What, if anything, would make you pay?

[spartan231490]

I tried wow for a long time, and it is the reason I will never buy another pay to play game. Maybe, maybe, if I won the lottery or published a book or somehow otherwise got a large sum of money. Otherwise, not only is it not worth it, but it's also insanely expensive. You spend as much on a year of wow as on three xbox 360 games, that's more than I can afford to spend on gaming in a year. Even if it wasn't, I play in spurts, and it's not worth it to pay for a full month when I play for only 10 of the days. Honestly, with the advent of free to play games, I'm not even sure it's worth it for my wow-obsessed friends who play for hours each day. Not when you can get a comparable experience for essentially free.

So, I will never play a subscription game, but if you do and you find it worth it, more power to you.

 

[Mid Boss]

It costs money to keep the servers going. A lot of money. And they have to keep people on the pay roll to come out with new content or, in a year, the game would be a ghost town.

If you were to go to a Free to Play MMO..... Well. First of all, no, they are not F2P. That is blatantly a lie. They also have worker and server expenses. They just go about covering those costs in a different way. In a F2P you will be nagged, insistently, to buy things. Content and items will be closed off until you pony up. Often PvP will be impossible without the latest cash shop items and gear. Then there's the carrot dangle. The HIGHLY effective "Well, you could grind for a month.... or three. Or you could buy it for five bucks right now!" For every person who isn't paying anything into the game, there's a person paying far more into it. Again, it is in NO WAY free as MMOs that make the switch to these begging, pressuring, and carrot dangling tactics often make FAR more money than they did with a 15 dollar a month fee system.

For me, I much prefer the Pay to Play system where they discreetly remove 15 bucks from my account and I don't have to put up with all that crap in my face taking me out of the game experience. The F2P crap is extremely annoying and yanks me right out of the game experience.

 

[Shadow flame master]

I would have easily bought and played the shit out of FF XIV: A Realm Reborn?had I not forgotten that I needed a subscription.

I'm a university sophomore who has a bit of a money problem at the moment. There would be no way for me to pay every month for it, and I'm sure my parents wouldn't approve of paying it themselves. Also, there are a lot of other games that will take my attention away from it, and who knows how long I'll play it for. And then there's schoolwork. All the schoolwork.

So it comes down to money issues and poor time management.

 

[Requia]

An MMO that doesn't suck as badly as WoW does. I get that some people like it but I find it a time consuming grindfest with weak rewards in terms of content (note, never got past midlevel, supposedly all the good content is available at high level, but fuck putting another 30 hours into it to find out).

 

[krazykidd]

No matter what was added, I would probably never pay a monthly subscription fee, because I have the tendency to lose interest and drift away from things easily, for weeks or months at a time. I manage finances badly, so if I started a subscription, I would likely forget about it for a long time and find out after a year away from the game that I've been losing a fair amount of money.

That's what game cards are for.

OT: Nothing. It's the community i don't like . People are dicks.

 

[CrazyCrab]

The fee has to be pretty low and the game must offer a unique experience.
Wow? Sorry, the fee is too high and I can play countless similar MMOs for free. For ex Rift.
Wakfu? Sure, I played it for quite a bit. I can pay like 4 euros and I get to play a grid / turn based mmorpg with classes so bizzare you wont see them anywhere else. Not playing it anymore but Im glad I spent that couple of euros.

 

[piinyouri]

Elder Scrolls Online pretty much.

Will be my first subscription game and I'm fairly excited to try it.

 

[putowtin]

Nothing, I get bored too soon and wander off to do something new.
Don't get me wrong, in my experience of MMO 's and subscription V free to play subscription is better, but I ge bored of grinding characters and endless repetative tasks/quests.

 

[NoeL]

Pay to play an MMO? Nothing, really - particularly MMORPGs. I find them all insanely boring, tedious, and aggravating. Too many people online whose only goal is to ruin it for others. That's turned me away from almost all forms of online multiplayer.

 

[INF1NIT3 D00M]

For me, it has less to do with what game companies provide so much as it has to do with my limited finances. I simply can't afford the monthly subscriptions fees over an extended period of time, and if I can't play the game for an extended period of time, I don't see the point in paying extra for it.

This is pretty much it in a nutshell. I go on SWTOR's website at least once a month looking to re-subscribe, but I can never bring myself around to paying for it. Meanwhile, I've probably spent more time and money on Warframe than any other game or MMO I've ever played, and I regret none of it.

Part of it is what I believe that I can and cannot consistently afford. I don't like automatically renewing subscriptions. I got burned by Xbox Live when I was younger and didn't make as much money, the recurring fee caused me to overdraw my account at an inopportune time. Ever since, I've been loath to sign up for subscriptions. The only one I can bring myself to sign up for is Pandora One, because I use it all the time and if $4 screws up my finances I've got much bigger problems.

On the other hand, games like Warframe allow me to play as much as I want for free, and I can buy currency at my leisure. I bought one of the Founder's packs up front, which allowed me to get really, REALLY hooked on the game with plenty of currency and some nifty exclusive items. I had to creatively manage my real-life funds in order to make that happen, but it felt like I was buying a collector's edition of a game. I knew that my stuff would always be there as long as the game was up and running, and I would never be expected to make another purchase again.

While I'm comparing the two, I think that they really approach payment in two completely different ways. Warframe allows you completely unlimited access to pretty much everything in the game. Gun/Warframe slots and color packs need to be bought with paid currency, as well as some exclusive holiday skins/color packs. Everything else in the game is available through regular play in some way. It may take longer to access these things, but it's possible to get anything and everything by investing enough time into the game. When I play this game I can go for months without spending anything, I just buy a couple dollars' worth of currency here or there to speed something up, unlock something directly (these purchases actually come out pretty cheap, considering they include an upgrade item and a slot) or buy more slots.

SWTOR is a game that required me to buy in (for about as much as I spent on the Founder's pack), then turns around and restricts my access to the game because I don't continue paying them $15 a month. I can buy currency, but this is primarily used for vanity items and temporary unlocks of the restrictions. I've considered purchasing enough currency for unlocking the color matching, but that comes out to yet another $20 or so that I've spent on the game. Then there's an expansion I have to buy into with yet another $10. If I were to pay to play any MMO, it would probably be this one. No other MMO I've seen has rewarded subscribers so much for their continued loyalty, but the flipside is that missing out on content is one of my biggest barriers to playing as a free player.

What it really comes down to is that the subscription model of MMOs really makes me feel like the developers don't care about me.
Because they don't.
If I'm not paying EA/Bioware, they could give a damn about me. The fact that I can access their game as a "free" player is a privelege, and if I want the full experience then I need to continue paying for it just like everyone else. They don't care how much time I spend playing, I have 30 days from the moment my credit card is accepted to play the game, then I need to pay again or hit the road. It doesn't matter if I play 1 hour or 100 hours, I have from 11/7 to 12/7 to play their game and not a moment more.

Digital Extremes is going to keep making Warframe whether I play it or not. They're more than willing to show off their labor of love, even if I never give them a dime. They make their money off of platinum purchases and founder's packs. I don't have to pay for the expansions, and I don't have to worry about how long I play. I picked up an exclusive weapon and Warframe in the Founder's pack, but other than that they don't provide exclusives in that way. The rewards they give out are based on time spent playing, such as event weapons or items that eventually get phased out of the in-game store as the game moves through development. Their main incentive for a Master founder's pack was the Design Council, which lets you get a sneak peek at upcoming content, and polls the community for future content to include. The community managers collect the most frequently asked questions and address them in weekly livestreams. The developers are a constant presence in the in-game chat, often responding to and interacting with the players.

If I had to pick between the two, I'd be much happier paying a small monthly fee for an allowance of Warframe currency, affinity/credit boosts and a spot on the Design Council, as opposed to paying for SWTOR. I enjoyed the latter, but everything's set up to make not paying for the game suck, as opposed to rewarding players for their investment in the community. It's the difference between paying a fee and making a donation. Warframe feels like you're donating, you're a patron of something you enjoy. In SWTOR, you're either a customer or a freeloader. The same applies to all the other subscription MMOs.

 

[Schmeiser]

I'd rather pay every month and play a top notch mmo like WoW was until WOTLK atleast than play a free mmo that's super shitty and grindy. That said i'm hoping wildstar will be epic

 

[infohippie]

I don't mind paying a sub if a game is good. What I dislike about the WoW model is that you first pay for the box, then you pay for any expansions, then you pay a monthly fee on top of that. Plus, they have a cash shop now selling items you can't get any other way. That just seems greedy. CCP have the right idea when it comes to a subscription. Free game download, free regular content updates, you just pay your monthly fee. I haven't looked at their cash shop since I had stopped playing by the time that came out and I understand there was some angst about a ridiculous pricey monocle or something. Perhaps they have gone off the rails a bit. But the core model was a good one.

If a company is going to charge for the box and expansions, then there should be no sub at all, Guild Wars style.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

New content every month. If I'm paying every month, there better be a good reason for it.

You realize you're paying for development of new content which isn't necessarily easy work. This involves character/npc model artwork, design concepts, balancing of old content and introduction of minor new content (spells/talents/abilities), map design, and of course in-house testing before its released to beta-testers. Also included is server maintenance and upkeep, continued network and account security procedures which need to be developed constantly due to the mercurial nature of network security. All of that for your $15 a month that pays the people who keep these background things going. And usually the content updates are fairly large.
Monthly content updates aren't an easy schedule, and they'd detract from well-thought out content. You aren't just paying for privledges to play, you're investing in the future of your play.
Incidentally your account is also secured even if you aren't subscribed short of you replying to a phishing scam, get keylogged or what not. Its rare that I've heard of a Blizz side issue that caused account vulnerability.
So, for your money you don't think its worth paying folks for their hard work on keeping the game running and constantly attempting to keep it fair, keep it fun for everyone and introduce new things when they're ready and interesting?

I'm not saying I need an expansion pack every month, but something new, at least, whether it be new costumes or stuff like that. $15 is a lot for all the things you mentioned, considering I'm not the only one who pays.

 

[Saelune]

$15 a month is a lot for -1- game. I paid 60 for Guild Wars 2, and been playing since February. That's over $100 for a WoW sub at this point. Plus with Steam, I spend $15 and can buy multiple games at once. Ive bought multiple game series for that much.

I don't really know what I need specifically, but I need atleast a subscription pause button. I gain and lose interest in games, MMO's especially. Im into GW2 maybe a week or two at a time, so Id really be paying 15$ for half a month, which is worse.

 

[Senare]

1. Good game development: Development that I feel furthers the medium in a meaningful way. The development does not have to succeed perfectly. The important part is that they are moving forward in a good direction and dare to try new things instead of stagnating. I would rather pay for an unpolished game with genuine potential and fresh/underused game mechanics than yet another well-polished sequel to a "franchise" that is increasingly relying on reputation rather than execution for sales.

2. Good company structure: It does not matter as much if your studio is good if it will forever be in the pockets of larger company that is not good. Treating your employees well, valuing the freedom and convenience of your customers as well as caring for the world in general.

3. Enjoyment of the game: As much as I like the spirit of some development teams and companies, their game might just not be what I am looking for at the moment. As an investor I would further their development anyway, but as a player I want to spend my money and time on something that feels right.
Note that "enjoyment" does not necessarily equate to "fun". Believing that a game must be "fun" is a limiting belief to me.

 

[Tsukuyomi]

I'm not saying I need an expansion pack every month, but something new, at least, whether it be new costumes or stuff like that. $15 is a lot for all the things you mentioned, considering I'm not the only one who pays.

I'd agree with you, and there's plenty of other people who do as well. But there's a couple of problems I've found with having that logic:

1: semantics. Team Fortress 2 is an EXCELLENT example of this. You want something new every month? Okay! Here's new hats! Not new weapons, not new maps, not new game-modes. New HATS! New cosmetic items that really do nothing to affect the gameplay whatsoever. TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, that counts as "new". Now I'm a pretty lenient guy when it comes to defining 'new content' for the games I play, because I know that making just about ANYTHING for an ongoing game can be a challenge and can take considerable time. But when Valve promises big things for something...and all they give me is HATS? I'm...not...really...all that pleased. If you don't wanna muck with the balance of classes, give us maps. If you don't wanna invest the time of maps, give us weapons. Hats do not spice up gameplay.

2: This is especially prevalent in WoW but in other MMOs I suspect it happens too: content doesn't feel epic and doesn't last because people are INTENT on breaking it down as soon as possible. This is probably the biggest reason I kinda dislike the idea of a Public Beta Realm. While I appreciate the usefulness of having player-feedback AND not having to hire a small army of QA/bug-testers for each dungeon you release, putting top-end guilds into the Beta Realm is just asking for trouble.

These guys ALREADY raid to the point of absurdity. They are ALREADY going to be the ones who beat your content within a week when it launches on live. That's one thing, but to give them early access and then they beat it THE SAME DAY IT LAUNCHES, as well as beginning to give away the most optimal strategies to beat the thing instead of letting players learn on their own?

It's not that sharing the information is bad, because it's not. It's a sign that the community has at least SOME good in it, but at the same time one shouldn't be whining about how all the content Blizzard releases is SO EASY and why can't there be a challenge when you've just come from watching and/or reading countless in-depth guides on how to beat it, and your character is min-maxed out because there's an army of Theorycrafters out there who have no problems telling you what the optimal piece of gear should be for you and EXACTLY where to get it. In a way it's Blizzard's fault, but in a way the only reason content doesn't last very long is quite simply the community is in so big a rush to conquer it.

Yes, it's all about value and getting your moneys' worth out of the game. You did in fact spend 15 bucks this month on it and have been doing so for awhile. So I see that and I understand it, but with the attitude of just devouring new content as fast as possible means either the developers have to make the content challenging enough to stop you DESPITE any in-depth knowledge you've gained (likely leading to broken mechanics and rage-inducing moments. Arthas says hi.), or they have to resign themselves to just trying to push things out as fast as possible, trying to make everyone happy and then releasing sub-par stuff simply because people want new content. Then they ***** AGAIN because it's easy or sub-par to the standards they expect.

Ultimately when you demand new content monthly without considering the time and effort that goes into making it, and then you clear that content within a week due to peoples' obsession/willingness to Raid 24/7 to find all the secrets, it just creates a losing scenario for everyone. You lose because you feel that that content wasn't enough. The developer loses because the stuff they've worked so hard to build has just been cleared in a day and now people are screaming for more.

It's just not a good position for anyone. Unfortunately I can't think of a way to fix it.

 

[Snotnarok]

Nothing makes a game worth it to me that has a subscription fee, why? For one I don't like MMOs and there's many more interesting games that don't require me to pay monthly ontop of it.

 

[babinro]

Content added regularly that actually matches or exceeds the price tag of the subscription fee.

If I'm paying $15.00 a month I want approximately 10 hours of content added to the game a month. $15 is one fourth that of a full game. A full rpg game tends to offer 40hrs of solid gameplay if not quite a bit more.

For $15 dollars a month I should get the following EVERY month:
- a new class
- several new areas
- a compelling story (not just a short DLC one off)
- several new monsters
- several new items

In addition I should see a new feature added to the game on occasion. Also you should NEVER have to buy an expansion pack in these games. The devs are already making $180 a year off the players. Making them pay another $60.00 for is a cash grab.

Currently the subscription model treats the monthly fee as an excuse to maybe release DLC level content on occasion. It's akin to paying the most expensive season pass on the market and getting away with it. Except once you've consumed the content (typically within half a year), you're now getting ripped off for the remaining lifespan of this game.

Edit: I realize that MMORPG are often much larger than a typical game on the outset. The problem is that you don't feel as though you get your money's worth with ongoing payments. I would prefer the initial launch to an MMORPG be the size of your typical Mass Effect / Dragon Age or even Skyrim. Then every month you give players a reason to either replay the game with a new class or experience 10 hours+ new storyline and content. This gives your ongoing payment some weight and offers incentive and hype to stick with it beyond merely the social aspect of these games.

 

[clippen05]

I can't justify paying a monthly subscription for a game, no matter how amazing it is. Simply, because I feel that if I don't play that much on that game, I'll feel like I'm wasting my money. And because my gaming habits are sporadic and I don't necessarily like playing the same game very often, me playing Wow, EVE, etc. for long periods of time won't happen. And also, I'm at Uni... I barely have any money for games as it is, monthly subscription fee games certainly don't fit into my budget.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

I'm not saying I need an expansion pack every month, but something new, at least, whether it be new costumes or stuff like that. $15 is a lot for all the things you mentioned, considering I'm not the only one who pays.

I'd agree with you, and there's plenty of other people who do as well. But there's a couple of problems I've found with having that logic:

1: semantics. Team Fortress 2 is an EXCELLENT example of this. You want something new every month? Okay! Here's new hats! Not new weapons, not new maps, not new game-modes. New HATS! New cosmetic items that really do nothing to affect the gameplay whatsoever. TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, that counts as "new". Now I'm a pretty lenient guy when it comes to defining 'new content' for the games I play, because I know that making just about ANYTHING for an ongoing game can be a challenge and can take considerable time. But when Valve promises big things for something...and all they give me is HATS? I'm...not...really...all that pleased. If you don't wanna muck with the balance of classes, give us maps. If you don't wanna invest the time of maps, give us weapons. Hats do not spice up gameplay.

True, but that's on Valve, not people who want more hats. All Valve has to do is to announce something big when something big actually happens, like Mann VS Machine. I don't consider hats/cosmetics to be anything big, and I would be just as disappointed as you if that's what we got after a "big" announcement. But if they tell us that for a while that's all we're getting while they work on something bigger, that'd satisfy me.

2: This is especially prevalent in WoW but in other MMOs I suspect it happens too: content doesn't feel epic and doesn't last because people are INTENT on breaking it down as soon as possible. This is probably the biggest reason I kinda dislike the idea of a Public Beta Realm. While I appreciate the usefulness of having player-feedback AND not having to hire a small army of QA/bug-testers for each dungeon you release, putting top-end guilds into the Beta Realm is just asking for trouble.

These guys ALREADY raid to the point of absurdity. They are ALREADY going to be the ones who beat your content within a week when it launches on live. That's one thing, but to give them early access and then they beat it THE SAME DAY IT LAUNCHES, as well as beginning to give away the most optimal strategies to beat the thing instead of letting players learn on their own?

It's not that sharing the information is bad, because it's not. It's a sign that the community has at least SOME good in it, but at the same time one shouldn't be whining about how all the content Blizzard releases is SO EASY and why can't there be a challenge when you've just come from watching and/or reading countless in-depth guides on how to beat it, and your character is min-maxed out because there's an army of Theorycrafters out there who have no problems telling you what the optimal piece of gear should be for you and EXACTLY where to get it. In a way it's Blizzard's fault, but in a way the only reason content doesn't last very long is quite simply the community is in so big a rush to conquer it.

Yes, it's all about value and getting your moneys' worth out of the game. You did in fact spend 15 bucks this month on it and have been doing so for awhile. So I see that and I understand it, but with the attitude of just devouring new content as fast as possible means either the developers have to make the content challenging enough to stop you DESPITE any in-depth knowledge you've gained (likely leading to broken mechanics and rage-inducing moments. Arthas says hi.), or they have to resign themselves to just trying to push things out as fast as possible, trying to make everyone happy and then releasing sub-par stuff simply because people want new content. Then they ***** AGAIN because it's easy or sub-par to the standards they expect.

Ultimately when you demand new content monthly without considering the time and effort that goes into making it, and then you clear that content within a week due to peoples' obsession/willingness to Raid 24/7 to find all the secrets, it just creates a losing scenario for everyone. You lose because you feel that that content wasn't enough. The developer loses because the stuff they've worked so hard to build has just been cleared in a day and now people are screaming for more.

It's just not a good position for anyone. Unfortunately I can't think of a way to fix it.

To be honest I don't understand the raid mentality in MMOs. Even when I played MMOs near full time I never got that deep into farming, end game stuff and game mechanics, I was just going around doing quests and having fun (and if the end game lacked anything I'd just make a new character and go through the whole thing again). So yeah, maybe the problem lies with people who play too much and therefore can't be satisfied with small updates, although there's nothing to be done there since it seems MMOs breed that kind of mentality into players anyway. It's also telling that I haven't played a pay to play MMO in years because of that.