MMORPG: To pay, or not to pay?
By kadrean
@kadrean (38)
December 18, 2006 12:32pm CST
Hey all!
I was recently talking about the prices of some MMORPGs' monthly pay. For example, World of Warcraft, which is one of the largest online gaming communities to date, I believe?
Can you imagine how much these guys are making a month?
With their £14.99 a month subscription payment (correct me if I'm wrong! :P) for each member, and there's a lot of them - a fair few million, I'd say - that'd be tons of wonga they're taking in just for that month!
Where does this money go, and to what end? How is it spread among the gaming community, if at all, and how much of it funds further add-ons, staff members, graphics/physics engine(s), etc?
2 responses
@sedel1027 (17846)
• Cupertino, California
18 Dec 06
The monthly fee goes to weekly updates to the game, future expansions, the staff the must keep to have 24/7 customer support, servers, the power they use, email accounts, programmers and the list goes on.
In the US the fee is $14.95/month. Not sure what it would be where you are. Have you thought about other games like Guild Wars where you buy the game and play for free, but you must pay for any expansions?
@kadrean (38)
•
18 Dec 06
Yeah, see, that's what I thought. I guess I got a bit bedazzled by the fact that like, $15 x 3 million x 12 (for a year's subscription) is a ton of money I'd certainly like! :D
I've actually played through GW multiple times before I got bored of it and sold it on eBay. My Uncle's into WoW and other monthly-fee games like that, which is what caused me to start this discussion!
Cheers for your input!
@ShatterOfDreams (824)
• United States
21 Dec 06
There's always alternatives if you don't want to pay however. Although it's aged Diablo 2 is always fun to play. Guild Wars also isn't bad for a free to play game without subscriptions. You just have to buy the expansions instead for that one.
@Ryenjo (63)
• Brazil
25 Jun 07
Its around 8 million players...
And yes, its a whole bunch of money, and unfortunately, it makes extremely dificult for people like me, who lives in south america to pay a monthly fee that costs that much expensive. But i gotta tell you, sometimes its worth it...but those ones are extremely rare.
