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I am a gamer in the UK and I don't know what everyone elses thoughts are on this but I am so annoyed with companies making us pay to play games online. The problem really arises moreso if wish to play more than one online game as the cost to play would be very high.
I understand that these companies have servers to run and the cost involved to maintain them but asking people to pay a monthly fee on top of the game you originally bought seems to me to be over the top.
I feel that if we let companies constantly get away with it, gamers will in the end be the losers. In my opinion I feel that it is discrimimating those who have less of an income to support yet another fee.
Take Everquest, I believe it is a seriously good game on the PC and PS2 but I will never know because I would not be able to afford more additional costs.
Take Phantasy Star Online which is or will be on several formats. I have Xbox Live so as well as paying for the game, Xbox Live Subscription and ISP they also want us to pay an additional monthly fee. On Xbox Live I would not even be able to play online with my American friends and if I did not have Xbox Live then I would not even be able to play the game at all anyway, now surely that is unfair.
Take some games that only seem to come out in the US that may never make it into the European market e.g. An EA game entitled Motor City Online. I think the reason that this game never came to the UK was because of the monthly fee involved.
I have just taken a small bit of information from thier site for Motor City Online which reads:-
QUOTE
Starting August 29, 2003, Motor City will no longer be in service. After a fun run of over a year of online racing, Electronic Arts has made the decision to close Motor City Online in order to focus resources on future games.
Electronic Arts charges a monthly fee for this service, separate from your Internet Service Provider access charges. END OF QUOTE
So not only will we never get to see this game but those who even bought this game in the US will no longer have the service.
I am sorry if this is really long winded but I really have very strong feelings on this issue as when will gamers say, enough is enough and draw the line.
I would say that we should be given a better choice. I would not mind a game that had downloadable content available but whereby you are given the choice to download it or not at a small fee. Wether or not you have the downloaded content should not interfere with your enjoyment of playing a game online with your friends.
I understand that these companies have servers to run and the cost involved to maintain them but asking people to pay a monthly fee on top of the game you originally bought seems to me to be over the top.
I feel that if we let companies constantly get away with it, gamers will in the end be the losers. In my opinion I feel that it is discrimimating those who have less of an income to support yet another fee.
Take Everquest, I believe it is a seriously good game on the PC and PS2 but I will never know because I would not be able to afford more additional costs.
Take Phantasy Star Online which is or will be on several formats. I have Xbox Live so as well as paying for the game, Xbox Live Subscription and ISP they also want us to pay an additional monthly fee. On Xbox Live I would not even be able to play online with my American friends and if I did not have Xbox Live then I would not even be able to play the game at all anyway, now surely that is unfair.
Take some games that only seem to come out in the US that may never make it into the European market e.g. An EA game entitled Motor City Online. I think the reason that this game never came to the UK was because of the monthly fee involved.
I have just taken a small bit of information from thier site for Motor City Online which reads:-
QUOTE
Starting August 29, 2003, Motor City will no longer be in service. After a fun run of over a year of online racing, Electronic Arts has made the decision to close Motor City Online in order to focus resources on future games.
Electronic Arts charges a monthly fee for this service, separate from your Internet Service Provider access charges. END OF QUOTE
So not only will we never get to see this game but those who even bought this game in the US will no longer have the service.
I am sorry if this is really long winded but I really have very strong feelings on this issue as when will gamers say, enough is enough and draw the line.
I would say that we should be given a better choice. I would not mind a game that had downloadable content available but whereby you are given the choice to download it or not at a small fee. Wether or not you have the downloaded content should not interfere with your enjoyment of playing a game online with your friends.
I am a gamer in the UK and I don't know what everyone elses thoughts are on this but I am so annoyed with companies making us pay to play games online. The problem really arises moreso if wish to play more than one online game as the cost to play would be very high.
I understand that these companies have servers to run and the cost involved to maintain them but asking people to pay a monthly fee on top of the game you originally bought seems to me to be over the top.
I feel that if we let companies constantly get away with it, gamers will in the end be the losers. In my opinion I feel that it is discrimimating those who have less of an income to support yet another fee.
Take Everquest, I believe it is a seriously good game on the PC and PS2 but I will never know because I would not be able to afford more additional costs.
Take Phantasy Star Online which is or will be on several formats. I have Xbox Live so as well as paying for the game, Xbox Live Subscription and ISP they also want us to pay an additional monthly fee. On Xbox Live I would not even be able to play online with my American friends and if I did not have Xbox Live then I would not even be able to play the game at all anyway, now surely that is unfair.
Take some games that only seem to come out in the US that may never make it into the European market e.g. An EA game entitled Motor City Online. I think the reason that this game never came to the UK was because of the monthly fee involved.
I have just taken a small bit of information from thier site for Motor City Online which reads:-
QUOTE
Starting August 29, 2003, Motor City will no longer be in service. After a fun run of over a year of online racing, Electronic Arts has made the decision to close Motor City Online in order to focus resources on future games.
Electronic Arts charges a monthly fee for this service, separate from your Internet Service Provider access charges. END OF QUOTE
So not only will we never get to see this game but those who even bought this game in the US will no longer have the service.
I am sorry if this is really long winded but I really have very strong feelings on this issue as when will gamers say, enough is enough and draw the line.
I would say that we should be given a better choice. I would not mind a game that had downloadable content available but whereby you are given the choice to download it or not at a small fee. Wether or not you have the downloaded content should not interfere with your enjoyment of playing a game online with your friends.
I understand that these companies have servers to run and the cost involved to maintain them but asking people to pay a monthly fee on top of the game you originally bought seems to me to be over the top.
I feel that if we let companies constantly get away with it, gamers will in the end be the losers. In my opinion I feel that it is discrimimating those who have less of an income to support yet another fee.
Take Everquest, I believe it is a seriously good game on the PC and PS2 but I will never know because I would not be able to afford more additional costs.
Take Phantasy Star Online which is or will be on several formats. I have Xbox Live so as well as paying for the game, Xbox Live Subscription and ISP they also want us to pay an additional monthly fee. On Xbox Live I would not even be able to play online with my American friends and if I did not have Xbox Live then I would not even be able to play the game at all anyway, now surely that is unfair.
Take some games that only seem to come out in the US that may never make it into the European market e.g. An EA game entitled Motor City Online. I think the reason that this game never came to the UK was because of the monthly fee involved.
I have just taken a small bit of information from thier site for Motor City Online which reads:-
QUOTE
Starting August 29, 2003, Motor City will no longer be in service. After a fun run of over a year of online racing, Electronic Arts has made the decision to close Motor City Online in order to focus resources on future games.
Electronic Arts charges a monthly fee for this service, separate from your Internet Service Provider access charges. END OF QUOTE
So not only will we never get to see this game but those who even bought this game in the US will no longer have the service.
I am sorry if this is really long winded but I really have very strong feelings on this issue as when will gamers say, enough is enough and draw the line.
I would say that we should be given a better choice. I would not mind a game that had downloadable content available but whereby you are given the choice to download it or not at a small fee. Wether or not you have the downloaded content should not interfere with your enjoyment of playing a game online with your friends.
Consider this.
Blizzard have a number of games playable online, such as StarCraft, WarCraft III and Diablo II.
You don't have to pay to play online for any of those, and yet the worldwide user base is in the tens of millions.
Online games should either be distributed at massively discounted rates, and make it up by charging to play online, or they should cost as much as any other game, and be free to play henceforth.
Blizzard have a number of games playable online, such as StarCraft, WarCraft III and Diablo II.
You don't have to pay to play online for any of those, and yet the worldwide user base is in the tens of millions.
Online games should either be distributed at massively discounted rates, and make it up by charging to play online, or they should cost as much as any other game, and be free to play henceforth.
The reason I've always been put off getting any of those MMORPG's is because you have to pay a monthly subscription. Sure it isn't allot of money to pay, but I'd rather play a singly player RPG which is free to play (minus the cost of purchase of course) and devoid of any moronic mongs who seem to swarm over every online game out there.
I dont think that they should make us pay to play games online, because thay are just loosing more online gamers by doing that, i want to play online, but i cant because my dad says that it is too expensive...
they should make it free, or the price of a normal phone call...
then i would play after 6 when it is free...
they should make it free, or the price of a normal phone call...
then i would play after 6 when it is free...
Insane Bartender wrote:
> Consider this.
>
> Blizzard have a number of games playable online, such as StarCraft,
> WarCraft III and Diablo II.
>
> You don't have to pay to play online for any of those, and yet the
> worldwide user base is in the tens of millions.
But the worlds in those don't have to be constantly evolving. While they have to pay for customer support staff, they don't have to keep a team of designers around to create new areas, quests etc, some programmers to implement all this, and lawyers to go to the courts against all the people who try and sue them. There's an article I remember seeing on /. a few days ago about the top 10 reasons not to make an MMOG, and a primary one was about the fact you'll probably go broke.
> Consider this.
>
> Blizzard have a number of games playable online, such as StarCraft,
> WarCraft III and Diablo II.
>
> You don't have to pay to play online for any of those, and yet the
> worldwide user base is in the tens of millions.
But the worlds in those don't have to be constantly evolving. While they have to pay for customer support staff, they don't have to keep a team of designers around to create new areas, quests etc, some programmers to implement all this, and lawyers to go to the courts against all the people who try and sue them. There's an article I remember seeing on /. a few days ago about the top 10 reasons not to make an MMOG, and a primary one was about the fact you'll probably go broke.
What would you prefer? There are huge costs in running a propper on-line title with private servers. An MMORPG needs a constantly existing world, so can't be hosted on private servers as individuals would obviously want to turn them off when they weren't playing. A professional outfit will also be better equiped (and more responsible for) dealing with technical problems and security issues. Add to this that those servers and tech support people have to be deployed over the world and the costs mount.
Think of the bandwidth involved here. NTL huffs because some users might draw 1GB downstream for £30 a month. Don't know the figures off the top of my head, but "free" hoasting websites will soon start charging you a fortune if you break AUPs. Bandwitch costs, someone has to pay. Forking out £30 for a game simply won't cover this. The game still has to go through the same innitial development process as other titles that charge the same. Why should MMORPG/on-line in general game's developers have to cover the costs of running an international fleet of servers for this price in addition to developing the game in the first place?
You probably could do it without charging not much more than the game's cover price, but you'd get rubbish servers and no support services - so much so playing would be a total nightmare. It is in the gamer's interest to pay a little extra (come on, we're talking pennies a day here) and get a fantastic service.
MMORPGs have people in game policing and helping newbies. Some are other players who enjoy these roles, others are employees. Also, most will be regularly updating the game to add new content. Asheron's Call had a big update once a month when I was play IIRC.
As always, you get what you pay for. You probably could run an MMORPG without charging subs, but you would get slow connections and poor suport.
With consoles it is similar. A console user doesn't host the game like a PC user might host a game of Half Life on his own PC - this has to be done by the game's own people. While it wasn't explained very well by MS, this does mean that you'll have seperate subscriptions to MS Live and the game's company as the two are seperate entities.
End of the day, if you don't think its worth it, don't play. If you are really that excited about the game, £9.99 a month (or whatever) isn't much to ask for private and professionally run servers, full tech support and regular game updates. Try getting in touch with someone like Barry's World. See how much they'll charge you for a couple of hour's use on a Half-Life server that'll hold about 8-16 gamers!
Think of the bandwidth involved here. NTL huffs because some users might draw 1GB downstream for £30 a month. Don't know the figures off the top of my head, but "free" hoasting websites will soon start charging you a fortune if you break AUPs. Bandwitch costs, someone has to pay. Forking out £30 for a game simply won't cover this. The game still has to go through the same innitial development process as other titles that charge the same. Why should MMORPG/on-line in general game's developers have to cover the costs of running an international fleet of servers for this price in addition to developing the game in the first place?
You probably could do it without charging not much more than the game's cover price, but you'd get rubbish servers and no support services - so much so playing would be a total nightmare. It is in the gamer's interest to pay a little extra (come on, we're talking pennies a day here) and get a fantastic service.
MMORPGs have people in game policing and helping newbies. Some are other players who enjoy these roles, others are employees. Also, most will be regularly updating the game to add new content. Asheron's Call had a big update once a month when I was play IIRC.
As always, you get what you pay for. You probably could run an MMORPG without charging subs, but you would get slow connections and poor suport.
With consoles it is similar. A console user doesn't host the game like a PC user might host a game of Half Life on his own PC - this has to be done by the game's own people. While it wasn't explained very well by MS, this does mean that you'll have seperate subscriptions to MS Live and the game's company as the two are seperate entities.
End of the day, if you don't think its worth it, don't play. If you are really that excited about the game, £9.99 a month (or whatever) isn't much to ask for private and professionally run servers, full tech support and regular game updates. Try getting in touch with someone like Barry's World. See how much they'll charge you for a couple of hour's use on a Half-Life server that'll hold about 8-16 gamers!
People want to play online.
It's a fact.
People want to make money.
It's a fact.
If people who want to make money charge the people who want to play online, they'll pay to play, and they'll get loads of money.
If you won't pay, someone else will.
It's a fact.
People want to make money.
It's a fact.
If people who want to make money charge the people who want to play online, they'll pay to play, and they'll get loads of money.
If you won't pay, someone else will.