free. Maybe its just me but i don't mind not being completely immersed in an atmosphere by seeing something like "Coca-Cola sword of awesomeness". If anything i would like that more than any other weapon . The gameplay usually keeps me addicted to the game, not atmosphere, so seeing a bunch of adds everywhere would definitely be better than paying 15 a month.

 

I'm split, but voted for free with limited content for free users. I understand that money's needed to support servers and new development, but if someone's content with the original game they shouldn't have to pay for the extra stuff. I also hate having to pay for a month if I just want to log in and chat with my friends, but have little interest in actually playing the game.

I also like the way guild wars was setup to where you only had to pay for the game once, and new "expansions" gradually came out. This made it end up costing about $10 a month...so a little less than WoW, but you didn't have to pick them up as soon as they came out.

 

I like the idea where you pay for time instead of Pay monthly although there are advantages and disadvantages for both. I stick with free to pay with ads.

 

ads alone couldn't pay for a game of that size. considering that the free games don't seem to have the capacity of holding hundreds of players on one server, they make an instance of your game on a smaller server. it costs a good deal to maintain and keep up those large servers, as well as constantly adding content to the game to make sure it operates smoothly.

i opted the 15/mo pay because it instills the most production value for the company, thus, the more game / playability to the end user. you get what you pay for, basically.

 

I like the micropayment model, and also the model described in Eve with ISK, but the risk there is that if too many games start to make game currency, goods, and services directly transferable to cash and back, gov'ts might start taxing people on the income they make in games. I think China is already doing that, and there have been calls in the US too. But as long as there is legal protection (so you are only taxed at the time of sale, not at the time you "earn" it in game), I think the micropayment model is best.

Some people have problems with paying for things in MMOs, but unless you are on an RP server, I think you should be able to buy whatever you want with real money. At the end of the day, all you are doing is basically paying to save time (since gold and loot all come from grinding in most games), so I don't really think anyone is losing out.

 

but if the rich can buy their way into everything then it would exactly like real life, and not fantasy. haha. i dunno but i'd be less satisfied with my epic weapon obtained through a tough quest when i have to wonder if the guy next to me got his for $10.

 

Id personally much rather pay a one of fee, (after playing a week free trial to see if i like the game) than a monthy fee, games like cod4 have a huge online support but dont have to pay monthy fees (pc version not xbox) i would buy a game at a higher price but refuse to pay a monthy subscription for any game.

 

I agree with a couple of the folks above in that if you're paying $10-$15 per month to play the game, full retail pricing of $50-$60 is too much for the initial purchase price.

I have no problems with $15 per month, and if you think of other forms of entertainment, that's not bad. It's $10 to rent a game for a week at Blockbuster, so if it's alright to pay that for one week's usage, what's an extra $5 to quadruple the time?

I just think that if you're paying the $15 per month, you shouldn't have to shell out $50-$60 to start playing. Make it $20 or $30 including your first month.

 

I'm fine with a small up front payment for the cost of media/initial access followed by monthly fees. If I see a $70-100 cost up front, I'm less likely to buy it since if I buy it and don't like it, I'm facing a much bigger monetary loss. Ads are obnoxious. Microtransactions should add value, not support the game, otherwise they become the focus of the game (WoW is a good starting point for value added microtransactions).

 

I've been playing mmorpg's for about 3 years and I am perfectly fine with the system that is in place for games like LOTRO, WOW, and AOC. Personally I have never played a free mmorpg in my life but I am willing to pay the $15 a month to ensure that the game is regularly updated, isn't allowed to become exploited, and runs stable. Not sure that we should pay retail price for the game initially but if the game only gets 100,000 subscribers that initial money is probably very important to the bottom line.

To tell you the truth I consider $15 a month a bargain because over a year ago when I really started raiding in WOW I saved probably $500-800 on games that I didn't buy because all of the time I would kill time normally playing a game or watching tv was spent raiding. And then when I became bored of raiding and the game I bought so many games that I still have about 10-15 recent games that I would like to finish but just don't have the time because of work.

 

15 bucks a month is a great way to keep the kids out. If they would just stop those alternative ways like gaming cards and stuff

 

haha that's very true. now if they would only get rid of pre-paid cards and only do cc's

 

I like EVE-Online's model -> free trial then pay to play monthly.

 

haha so true, that's how I see it, that $15 a month will be the ONLY $$ you spend on games during that time.

I still would have liked to see that whole "pay for only the time that you play" scheme materialize but they probably would have to bump up the price that way to make it profitable, and it would probably drive me crazy and always log out instead of going afk or never hanging around an area to chat

 

The client should be free download/minimal fee for DVD(s) with a 12-20/month membership depending on service level and subscription time.

Premium servers should be offered which offer more challenge and reward, but also have better GM support. These servers cost more but have real-time GM events often and hefty GM interaction. (if your name sucks, you get permanently renamed... if you bot or cheat, you will be caught... bubbye!)

 

Trial month followed by a monthly fee that depends on the depth of the game?

That way, you get your monies worth out of the game

 

I dont think any "official" server will work with GM events... There will be too many kids talking about GM giving free items to theirs friends.. =D

And, last time I saw a GM Event in Eve Online, all the systems in the region was frozen =D Thats what happens when you put 20,000 peoples in a single screen xD

 

I voted $40-60 one time fee, because there's plenty of other things to pay for monthly, and If you buy the game once you should be able to play it forever.

 

voted 70-100 dollar one off fee. i think monthly fee is just too much if i play it for over a 1 year, and i will if i decided to play an mmo.

 

Note to all: don't use a credit card to pay for your MMO's

Found out today that Blizzard has been charging my credit card that's been expired for 6 years for a WoW account that I haven't played since forever.

Thought the bill was finally paid off on that card but apparently it wasn't (my 780+ credit score is now a 650+ credit score).

 

That's not Blizzard's fault. That's your fault for not obviously following through with cancellation. What about the statements on that cc? Didn't you get statements in the mail or online? I'd be going after the issuing bank. Also, how did you manage to use a 6 year old expired card on a <5 year old game?

 

Never said it was Blizzard's fault. I'm not saying it's my fault either. I never knew it was ok to charge an expired credit card set-up on an automatic payment method (which apparently it is).

I did get statements but I just paid whatever the total was. I thought after the card was paid off (I had quite a bit to pay off on it) that I was done and over with it. Apparently I wasn't paying the minimum payment for the past few months because the WoW subscription kept charging the card that I hadn't noticed before.

Also I meant to say 3 years expired card (not 6). It expired 06/06.

My message is mainly to let people know that if you set your credit card up with an automatic payment system through Blizzard, they can still charge your card even if it's expired.

 

When my credit card expired, I got an email from Blizzard letting me know that it was expiring, and that my subscription would be cancelled at the end of that month's billing period unless I updated it. Sure enough - subscription was cancelled when the month ran out.

Plus, every credit card I've ever had, when it expires, they send a new one automatically (the banks want you to be in debt forever, not just for 3 or 4 years at a time!). Are you sure you didn't update your account with Blizzard upon receiving a new credit card, then maybe cut the card up and throw it away when you decided to pay it off instead of continuing to use it?

I don't think it's possible to charge anything to a credit card that's expired - even if it's pre-approved stuff.

 

I'm with the one time fee. I'd be willing to bump it up to 70-100$ to upkeep servers and stuff. If they need more then they can add small money sinks as extras in the game.

Paying monthly seems to give me a contract which IMO isn't good. A game isn't supposed to bind you to anything, let alone play time. All a game does is entertain you when you want to be entertained. If you pay monthly fees, you'd feel somewhat obliged to get at last your money's worth of it. Sure, I know that's the plan, but that doesn't mean I have to like it lol