Curse

thunderai · Dec 18, 2007, 06:39 PM // 18:39

My borther and I worked this math out some time ago. Although price should not be the main factor in playing an MMO because they are so different.

Consider the following for each business model. You purchase every expansion that comes out, you purchase every monthly fee that comes out and you are hopelesly additiced to the game and play as often as possible:

World of Warcraft (or any subscription base)

Base Program Costs $40 with 1 month free
monthly fee is $15, for a total of $165 per year

WoW then costs a total of $205 per year assuming they come out with an expansion every year.

Guild Wars

Program costs $100 (2 per year)
NO monthly fee

Guild Wars then costs $100 per year.

Wow is $8.75 per month more expensive than Guild Wars. The question you need to ask yourself is: Is the quality difference between the two games worthy of $8.75? Is there a quality difference?

you make your choice from there.

Bryant Again · Dec 18, 2007, 06:42 PM // 18:42

I've actually spent only 40 bucks more on WoW than I have in Guild Wars : ( I even played WoW a month earlier.

Fril Estelin · Dec 18, 2007, 06:58 PM // 18:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

I've actually spent only 40 bucks more on WoW than I have in Guild Wars : ( I even played WoW a month earlier.

Could you explain how so? How long did you play? Did you pay your subscription each month? And so on.

On my previous calculations, I realised that they're all false because I didn't take into account that to make a valid comparison you have to take the price when the games were released, and not now (because if you buy everyhint now, you only have to pay one month of subscription for WoW

). That may reduce the %gain, but not change its direction. GW is cheaper than Wow. And if you add the no-addiction (it's all emotive, not tied to your bank account), but subtract the few problematic situations, GW is a winner through its business model IMHO.

GrimEye · Dec 18, 2007, 07:21 PM // 19:21

With subscriptions rate, a player seems to be "obligated" to spend time on the game so we can feel our money's worth. There is also the idea that if you stop paying, you cant access the game. So what happens to all the time and money you spent in past? Subscription models says, not our problem.

With GW, this sense of "obligation" to play is greatly eased. If we get bored or ragequit for something anet did, we can just stop playing. Good thing is, if one decides to play again after a month or a year, your toon is still there and can play again ANYTIME with no hassle at all. If you come back after a year, you even get bday gift.

What I like about GW model is not really the financial issues, but the responsible gaming habit it encourages. It is not an essential as like paying monthly for electricity and water. GW model reminds us what GW is: a game.

GW model has its priority in the right direction.

Mordakai · Dec 18, 2007, 07:26 PM // 19:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by thunderai

My borther and I worked this math out some time ago. Although price should not be the main factor in playing an MMO because they are so different.

Consider the following for each business model. You purchase every expansion that comes out, you purchase every monthly fee that comes out and you are hopelesly additiced to the game and play as often as possible:

World of Warcraft (or any subscription base)

Base Program Costs $40 with 1 month free
monthly fee is $15, for a total of $165 per year

WoW then costs a total of $205 per year assuming they come out with an expansion every year.

Guild Wars

Program costs $100 (2 per year)
NO monthly fee

Guild Wars then costs $100 per year.

Wow is $8.75 per month more expensive than Guild Wars. The question you need to ask yourself is: Is the quality difference between the two games worthy of $8.75? Is there a quality difference?

you make your choice from there.

Two problems with that: Anet only released two products in a year once, in 2006 the year of Factions and Nightfall.

2005 was just Guild Wars. 2007 was just GWEN.

Abnaxus · Dec 18, 2007, 07:56 PM // 19:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by lyra_song

Abanaxus wants the power to cancel his account. He can't do that to GW.

No matter how pissed he gets, GW will always be there. I think thats what irritates him.

Abanaxus: "Screw this shit, im leaving"
Anet: "Um...ok. No problem. We have your money. Bai bai~"
Abanaxus: "Grrr...aren't you even sorry?! Won't you try to gain me back?"
Anet: "Um...you can leave, but we'll always welcome you back. Its up to you."

"Irritated" is wrong, "cancel account" is wrong.

I'm not discussing about ragequitting because of skill nerf and stuff like that.
I'm discussing about commercial issues, about a commercial relationship between a buyer and a vendor.
And about the fundamentals of our commercial relationship with A.net/NC.

I'm an A.net customer, and not a one-time customer.
I, and like me many others here on this forum, have a continuative commercial relationship with A.net/NC.
We're not like someone who stops at a fuel station on the motorway in the middle of nowhere, buys some oil and hamburgers, and then will never come there for years.

Despite this, the current business model excludes the basic possibility to use the economic power that every continuative customer should have.

In a pay-to-use, if you stop paying for the fee this is a damage for the suppliers.
They can accept this damage, consider it not important, and then lose forever relationship with their customer, or try to do some action to recover.

In GW business model, things are worse than what you said.
If you stop playing, they can only be happy because you don't use their bandwith and server resources.
It's actually an economical advantage for them.

And what's the problem for them for the future, what's the problem if "maybe" someone will not buy something from them after 6 months, or GW2 after 2 years?!?!
LOL 2 years, how can they give importance to the fact that "maybe" they will have some kind of economical damage after 2 years?

lyra_song · Dec 18, 2007, 08:38 PM // 20:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abnaxus

LOL 2 years, how can they give importance to the fact that "maybe" they will have some kind of economical damage after 2 years?

They would have added a newer and better product to continue the franchise seeded by the original first release. Simple as that. You don't sit on your laurels, no matter how successful you are. Its always the next big thing. You continue to maintain business with customers you gained through the initial product with merchandise, added items, etc in the meantime between big releases.

Its like...TCG games and booster pack sets. It never ends as long as theres interest, because there will always be more and more product. At the the same time, each new release differentiates itself with new unique cards, but at the same time is fully compatible with all previous cards. This allows backwards as well a forwards collections of cards. Then theres plushies, a cartoon, toys, comics, etc thats built on characters and such from the franchise.

Thats how you build a profitable brand.

Mordakai · Dec 18, 2007, 08:44 PM // 20:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abnaxus

I'm an A.net customer, and not a one-time customer.
I, and like me many others here on this forum, have a continuative commercial relationship with A.net/NC.

LOL 2 years, how can they give importance to the fact that "maybe" they will have some kind of economical damage after 2 years?

I think you answered your own questions...

Many of us are continuative users. If we collectively stop buying Anet products, then Anet will notice.

It forces Anet to make the best products they can, and to update them when problems arise. While everyone can find something to complain about, I don't think many here will claim they are not worth the price.

Bryant Again · Dec 18, 2007, 09:06 PM // 21:06

Quote:

Could you explain how so? How long did you play? Did you pay your subscription each month? And so on.

GW = Proph x2 ($90, no extra char slots at the time), Factions ($50), Nightfall C. Edition ($70), GW:EN ($40), GOTY Upgrade ($5) = $255

WoW = WoW Account ($30), Burning Crusade ($30), 3rd Billing Plan x 3 ($77.99 every 6 months = $234) = $294

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordakai

I don't think many here will claim they are not worth the price.

In terms of GW:EN, I'm not too sure. But the BMP evens it out (but it shouldn't have to in the first place.)

Just me talking, though.

Unreal Havoc · Dec 18, 2007, 10:39 PM // 22:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenix

GW has (apparently) around 1 million players currently active. If those players were paying even $10 a month on a subscription (which is the same as a chapter every 6 months), it would give Anet constant income, which would allow them to concentrate on bigger and better expansions, rather than one every 6 months. It would also mean that they would get money every month, as well as selling the expansions, which would be even more.

It's silly NOT to have subscriptions, tbh.

Just the cost of buying the game alone and the amount of people that have actually brought it would support the game itself I reckon.

I think they make more than enough money from the other games they develop. The fact they don't sit there day in day out updating this, adding that, tweaking this, patching that (to the extent of subscribed MMOs anyway) allows for them to make a game like this free to play online at minimal cost to the company, making up that cost from the millions of subscriptions they have from other games.

Quite simply put, Guild Wars compared to other MMOs, due to the nature of the game, is alot easier to run and maintain than your standard traditional MMO game. The benefits of this? Less cost to run and maintain.

Unreal Havoc · Dec 18, 2007, 10:40 PM // 22:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

GW = Proph x2 ($90, no extra char slots at the time), Factions ($50), Nightfall C. Edition ($70), GW:EN ($40), GOTY Upgrade ($5) = $255

WoW = WoW Account ($30), Burning Crusade ($30), 3rd Billing Plan x 3 ($77.99 every 6 months = $234) = $294

In terms of GW:EN, I'm not too sure. But the BMP evens it out (but it shouldn't have to in the first place.)

Just me talking, though.

Over two to three years you will still be paying more for WoW than you will be for Guild Wars due to the subscription cost of WoW.

Mordakai · Dec 18, 2007, 10:46 PM // 22:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

In terms of GW:EN, I'm not too sure. But the BMP evens it out (but it shouldn't have to in the first place.)

Just me talking, though.

I actually considereed that, and IMO, GWEN only seems less value compared to other Guild Wars products.

If you just take GWEN and compare it to another generic $40 game, than to me, it's worth it. (not that it's a fair comparison, but...)

Martin Firestorm · Dec 18, 2007, 10:47 PM // 22:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abnaxus

Despite the fact that A.net representatives claim their busines model to be "unique", they actually use both the mentioned systems.

When we buy a new campaign or expansion, we buy "special moves" that in GW case are skills.
PvP players could stick to the "special moves" of one campaign forever, but this is not very likely. To stay competitive, it's more reasonable they buy all new "special moves" as soon as they become available with a new campaign/expansion.

********************

For the reasons above, I'd prefer GW2 to be subscription based.

A bunch of semantics, nothing more. You're post is way too long. Maybe there was some decent argument in the bulk of it that I couldn't make myself read, but I doubt it. You're last line says it all. You're clueless--you seem to have no idea how important the lack of a subscription has been to the success of GW. Its s good game, but you wouldn't even be playing it now if it was subscription based becasue it would've failed a few months after prophecies was released.

P.S.: continuative?

Fril Estelin · Dec 18, 2007, 11:32 PM // 23:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abnaxus

the basic possibility to use the economic power

Let's stop at this particular and exact point of your exposé. The money you gave was not given under coercion, no one forced you to do it and you knew what you were doing at this time, even though you're sort-of implying that you didn't know at that time what would come (and this would be wrongfully tied to the argument that "everything that is released after that is part of the package", this is commercially and legally void).

Your "economic power" was to not buy the subsequent games. And you'd want more from a no-monthly-fee MMO? If so, you're the one that is to blame in all this, your idea to introduce monthly-fee to artificially have this "power" (double-quote intended) is uterly ridiculous.

Just be realistic for a moment: if you so much want this power, go to WoW; if you don't like WoW, try other alternatives such as Tabula Rasa (and there are much more comming, I heard of Age of Conan and so many others). Because GW with monthly-fee will NEVER happen, not in this world, there's no business model (in the comprehensive sense, as you highlighted before) behind it. Gw's business model is great for its community, we all cope with the aspects that so much annoy you.

Quote:

In GW business model, things are worse than what you said.
If you stop playing, they can only be happy because you don't use their bandwith and server resources.
It's actually an economical advantage for them.

Don't you see the fallacy you're writing here? They've created the no-monthly-fee so that we don't get addicted, which means that their bandwidth will not be full, so unless you convince everyone to stop playing GW, you won't change a thing on their side: they have the money with which they're paying the server companies. If they have to pay them less, it's all benefit to them, isnt' it?

CHannum · Dec 18, 2007, 11:56 PM // 23:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abnaxus

In GW business model, things are worse than what you said.
If you stop playing, they can only be happy because you don't use their bandwith and server resources.
It's actually an economical advantage for them.

And what's the problem for them for the future, what's the problem if "maybe" someone will not buy something from them after 6 months, or GW2 after 2 years?!?!
LOL 2 years, how can they give importance to the fact that "maybe" they will have some kind of economical damage after 2 years?

You seem to be operating under the delusion that the "immediate" feedback of a subscription system is actually any faster at indicating something developers can do something about.

If you've got a popular game, you've got new accounts starting up and old ones going stagnant all the time. No matter what sort of screw up developers make, it will be ages before it has any impact on new accounts since word of mouth of this sort among those not already part of a game community is slow to nonexistent. At the same time, drop off will not be immediate either. Many will hang on to their accounts under the hope that things will be fixed, others will just feel like they've got to get a little more value out of all the time/money they've already sunk into the game, and others just won't care enough to quit. In other words, short of a developer who implements a mission that everybody has to play within a week or have their character deleted, a mission with a 1% success rate and failure equals the character being deleted, you just can't really mess up in a manner that is going to result in the magical feedback you delude yourself into believing a subscription brings.

Even when the trend is more accounts going stagnant than new ones starting up, how can you determine that it's due to an issue developers can or should address? Maybe it's just been so long since any new PVE content was added that people are taking a perfectly natural break and they'll restart when an expansion comes out. You won't actually know until after you launch an expansion and don't see the numbers improve, which is exactly the same scenario that occurs with a model like GW uses.

Your second wonk scenario is trying to overplay the advantage of people not playing. When you consider the actual game content of something like WoW (and compare it to something like the Oblivion games), they're not really doing a whole heck of a lot development wise that isn't going to be recaptured completely in the initial sales - subscription fees are just gravy on top of what is an already paid for bit of content. On the other hand, because of the sub model, they are expected to provide much more extensive in game help, game marshals, etc. that something like GW does not. While it's covered by the sub fee, it's in their interest to be able to get you to pay them full price for their game, play it for 2-3 months, and let your account go stagnant. That's probably what a large percentage of their player base does, and I'm sure they're just as slap happy with them as Anet is with those who don't try and milk a $40 purchase into a 2 year grind drain on their servers. Certainly they have an interest in continuing subs, but so long as initial sales of the core game and expansions are strong, they're not going to be crying nor getting the sort of feedback you imagine they are.

thunderai · Dec 19, 2007, 01:44 AM // 01:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordakai

Two problems with that: Anet only released two products in a year once, in 2006 the year of Factions and Nightfall.

2005 was just Guild Wars. 2007 was just GWEN.

you are correct; however, the problem is not so much in my calculations but6 with anet. They cancelled the 6 month turn around time which the calculations assume would continue when we did the calcuation.

Bryant Again · Dec 19, 2007, 02:06 AM // 02:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unreal Havoc

Over two to three years you will still be paying more for WoW than you will be for Guild Wars due to the subscription cost of WoW.

If you're able to stay subscribed and interested for so long, then Blizzard must be doing something right.

CyberNigma · Dec 19, 2007, 03:28 AM // 03:28

I think their business model is new to the western retail sector. It's pretty common eastern-wise, both retail and online.

As far as which model, I don't mind either. Subscription isn't bad. In fact it's no different than a cable tv or netflix subscription. If there is new content coming out then its good. If it's stagnant, then looking for another game may be an option. Then again, a non-subscription based game is the same way I suppose. It really matters how long the game in question lasts. WoW is still going strong since 2004. GW lasted 2.5 years (2005, 2006, plus a smaller expansion in 2007) before they moved onto something else. The next one isn't due till maybe 2009, which leaves a gap there. If they stick to GW2 and don't decide to up and move to yet another variant which requires waiting for a year to a year and a half then they may have somethign. Otherwise people will stick to what seems consistent.

EDIT: On the other hand the gameplay has the most to do with it I would imagine. The RPG PvP'ers dream (Fury) had a similar business model and has failed miserably. The gameplay had as much to do with it as well as the prospect of an RPG PvP-only game being able to support itself without the monetary infusion of the greater number of PvE players. GW managed it because of both, so I'd say you can't just blame one thing or another on the price model. On a side note, maybe ANet can use that as some kind of excuse to kill (arena-based) PvP in GW2 before it's too late.. I know, I digress :-)

Anyhow, more than just the subscription model make up whether a game works or not.

If you know anyone working at Blizzard you can ask them about the MMO-like installment of Diablo being developed. ArenaNet has its work cut out for it. While WoW may be subscription-based, its the only thing at Blizzard that is so. That means they aren't stuck on one type of plan either...

Fril Estelin · Dec 19, 2007, 06:27 AM // 06:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

If you're able to stay subscribed and interested for so long, then Blizzard must be doing something right.

Yeah, true (I guess you speak for your experience on that and I don't doubt it's true). But it could also be the addiction, since you played hard because you paid a lot. Or the feeling that leaving the game would be like wasting all the money you invested (which in your case is apparently the same as the amount invested in GW, but you had 2 accounts for Prophecies in the later and I'm still wondering if you played the 2 games the same amount of time). It's exactly like saying "if people are getting drunk, alcohol companies must be doing something right" or "if people get lung cancer, cigarette companies must be doing something right".

Bryant Again · Dec 19, 2007, 06:37 AM // 06:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

But it could also be the addiction, since you played hard because you paid a lot.

It is indeed a very fun game. It feels very traditional in an RPG sense in how you build your character and such. Not to mention that there's a *huge* amount of stuff you can do: Will you go through a hardcore dungeon and kill bosses for awesome gear, or skip that and focus on being able to ride a dragon?

And I can't say I'm terribly addicted. I'm only on it for about three nights a week. Now TF2 on the otherhand...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

which in your case is apparently the same as the amount invested in GW, but you had 2 accounts for Prophecies in the later and I'm still wondering if you played the 2 games the same amount of time

I played which account had the character I wanted to spend time with. That's why I was a little pissed when they made it so you could buy expansion slots, I could've saved some moolah.

I'm still a little confused with the point of that statement, though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

"if people are getting drunk, alcohol companies must be doing something right" or "if people get lung cancer, cigarette companies must be doing something right".

That's the wrong way to compare them. It's more accurate to say "If people keep buying this alcohol, then the alcohol companies must be doing right", and "if people keep buying our cigarettes, then cigarette companies must be doing right."

Nonetheless, it's the quality of the game that's going to keep most addicted. Look at Halo 3.