Why Do MMO's Cost Money?

[Ickorus]

Because people are willing to pay it. That's the only reason.
Look at Guild Wars, you bought the game, and that's it. Could play it all you liked, no extra fees, no monthly charges.

Then look at Final Fantasy XI on 360. You pay for the game, you pay for a live membership, you pay to be able to play the game WITH the live membership, and THEN you pay a monthly fee. When I realised this, I couldn't return that game fast enough.

Remember kids, guild wars is a mostly offline game!

The only time you go online in guild wars is in towns and if you decide to party with someone, I think partying is even done on the connection of one of the group members but don't quote me on that.

 

[Folio]

They cost a lot of money to hide the fact that they cost your soul, too. Oh and time... lots and lots of time.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

Because they treat their content updates like full on expansion packs and their expansion packs like full on new games.

 

[Outamyhead]

Let's see, there's customer support both online and phone, dev updates, and patches, server maintenance, building rent and maintenance, staff salaries for consistently working on the game, and general admin work...and other stuff I'm sure I missed.

 

[Infinatex]

This may be a really stupid question, but why exactly do MMO's cost money? I thought that it was for server upkeep, but then I remembered that games like Team Fortress 2 have servers that run just fine without anyone paying for it.

So, what reason, other then money, is there to have people pay monthly for MMO's? I know that I, personally, would definately get into an MMO if I didnt have to pay for it monthly, which I find ridiculous.

TF2 servers are operated individually, and although I don't know exactly what the maximum player limit is on a TF2 server, I'm sure it's 64 or fewer, which is considerably less than the thousands of players that a MMO server needs to be able to handle at any given time. A TF2 server can be a single computer; an MMO server must be a large array of computers, and thus both the initial costs and the maintenance costs are much, much higher. You could probably afford to run a TF2 server; you could not afford to run a World of Warcraft server.

Additionally, development on most MMOs is ongoing in order to keep people playing. Updates to TF2 are minor and sporadic, and the ongoing cost of development is small and can easily be covered by the one-time cost of the game. Updates to MMOs are large and released often, and they need larger teams to work longer on them.

And keep in mind that every time you open Steam to play TF2 there is high chance you'll end up purchasing something else from the store, thus fattening Valves wallet in the process.

 

[Dexiro]

MMO's are stupidly large complex and require a pretty chunky server(s) depending on how big it gets. There's tons of maintenance, customer support and creating new content.

A lot of MMO's are cheap enough to run with minimum costs, usually free. But then you have things like WoW that are just plain ridiculous, though the costs are a bit excessive.

Remember with games like TF2 that Valve has a constant income from Steam too so it's even easier for them to dedicate servers, not to mention the game's a ton smaller.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

The servers in TF2 aren't run by Valve, they're 3rd party.

 

[Mister Awesome]

i guess so they can update their game occasionally

 

[GameGoddess101]

All kinds of stuff. Patches, new content, troubleshooting and customer support, paying those pesky humans that do it all for you... that kind of stuff. See, I'm all right paying 50 cents a day (less than people spend on coffee and cigarettes) if the game is constantly changing instead of just stagnating.

 

[The Lunatic]

Then look at Final Fantasy XI on 360. You pay for the game, you pay for a live membership, you pay to be able to play the game WITH the live membership, and THEN you pay a monthly fee. When I realised this, I couldn't return that game fast enough.

Actually, FFXI could be played on Silver.

FFXIV isn't being released on the Xbox 360 due to Xbox live being "Closed" as Square describes.

 

[Keava]

Also explain if servers cost so much how do people run private servers with 8000 people on them? magic dust?

Erm, they lease servers? You know it is possible? Private servers cost money too, thats why they ask for donations and/or offer some form of cash shop for donations. They don't run it on their home PCs, hell even for shooters people lease dedicated servers due to better bandwidth, hardware and structure.

 

[Kurokami]

This may be a really stupid question, but why exactly do MMO's cost money? I thought that it was for server upkeep, but then I remembered that games like Team Fortress 2 have servers that run just fine without anyone paying for it.

So, what reason, other then money, is there to have people pay monthly for MMO's? I know that I, personally, would definately get into an MMO if I didnt have to pay for it monthly, which I find ridiculous.

Content is increased relatively regularly and as such they need to pay peoples salary. Moderators too don't forget are paid (I hope) to enforce rules.

 

[TheEvilCheese]

Y'see, you don't have fifteen million people playing TF2. You also paid $60 for your Orange Box.

Wow, $60?
Seriously?
I got mine for £13 (<$20).
And isn't tf2 run on servers which the owners pay for ?

 

[F-I-D-O]

This may be a really stupid question, but why exactly do MMO's cost money? I thought that it was for server upkeep, but then I remembered that games like Team Fortress 2 have servers that run just fine without anyone paying for it.

Do you have any idea how much money they made selling the TF games? That's more than enough to cover the servers.
But they don't have the same number of people as WoW. You pay for the servers, and the evolving game experience. You pay so they fix bugs and balance, for the occasional new area or quest. You have to pay the people who are the mods, the GM's, everyone who works to build that new town you'll pass by. It takes money to run an evolving online system.

 

[Digitaldreamer7]

What you get for your 15.00 a month paid to blizzard is far far worth it. I read somewhere that the first 3m subs help them break even on the cost of running the game etc.

Just imagine this. 11.5 million people have to connect to the same set of authentication servers, then to the actual game servers, which are broken down into smaller servers, instance servers, continent servers etc.

Imagine the cost of the bandwidth needed to accomplish this smoothly like WoW does......

Average consumer cost for a broad band connection, 1 single mac address is 25$, multiply that by 11.5m. You can only imagine what their internet bill is monthly. Constantly swapping out failed drives and parts(some servers are 5 years old.)

The cost to make the content patches that come in on a regular basis

FPS games are updated less frequently and the servers are community paid for by the players. Just because you can log in and play for the cost of the game license doesn't mean it's free. Someone somewhere is paying for it, and if your not paying the company who made the game on a monthly basis, more then likely someone your playing with is footing the bill for the monthly server cost that is well above 15.00 a month

 

[DazZ.]

but then I remembered that games like Team Fortress 2 have servers that run just fine without anyone paying for it.

Of course people are paying for servers, every server you go into is owned by someone, be it a player or a community.

Either people donate towards the upkeep of the server, or someone outright pays everything every month and has it all his way.

Just because you don't pay squat doesn't mean other players aren't paying for you, when you join a server, you're basically borrowing their hardware to play the game, just most servers are public and don't charge you for this privilege as they would like people to play with.

 

[Digitaldreamer7]

Price of maintaining a WOW server $800/month or 53 people buying a month card
Keeping it a secret priceless, there are somethings greed will get you

Mindless addicts is one of them

Also explain if servers cost so much how do people run private servers with 8000 people on them? magic dust?

try 10,000 a month times 30 servers, and that's just the bandwidth to handle the 20,000 + accounts on each server. You are delusional if you think it costs only 800$ per server.

plus to keep talent around to make content...

U just mad U didnt come up with wow first. GTFO

 

[Digitaldreamer7]

They cost a lot of money to hide the fact that they cost your soul, too. Oh and time... lots and lots of time.

Not any more time then your console games take. ANY game is a time sink, not just an MMO. you just have to put more time into a single game instead of the same amount of time spread across lots of games. it's all the same in the end.

 

[Zing]

TF2 servers are run independently by the players/ISPs, Modern Warfare 2 uses a host system that Activision don't have to pay for.

MMOs have to run giant servers, usually maintain 24/7 GM support and apply new content every few weeks/months.

 

[Folio]

They cost a lot of money to hide the fact that they cost your soul, too. Oh and time... lots and lots of time.

Not any more time then your console games take. ANY game is a time sink, not just an MMO. you just have to put more time into a single game instead of the same amount of time spread across lots of games. it's all the same in the end.

You've never played a Final Fantasy game, have you? Or any JRPG in general. Those take more time than a Super Mario game because it's turn based. There is no 'time limit' in a game. They're like books. Some are big, others are small and some have big letters so it's easier to read them.