Pay to Play

[ShadowKatt]

I've been a firm believer that you shouldn't have to continue to pay for a game after you've bought it. That's why the only MMO I play is Guild Wars. The game never goes down in price but once you've bought it it's yours. Games like WoW, Everquest, and City of Heroes/Villins that you have to pay every month to play I've never even given a second look at. Til now. With the soon coming of Star Wars: The Old Republic, I'm giving some strong consideration to subscribing to it, so I'm asking, is it worth the $10-30 a month just to play a game?

 

[megapenguinx]

I never liked pay for play but as a friend put it to me once, "You pay $15 a month to play online with a bunch of other people in an experience that's never the same twice and is super long. Or you can pay $50 for an experience that is the same each time and will probably only last 2 weeks".

 

[ShoryukenDude]

Personally, I find that paying for a Games multiple times is stupid, but I understand why.

I belive that SW:TOR will be worth it, but I'm still skeptic about the worth of other MMO's

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go look at prices for a copy of Guild Wars

 

[A random person]

I was never a fan of paying to play a game after I bought it; if it wasn't for that I would have played WoW beyond the 10 day trial.

 

[geldonyetich]

I'd say it depends. I've played some MMORPGs which have nice, regular updates and release a lot of cool content. Well worth $15/mo. Others barely release any improvements at all, and leave me feeling gypted.

That said, I think the days of $15/mo are coming to an end. Games are making a transition to a Free 2 Play with micropayments model because the competition is so great that people generally aren't interested unless they get good and hooked on the game.

 

[Rednog]

A topic that has been debated forever, also no Pay to Play will ever be $30.
Also it usually goes towards future content and patches in most MMOs, it isn't like you pay for the game and then monthly and nothing changes over time.

 

[Plazmatic]

Ill only pay for it if it cost 60$ a year, which is only the Xbox 360, so I really dont pay for any other online things, they simply are not worth it, even that SW:TOR will not be great enough to pay for, dont pay for it, it makes it seem like you don't even own your game. It's degrading.

 

[AbuFace]

I'd say it depends. I've played some MMORPGs which have nice, regular updates and release a lot of cool content. Well worth $15/mo. Others barely release any improvements at all, and leave me feeling gypted.

This This This.

You don't (usually) pay $15 a month just for the privilege of logging onto the game. Yeah, some of that money goes to server maintenance, but you have to consider that MMO server farms can cost thousands upon thousands of dollars a week just to maintain, unlike FPS servers where a high school kid can rent his own TF2 server for $30/month. The other part of your $15/month goes toward having GMs staffed around the clock to help with in-game issues, to help the development of new content, and the constant balancing of player classes, among other things.

When you get down to it, MMOs are dirt cheap entertainment.

 

[lostclause]

Depends how often you play. If you play, for example, WoW for 30 hours a month for $15 you're getting a good deal. If you buy a game you play for $50, unless you get 100 hours out of that game it's a worse deal than the mmo.

 

[pompom8volt]

Right now I'm not planning on changing what MMO i play so i can't really say if it's worth it or not. But as has been pointed out you arent paying to play it just because the devs are evil. It costs a lot to run an MMO pluss all the the updating and maintenance (patches). so you are actuely paying to keep the game online so you can play.

 

[ShadowKatt]

Ill only pay for it if it cost 60$ a year, which is only the Xbox 360, so I really dont pay for any other online things, they simply are not worth it, even that SW:TOR will not be great enough to pay for, dont pay for it, it makes it seem like you don't even own your game. It's degrading.

I hear that. I had that little epiphany when I was reading over all the case historys of the copyright infringment lawsuits. So I bought the cd, I'm not allowed to rip it, I'm not allowed to download it, I'm not allowed to copy it. Excuse me, who exactly paid for the copy I'm holding in my hands?

Pay to Play just makes you buy it over and over again every month to play the same game. Really on the fence if it's worth it or not.

 

[Dys]

I'm not paying a subscription fee unless I get dedicated servers from my continant. I don't know of a single MMO (or xbox live service) that does.