Steam Unveils MMO Subscription Service

Fanghawk

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Feb 17, 2011
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Steam Unveils MMO Subscription Service

Valve's digital client could one day manage all your MMO account payments.

Even though World of Warcraft dominates the market, there are still a metric ton of MMOs out there. Between subscription-based games and free-to-play memberships, players have more options but ever, to the point that keeping track of them all is time-consuming. Multiple games means multiple accounts, not to mention the automated payment plans that could be running at any moment. If more than one subscription is active, managing these accounts can be a chore, prompting Valve to adopt a Steam-based solution. The company's digital games client now comes with a unified subscription management service, handily tying multiple accounts to Steam usernames for your convenience.

At the moment, Steam's subscription service is only available for the recently launched Darkfall: Unholy Wars. After purchasing the game for $39.95, Steam sets up a monthly renewal payment that will be processed automatically when due. Users can access and change these options at anytime, adding new games, renewing lapsed titles, or canceling subscriptions at their leisure.

Since Steam offers several MMOs through its catalog, account management options are a common-sense direction that I'm surprised wasn't implemented sooner. If Steam's subscription plans are anything like its other services, Darkfall will field test its features before other games integrate the model. The subscription-based market may have changed dramatically with the rise of free-to-play games, but the convenience Steam could provide shouldn't be understated.

Source: Steam, via <a href=http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-25-steam-introduces-subscription-plans>Eurogamer

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ViciousTide

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"$39.95, Steam sets up a monthly renewal payment that will be processed automatically when due"
YEEEaaahhh, i don't think so. Not with my hard earn money and bays full of gold coins out there for diving and collecting.
 

Ruley

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I think this has a lot of potential, i would like the idea of all MMO payments being displayed in a similar way to your steam library. how much time is left, upcoming renewal dates (possibly schedule them all to the same date), postpone payments, payment options, stop/start subscriptions etc... Unfortunately, none of the big MMO's would sign up to this (WOW, SWTOR, etc...) And, the only MMO i play now is guild wars 2, a free to play upon purchase. No money for subscription based ones.

However, i did notice SWTOR steal a payment from me, an account alteration they imposed on my character reactivated my renewal. i chased them up and got a refund. but overall i cant fault a new, streamlined approach. and why not use steam? the biggest PC gaming service.

I already appreciate that playing an MMO is a big time sink meaning you can only really play a handful at a time, so a method to handle upwards of 10 MMO's is ludicrous due to all the money required for those subscriptions and having no time for all of them. but still, like i said, stream lining is never a bad thing if done right.
 

Hitchmeister

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tehweave said:
"World of Warcraft dominates the MMO market."

Um... League of Legends?
There are near infinite arguments to be made about "What is an MMO?" For purposes of comparison to World of Warcraft, League of Legends fails the definition based on lack of a persistent world and character progression. Also, the "Massively" part falls short if you think of the game as separate from the lobby. In which case you're playing with at most nine other people as opposed to thousands.

That's not to say that League of Legends is not a great and extremely popular game. Just not comparable for the purposes of this article.
 
Nov 28, 2007
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ViciousTide said:
"$39.95, Steam sets up a monthly renewal payment that will be processed automatically when due"
YEEEaaahhh, i don't think so. Not with my hard earn money and bays full of gold coins out there for diving and collecting.
You misread, I think. They set up the subscription renewal after you buy the game, and the game costs $39.95, not the monthly renewal payment.
 

Smertnik

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Hitchmeister said:
tehweave said:
"World of Warcraft dominates the MMO market."

Um... League of Legends?
There are near infinite arguments to be made about "What is an MMO?" For purposes of comparison to World of Warcraft, League of Legends fails the definition based on lack of a persistent world and character progression. Also, the "Massively" part falls short if you think of the game as separate from the lobby. In which case you're playing with at most nine other people as opposed to thousands.

That's not to say that League of Legends is not a great and extremely popular game. Just not comparable for the purposes of this article.
Isn't the only defining aspect of a MMO game the ability to play with a massive amount of people at the same time, hence the name? As I see it, the only thing there is to argue about as far as the definition goes is what amount of people can be considered "massive" in that respect.
But either way, MOBA games indeed aren't MMO games, no matter how you look at it.
 

RatherDashing89

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Jan 11, 2013
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Smertnik said:
Hitchmeister said:
tehweave said:
"World of Warcraft dominates the MMO market."

Um... League of Legends?
There are near infinite arguments to be made about "What is an MMO?" For purposes of comparison to World of Warcraft, League of Legends fails the definition based on lack of a persistent world and character progression. Also, the "Massively" part falls short if you think of the game as separate from the lobby. In which case you're playing with at most nine other people as opposed to thousands.

That's not to say that League of Legends is not a great and extremely popular game. Just not comparable for the purposes of this article.
Isn't the only defining aspect of a MMO game the ability to play with a massive amount of people at the same time, hence the name? As I see it, the only thing there is to argue about as far as the definition goes is what amount of people can be considered "massive" in that respect.
But either way, MOBA games indeed aren't MMO games, no matter how you look at it.
I would say that "at the same time" is what makes it "massively". However, this usually means "persistent", since lobby games don't tend to have team sizes we could term "Massive" (We all saw how well MAG turned out). In the big-league MMOs like WoW, you are technically playing with everyone logged in on that server, which is certainly a massive number.
 

Natdaprat

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It's a indie game with very little content, and the combat is far inferior to its predecessor. Plus it's ridiculously expensive compared to its competitors.

However, it's practically alone in the 'Fantsy FFA PvP full loot clan based' market.