LOL sounds like it came right of the WoW forums.
WoW users are a rather loyal bunch and will rabidly defend their precious game, irregardless of the evidence presented to them.
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Buddy asking why we need to pay $40.00 for WoW;BC and NOT free ?
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LOL sounds like it came right of the WoW forums.
WoW users are a rather loyal bunch and will rabidly defend their precious game, irregardless of the evidence presented to them.
as i and another person said the game is 20 bucks now
think of it like this 15 of that "pays" for the "free" first month and 5 covers the the media
that make you happy now?
heres the cool part thay also give you 5 keys for trial accounts to give out if one of them is upgreaded to the full ver and pays there first month you get a free month
thanks to that + a prepaided 60day card i dont have to pay JUNE
and i only spent 50 upfront
thats less then 10 bucks a month and effectively made the game it self free
think of it like this 15 of that "pays" for the "free" first month and 5 covers the the media
that make you happy now?
heres the cool part thay also give you 5 keys for trial accounts to give out if one of them is upgreaded to the full ver and pays there first month you get a free month
thanks to that + a prepaided 60day card i dont have to pay JUNE
and i only spent 50 upfront
thats less then 10 bucks a month and effectively made the game it self free
What evidence? I see speculation (and poor speculation at that), and that's about it.
HaMMerHeD
[H]F Junkie
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It is extremely pointless to debate or gripe about whether or not World of Warcraft, or any other pay-for-play game, should actually be charging their fees. The fact is that they DO charge, and they're not going to stop just because some people in some forum keep bitching about it. The other fact is that nobody is forcing anybody to play to damned game in the first place.
Also, one thing you need to consider, is blizzard does NOT get $15 a month from wow subscriptions. $15 is the base price, if you buy in bulk, it goes down to around $13 a month. Now, as we all know, credit card companies charge a fee for processing payments, so of that $13-15 blizzard charges, they get around $11-13 from it after processing fees.
And now they need to use that to pay for developers, GMs, tech support, billing support, forum moderaters, web designers.... And then of course you have the servers and bandwidth.
Is blizzard making a ton of money from wow? Of course its a cash cow. But they are not making billions of dollars like the OP wants to assume. When running an MMO there is a lot more involed in ways of support and on going maintenance than when you produce a singleplayer game. $50 would never cover blizzards costs on WOW. The monthly fee is what keeps them going. If vivendi could not make a profit from WOW, it woulda been shut down a long long time ago.... You pay for cable TV, you pay for HBO if you want movies... if you want an MMO, nothing changes, you pay...
And now they need to use that to pay for developers, GMs, tech support, billing support, forum moderaters, web designers.... And then of course you have the servers and bandwidth.
Is blizzard making a ton of money from wow? Of course its a cash cow. But they are not making billions of dollars like the OP wants to assume. When running an MMO there is a lot more involed in ways of support and on going maintenance than when you produce a singleplayer game. $50 would never cover blizzards costs on WOW. The monthly fee is what keeps them going. If vivendi could not make a profit from WOW, it woulda been shut down a long long time ago.... You pay for cable TV, you pay for HBO if you want movies... if you want an MMO, nothing changes, you pay...
After all this bitching and arguing, the argument comes down to NOTHING SOLVED because Blizzard will still continue to LET PEOPLE PAY $5/10/15 FOR THEIR SERVICE because they ARE MAKING A LOT OF MONEY AND THE 99% OF THE CUSTOMERS DO NOT CARE WHAT THEY CHARGE, OBVIOUSLY.
If you buy it, not buy it, bitch about it, or do nothing about it, BLIZZARD WILL CONTINUE TO DO WHAT THEY DO. They don't care what you have to say because remember, money runs the world.
Just end this pointless thread and argument (and quit posting about it!!). Blizzard surely isn't going to read it anyhow so what's it going to solve?
That's right... nothing. Arguing in this thread is like watching a soap opera.
If you buy it, not buy it, bitch about it, or do nothing about it, BLIZZARD WILL CONTINUE TO DO WHAT THEY DO. They don't care what you have to say because remember, money runs the world.
Just end this pointless thread and argument (and quit posting about it!!). Blizzard surely isn't going to read it anyhow so what's it going to solve?
That's right... nothing. Arguing in this thread is like watching a soap opera.
Zwitterion
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Hi capitalism!
I don't even need to read this thread. Welcome to America.
I don't even need to read this thread. Welcome to America.
"nuff" said? That doesn't say anything. That cartoon is completely ignoring the entertainment aspect of tthe game. You could just as easily say:
"So, you take your real money and spend it on a movie to spend 2 hours in a fake reality and when it is over you have gained nothing."
"So, you take your real money and spend it on tickets to a sporting event to live vicariously through other people who you worship for their sports playing abilities even though they are more than likely assholes in real life"
:"So, you take your real money and spend it on music that lets you escape reality for 3 minutes at a time, but in the end you are right back where you started"
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Do you see how stupid that all sounds? It's exactly the same thing that cartoon is trying to say about online games. It seems funny and clever to morons who don't put any more thought into it other than what they are spoon fed by it.
In case you missed it ... I believe that cartoon was intended as a joke.
What makes you think it was a joke? Nothing in the cartoon or in the post it was in indicated to me that it was a joke. Yeah, its a cartoon, so its supposed to be funny, but it's at the expense of MMO gamers.
The original question was:
It wasn't about any "argument".
My opinion is that it the expansions should be free, but I'm not terribly bothered by the thought of having to put down some sort of intitial payment, either. Forty bones is no small chunk of change for what you're getting, though.
Its funny ... cause its true.
In defense of Penny Arcade that comic was posted out of context that comic is about buying currency for an online game with real money in currency exchange, not paying monthly fees, Gabe and Tycho have a HUGE WoW clan and have had WoW accounts since it began.
By the way I'v never played wow never will I play City of Heroes casualy cause my friends and I do plan on getting Warhammer online and paying for it and enjoying the fuck out of it.
I am a ravivd PE fan though hence the defense of their comic.
As to this thread if you reall want to talk about big bad companies fucking the little look at the oil industry not the game industry (and for the lvoe of god stop talking as if its blizzard that sets the price points and controls all the aspects of WoW its Vivendi )
By the way I'v never played wow never will I play City of Heroes casualy cause my friends and I do plan on getting Warhammer online and paying for it and enjoying the fuck out of it.
I am a ravivd PE fan though hence the defense of their comic.
As to this thread if you reall want to talk about big bad companies fucking the little look at the oil industry not the game industry (and for the lvoe of god stop talking as if its blizzard that sets the price points and controls all the aspects of WoW its Vivendi )
krameriffic
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Never say "irregardless".
And I haven't played World of Warcraft since July 2005. You are the opposite of the people who defend the game steadfastly: you are a person who hates things for their popularity, a contrarian.
He can afford the monthly fee like it is one penny, that is not the point at all your just not getting
Tell your "buddy" oir yourself to go do some reading on what a captialistic society is, and what that means in an economic way. Blizzard isnt there to let you play a nice game, they are there to make money. If you dont like the service, dont pay the fee. Otherwise, pay the fee and quit bitching about it.
I don't care if you are for or against a pay for play game. If you don't like it, then don't buy the game. Thats what I did and my roommates did, we never bought WoW and the like.
If paying $15 is bad, then geez look at all those who are probably playing online right now.
Last time I checked we were in America and are free to choose. Its not like Blizzard is forcing you to pay to play WoW.
If paying $15 is bad, then geez look at all those who are probably playing online right now.
Last time I checked we were in America and are free to choose. Its not like Blizzard is forcing you to pay to play WoW.
WoW isnt the first game that has an expansion,WoW isnt the first game with monthly fees,i dont see why ppl make such a big fuss over stuff like this,if you want to play games without monthly fees your stuck with crapy servers,bad support (i know WoW`s support isnt that great).
and CHEATERS,dupers and whatnot.
i dont mind paying 15 bucks a month to avoid most of those things.
and CHEATERS,dupers and whatnot.
i dont mind paying 15 bucks a month to avoid most of those things.
I play Never Winter Nights, it is an RPG, that can be played as a single player game, a CoOp LAN game, or an Online RPG, with some persistant servers, also the company BioWare still patches the game or did for a few years after release, with added content, fixes, and servers a free hosted. And their expansions were only like $29.00.
I agree that WoW is much larger and more invloved than NwN, and need's a monthly fee, but take away the 10,000+ players on each server the game are very similiar, and like my Buddy say's who cares about 10,000 players in the game, it's not like ya can actually talk to all 10,000 players at once anyway's. We wish Blizzard made a CoOp version of WoW for like five players or so, with no monthly fee, just play it as a large single player CoOp game
well they would put ads in... just like cable TV
Not too many commercial's on the pay for view channels, and my Buddies point about cable is that ya pay a monthly fee to watch multiple station's not just one you get hundred's and the cost to produce each show on those channles is not cheap x how many different channles ya get for like $50.00, and there is no upfront cost like buying the WoW game for $60.00, most cable companies give ya the box and install for free, because they make their money on the monthly fee, not the setup, just like WoW.
But does it have to be $15.00? Creating an account isn't cheap either since you have to buy the game at full price too. The development cost should already be covered. And considering how many players there are, how much do you think is actually needed to maintain one?
As for the expansion, it shouldn't be that expensive either, the development tools are already in place, additional development costs should be minimal unless they actually rewrote the engine.
You guys are missing the point. YES it has to be 15 dollars. Why? Because Vivendi Universal did market research and determined that 15 dollars a month will result in the highest profit. There is a magical point where you are making as much as you possibly can, any lower and you are losing money because the price is too low, any higher and you are losing money because fewer people will pay it. You hit a point of diminishing returns as you go up in price (its been a long time since I've taken economics, I don't remember any of the actual terms for this).
IT DOESN'T MATTER ONE BIT if they could run the game off 5 dollars a month or 10 dollars a month or whatever. WoW exists for one reason and one reason alone: to put money in the pockets of the people responsible for it. Don't like it? Make a competing product and charge less for it, that is called capitalism. PERIOD
*edit* Actually, I am missing the point. I am arguing with what are more than likely 10-15 year olds who don't understand how the world works and who, even if you tell them, will ignore you anyway..
Thank's for the smart answer, you are someone that acutally understand's what I am trying to say. Which is that YES the company needs to make money of course, and that it should NOT be free, but come one $15.00 per month is a ripoff, and not that I cant afford it, that is not the point. Again theexpasnion should easily have been paid for by all these monthly payment's so far, the cost of an expansion is far less than the main game, so in c couple month's worth of month;y fees the BC has already been recouped, why not sell it for like $9.99 instead ?
I
*edit* Actually, I am missing the point. I am arguing with what are more than likely 10-15 year olds who don't understand how the world works and who, even if you tell them, will ignore you anyway..
I help run a very succesful building supply business, and I am very lucky enough to have brought myself up through the rank's to earn a very respectable living, thank you.
Yes we are supposed to make money #1, but also my Boss is a very religious eastern European and she also does NOT like us to rip off the customer's even if we can, she would rather more ethical and make money in the long term, than be a millionair over night = your business will last longer this way, than going for the quick buck. We have been in business for quite awhile
"I work at Lowes as a cashier..."
"I got employee of the month with a 10 cent raise last year!"
There is not enough competition in that market. If there was you would have no "wiggle room" with your prices. Prices would be determined by the competition and the demand for the product. You can't charge people less than you have to to keep your head above water. Your profit margins should be driven down as far possible by the competition, forcing price regulation or business failure. Please tell me where you work so I can make sure to not invest in it, if you are in a position of real power in the corporation anyways.
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