The costs of being a gamer

[Flying Dagger]

[QUOTE=Jazzrat;4114293]You may have to go look up the financial reports of Activision Blizzard, the cost of servers and bandwith actually average up to $2 per user. It's not as much as most of us might think. The cost of infrastructure have dropped quite a lot compare to the MMORPG of the olden days.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09...t_upkeep_200m/
(That figure was released in September of 2008 - I do not think that factors in the initial development cost which might have taken a good 5-8 years).

As the leader of its genre I somewhat doubt WoW would change its price tag until Titan.

I am curious about the financial situation of TOR: while it enjoyed a honeymoon period of when people are adoring its leveling experience, they are start to get bored of alts and the lack of WoW-ish end game content. I also hope bioware can learn a thing or two about game balancing through their experiences with TOR and apply it into their future games. For TOR I expect the cost of operation to possibly be as high as ~$6-7 per player due to the much smaller player base and the amount of work they have to put into the game.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Mr Hat and Clogs

I won't get into the MMO debate, we'd be here for years extolling the negatives and positives. That and it'd be pretty much preaching to the choir. No grind would be great but as it is at the moment its an impossible dream. I kind of miss the old school MMO's like EQ, because they feel more like a world, where you're free to do whatever, then a heavily scripted facade. Of the current MMO's that I've cared enough for to play, I think EVE is the only one that keeps that feeling.

That had more to do with the limitations of the medium at the time though. You saw a lot of freedom and/or RP in those games because there was little else to do. With little else to do, players started getting creative and found ways to entertain themselves.

There's two sides to this. On one hand, it lets the players express their creativity in ways the developers never thought of. On the other hand, it's also... very lazy design. Potentially at least. The sandbox type MMO's are really low-maintenance compared to themepark MMO's, so unless the developers actually get involved with the community, they really don't need to do much except keeping the servers alive.

On the the subject of grinding, the meaning has become increasingly blurry with the MMO genre as of late. The term gets slapped on anything that requires multiple attempts these days, at which point I can't help but ask the question "isn't any game a grind then?"

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by Flying Dagger

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09...t_upkeep_200m/
(That figure was released in September of 2008 - I do not think that factors in the initial development cost which might have taken a good 5-8 years).

As the leader of its genre I somewhat doubt WoW would change its price tag until Titan.

I am curious about the financial situation of TOR: while it enjoyed a honeymoon period of when people are adoring its leveling experience, they are start to get bored of alts and the lack of WoW-ish end game content. I also hope bioware can learn a thing or two about game balancing through their experiences with TOR and apply it into their future games. For TOR I expect the cost of operation to possibly be as high as ~$6-7 per player due to the much smaller player base and the amount of work they have to put into the game.

No doubt the initial development cost is very very expensive. When Blizzard was developing WoW, a lot of people couldn't believe how much they were sinking into the game compare to other MMOs that were in development at that time.

From what i read about SWTOR, they spent a lot on marketing. Putting that ontop of the amount of voice acting work, probably a fat licensing fee for SW universe and huge amount of infrastructure support (i m impressed they plonked down an actual oceanic server). I guess EA was hoping for a bigger success than SWTOR could pull off.

[Benoit]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Nope, can't play them on my consoles. Region lock. If I want to play them, I have to mod my console. Which is illegal and considered a form of piracy.

Considering that you were saying that you had to pirate to play them earlier, I don't think this matters to you. I assume that you want to buy them, so bypassing the region lock seems like the best option.

This only applies to the Xbox 360, though (localised Wii "Tales of" games got a PAL release). There are boot discs for the older consoles that are perfectly legal.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Keroko

On the the subject of grinding, the meaning has become increasingly blurry with the MMO genre as of late. The term gets slapped on anything that requires multiple attempts these days, at which point I can't help but ask the question "isn't any game a grind then?"

I'm talking about two things here: gear/rep/token grinds and the time it takes to visibly advance.

In single player games, advancement feels far less grindy because you advance through the plot. SWTOR actually handled this pretty well for an MMO. I didn't feel like I was grinding despite doing most of the same typical MMO fedex quests I've done all the time in WoW and other games. Though I do have to give Bioware credit for not including any "kill x and bring y" outside of optional bonus quests--you didn't need to do them, doing them would make life easier for you on the next world, but they weren't mandatory.

But then you look at a more typical MMO--WoW, Aion, or even Tera which everyone is so excited about--the quests and stories are not immersive. Nobody cares about them. They're just a wall 'o text you click through to get your next "kill x and bring y" quest.

Thus, in these games the only metrics of advancement are level and gear. Leveling in MMOs is naturally slow, but even that isn't the problem. Most games have tweaked their noob-to-endgame grind to the point where it's not so bad, even enjoyable at times (though I do seem to recall the 50-60 grind sucking balls in WoW after Burning Crusade came out... couldn't find anyone for instances).

No, the problem is gear, rep, tokens, whatever they use to lengthen the stick the carrot's tied to. The grind that made me quit SWTOR was the level 50 daily quests and level 50 PvP (pre-50 PvP was fun).

I repeated the same goddamned quest once per day to get some stupid tokens so every once in a while I could buy a mod for my armor. It was mind-numbingly boring, especially when I had completed all class quests and any remaining quests were much more shoddily done, reusing voice clips and having little to no involvement with the player--it goes right back to the uninspired WoW wall 'o text again, only this time it's voiced.

The level 50 PvP was absurd. Without full mid-tier PvP gear you'd get flattened in a second. It was just like WoW when they started allowing people to stack loads of resilience, only worse because the SWTOR equivalent of resilience also improves your damage. Pre-50, it was fun. Chance of winning was up in the air. The games were challenging. The world PvP was engaging. Once you got to 50 though, whoever had the gear won, and if geared people got into a wz with undergeared, new 50s, they'd just drop and requeue. World PvP was a joke. Nobody actually fights in Ilum. They just sit there trading nodes. It's stupid.

I hope that some dev somewhere addresses these issues, because all the shameless WoW copypasta is getting pretty old. SWTOR did a spectacular job on the noob-to-endgame portion of the game, but they failed hard when it came to endgame, seemingly cribbing from WoW circa 2006.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that until someone can take SWTOR's mastery of the leveling treadmill (hell, it doesn't even need to be voice acted, it just needs to have real RPG-style conversation) and pair it with an endgame that shames all other MMOs, the only worthwhile way to play an online RPG is on an RP server.

[Keroko]

Imagine that, the only worthwhile way to play a Role Playing Game is to role play.

Originally Posted by Benoit

Considering that you were saying that you had to pirate to play them earlier, I don't think this matters to you. I assume that you want to buy them, so bypassing the region lock seems like the best option.

This only applies to the Xbox 360, though (localised Wii "Tales of" games got a PAL release). There are boot discs for the older consoles that are perfectly legal.

And the PS2 Tales games.

But no, my point was that in order to play those games, EU gamers have the choice between Piracy-A and Piracy-B. If a system creates a situation where illegal methods are the only method to play a game for a certain market, what good is that system?

[NorthernFallout]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Imagine that, the only worthwhile way to play a Role Playing Game is to role play.

Roleplaying? In my MMORPG? SURELY YOU JEST.

(Though I would love to RP in EVE simply cuz of the lulz factor)

[Daniel E.]

Just bumped with this article a minute ago and though some people here might want to read it:

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged...181412574.html

Nothing really new there, but I would certainly love to buy games for only 60 bucks around here.

[RRW]

i can see next gen most of game will be $40

[Jaden]

Funny thing for the Finns...we somehow made it so the Åland Islands are an exception in the EU's taxing rules, and our customs won't bother to collect VAT for anything worth less than 45,45€.

As a result we can mail-order a bunch of games for under that price, even for consoles. For example, TERA preorder 32,40€, Diablo 3 41,40€. GTA5 (ps3) 42,40€. (include mail expenses)

All the while a simple digital download straight from the publisher, STEAM or the PSN would be along the lines of 50-60€. Funny world.

[Kafriel]

The last game I paid for was...the special edition of Devil May Cry 3, which I had bought for €15 at MediaMarkt, quite a few years ago.

To this day, my video gaming life has cost me:
1) 10,000 drachmas for 1,500 AMIGA games (which is ~30€).
2) Another 10k for a single PS title, Soulblade, and 10k more for 3 ripped ones. (60€)
3) Roughly 2,100€ for my PS2 years, though only 100€ came out of my pocket.
4) 10€ for PSP stuff.
5) 10€ for a used original of Demon's Souls for my PS3.
6) 20€ for Maplestory, on PC.
_________________________________

That's a total of 2,230€ spent for a good 18 years of video gaming fun. The PS2 era may seem like the most expensive one, but its games have lasted to this very day and just might still hold some value, unlike everything else. I had the luck of being gifted all of my gaming platforms (having 3 brothers helps with that ) so I think this is less than the cost of your current average gamer. It is worth noting that my AMIGA and PS2 lasted 6 years each and that I quit Maplestory after 6 years of playing almost everyday, making each console worth its money...unfortunately, fun can't be measured

On a side note, for the (curiously) 6 years that I played Magic:the Gathering, I discovered that TCGs are the most expensive type of games. Four new sets every month, one new edition every year, booster packs, sealed decks, DCI games and membership...I remember paying a pretty penny for all of the above. I did place at a Grand Prix though, sold some cards for €80 afterwards, and I figure my leftover cards may still retain some of their original value.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by AtomicoX

Roleplaying? In my MMORPG? SURELY YOU JEST.

(Though I would love to RP in EVE simply cuz of the lulz factor)

Good roleplay in MMOs can be extremely difficult to find. Fortunately though for me the RP community on Tera's RP server is very into it and thus there's a lot of chances to finally get some good RP that doesn't involve scary basement-troll cybersex.

[tkdtiger]

[QUOTE=Flying Dagger;4114400]

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

You may have to go look up the financial reports of Activision Blizzard, the cost of servers and bandwith actually average up to $2 per user. It's not as much as most of us might think. The cost of infrastructure have dropped quite a lot compare to the MMORPG of the olden days.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09...t_upkeep_200m/
(That figure was released in September of 2008 - I do not think that factors in the initial development cost which might have taken a good 5-8 years).

As the leader of its genre I somewhat doubt WoW would change its price tag until Titan.

I am curious about the financial situation of TOR: while it enjoyed a honeymoon period of when people are adoring its leveling experience, they are start to get bored of alts and the lack of WoW-ish end game content. I also hope bioware can learn a thing or two about game balancing through their experiences with TOR and apply it into their future games. For TOR I expect the cost of operation to possibly be as high as ~$6-7 per player due to the much smaller player base and the amount of work they have to put into the game.

Well I did read an article from the beginning of April that said that there were still 1.7 million subscribers on SWTOR, although to be fair the numbers they used could have come from earlier data...it also doesn't meant that there are that many people actively playing.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Good roleplay in MMOs can be extremely difficult to find. Fortunately though for me the RP community on Tera's RP server is very into it and thus there's a lot of chances to finally get some good RP that doesn't involve scary basement-troll cybersex.

I can usually find at least *one* decent RP guild in most subscription MMOs ... I even went back to EQ2 for the "depth of world, immersive quests" and the roleplay for about two years. Sadly, I can hear the Reaper coming for EQ2 -- they're starting to have trouble even keeping the servers up. Also, my RP guild there had a critical strike of key people vanishing for various reasons.

If Tera is attracting a decent RP crowd then my interest perks up. Otherwise, yet another grind'n'grab is not something I want.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Vexx

I can usually find at least *one* decent RP guild in most subscription MMOs ... I even went back to EQ2 for the "depth of world, immersive quests" and the roleplay for about two years. Sadly, I can hear the Reaper coming for EQ2 -- they're starting to have trouble even keeping the servers up. Also, my RP guild there had a critical strike of key people vanishing for various reasons.

If Tera is attracting a decent RP crowd then my interest perks up. Otherwise, yet another grind'n'grab is not something I want.

The crowd on Celestial Hills seems really quite interested in good RP. Even during the open beta test, when the chat functionality was really buggy--the profanity filter blocking out random words but not profanity, the chat log randomly clearing, disappearing messages when using quotes--I had several opportunities to RP my elin sorcerer-scientist with other players and guild members.

The guild I'm in is called Delphian Consortium and they're a moderate RP/PvE guild with a focus on controlling the in-game economy and pushing for the Vanarch position with the in-game political system. This works for me because I'm a crafting nut.

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by Daniel E.

Just bumped with this article a minute ago and though some people here might want to read it:

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged...181412574.html

Nothing really new there, but I would certainly love to buy games for only 60 bucks around here.

Saw that one on reddit before but it's an good article to bring up.

Games are priced at priced at the point that people were willing to pay. In fact, looking at the plethora of stuff that publisher pushes (day 1 dlc, Collectors edition, etc). Gamers are willing to pay a lot especially on beloved franchise.

With digital downloads and anti used game distribution platform like Steam and origin, publisher have more freedom in terms of pricing since they dont need to cut their price dramatically due to used game sales and digital product dont take up store or warehouse space.

We probably see a greater variance in terms of pricing as time goes on. Some games will be definitely be cheaper to attract people, but not all especially established franchise/brands.

[NorthernFallout]

http://www.onrpg.com/MMO/TERA-The-Ex...crolls-and-You

In an interesting move, TERA will be going the same way as CCP did with PLEX. I'm surprised, but also a bit glad this practice is starting to move forward as a whole. Not only due to the usual arguments but also that, if I wanted, I could play two P2P MMOs without paying for both.

... As long as I have time that is.

(I posted this here due to the on-going discussion, as I saw it more relevant.)

[TJR]

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

We probably see a greater variance in terms of pricing as time goes on. Some games will be definitely be cheaper to attract people, but not all especially established franchise/brands.

The F2P business is the next boom. Some mid-tier AAA studios are exclusively F2P now (Petroglyth Games, Gas Powered Games, Wargaming.net, Splash Damage), and more will certainly follow given the promise of stable income, large profits, and ample investment from the outside. Recently, console productions have been greenlit, so the model won't be exclusive to PCs.

From a gamer's perspective, F2P may be a double edged sword. On one hand, the barrier to entry is low, making it a great model for those on a limited budget. Players can spend as much or as little as they want, and the whole game can be freely sampled from the get-go Additionally, genres (i.e. mech shooter, flight sim, strategy game) and brands that were once difficult to pitch are returning.

However, the benefits come at the expense of single-player content and balanced design. A game also dies once the service dies (although to be fair, this now affects packaged software, such as Diablo III and SimCity). Given the effort that goes into finding/restoring lost films and making old games playable on new hardware, archivists are sure to be annoyed.

I'd imagine that in a year or two, we'll see a more segmented industry, with indie, mobile (generally known for casual games, but this is changing), self-contained AAA, and F2P AAA games all targeting the hardcore fan.

[Sagi]

I'm just waiting for FFXIV to go f2p, and follow the example of Star Ocean Online 2.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

Games are priced at priced at the point that people were willing to pay. In fact, looking at the plethora of stuff that publisher pushes (day 1 dlc, Collectors edition, etc). Gamers are willing to pay a lot especially on beloved franchise.

Yeah, places like Gameplanet Mexico often sell new releases at 999 pesos (77 US dollars) and they do it because there are people willing to pay that much for a game.