why the hell do you have to pay for a game you have already paid for? i mean, it costs $15 a month AFTER YOU BOUGHT THE GAME! haven't they already got enough money from the intial release? Damned greedy idiots >.<;;; ... well, if it's for the servers then it's still stupid.
it's how they get payed it's because of all the cost's of the internet and keeping the whole game up and running.
How would you feel if you worked for Sony to help keep people like you happy? ...and were expected to work for free? I do not believe you would want that now, would you?
The fee pays the salaries to those who keep working on the game after release, to keep making it better. It is to keep major bugs found later on from staying major bugs. *Ahem* Dai-Katana *Ahem* It adds more content to the game after release, keeps it evolving and becoming better. If there were no fee, servers would overload, hacking would flourish, bugs and gliches would reign, and there would be no future content or add-ons.
I can go further in-depth if you want.:D ;) :p
EDIT: If you do not want to pay the "stupid fee," then I guess my best suggestion to you is: Simply never buy the game.
I take the red pill now show me how far the rabblt hole goes.:p
Well, you asked for it... so here goes.
Yes, yes, we all want to know why the hell all of these massive multiplayer games cost $10 a month. Well, first you need to know a few things. An mmo is set up on tens, if not hundreds, of network servers on high speed business broadband. Just those words "network servers" and "high speed" wack you up in the hundred-thousands.
A very basic server being sold at Dell can probably have 40-50 players on it at a time. Although most companies can get a good third off of the price by buying in bulk and write-offs on taxes, you have to remember that this thing is coming bare. Ethernet cables, firewalls, switches, routers, backup power supplies, and eventual upgrades can bring back those numbers to what it was originally sold at.
Lets not forget about our connections! No, we are not talking about your basic cable modem running at an average 300kbps. We are talking about duel T3's, multiple oc-lines, etc. Now a server will take up approximately 750kbps of bandwith. A full T1 line runs at 1500kbps and costs $200 a month (not including installation fee). So divvy that up and that's $100 per server to get people to connect to it and enjoy good ping.
So lets go ahead and start a "micro model" of an MMO budget. We will use 60 dell servers set up for 40 users paying $10 a month. Our connection will be a $6,500 DS3 line that runs ~45mbps (that leaves 750kbps per server). That's 2,400 players. Lets take a look at the monthly budget for one server.
1 server:
$10 profit/month x 40 players = $400
Lets watch all the money DIE!
$120 for IRS/taxes - You are running a business, you know.
$110 for DS3 line - Divided the cost by 60 servers.
$120 for payments - Expensive cables, switches, and the server itself.
$40 for staff paychecks - You think 60 servers going to run itself?
Money left: $10 per server
And to think, I didn't take away postal fee for sending check or maintannence.
When you put it that way, $40 of employee salary a month?!?!?! We're getting a friggin' deal here. Southern Californian strawberry pickers get better thatn $40 a month!
Also, mind you, MMORPGs are by far the most expensive thing you can develop on the market right now. Doom 3? Half-Life 2? Forget about that, MMORPGs can cost several million more. Partly because they are really big (the content designing take ages), and because you have to work so much with tweaking servers and internet security and such.
What does that mean? That no MMORPG, by selling their games at 40-50 bucks, can go even upon release. It's just not possible. A good MMORPG will go even after a year or two. For a company to make money of it? Even longer. Most MMORPGs doesn't even reach the goal of going even.
With this knowledge, you realize the whole "why do I have to pay?!" question is a very ignorant. Learn about the industry, and start complaining afterwards. The world is filled with people who complain about things they don't know about, and it's not one of the flattering sides of humanity, you know.
not to mention the 10 years in development.
wait did i say 10...feels like 10...
The long development cycle is the main reason for the high development cost, mark.
Originally posted by setsuko
The long development cycle is the main reason for the high development cost, mark.
yea set,
im not some hot skirter from hot bottle!
please please please.
remember that i loooove to convey sarcasm (mostly in a humorous way, not derogatory)
i also want to say, duh!
time = money
yes so you see that is why we must pay for this awsome game. :D
Let's not forget the hosting of their webspaces. For downloadable MMORPGs that would be one of the most expensive things I reckon.
Well everyone would rather not pay the fee. But we have to.
yes I would rather not but I want this game and no I have not played it.
I don't by all that crap for a second. You can by yourself a top of the line database for less then $20,000. Looks like alot to us, but Verant's profits were over 800 million dollars throughout the current Everquest experiment. That alone pays for everything this development team has to offer. Then you bring in Lucasarts with its infinate amount of cash, and you have a very affordable 25 million development cycle that didn't even dent the profits of the companies.
Then you must consider just how much they are making. With only the initial 100,000 players paying 15$ a month, you still are making 1.5 million dollars a month.
Then you consider the fact that the developers will up the population to 500,000 by the end of the year. That will throw you $7,500,000 a month.
Believe me people, there is not a database farm this company could not pay for. They could build a population of 10 million gamers and still afford the literal farm of databases it would take to hold all these people.
Again:
Why we pay to play! (
http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/busmodels.html)
Really .. it's worth a read. ;)
Look, this is lucas arts. It's not a non-profit organisation. They're not making and running an MMORPG for a bit of a laugh or to pass the time, they want to make as much profit as they can.
Now, this sin't an RPG or SW bounty hunter. THis is an MMORPG, look at all the other MMORPGs. They're all P2P (well most are), so why shouldn't this? Besides, it's still less than DOAC and RO.