Starcraft and Diablo 2 more particularly are both games that people paid roughly $40-$50 or more to play and had the ability to play on Battle.net for free. I saw something about The Sims going for roughly the same price PLUS $9.99 per month for online play. Everquest wasn''t much different. Now, I understand why the price might be $40-$60 for a game, considering development/marketing/etc. What I don''t understand is, if the game is going to make more money from subscription services, why charge so much for the game itself? I know that if people are willing to pay, then that is the price it will be, but still. What if you gave away the games, like AOL does at Blockbuster, or something like that? You can''t expect to use it without getting an account online and paying for it, so wouldn''t it be better marketing? Or even charging only $10-$30?

There is a major difference between Starcraft, Diablo 2, Red Alert and games like Everquest, Ultima Online and most likely the Sims, which is that the latter are persistant world games.

The company that runs them has to maintain huge sets of servers and bandwidth to run the game on and contantly update the game world. That costs a lot of money throughout the life of the game hence the subscription fee.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

Obscure: he is talking about the money charged for the game itself, not the subscription fees.

Uh.. that''s to pay back the actual chunks of $$$ spent on the development and marketing/distribution of the game.

Well when you buy a game like Ultima Online, or the Sims Online you always get a account with 30 days or more free, so if the month was $10, and your paying the same price, $40 or whatever for the game you are actually not paying as much for the game because they are really charging you $10 dollars for the "FREE" month..

Its just a little trick to make you think that your getting something for free..

Well what I mean is, the last few examples of games are persistant worlds games you can''t play without being online. Why pay full price for a game that I end up having to pay even more to play it in the first place?
Or is this like buying a car from a car dealer, where you get a full tank of gas with it, but then you have to pay more for gas at other gas stations later anyway?
You''re paying the retailer for the game and paying for the service through the publisher?
I am just curious why it wouldn''t be better to go completely subscription based rather than partially basing revenues on the purchase of the game itself. Again, people are obviously paying for Everquest and expansions and such, so maybe that is why, but could someone basically release the game freeware but require a subscription service to play? Like giving away the shaving razor but selling the replaceable blades?

Well when you consider the maintenance, setup and bandwith costs of these games $10 a month isn''t alot. I''d be very suprised if game companies were making more than $3.00 off each signed up player after paying for the servers, the bandwidth, and tech support.

Though I do think it''s foolish for any MMO game to sell for $50 in the store. That''s just absurd. There is no way I''m going to pay $50 for a game that if I don''t like is useless in a month. At least if I buy a regular game title for $50 I can trade it in at EB and get some of my money back if I don''t like it. These MMO companies really have their heads up their buttox. Some of the newer MMO games like earth and beyond have gotten things right by offering the game or a demo for free for a short period of time.

Ok that''s the end of that rant....

The Anonymous poster is right. The reason you pay $40-50 for a MMOG is because that has to cover the cost of developing the box, printing materials, marketing, and actual development.

The $9.99 is to cover cost of servers, maintenance, bandwidth, etc.

They are totally seperate.

The solution is not to give the game away at the store...but maybe let the user download it online for free.


Ibuku
simusoft.com