Paying to play online is just a scam.

[QUOTE="Snugenz"]

[QUOTE="dotWithShoes"]People pay for what they want.. People use the money they have to do with as they see fit. KungfuKitten

This. People clearly find value in these services and are willing to pay for them, just because you dont see the value, it doesnt mean the person that does is getting scammed/being silly with their money etc.

Well thats you and of course not everyone will be the same, but i've thoroughly enjoyed the time i've played WoW (and still play) and used XBL Gold, so as far as i'm concerned its money well spent.

I agree with TC. This pay to play stuff developers are doing has always sickened me.

I agree with TC. This pay to play stuff developers are doing has always sickened me.

Demonjoe93

"How dare you charge me for something you created and maintain!, you sicken me Blizzard!!!"

There's very few things in this world that "should" be free, entertainment certainly isnt one of them. Go and be sickened by costs for health care, you know, something that should be a basic human right.

For 15 dollars a month you pay the devs to do the following: Give plenty of free content in return and maintain those expensive servers.

Btw, I have actually spent much less money once I started playing mmos. Despite getting most if not all games I am interested in.

I pay to play MMOs because they give a unique experiance you can't get anywhere else and usually have anywhere from 100x to 1000x the content of a standard game.

Also you get what you pay for. A pay to play MMO is better than a free to play MMO in every single way possible. From content, stability of the servers, and development support to basic things like gameplay and production values.

For 15 dollars a month you pay the devs to do the following: Give plenty of free content in return and maintain those expensive servers.

Btw, I have actually spent much less money once I started playing mmos. Despite getting most if not all games I am interested in.

Maroxad

I pay to play MMOs because they give a unique experiance you can't get anywhere else and usually have anywhere from 100x to 1000x the content of a standard game.

Also you get what you pay for. A pay to play MMO is better than a free to play MMO in every single way possible. From content, stability of the servers, and development support to basic things like gameplay and production values.

Wasdie

Completely agreed that P2P is better than F2P. Atleast in P2P MMO's (like WoW) paid services and extra subscriptions have no in game effect so everyone has the same oppertunities.

With F2P MMO's, there's no balance between the haves and have nots, the haves will progress in the game much easier due to premium game enhancments (like double exp, much better gear etc.), plus every F2P MMO i've tried (which isnt many tbh) have been terribly unstable and very poorly maintained compared to most P2P mmo's.

I agree and that's why I don't or never will pay to play any game. Heil68

So you borrow all your games then?

[QUOTE="Heil68"]I agree and that's why I don't or never will pay to play any game. Snugenz

So you borrow all your games then?

Why do people fail to mention MMO subscriptions? Why do people fail to mention that PC servers are paid for by generous donators (gamers)? Because it doesn't suit their argument. This is a fanboy forum, so you should expect this kind of stuff.Ly_the_Fairy

I mentioned MMO subscriptions.

A fair chunk of PC servers are also run by ISPs. With the servers run by individuals you can get a very unique game experience, with custom maps and mods and such (like prophunt!). The only servers that Microsoft and Sony really need to run are those that serve the downloads of content and the servers that hold all of the user accounts and stats, which is paid for by the ads you see on Xbox Live and magic fairy dust on PSN. I can't really comment much on PSN because I haven't paid much attention to it.

Look, im not the biggest fan of MMO's, but do you actually realize how much money is put into maintaining the servers? The company would go bankrupt if they didn't have an income to pay for the hardware and the for people who's job is to maintain the servers.

Also, free MMO's from my experience are horrible and they are not "free". Instead they do stupid little micro transactions so certain items are locked for me unless I'm willing to open my wallet. That creates a divided player base while everyone paying 15 bucks a month to get access to the entire game creates a much more fair game.

Also, when you buy a MMO they usually come with one month free, I know WoW does, and I know The Old Republic is doing this as well.

[QUOTE="Snugenz"]

[QUOTE="Heil68"]I agree and that's why I don't or never will pay to play any game. Heil68

So you borrow all your games then?

[QUOTE="Heil68"][QUOTE="Snugenz"]So you borrow all your games then?Frostbite24

The $25 a year I spend on Xbox Live is completely worth the Party Chat alone I use nearly every day. As for the MMO crap, aint in to that stuff.

The $25 a year I spend on Xbox Live is completely worth the Party Chat alone I use nearly every day. As for the MMO crap, aint in to that stuff.

shawn7324

i like xbl and don't mind the fee since it's just $30 to re-up anyway but i still don't think a comparason to mmos is very good.

i play alot of games and through the mid point of this gen was buying like 1 new one and 2 or 3 used ones or 1 or 2 arcade titles per month.

when i played wow for a couple of years i bought next to no games so i went from spending $100 or so per month to wows measily $15 a month.

mmos are the absolute cheapest gaming experences that exist and the moment you hear anyone talk about how much of a ripoff paying their monthly fee is you know they have no clue what they are talking about.

If you have played WoW since it came out you have paid Blizzard:

$50 for Original

$40 for 1st expansion

$40 for 2nd expansion

$40 for 3rd expansion

$15 per month for 83 months

Or $1415 in total.

That's a lot for one video game.

peterw007

When I played Wow for around two years, I played nothing else. That's very VERY cheap. Now I buy 2-3 games each month depending on the releases each month, that is at least $100+ each month. This was the case for most of my friends aswell.

If you can't spend $1415 on a hobby during a time period of 6 years, I can't see how you can be gaming at all. Hell, I spend a lot more than $1500 annually on my other hobbies.

If you have played WoW since it came out you have paid Blizzard:

$50 for Original

$40 for 1st expansion

$40 for 2nd expansion

$40 for 3rd expansion

$15 per month for 83 months

Or $1415 in total.

That's a lot for one video game.

peterw007

[QUOTE="peterw007"]

If you have played WoW since it came out you have paid Blizzard:

$50 for Original

$40 for 1st expansion

$40 for 2nd expansion

$40 for 3rd expansion

$15 per month for 83 months

Or $1415 in total.

That's a lot for one video game.

svenus97

In the past 7 years I have bought a PS3, 360, two seperate gaming computers (first one kid of died on me and wasn't worth salvaging), and about 30 console games and 150 PC games. I've spent a total of about 10k on video games in the past 7 years.

Some people have played WoW for that entire time and maybe have picked up a handful of new games and a new PC. They paid probably half I have.

If you have played WoW since it came out you have paid Blizzard:

$50 for Original

$40 for 1st expansion

$40 for 2nd expansion

$40 for 3rd expansion

$15 per month for 83 months

Or $1415 in total.

That's a lot for one video game.

peterw007

In the past 7 years I have bought a PS3, 360, two seperate gaming computers (first one kid of died on me and wasn't worth salvaging), and about 30 console games and 150 PC games. I've spent a total of about 10k on video games in the past 7 years.

Some people have played WoW for that entire time and maybe have picked up a handful of new games and a new PC. They paid probably half I have.

Wasdie

I read through this thread and nobody came up with a reasonable answer to why MMOs get a free pass but XBL always gets trashed on here. These are the arguments: - "It's entertaining for me so I will pay for it." - Well so what? I did not argue against your enjoyment. I don't care. That doesn't answer my question though. - "It costs a lot of money to maintain the servers." - Again, I'll refer you back to my OP, there are lots of good MMOs out there that are free and their only source of money is microtransactions. - "You're getting more content than 3 full games a year." - That's arguable, and totally depends on the game. If were just talking about WoW then I might agree, but then again I don't believe that at all. The amount of content in the game right now is pretty intimidating, but for the people who have always been there since day 1 is less than a new game. There wouldn't be a need for expansion packs if the content is as consistent as the monthly charges. percech

1) "F2P MMOs" - Microtransactions work well financially but ironically ends up costing more than the monthly fee on those MMOs, since pretty much ALL of them demand that you pay for power in the higher tier areas of the game.... so your point is moot.... and due to a lack of consistency in the profit, the content doesnt develope to the same quality ... nowhere near.... what does xboxlive do FOR MULTIPLAYER GAMING that the other systems cant do equally or in PC's case better? oh right ... nothing.

"lots of good free mmos" oh please... if you have bad standards and will play anything with a cheap label then maybe....

2) "Debatable on games life" no it isnt... oh sure some people may play an FPS for years ... game doesnt update anywhere close to as often as a good MMO.... not to mention maps are effortless in comparison.

[QUOTE="percech"]I read through this thread and nobody came up with a reasonable answer to why MMOs get a free pass but XBL always gets trashed on here. These are the arguments: - "It's entertaining for me so I will pay for it." - Well so what? I did not argue against your enjoyment. I don't care. That doesn't answer my question though. - "It costs a lot of money to maintain the servers." - Again, I'll refer you back to my OP, there are lots of good MMOs out there that are free and their only source of money is microtransactions. - "You're getting more content than 3 full games a year." - That's arguable, and totally depends on the game. If were just talking about WoW then I might agree, but then again I don't believe that at all. The amount of content in the game right now is pretty intimidating, but for the people who have always been there since day 1 is less than a new game. There wouldn't be a need for expansion packs if the content is as consistent as the monthly charges. PC360Wii

1) "F2P MMOs" - Microtransactions work well financially but ironically ends up costing more than the monthly fee on those MMOs, since pretty much ALL of them demand that you pay for power in the higher tier areas of the game.... so your point is moot.... and due to a lack of consistency in the profit, the content doesnt develope to the same quality ... nowhere near.... what does xboxlive do FOR MULTIPLAYER GAMING that the other systems cant do equally or in PC's case better? oh right ... nothing.

"lots of good free mmos" oh please... if you have bad standards and will play anything with a cheap label then maybe....

2) "Debatable on games life" no it isnt... oh sure some people may play an FPS for years ... game doesnt update anywhere close to as often as a good MMO.... not to mention maps are effortless in comparison.

[QUOTE="PC360Wii"]

[QUOTE="percech"]I read through this thread and nobody came up with a reasonable answer to why MMOs get a free pass but XBL always gets trashed on here. These are the arguments: - "It's entertaining for me so I will pay for it." - Well so what? I did not argue against your enjoyment. I don't care. That doesn't answer my question though. - "It costs a lot of money to maintain the servers." - Again, I'll refer you back to my OP, there are lots of good MMOs out there that are free and their only source of money is microtransactions. - "You're getting more content than 3 full games a year." - That's arguable, and totally depends on the game. If were just talking about WoW then I might agree, but then again I don't believe that at all. The amount of content in the game right now is pretty intimidating, but for the people who have always been there since day 1 is less than a new game. There wouldn't be a need for expansion packs if the content is as consistent as the monthly charges. percech

1) "F2P MMOs" - Microtransactions work well financially but ironically ends up costing more than the monthly fee on those MMOs, since pretty much ALL of them demand that you pay for power in the higher tier areas of the game.... so your point is moot.... and due to a lack of consistency in the profit, the content doesnt develope to the same quality ... nowhere near.... what does xboxlive do FOR MULTIPLAYER GAMING that the other systems cant do equally or in PC's case better? oh right ... nothing.

"lots of good free mmos" oh please... if you have bad standards and will play anything with a cheap label then maybe....

2) "Debatable on games life" no it isnt... oh sure some people may play an FPS for years ... game doesnt update anywhere close to as often as a good MMO.... not to mention maps are effortless in comparison.

He played games like Vindictus and Guild Wars. I really don't see much of a difference...other than WoW's having uglier graphics. Btw, nobody is being forced to do anything on XBL. Most of the features are available for free, but there are lots of added features and there is one huge update that adds and changes many things once a year. $180 a year is not the same thing as $60 a year. Back to your "forced" argument; I can argue that people are being forced to pay $15 a month for stuff they don't care for/want...shouldn't they have the option?percech

Over 11 million gamers disagree. The sheer amount of content added to wow is many times that of a standard run of the mill game. Take that into account and your getting many times the play. Sure its not for everyone, and if the content is not to your tastes or the cost to high to justify play something else. I have had 2 long stretches of wow during both of those it actually saves me money, since i did not bother to game on anything else. Using this same logic you could say its a rip off they charge $60 bucks for each retail copy. Even being done with wow now it was highly enjoyable for the time i played it and well worth the money to me. Xbox live is another story for me. I have all the consoles and i had to fork out another $60 dollars to enjoy some multiplayer on gears 3. After i have played killzone and other games on the ps3 the experience minus the party chat is not any differant, infact all my friends have switched this year to ps3 on the sports game front, as its been cheaper, and everyone i know finnally has one due to the nice exclusive content they have been pushing. Alot of them used to be diehard lemmings but they all secretly got on board the ps3 bandwagon.

He played games like Vindictus and Guild Wars. I really don't see much of a difference...other than WoW's having uglier graphics. Btw, nobody is being forced to do anything on XBL. Most of the features are available for free, but there are lots of added features and there is one huge update that adds and changes many things once a year. $180 a year is not the same thing as $60 a year. Back to your "forced" argument; I can argue that people are being forced to pay $15 a month for stuff they don't care for/want...shouldn't they have the option?percech

Great topic. I mean it... Every time I see the name World of Warcraft then I think like :"Why is it so expensive?" Same as those other "free" fps'es on the pc were you need to pay for new weapons or membership.

The problem here is that there are much but I mean much people that only play on the ps3 or prefer it cus they don't want to pay for xbox live.

Most people of them don't play WoW (or not anymore)cus they are ps3/360 players if they did then we saw much more topics about WoW...

Still people bought that superhero mmo game on the ps3 and payed for it to play online... and argue about the 360 online service.

About that paying for a mmo and you don't own it is tru. Why would you pay full pricefor a game when you know that you will not own it and still need to pay for it after you buyed it? "Cus it has much content...", "Cus it gives me much play time...". Its like paying for a second life in a virtual world.

I just don't like MMOs because they tend to be such grindfests. I remember back in 8th grade I used to play Runescape, looking back at that game now I don't know how I could have ever thought that was fun.

The thing that I don't get about MMOs is the initial charge for the game. I get the monthly sub, because the game develppment continues, but the initial charge is a rip off more than anything else.

Either way, I wouldn't pay sub fees for any game, they just aren't worth it. Live charge is even worse because you pay one company for the game and another company to play it.

[QUOTE="percech"]He played games like Vindictus and Guild Wars. I really don't see much of a difference...other than WoW's having uglier graphics. Btw, nobody is being forced to do anything on XBL. Most of the features are available for free, but there are lots of added features and there is one huge update that adds and changes many things once a year. $180 a year is not the same thing as $60 a year. Back to your "forced" argument; I can argue that people are being forced to pay $15 a month for stuff they don't care for/want...shouldn't they have the option?PC360Wii

[QUOTE="PC360Wii"][QUOTE="percech"]He played games like Vindictus and Guild Wars. I really don't see much of a difference...other than WoW's having uglier graphics. Btw, nobody is being forced to do anything on XBL. Most of the features are available for free, but there are lots of added features and there is one huge update that adds and changes many things once a year. $180 a year is not the same thing as $60 a year. Back to your "forced" argument; I can argue that people are being forced to pay $15 a month for stuff they don't care for/want...shouldn't they have the option?percech

You are NOT forced to pay for all MMO's. There are free to play ones. They have a small playerbase and usually subsidize their income by having either ads in-game (that people complain about) or aspects of the game itself that you can buy with real money. WoW is not one of those games due to it's high playerbase. Blizzard would crumble turning WoW into a free to play game based on the number of players and thus the number of servers they need to maintain and the high costs of bandwidth for those servers. I did some research a couple of years back when WoW hit the 9 million player mark and found that they were paying close to 3 million a month on servers and bandwidth alone. That's not including salaries of support personel, rent on the server enclosures (buildings that house the server banks), and other day to day expenses.

So you can make a MMO like Anarchy Online that now has 5-10000 players and make it free to play and still pull in a marginal profit from ads, or a really successful one where the actual numbers of players are going to force a pricing structure that makes it pay to play. But you cannot have both.