[QUOTE="xWoW_Rougex"]
I don't understand why subscriptions are so hated. mmorpgs have plenty of servers, filled with thousand of peoples, they're constantly for years fixing bugs, tweaking and adding content and gameplay and providing customer support. Why is it so unreasonable...?
Ish_basic
Because there are games that do these same things with only a single upfront retail cost or none at all, and many of them offer just as much content as their competitors that are charging a fee.
Consider that The Old Republic doubled its revenues after going free to play. LotR and D&D experienced similar upticks in revenue when dropping their subscription service.
The notion that we are paying $15 a month for maintenance is archaic. Maybe at one point that was true. It's just not anymore. Nowadays, we are paying 15$ a month because we are stupid enough to pay $15 a month. The trend for the bigger name MMOs coming out seems to be develop a free to play model, but start with a subscription model and make money hand over fist until the dipsh*** realize they don't actually have to pay for this...then switch to the free model and watch the revenue spike again.
This is where "lying with numbers" becomes the publishers friend. You're confusing increased unique users with increased profit, companies rarely state how much money they are actually making on F2P micro-transactions. They specifically released news of the user base tripling, wording it to where it sounds like they are making so much more money than before. The reson F2P is more sustainable is because everything is scaled back and new content now only tends to take longer to get released, but you have to buy it to be able to play it. I don't see how anyone can say a game is free to play with a straight face when you have to pay for each content update.
I would have to ask if you have actually tried playing a game like The Old Republic without paying any amount of money towards the game what so ever. It's a tedious slog that's deliberately designed to slowly wear down your resolve until you do cough up money just to make the game less frustrating. As someone who did play ToR when it had a $15/month subscription, I can assure you that frustration wasn't in the game back then.
Fact is the way most F2P games are designed are a detriment to the game itself. From the word "go" they are waging psychological warfare on the player, doing everything it can go break you so you pay up. The sad part is, the players who convince themselves that It's optional, that you don't HAVE to pay, that it doesn't effect them, they are the ones who are most susceptible to giving in and paying money to these predatory design choices.
Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World have done a pretty good job I do admit, but they aren't free to play, they cost money up front. GW2 doesn't charge for content updates, but their content thus far hasn't been anything earth shattering. TSW only released about 4 content packs a year for $10 each, and they tend to be very short, usually able to be finished in a few hours.
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