Champions Online Sells Out of Lifetime Subscriptions

[Keane Ng]

Champions Online Sells Out of Lifetime Subscriptions

Apparently lots of people are ready to commit to Champions Online for the rest of their lives, because Cryptic's superhero MMOG has sold out of lifetime subscriptions.

Are you so excited for Champions Online that you'd be willing to take a dive into the deep end and drop $200 for a lifetime subscription and some bonus goodies? That's like the videogame consumerism equivalent of a drunken Vegas marriage. Well apparently a lot of people were caught up by the allure of never having to pay a subcription fee ever again, because Cryptic has sold out of its allotment of lifetime subscriptions.

How do you sell out of subscriptions? Well for Cryptic it was really just a pre-order promotion of sorts, a limited time only discount deal that was supposed to last until September 1. As you may notice, it is not yet September 1, but the deal is no longer available, and neither is the six-month subscription discount. This is something people who were hoping to get their hands on these offers are upset about.

"It was never our intention to spring that news on our fans or anyone else," Cryptic said. "In short, we had an allotment of special subscription packages to sell over a fixed time (ending September 1). When we began approaching the offer cap before the date cap, we had to message. Frankly, we never suspected our special offers to be so popular."

The lifetime subscription cost a one-time-only $200 and came with a special costume set, some exclusive in-game items and access to the Star Trek Online beta. Guess this model is actually a lot more viable than I personally would have expected it to be - maybe we'll see more MMOGs in the future adopting it.

[Via IncGamers [http://www.incgamers.com/News/18263/]]

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[Abedeus]

Too bad that at first they didn't tell there is not only a time limit, but also a quantity limit.

A lot of people are mad because they would like to buy the lifetime sub.

Also, you can add that they also don't have any more of the 6-month subscription deals.

 

[Rathy]

I find that kind of a bad model myself. Its one thing to limit preorder type bonuses, such as the extras on said lifetime subscription, but to stop selling them overall just doesn't sit too well with me. Especially if this includes the six month subscription.

 

[Teh_Doomage]

I think this is a smart business move in some cases.

If you divide the price up on an average of $15 a month, they payed for a a little over a year's worth of time up front, and from what I've seen in addition to the $50 for the game.

It actually benefits the customer more.

But I agree that we should have been told there was a quantity limit as well.

 

[Arbitrary Cidin]

Meanwhile, at the Guild Wars marketing branch...

 

[Abedeus]

Meanwhile, at the Guild Wars marketing branch...

What has Guild Wars to do with this, again?

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Cryptic basically made the smart business move. Initially allowing customers to pay in advance for a year flushes them with capital, then providing a cut off ensures long term profitability (lets face it, MMO's are profitable because people pay 15 bucks a month, effectively paying triple what they would for a $60 one time product over the course of a year.

Since start ups are the hardest time for an MMO, allowing SOME upfront payments is better then then none, and limiting that quantity increases your long term profits.

I'm waiting before a demo before I pay for shit, though.

Meanwhile, at the Guild Wars marketing branch...

What has Guild Wars to do with this, again?

Guild Wars doesn't have any subscription fee's, they undercut their maintenance costs by being careful with the netcode and produce profitability by releasing the game as a full price title, then releasing several expansion packs. I'm not sure if there are micro-transactions for silly things but I think there may be.

 

[Therumancer]

I am/was there, and I'm one of those guys who bought a lifetime subscription right before they expired.

Truthfully, I think the problem is that it's not a viable model, and Cryptic shut it down because it was becoming a danger to their operations.

It's like this, MMORPGs depend on their constantly incoming subscription fees to cover the server costs, and make a profit. The lifetime subscriptions cost roughly what it would take to play the game for a year. If everyone who is a hardcore player is is liable to play the game for a year or more buys a lifetime subscription then after a year the game is no longer going to have the money to sustain itself, and of course is going to die, which is bad for everyone including the subscription holders.

As I understand things most of the player base can be pretty easily determined by the initial sales and pre-orders with MMORPGS just like other games. Games that show constantly increasing player populations (like WoW) being fairly uncommon.

There was an "End Of Beta Event" on the 24th (although Beta continued to run beyond that) and truthfully CO seemed to be generating a lot of positive energy among the player base. I've done a *LOT* of Betas, and honestly I saw far less trolling and such than I do in other games (with obnoxious people deciding to mess with others on the last couple days of free play, by pointing out how they are cancelling their pre-order, slamming the game and it's devs, and/or just being twits).

I get the impression that as beta was ending (the 24th was when I got mine) there was a rush on the lifetime subscriptions, and they decided to cut it off before everyone in the game's base population became a lifetime subscriber.

A lot of the anger over this is that Cryptic pretty much pulled the limited quantity thing out of their collective rear ends. There was absolutly nothing to support this on their main page or any of the ads selling the package deals. Rather that was a message which included the "limited quantity" words buried in the bowels of the forums where nobody would ever be likely to notice unless they were specifically looking for it.


Despite having a lifetime subscription, I am unhappy with this both on principle, and because my parents (I'm retired on disabillity, and live at home) and I play MMORPGs together with some frequency. We have 3 seperate computers in one room and run them with seperate accounts. Given my financial state it was a tough desician but I managed to scrape up the money (at the expense of not having it for later games and such of course) at the last moment. They decided to do the same thing since I was going to play at least sporadically
for a while but a few hours later when they went to get lifetime subs, the offer was down. To say that this is a bit awkward is an understatement.

Cryptic also seems to think that the offer was up long enough "to be fair" but in reality nobody was going to come up with that kind of cash without seeing the game first. Besides for most people, throwing down $200.00 for entertainment all at once is a big desician. People have to oftentimes put it away from a couple of paychecks (heck when I was working Casino Security I'd still have to do that, though it wouldn't have been as tight).

At any rate, for those that read this far, the basic point is that I don't think that this article should be saying this shows the viability of such things. To be quite blunt it shows the opposite. It's a cool promotional gimmick, but if you really think about it, it's not viable given how these games operate. The fact that Cryptic had to mess with it's customer base and pretty much generate a BS excuse to pull the offer says quite a bit.

If it was viable, they never would have had to pull the offer, or "limit numbers" to begin with. Indeed the demand would have been a reason to increase the numbers as opposed to putting out a "sold out" sign.

Now, maybe someone out there can make a system like this work down the road, but as things stand now I fully understand why it's a problem, and why things turned out this way. However despite the fact that I at least think I can see things from Cryptic's perspective, I still think this reeks in a truely epic way.

 

[Arbitrary Cidin]

Meanwhile, at the Guild Wars marketing branch...

What has Guild Wars to do with this, again?

Their main marketing ploy was that they don't have subscription fees period. This game's getting more attention than they ever did and you have to pay $200 for the same feature.

 

[stone0042]

Personally, I'd love to be able to pay a one time fee for something like this, especially XBL. However, i don't see it as financially viable for the company

 

[SharPhoe]

For all the money being sunk into Champions Online before it's even been fully released, I sincerely hope that it's worth it. I have a friend who plays WoW a lot, and I'm sure he'll feel more than a little smug if people come crawling back into his server from CO with their tails between their legs...

 

[Abedeus]

Meanwhile, at the Guild Wars marketing branch...

What has Guild Wars to do with this, again?

Their main marketing ploy was that they don't have subscription fees period. This game's getting more attention than they ever did and you have to pay $200 for the same feature.

Are you insane or what?

An MMO is offering a lifetime subscription for $200 and you are comparing it to a game that sells chapters for $50 and has an expansion pack? And isn't an MMO, doesn't have the customisation of CO? And the little fact that GW has grown stale and boring, while CO is new and fresh? ;d

Wow, you would be closer to comparing Aion and Champions... After all, both are coming out in EU/US this September and many people must choose between one or another.

Also, it's not really a "market ploy", but game design. CO used a market ploy.

 

[Sevre]

Meanwhile, at the Guild Wars marketing branch...

What has Guild Wars to do with this, again?

Their main marketing ploy was that they don't have subscription fees period. This game's getting more attention than they ever did and you have to pay $200 for the same feature.

Considering Guild Wars is one of the 3 MMOs to get past the million mark, I'd say they've gotten their fare amount of attention. Also considering they haven't done anything new since the last expansion pack, I have no idea why you're bringing this up.

 

[Gunner_Guardian]

Meanwhile, at the Guild Wars marketing branch...

What has Guild Wars to do with this, again?

Their main marketing ploy was that they don't have subscription fees period. This game's getting more attention than they ever did and you have to pay $200 for the same feature.

Considering Guild Wars is one of the 3 MMOs to get past the million mark, I'd say they've gotten their fare amount of attention. Also considering they haven't done anything new since the last expansion pack, I have no idea why you're bringing this up.

He really should have said Guild wars 2.

Which is coming out in 1 year or so...

 

[Abedeus]

Meanwhile, at the Guild Wars marketing branch...

What has Guild Wars to do with this, again?

Their main marketing ploy was that they don't have subscription fees period. This game's getting more attention than they ever did and you have to pay $200 for the same feature.

Considering Guild Wars is one of the 3 MMOs to get past the million mark, I'd say they've gotten their fare amount of attention. Also considering they haven't done anything new since the last expansion pack, I have no idea why you're bringing this up.

Even their expansion was nothing new - few reskinned armors, three new models (Destroyers, Asuras and Nornbears - everything else reskinned, even the giants) and few dungeons, most of them were bloody similar.

Meanwhile, at the Guild Wars marketing branch...

What has Guild Wars to do with this, again?

Their main marketing ploy was that they don't have subscription fees period. This game's getting more attention than they ever did and you have to pay $200 for the same feature.

Considering Guild Wars is one of the 3 MMOs to get past the million mark, I'd say they've gotten their fare amount of attention. Also considering they haven't done anything new since the last expansion pack, I have no idea why you're bringing this up.

He really should have said Guild wars 2.

Which is coming out in 1 year or so...

Haha, no. We'll be lucky if it comes out in 2011.

 

[hansari]

I'm pretty sure this "lifetime subscription" was just a marketing ploy to get people interested.

Shame they shutdown the offer so early, but chances are they were losing more money than they were gonna make...

 

[Arbitrary Cidin]

Meanwhile, at the Guild Wars marketing branch...

What has Guild Wars to do with this, again?

Their main marketing ploy was that they don't have subscription fees period. This game's getting more attention than they ever did and you have to pay $200 for the same feature.

Considering Guild Wars is one of the 3 MMOs to get past the million mark, I'd say they've gotten their fare amount of attention. Also considering they haven't done anything new since the last expansion pack, I have no idea why you're bringing this up.

Yes, but Champions Online isn't even released yet. If you want to see why I was bringing this up, read the post you just quoted; it was a reply to that question...

 

[Arbitrary Cidin]

Meanwhile, at the Guild Wars marketing branch...

He really should have said Guild wars 2.

Which is coming out in 1 year or so...

Meanwhile, at the Guild Wars 2 marketing branch...

 

[Gaderael]

I wonder how many of those lifetime subscriptions were sold to Trekkies who only wanted in on the closed beta of Star Trek Online?

Let's face it, $200 is not a lot to the rabid fans of the series.