MMORPGS - Fees?

[Haucusuchus]

Ok, I asked this on another thread but it went unanswered . So my question is, are there any MMORPG's that don't require you to pay a monthly fee?

[s|rens]

None that i know of.

[Exodus]

not any final versions. if you go for betas, you won't have to pay a monthly fee. the terms 'MMORPG' and 'monthly fee' go hand in hand in a final product.

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No, I don't like anime, Street Fighter, Japanese music or download video game music. Yes, I know, I'm weird.

[Strider]

most games that dont require those fees are crappy java based games, you can play open/closed beta tests for free sometimes... and sometimes, there are free servers to play on for some games

(eg ultima online has free servers called shards, ragnarok online i believe had a free server called spiraca or something)

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[DarkAurora]

Good servers cost A LOT of money, so the companies are kinda forced to charge a monthly fee. Although the monthly fees should only be about $5 a month. $5 a month from every single player on the game would more than pay for the server costs.

[Exodus]

but why charge $5 when you can charge, $10-15? bastards...

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No, I don't like anime, Street Fighter, Japanese music or download video game music. Yes, I know, I'm weird.

I know what you mean. I mean damn, for instance, George Lucas is a freakin' billionaire (I think he is anyway, haha), so why the hell would he need money per month to play his starwars galaxies? Just for instance and all, and games that you have to pay to play still don't have all that good of support, too, you'd think that would be part of what you're paying for. *shrug*

[l3illyl3ob]

Originally Posted by Exodus

but why charge $5 when you can charge, $10-15? bastards...

because "breaking even" isn't a common goal in making video games, they try to aim for "profits". Makes sense to me.

[DarkAurora]

They make money when you spend the $50 to buy the game and everytime you go out and buy one of it's expansions.

[Boltzmann]

Business are always trying to improve their profits margins - it's part of the trade. And now that MMORPGs are so popular they're seeing the oportunity to get big bucks with the monthly fees (a steady cash-flow is always better than earning only once [with the sale of the game], specially in economies with a low inflation rate - like the american).

Personally, I don't like the idea of paying monthly fees, and the concept of MMORPGs don't appeal to me. So they can charge as much as they want, and I will not care

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[l3illyl3ob]

Originally Posted by DarkAurora

They make money when you spend the $50 to buy the game and everytime you go out and buy one of it's expansions.

no, they actually dont. These games aren't doom or quake, they dont sell extremely well. In fact, you'll be lucky if you get a few hundred thousand copies sold after a year or so. They're tailored for a specific crowd, something most games aren't, and thus they dont gain a whole lot from initial selling. Also, they have to spend a LOT more money after the game's initial release than other PC games, due to running extremely high capacity servers, staffing them, getting game moderators, people to make regular patches and actively fix all problems as soon as possible after they're reported (rather than making batch patches every couple of months). They actually NEED a monthly fee. how much of one is questionable, but if they went on $50 per game and nothing else, these companies wouldn't be able to last.

[Exodus]

yeah, but it also balances out that the less people buy it, the less of a strain on the server. and you'd be surprised by how many people do play MMORPGs. its just that theres so many out there, that its kind of spread out. i think at one point EQ had one of the highest gamer count. obviously not higher than diablo2 or counter-strike, but it was pretty high.

they probably could charge less and still make enough money. but why don't they charge less? because that given price of ~$10 is a standard and they can get away with it without anyone, who really wants to play it, complaining.

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No, I don't like anime, Street Fighter, Japanese music or download video game music. Yes, I know, I'm weird.