Planetside, Rip off or the future of online gameing

[hudster]

Originally posted by: EeyoreX
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.
\Dan

holy crap! 500,000 people! man, assuming those numbers are correct (it *is* a big assumption, i know), at $13 per person, that's $6.5 million in revenue per month, just for the monthly subscriptions, just for that one game. THAT is what makes me think that $10-$15 per month is too much, whereas $5 or less per month would be more reasonable, and they would still probably *easily* make a profit.

 

[chemos]

I'm an avid Planetside player. I started feeling the burnout coming on towards the end of the beta, but that's only because I was playing it for hours every day. I went ahead and bought it when it came out, and am still quite pleased. To put things into perspective:

1. Yes, all worthwhile MMOGs have been charging monthly fees, and at about the same rate as Planetside. The reason for this (as others have indicated) is that the game makers are required to maintain servers and character data. The game requires constant maintenance, debugging and additions.

2. $13/mo isn't THAT much money. I pay that much going to see a movie. A movie is two hours of entertainment. I get in (easily) a couple hours per day of game time. You don't have to look hard to see the value here.

3. If they dropped the initial cost of the product, they'd have no money paying for the years (yes, I said YEARS) of development that went into this game. Note that you DO get a free month with your purchase. This is how it's been for every MMOG I've played.

4. Some folks will say Planetside is just a "big game of risk" or "another MMO" but I tend to disagree. The MMOGs I'd been playing up until now have been "levellers", where you must WORK to get to a level where you can do PvP. I don't want to WORK towards level 40 before I can go out and start killing Elves. Planetside removes the work of the traditional MMOG systems and gives you straight-up FPS fun with several thousand people in a consistent environment. The only other game which has come close to this is World War II Online (which also has a subscription fee), which wasn't as fun IMO.

To the original poster>
If your son wants to play this game, I would make him pay for the subscription. I've offered to put my little brother's account on my credit card if he wants to play, but he has to pay me back. Kids with an allowance or odd jobs should be able to make $13 in a month pretty easy. If they don't want to spend it, they don't really want to play the game.

 

[yukichigai]

Originally posted by: 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.

When I have the option to tell my bank to refuse charges to my credit card from Sony should they decide to charge me even though I cancelled my subscription, (or tried to) should that be the case. Banks let you do that specifically so you can stop disreputable businesses from charging you for services you didn't order. If you're afraid you're going to get charged and you can't get through to confirm your cancellation just block payment. Believe me, that will get you through to someone who can cancel your subscription quickly. (Though yes, it can cause some other headaches if they're pissy about it)

Incidentally, I think I'm going to try Planetside out... though I'll use a friend's copy. $50 plus a $13 per month fee is a lot of dough. If the actual game price were lowered by, oh, say $15 I'd be all over it. Illogical, I know, but that's how I am.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: hudster

Originally posted by: EeyoreX
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.
\Dan

holy crap! 500,000 people! man, assuming those numbers are correct (it *is* a big assumption, i know), at $13 per person, that's $6.5 million in revenue per month, just for the monthly subscriptions, just for that one game. THAT is what makes me think that $10-$15 per month is too much, whereas $5 or less per month would be more reasonable, and they would still probably *easily* make a profit.

Um, it's not a big assumption...

Linky

That was last year... and since that time, they've added 4 new servers. So it's AT LEAST 500,000 subscriptions now.

And do you have ANY idea how much each Everquest server costs? It's $300,000 per server (not a single server, server farms). Then you have to include the costs of bandwidth... you realize how much bandwidth for 150,000 simultaneous users costs? Then you have the customer support staff... these are ingame people that answer ingame problems. Then you have the administrators, and then you have the content creators. These games require constant attention.

And like i said, $13 is DIRT CHEAP for the amount of hours you play. The average EQ player plays AT LEAST 40 hours a month... at least, i would easily say over 100 hours. WHERE ELSE CAN YOU FIND ENTERTAINMENT VALUE FOR THAT CHEAP?

 

[Looney]

If your son wants to play this game, I would make him pay for the subscription. I've offered to put my little brother's account on my credit card if he wants to play, but he has to pay me back. Kids with an allowance or odd jobs should be able to make $13 in a month pretty easy. If they don't want to spend it, they don't really want to play the game.

I've done the same thing for my little brother and his friend... his friend doesn't have a creditcard, so he just forks over the money to me monthly. I pay for my little brother though, keeps him out of trouble... i would rather he spend his hours playing Planetside than hanging at the mall or out in the street.

But Sony should have game cards that you can buy... that way you don't even have to use a creditcard. Buy a gamecard, and it's good for 3 months.

 

[EeyoreX]

And do you have ANY idea how much each Everquest server costs? It's $300,000 per server (not a single server, server farms). Then you have to include the costs of bandwidth... you realize how much bandwidth for 150,000 simultaneous users costs? Then you have the customer support staff... these are ingame people that answer ingame problems. Then you have the administrators, and then you have the content creators. These games require constant attention.

And like i said, $13 is DIRT CHEAP for the amount of hours you play. The average EQ player plays AT LEAST 40 hours a month... at least, i would easily say over 100 hours. WHERE ELSE CAN YOU FIND ENTERTAINMENT VALUE FOR THAT CHEAP?

First off, thanks for finding the link. I was not disputing the numbers, I just wasn't going to look it up. I had no idea and didn't want to present it as solid fact when i wasn't sure.

And I agree completely with the above quote. We are not talking about that much cash, especially compared with what everyone pays for everything else. How many cable subscribers are going to stop getting cable because they don't want to pay upwards of $40 per month (not that CAN'T pay, that DON'T want too). I suspect very few. They are used to paying for cable TV and they no longer see it as an "issue" People are currently used to playing a game locally and not having to pay for it. They don't consider the above mentioned server costs or bandwidth costs. If I ran a game server from my house, and wanted decent speed and bandwidth for even 50-100 people (let's not even go to 150,000) you had better believe I am going to charge to cover my bandwidth and game server hardware costs. (This is different than hosting a server for 20 people, in case someone wants to flame me for ripping off my friends). I said it in my last post, and will say it again. If you don't want to pay, don't play. No one misses out in this equation but you. While I am sure Sony et al, would love another $13 a month, I don't think they'll miss you if you don't want to pay them. After all, they have at least 500,000 others.

I do feel this is the future of online gaming. (And let's not get into the whole "software as a service" thing. Business apps will end up being the same way in the future, so you may as well get used to it now.)

\Dan

 

[Looney]

No, i was answering the guy that says Sony should only be charging $5 a month instead of $13... there's a lot of costs to running a MMOG game.

And you know what, i would rather pay a subscription for business apps rather than buying the software. I would rather pay $0.25 for everytime i use Office Word, rather than paying hundreds of dollars for it... or at least an option to pay per use rather than buying the software.

 

[yukichigai]

I would rather stick to the flat fee for business apps as far as that goes, at least in the office. Believe me, even if the per-use fee was 10¢ I could have easily surpassed the flat cost of the Office Suite we use here. (Yes, I realize this means I've used it 1000+ times) Besides, that kind of tracking would take a lot of resources, employees, etc. I doubt the cost would ever get lower than $1.00 per use. At least with Micro$oft.

 

[Broadkipa]

I have to say that all those who are plugging the plus side of Planetside and the method of subscription are very positive in there praise, perhaps I have the wrong perspective on this game. I had no idea how big this type of game is.
I do see now where the money goes but why I would want to pay when I can play BF1942 for free I dont know. I already pay £25 a month (about $40) for broadband plus £38 ($60) for Sky TV you have to draw the line somewhere.
obviously this comes down to diposable income and what you are prepared to spend it on.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: yukichigai
I would rather stick to the flat fee for business apps as far as that goes, at least in the office. Believe me, even if the per-use fee was 10¢ I could have easily surpassed the flat cost of the Office Suite we use here. (Yes, I realize this means I've used it 1000+ times) Besides, that kind of tracking would take a lot of resources, employees, etc. I doubt the cost would ever get lower than $1.00 per use. At least with Micro$oft.

Well, i mean have both option available. For example, i would prefer loggin into a website, and having a script run that gives me all the function of Word. I RARELY use Word these days since i've been out of school, so it really is a waste for me to get Word... but i love the functionality of it.

 

[Looney]

I do see now where the money goes but why I would want to pay when I can play BF1942 for free I dont know.

Because it's a different game... This is a persistent world... with different areas of the game, controlled by different factions. You start off as a level 1 character, and you gain experience killing other players, taking over bases, etc. As you gain xp etc you gain the ability to purchase better weapons, vehicles, etc.

Think about the MMOG World War 2 online... there are the allies, and there are the axis. They're both competing with one another. To get to the battlefield, you need to find a vehicle... or hop onto a truck. Here you are, in the back of a truck, with a dozen other players. As you approach the front lines, you hear bombs going off, and fire fights getting louder. As you're going, you see some guy who lost his truck, but the artillery gun is still good... so you hook it up to the back of the truck, and take that with you as well. 5 mins now, and you're at the front line... your adrenaline really is racing as you hop out of it and looking for cover, because if you die, you wno't just respawn in 30 secs... but it takes time AND you get a penalty... and you'll have to make all the trip again. And if you kill somebody, it's not going to be a temporary point that you get and will disappear when you log off, but it's recorded forever.

These are PERSISTENT WORLDS... everything you do in the game, is recorded. In Everquest, people literally invest in thousands of hours to reach the highest levels to kill the gods.. and when you kill the gods, you don't do it alone. You don't even do it in small groups. You do it in raid forces with 50+ people simultaneously. You need warriors to take the beating from the gods... you need clerics to heal the people getting hurt. You need thieves, rangers, monks, to do the heavy damages. You need enchanters to help control the monsters that join in the fight. And to kill a god, you need to go through their home plane, taking hours and hours to just reach the god.

Look up 'EVERCRACK' on Google, and you'll see how popular and addicting these games are. You're not alone... or even in small groups. You're in literally a community of thousands. When i log into the game, i see people i've been literally playing with for YEARS.

 

[BlueWeasel]

I agree with Moralpanic's views. I didn't starting playing MMORPG's until October 2001 when I discovered Asheron's Call. That became, quite simply, an addiction for over the next 12 months and paying $10 per month to play. I never really understood about MMORPG addiction until I started playing one.

For the 12 months of real-life time, I spent 30 days total (the sum of all my playing time) playing AC. One entire month was spent in game playing with thousands of other players. In my mind, the $120 I spent for 360 hours (30x24) was money WELL SPENT.

I still cuss that I can't play it anymore because I moved to an area that doesn't have DSL. Oh well....at least I have my social life back.

 

[EeyoreX]

Originally posted by: BlueWeasel
I agree with Moralpanic's views. I didn't starting playing MMORPG's until October 2001 when I discovered Asheron's Call. That became, quite simply, an addiction for over the next 12 months and paying $10 per month to play. I never really understood about MMORPG addiction until I started playing one.

For the 12 months of real-life time, I spent 30 days total (the sum of all my playing time) playing AC. One entire month was spent in game playing with thousands of other players. In my mind, the $120 I spent for 360 hours (30x24) was money WELL SPENT.

I still cuss that I can't play it anymore because I moved to an area that doesn't have DSL. Oh well....at least I have my social life back.

LOL, that has to be the sole reason I have not started playing any MMORPG... I don't currently have the time to be addicted. I love RPGs and the thought of playing in a persistant world with real people really apeals to me. Once I have time (too many things going on for me right now, should stabilze in the coming months after my move) I want to play "EverCrack". I have seen very little about Planetside, and isn't Lucas Arts coming out (have they already?) with a MMORPG? That would also apeal to me.

\Dan

 

[Looney]

Well, i play MMOGs... i don't spend more than 5-10 hours a week though. To me, it's like a huge chatroom, except you get to do cool stuff like go kill stuff together too.

 

[wyvrn]

MMORPG are more immersive than games like BF1942. You can create and tweak characters, buy houses, make lasting friendships, establish guild groups, and basically establish a persistent online persona. You cannot do this with WC3, BF1942, etc... The servers you play on cost money, and the monthly subscription pays for them. Plus as people have pointed out, paying for a MMORPG is way cheaper than most entertainment activities like movies, clubbing, etc.. I personally won't pay a recurring subscription fee (I did when I played EQ) to play a game, but that is only because I am not a hardcore gamer. People that are get a lot of value for their money in MMORPG.

 

[DurocShark]

I don't doubt the value received for a MMORPG monthly subscription.

But I'll never do it. Not worth it to me. I don't have enough time in the day for work/family/other hobbies to justify spending the money on another hobby. I play a few games (lately been into Freelancer), but I can hop on, play for a few minutes to decompress from the day and then hop right back off.

 

[xNoodles]

Originally posted by: wyvrn
MMORPG are more immersive than games like BF1942. You can create and tweak characters, buy houses, make lasting friendships, establish guild groups, and basically establish a persistent online persona. You cannot do this with WC3, BF1942, etc... The servers you play on cost money, and the monthly subscription pays for them. Plus as people have pointed out, paying for a MMORPG is way cheaper than most entertainment activities like movies, clubbing, etc.. I personally won't pay a recurring subscription fee (I did when I played EQ) to play a game, but that is only because I am not a hardcore gamer. People that are get a lot of value for their money in MMORPG.

Personally, i've made friendships and established an online persona by playing RTCW online for quite some team. In fact, one of the best teams in the nation have become good friends by playing together and deciding to LAN matches

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: xNoodles

Originally posted by: wyvrn
MMORPG are more immersive than games like BF1942. You can create and tweak characters, buy houses, make lasting friendships, establish guild groups, and basically establish a persistent online persona. You cannot do this with WC3, BF1942, etc... The servers you play on cost money, and the monthly subscription pays for them. Plus as people have pointed out, paying for a MMORPG is way cheaper than most entertainment activities like movies, clubbing, etc.. I personally won't pay a recurring subscription fee (I did when I played EQ) to play a game, but that is only because I am not a hardcore gamer. People that are get a lot of value for their money in MMORPG.

Personally, i've made friendships and established an online persona by playing RTCW online for quite some team. In fact, one of the best teams in the nation have become good friends by playing together and deciding to LAN matches

Yeah, i'm sure friendships are made in other games too... but certainly not to the extent of MMOGs. Heck, i would bet that Everquest is the largest dating service in the world. And im' not exaggerating or kidding. Sony has realized how extensive it is, that in SWG, there is a system set up for players to meet other players based on location, preferences, lifestyle, hobbies, etc!!! Just like any normal dating service.

 

[Davegod]

really not into paying full price plus a subscription. im really not interested in how much it costs to run it blah blah blah, its too expensive. Even if it was only an (increased) subscription, that would be better since you can try it at low cost for a month and quit while youre ahead if you dont like it. Paying full whack to start, well if you dont enjoy the mp that much you lose out badly, without even being able to pickup/replay singleplayer sometime later.

$17/m for subs is much more preferable to $35+$13/m, that way they earn the revenue by having a game that you want to keep playing, i.e. is worth the money. Effectively playing for 3months upfront doesnt leave too much incentive for quality, especially since the servers are supposed to be oh so expensive to run.

Upfront fee or subs, not both.

It's actually funny reading comments calling people cheapskates, freeloaders etc just because they dislike the concept of subscriptions. Anyone using a MMO- as a dating service really has social problems.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: Davegod
really not into paying full price plus a subscription. im really not interested in how much it costs to run it blah blah blah, its too expensive. Even if it was only an (increased) subscription, that would be better since you can try it at low cost for a month and quit while youre ahead if you dont like it. Paying full whack to start, well if you dont enjoy the mp that much you lose out badly, without even being able to pickup/replay singleplayer sometime later.

$17/m for subs is much more preferable to $35+$13/m, that way they earn the revenue by having a game that you want to keep playing, i.e. is worth the money. Effectively playing for 3months upfront doesnt leave too much incentive for quality, especially since the servers are supposed to be oh so expensive to run.

Upfront fee or subs, not both.

It's actually funny reading comments calling people cheapskates, freeloaders etc just because they dislike the concept of subscriptions. Anyone using a MMO- as a dating service really has social problems.

How is it any different than any other dating service?

And for the game itself... 2/3 of all games i buy, i don't play longer than a week anyways... how many games have i bought and have been disappointed? Sometimes you win some, sometimes you lose some. But like i said, the first month is free. How many games do you own that you play longer than a month anyways?

As for the subscription. $13 dude, that barely covers a meal. If you're freaking out over $13, then really, you have no right to play the game... you should be out there working.

 

[chizow]

PlanetSide is the single reason why this is my first AT post in about 3 weeks. When I'm not playing PS in my free time, I'm posting on the PS forums. It has put a hold on any and all of my system upgrades/tweaks, as any downtime for me means I can't play PlanetSide. If you can't see past the money issue, then the game probably isn't for you. But you should know that this game has some of the best elements from many different games incorporated into it while providing FPS combat on a scale never seen before online. I posted some of my thoughts on PlanetSide during Beta and I think you'll see most of them reiterate MoralPanic's views of the game. Don't get me wrong, they still have some work to do with the game (as all MMOGs will at release), but I think many people will have much higher expectations of an online FPS in the future after experiencing PlanetSide.

Chiz

 

[everman]

mmorpgs are run on high end equipment usually requiring very expensive data centers. The cost of running these are very high and I see 10-15/month very reasonable. (this comming from someone who played a mmorpg for about 3 years). It's a totally different kind of experiance from something like BF1942.

 

[Looney]

Nice post chizow (the link one).

 

[Scouzer]

Got to love the people who can't let go of the past.

Subscription based games are quickly becoming a standard of several genres. If you don't like it, sucks to be you.

Aces High is $22/mo or something and its a terrible game... (IMO) yet plenty of people still pay it.

For any game minus EQ and DAoC, the subscription fee really does not rake in much profit...it just covers their costs.

 

[sep]

I know the minute I write this all online gaming will start to charge. I play heavy online FPS games. It consumes my free time. I basically minus sleep to play so I don't take away from my family. Any how, online gaming pulled me in because it is/was free. If it wasn't I would of never experienced the pleasure of playing online with newbs or pros. I now taken it a step further to play at lan parties (I'm having one this weekend, see SNA Lan Party in the Off Topics). I think your going to see this in the near future to be a standard. Take RTCW Enemy Territory for example. No, it's not a huge game and would see right spending $50 for this game. But give it for free and charge to play online...that?s business smart. No, this game doesn't charge now, but just wait. Think about it. If you publish/create a multiplayer game your going to have to host some servers for people to play. Now it's profit that?s paying for those servers. Imagine if you can make more or all of your profit from these servers. If this happens then I'll have to limit the number of online games I play (12 down to 1) including the mods.

-JC