Buddy asking why we need to pay $40.00 for WoW;BC and NOT free ?

[Zorachus]

Ok, my good Buddy who got into WoW kicking and screaming, we had to buy the game for him for Christmas and the monthly pass, because he is philosophically against the principal of paying a monthly fee for a game. He thinks that a company like Blizzard that gets $105 Million per each month off us, and is most likely taking home $30-$50 Million themselves each month after paying taxes, maintenance, employees, etc...... SHould not charge so much for an expansion in his mind we have already paid for, with our monthly fees.

Please explain in your opinion why a game like WoW charges $15.00 each month, my Buddy feels, that at $4.99 would still be more than enough to handle the game cost's. He just disagrees altogether with being forced to pay each month for game, he just sees it as a sorry trend the sheep will not question, and just go ahead and dish out their little monthly payments, while the game maker's reap in Billion's, not just Million's. Since release Blizzard has collected close to $2Billion total from one single game they created = WoW !!!!!!

A game like WoW to him is the classic crack dealer on the side of the street, people are addicting and they will pay with no question's. Or my Buddy wouldnt mind the monthly fee at all, only if the original game was like $9.99 not $60.00, because they earn most their money off the fees not the main game sales ? So the expansion should be like $5.00 at most, x 7million subcribers that is still $35 Million they would get for it, and the monthly fees will more than make up for it, like I am sure they already have by now.

Opinion's

 

[Zorachus]

Well unfortunetly this monthly fee thing looks to be a trend of the future we cant escape ?

Now the big hyped up FPS first person shooter RPG from the former Blizzard/Diablo2 team they created named "Helllgate;London" will charge a monthly fee;
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/45282

 

[ivan_gromov]

if you want to /cut life game is for you. I disagree with the fact that WOW players have to pay $50 for an expansion. yes, there is a cost to the fact taht game is constantly being updated and keeping the servers online and it can be justified by a $15 monthly fee, but giving them another 50 bucks for an expansion is stupid in my opinion. Yes, most of the players will pay that fee due to a fact taht they are addicted to the game and because most of us here have extra money to spare, but if you look at it from another point of view, Blizzard is ripping you guys off

 

[Blauman]

it is quite simple really; Because They Can!

 

[Zorachus]

Some people from another forum made a couple of good point's;

- The funny thing I'm certain that Diablo 3 will do this, as well. Running servers costs money, and companies like Blizzard can make more with less people paying subscriptions than more people playing for free.

Game development costs have gone way up, retail price and sales have stayed the same. Something has to give to make ends meet.



- I guess they've found out their post launch costs are too high for running the servers and supporting the game.

If it ends up being that they only have a small charge and the single player part of the game is still substantial then hopefully it'll still be successful and worth it.

 

[Azazel90x]

How many threads have u posted about WoW? cant u put them all into one big thread or sumthin?

 

[pigwalk]

Now the big hyped up FPS first person shooter RPG from the former Blizzard/Diablo2 team they created named "Helllgate;London" will charge a monthly fee;
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/45282

GAY GAY GAY GAY

For something that's totally instanced that's totally not worth the money! At least WoW has the excuse of a world they need to upkeep.

 

[PoweredBySoy]

Well shit. You better tell your Buddy to pack his bags, because surely Blizzard is sending a limo to whisk him away to thier marketing department. He seems to have the economics of developing and maintaining a video game all figured out.

 

[ThunderGod66]

The sheer amount of content in The Burning Crusade justifies the price. There are so many new instances I don't even know where to begin. It will keep everyone busy for a long time. We've kind of been spoiled because Blizzard has given us so much content through free updates. I'm sure it cost a lot to develop all of that content. The $15 a month is supposed to pay for servers and patch fixes and all that other stuff that isn't developing.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

Bottom Line: It's their product and they can charge what they want for it. If "your buddy" doesn't like it, he doesn't have to buy it. If nobody thought it was worth the price, there wouldnt be 7,500,000 people playing it.

 

[MetalX]

To go with forum protocol I'll be the one to mention Guild Wars doesn't charge a monthly fee.

 

[ivan_gromov]

To go with forum protocol I'll be the one to mention Guild Wars doesn't charge a monthly fee.

umm, I used to love guild wars, but their stuff has been sucking lately. Factions was a waste of money, and nightfall way too short. No, guild wars no longer on the same level.

 

[AdamNesvick]

The hellgate london thing pisses me off a lil, but I'm only buying it for single player content.

I can't complain about WoW's monthly fee, due to the fact that there are few problems with it.

If EA charged a fee for Battlefield, I would be PISSED, as they provide no decent support.

 

[Zorachus]

The sheer amount of content in The Burning Crusade justifies the price. There are so many new instances I don't even know where to begin. It will keep everyone busy for a long time. We've kind of been spoiled because Blizzard has given us so much content through free updates. I'm sure it cost a lot to develop all of that content. The $15 a month is supposed to pay for servers and patch fixes and all that other stuff that isn't developing.

Man I just love this so called "FREE" updates How the frak are they free while I am paying them $15.00 per month x 7million subscribers = $105 Million each month . So it takes that $105 Million per month just to pay for servers and patch fixes

I think Blizzard are not doing these updates for free, because if they were, I would get a refund

 

[lozaning]

The hellgate london thing pisses me off a lil, but I'm only buying it for single player content.

I can't complain about WoW's monthly fee, due to the fact that there are few problems with it.

If EA charged a fee for Battlefield, I would be PISSED, as they provide no decent support.

its not that they dont provide the support, it that people host the servers. how much does ea have to pay for bandwith, power, AC, ea just makes the game then other companies host the servers

 

[CodeX]

They can charge whatever they want it's their product and in fact with all the maintenance required to run it it is in fact a service. A service that, in my opinion, is easily worth 15 bucks a month. Tell your hippie friend that service providers can charge whatever they want for their service, its called free market capitalism. If he doesn't like it he can leave the country. I think WoW is a bargain for the amount of entertainment I get out of it. If I spent as much time at the movie theaters or bars I would be spending thousands a month.

*edit* ...and furthermore what is it with all these kids today thinking that they are entitled to everything? Is it because everyone downloads music and movies and TV shows and single player games for free that now everyone thinks everything should be free? I don't even begin to understand where you get off thinking that anything worth anything should be free... Go outside and dig up a pile of dirt... thats free. This update took hundreds of man hours to create, the game uses hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars worth of resources to maintain... why would you even begin to think it should be free? what is wrong with you people?

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

To go with forum protocol I'll be the one to mention Guild Wars doesn't charge a monthly fee.

And to follow up, I'll be the one to point out that

a) the game is entirely instanced- the 'mmo' part is really just an interactive chatroom
b) they release an expansion every 6 months- at $50 a piece, thats over $8/month if you buy them all

That having been said, hellgate:london seems to be a total ripoff. Seeing as the game was never designed as an mmo, it basically looks like they're jumping on board this new microtransaction/monthly fee game. I hope customers realize what a joke paying a monthly fee for an instanced game is, but somehow I think they're gonna get away with it.

 

[Zorachus]

Why not have WoW be like CableTV, for $50.00 ya get hundreds of channels, not just one like WoW. So my Buddy thinks WoW need's to charge monthly of course but NOT $15.00 per month, what about $5.00 per month, beacuse if other games like Hellgate;London are going to charge monthly too, where does it end ? Every other top brand game charging monthly ?

 

[Naruto]

Its called quit being a cheap douchebag. MMO's are so dam cheap for entertainment for the availability of them. Lets see... $15 bucks for monthly subscription = what the fuck do you do for form of entertainment outside of the house that is much cheaper?

If your playing just once a month and feel jipped outta 15 bucks just quit already. Be glad the rates are not $30 bucks yet because people will still pay it.

And ya gimme a $15 internet and cable bill while we are at it.

 

[firebyyrd]

I'm surprised the company didn't increase the monthly rate to 30.00 monthly, and charge for the items you get in the game, and have all these additional costs,

I would love to see that happen.


quite honestly, in modern America, most teens that play these video games such as WoW CAN afford it. Either their rich parents may pay for them, or they get a little mcdonalds job and pays for their WoW.

 

[WarriorX]

If you really like a game, you will pay the money, assuming you can afford it. Most people can.

 

[pigwalk]

And to follow up, I'll be the one to point out that

a) the game is entirely instanced- the 'mmo' part is really just an interactive chatroom
.

Like Hellgate:London is supposed to be?

 

[krameriffic]

Man I just love this so called "FREE" updates How the frak are they free while I am paying them $15.00 per month x 7million subscribers = $105 Million each month . So it takes that $105 Million per month just to pay for servers and patch fixes

I think Blizzard are not doing these updates for free, because if they were, I would get a refund

I love children. So full of hope. Why don't you act on your idealism and stop talking about it?

 

[JonnyK]

Have you compared WoW with other MMO's? as far as i know most of them have a monthly fee of about the same as WoW charges and they don't patch in nearly as much content as WoW. wow has added in a bunch of new instances and items for free, where other games like EQ would probably make an entire expansion around that. This xpack is a full continent with lots of new things to do. If you don't want to pay monthly for a game then that's cool, but i'd say that warcraft is giving out much more bang for your buck than other games.

Also, by playing wow all the time, i spend less money than i would otherwise. I'd definitely buy more than $15 a month in games if i didn't have an MMO style continuous game to keep my attention.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

Personally, I wasn't looking forward to Hellgate: London. I don't think it looks very good, honestly.

 

[Igthorn]

Blizzard doesn't make $105 mill from subs. WoW in Asia is run by other companies who just pay royalties to Blizzard/Vivendi.

http://www.corp.the9.com/news/2006/news_060810.htm
"Commenting on the second quarter 2006 results, Jun Zhu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The9 Limited, said, "We are very pleased to report financial results for the second quarter 2006 with strong top line and bottom line growth. In the second quarter, Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft attained peak and average concurrent WoW users of approximately 630,000 and 330,000, respectively, in mainland China. As of June 30, 2006, over 5 million paid accounts have been activated."

So ~5-5.5 million in China. Which uses a different pricing system and Blizzard/Vivendi doesn't get 100% of the money.

 

[WarriorX]

Man I just love this so called "FREE" updates How the frak are they free while I am paying them $15.00 per month x 7million subscribers = $105 Million each month . So it takes that $105 Million per month just to pay for servers and patch fixes

I think Blizzard are not doing these updates for free, because if they were, I would get a refund

While I don't think it costs 105 million to the servers. I can assume they are working on other projects. I don't think you or anybody knows what Blizzard does with their money. As long as they produce quality products, who cares how much they get and if they all buy themselves Ferrari's

As for the whole Hellgate London being a pay for play game. You can assume it will cost 15 bucks but it hasn't been stated so who knows. It still has a nice single player(so they say). If the game is good you will pay the money, if not well they wont be getting much in subscription fees.

 

[DizzySHK]

if it doesnt seem to be worth the money, dont pay.

 

[Zorachus]

I'm surprised the company didn't increase the monthly rate to 30.00 monthly, and charge for the items you get in the game, and have all these additional costs,

I would love to see that happen.


quite honestly, in modern America, most teens that play these video games such as WoW CAN afford it. Either their rich parents may pay for them, or they get a little mcdonalds job and pays for their WoW.

My Buddy makes a very good living, has a killer computer, nice cars, nice house, etc......

He can afford the monthly fee like it is one penny, that is not the point at all your just not getting He is against a the idea of a company raping their clients, when they collect $105 Million per month from all of us combined, he just find's it funny in a sad way that all the sheep put up with it, and dont even question the principal of the drug addict scam we are all involved.

It's like a drug user explaining to non druggies his crack habit isnt that bad, and that he is getting a good price from the dealer, shit I would even pay more for that good crack, he treats me well, and sells me the good stuff

Ya just dont get his point, that at $15.00 is NOT what is needed to run the game and make money. He laughs at the idea of people trying to rationalize how much it cost's and that the $105 Million per month just about get's the bills paid for Blizzard, and maybe have enough left at the end of the month to buy a pizza. No they have enough left over to buy a small country, they are making $50 Million easily a month, and I love how no MMORPG maker ever discuss details in interviews about costs's and stuff, they dont want the gamers to know the real truth.

What would be the big deal about telling us approx how much it really cost's to maintain, run, and pay for Wow every month, I dont need perfect details, I would just like to know that. John carmack is open about what Doom]l[ cost or Valve about HalfLife2 saying approx $40 Million to create. We know what sports players make per year, or how much a profit a Muscian made off an album and tour. Movies budgets are easy to find, and how much they made, it is not top secret. I think if players really knew how much Blizzard really makes at the end of the day, there would be an outcray for lower monthly payments to stop being so greedy.

 

[Zorachus]

Have you compared WoW with other MMO's? as far as i know most of them have a monthly fee of about the same as WoW charges and they don't patch in nearly as much content as WoW. wow has added in a bunch of new instances and items for free, where other games like EQ would probably make an entire expansion around that. This xpack is a full continent with lots of new things to do. If you don't want to pay monthly for a game then that's cool, but i'd say that warcraft is giving out much more bang for your buck than other games.

Also, by playing wow all the time, i spend less money than i would otherwise. I'd definitely buy more than $15 a month in games if i didn't have an MMO style continuous game to keep my attention.

New instances and items for FREE ? Ok, when did they come out for free ? I just dont get how people can rationalize their addiction, do you not pay $15.00 per month plus $50.00 for the game, I dont think they gave ya an instance for being nice, well except nice enough to keep paying their bill's

 

[PoweredBySoy]

Personally, I wasn't looking forward to Hellgate: London. I don't think it looks very good, honestly.

I'm with Mark on this. I watched a developer interview a couple months back showcasing this game, and I honestly don't see what the fuss is all about. If it ends up being awesome, that's great. But as of now it didn't look like it's the killer app it's hyped to be.

*edit* ...and furthermore what is it with all these kids today thinking that they are entitled to everything? Is it because everyone downloads music and movies and TV shows and single player games for free that now everyone thinks everything should be free? I don't even begin to understand where you get off thinking that anything worth anything should be free... Go outside and dig up a pile of dirt... thats free. This update took hundreds of man hours to create, the game uses hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars worth of resources to maintain... why would you even begin to think it should be free? what is wrong with you people?

God I love you.

 

[KidzMD]

My Buddy makes a very good living, has a killer computer, nice cars, nice house, etc......

He can afford the monthly fee like it is one penny, that is not the point at all your just not getting

So what does your buddy do since he seems to make such a great living? I'm sure it's something where all his clients, patients, etc...feel he's justly compensated and not overpaid at all...

As for the price, looking at other entertainment options I feel $15 is fair. Given the amount of content and time you get for the amount, it's probably one of the better deals available. A movie is $10 for 2 hours, a professional sports event $20-80 for a couple of hours, concerts are typically $30+. For $15 you can play all you want.

And why can't Blizzard make a tidy profit? At the end of the day, they're a company and that's what companies do...make money. They didn't design this game out of the bottom of their hearts, they did it to make money, and that's what they're doing. I'm also guessing that once you look at hardware, leases, personnel, insurance, lawyers, benefits, development, etc...the costs are more than your buddy thinks.

 

[HK41251]

My Buddy makes a very good living, has a killer computer, nice cars, nice house, etc......

He can afford the monthly fee like it is one penny, that is not the point at all your just not getting He is against a the idea of a company raping their clients, when they collect $105 Million per month from all of us combined, he just find's it funny in a sad way that all the sheep put up with it, and dont even question the principal of the drug addict scam we are all involved.

It's like a drug user explaining to non druggies his crack habit isnt that bad, and that he is getting a good price from the dealer, shit I would even pay more for that good crack, he treats me well, and sells me the good stuff

Ya just dont get his point, that at $15.00 is NOT what is needed to run the game and make money. He laughs at the idea of people trying to rationalize how much it cost's and that the $105 Million per month just about get's the bills paid for Blizzard, and maybe have enough left at the end of the month to buy a pizza. No they have enough left over to buy a small country, they are making $50 Million easily a month, and I love how no MMORPG maker ever discuss details in interviews about costs's and stuff, they dont want the gamers to know the real truth.

What would be the big deal about telling us approx how much it really cost's to maintain, run, and pay for Wow every month, I dont need perfect details, I would just like to know that. John carmack is open about what Doom]l[ cost or Valve about HalfLife2 saying approx $40 Million to create. We know what sports players make per year, or how much a profit a Muscian made off an album and tour. Movies budgets are easy to find, and how much they made, it is not top secret. I think if players really knew how much Blizzard really makes at the end of the day, there would be an outcray for lower monthly payments to stop being so greedy.

They made the game so they get to reap the benefits of what they created. Monthly fees for games werent created just when WoW was made. There were quite a few more games before hand which had monthly fees. And lets take EQ for example, as someone already pointed out, they have had several expansion packs already released and each one had a price point attributed to them on top of the monthly fees. It is NOT a new thing.

The big issue which keeps you coming back and posting is that your "buddy" isnt one of the types of people who enjoys pay-to-play gaming. Its an entirely different breed of gaming than anything else out there. The bottom line is that there are going to be people who dont like to pay-to-play, and several others who do enjoy the game and are willing to cope with the system in order to obtain the entertainment they desire. So im not entirely sure what you hope to accomplish by posting this on here.

I myself like the pay-to-play system. As others have posted, its a better entertainment to cost ratio than other things out there. My problem is at the current moment ive quit WoW for over a year now since playing from launch and im trying to find another game to pay-to-play. Generally the pay-to-play system has much more entertainment than other games.

 

[johnked24]

Ya just dont get his point, that at $15.00 is NOT what is needed to run the game and make money. He laughs at the idea of people trying to rationalize how much it cost's and that the $105 Million per month just about get's the bills paid for Blizzard, and maybe have enough left at the end of the month to buy a pizza. No they have enough left over to buy a small country, they are making $50 Million easily a month, and I love how no MMORPG maker ever discuss details in interviews about costs's and stuff, they dont want the gamers to know the real truth.

You act like $15 a month is abnormal for mmo's. That is the average price for an mmo. Whether your subsribing to Everquest, Everquest 2, Daoc, Planetside, Anarachy Online, Star Wars, or any other mmo your gonna pay around $15 a month.

Of course they make a profit, but they maintain professional servers not free servers like CS or BF. These servers dont just track stats, and can be down or hacked whenever they like. They have to keep track of thousands of inventory items, stats, equipment, levels, etc. from millions of players. All that hard drive space, reliability of information, and security costs money. If you spend 20 hours getting X uber item, and that item gets accidently deleted, I don't think you'd be too happy. They have to track all that for millions of players.

Not to mention the game world is a lot larger, they need massiver servers and bandwidth to create an online world where 1000's of players play simultaneously.

Plus they give free content every 1-2 months in the form of patches, that improve the game and introduce new dungeons, items, etc.

When you spend $60 on Fear or Prey you get a nice game for around 7 hours, then maybe several hours in multiplayer. After that your sol, no new content unless you want to spend $30 on the next expansion pack.

$50 for the Wow expansion pack will net you hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours of gaming.

It's all relative, but when you compare mmo's to other games, they just can't compete when it comes to dollars to hours spent ratio.

 

[Zorachus]

WoW ya guys/gals just dont get I guess...... My whole point is not that anyone cant afford the measily $15.00 per monthly fee of course we all can, it is just asking why is it that much per month, who came up with that fee plan ? The marketing department did because they know that is the limit of what people will play. But do the frigging math, at $15.00 per month times 7 Million subscribers that is approx $105 Million each month they collect from us, x 12months that is over $1 Billion in a single year

No way in cold hell the main game, the expansion, plus all the monthly maintance, cost's to run the game, servers, pay employees, taxes, costs anywhere even close to $1 Billion dollars, not even 20% of that. Blizzard will never release how much the cost's of the game are to run WoW, because they would be scared to death for people to really know how much they are really making, and how much this game is to run. But movies budgets are freely open to the public, or what a sports star makes per year, or a pop star and what they charge for concert tour's and how much they take home is easy to find

My point again is that it just does not need to charge us $15.00, they could easily still make a boat load of cash and still pay for the whole behind the scenes stuff for like $5.00 per month, because if every new game to come out soon starts charging us $15.00 per month to play Hellgate;London this will get out of hand soon, and actually back fire on these greedy businesses

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

WoW ya guys/gals just dont get I guess...... My whole point is not that anyone cant afford the measily $15.00 per monthly fee of course we all can, it is just asking why is it that much per month, who came up with that fee plan ? The marketing department did because they know that is the limit of what people will play. But do the frigging math, at $15.00 per month times 7 Million subscribers that is approx $105 Million each month they collect from us, x 12months that is over $1 Billion in a single year

No way in cold hell the main game, the expansion, plus all the monthly maintance, cost's to run the game, servers, pay employees, taxes, costs anywhere even close to $1 Billion dollars, not even 20% of that. Blizzard will never release how much the cost's of the game are to run WoW, because they would be scared to death for people to really know how much they are really making, and how much this game is to run. But movies budgets are freely open to the public, or what a sports star makes per year, or a pop star and what they charge for concert tour's and how much they take home is easy to find

My point again is that it just does not need to charge us $15.00, they could easily still make a boat load of cash and still pay for the whole behind the scenes stuff for like $5.00 per month, because if every new game to come out soon starts charging us $15.00 per month to play Hellgate;London this will get out of hand soon, and actually back fire on these greedy businesses

Your argument is that blizzard is making tons of money and could theoretically charge less to still turn a profit. A lot of people are conversely arguing that $15 is more than justified for the amount of entertainment you get out of it. Neither argument in any way refutes the other. They made a highly successful game that obviously a lot of people feel is worth the cost. They're not tricking you or forcing you to pay it.

Look, the amount of money that blizzard makes off the game in no way dirrectly affects you. The only part that does is when you pay the $15 a month to play the game. Most people don't really care, frankly, how much blizzard makes.

 

[PoweredBySoy]

So you're saying..... no, I'm sorry.... your buddy is saying that even though Blizzard is charging the industry standard for an MMO subscription, that just because they built a hugely successful game - they should lower the price out of good will??

That even though fine gentleman like yourself, with your smokin' hot wives and 3-car garages, can easily afford the standard $15, you really shouldn't have to.... because, in your opinion, Blizzard is making enough money already?

How could I have been blind for so long? BURN BLIZZARD BURN.

 

[tickle_me_emo]

I just hope they keep battle.net free.

 

[Elios]

the game it self - the exp pack is 20 bucks now btw and im sure in few months that the exp pack will get bundled with the main game just like with the last on for FFXI and it will cost 25-30 just like what happed with FFXI

i now play both FFXI and WoW mostly FFXI though

if you want a cheap MMO try FFXI the game and all 3 exp packs are like 20 bucks now and its $13/m (though unlike WoW more chara slots cost $1 more a month but you can play all jobs with one chara)


but hell look at how many exp packs EQ has had i have lost count if them

50 is a bit much for an add on no way around that ill just hold off on it till its like 20 bucks

 

[dotK]

Why are they charging $40 for the expansion? Because they can. WoW is extremely popular and there are a lot of things in TBC that a lot of people are really looking forward to. Thus, they don't mind spending money for the additional content. Blizzard knows this, and priced TBC accordingly.

The cost of maintaining WoW is astronomical. I'd bet the monthly power bill is well over $1M. An enormous amount of bandwidth is used and while it's cheaper in bulk, bandwidth can still be pretty expensive when you're using a ton of it. The game servers and database servers have to be backed up every few minutes in case something bad happens so a lot of data needs to be backed up very quickly. The hardware itself costs many millions to support each realm.

WoW is not a couple Core 2 Duos in a basement somewhere.