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JEDI_MASTA

By JEDI_MASTA
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Maedyn Newbie

Maedyn

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this is taken from http://www.swgalaxies.net. Best explanation for why we pay to play games like this that I've heard. I work in the telecom industry, and believe me, it's all true:

 

Why do we have to pay to play games like EverQuest, Asheron’s Call, Dark Age of Camelot and Star Wars: Galaxies?

 

This is a question we get almost daily in our unofficial FAQ here at SWOnline.org, and it’s one I decided I needed to explore in more depth.

 

Nobody can deny that computer games are targeted at teenagers and young adults, usually aged fourteen to twenty-one. These are, of course, the years where money is usually very difficult to come about. Earlier in the era, because one doesn’t have a job or source of income, and later, because one doesn’t have the money to spare, while trying to get started in the world or stumbling through university or college. But still, companies like Verant, Turbine, and Mythic strip you of $120 a year to play their games. Why is that, you ask?

 

The basic reason is quite simple: It costs money to run a game of this magnitude.

 

Some people will argue with this reasoning, saying that they’re already paying $60 for the game, and in the case of Star Wars: Galaxies, $40 for the space expansion**. But these figures don’t even scratch the surface of the costs of running a massive game such as Star Wars: Galaxies.

 

After you’ve paid the developer’s salaries (which are on-going, in a ever-evolving game such as EverQuest of Asheron’s Call), and after you’ve bought all the extremely expensive server hardware required to run the programs that tell the client on your computer what to do, there is still one major cost left to pay. After you understand it, you’ll finally realize why many MMORPGs don’t turn a profit until years after their release:

 

Bandwidth.

 

To connect to this page, and other webpages across the Internet, you must pay an Internet Service Provider a certain fee for the connection, or “bandwidth”. In most places, this fee is usually from $15-20 a month for dial-up ISPs and $30-$40 for Cable or ADSL, usually for unlimited service.

 

Now think about it: For each server, Verant needs to buy enough bandwidth to keep 2500-3500 players running without lag. According to the EQVault, there are currently 42 EverQuest servers. 42 servers * 2000 players on each is 84000. That’s 84000 players that Verant needs to buy bandwidth for. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Massively Multiplayer servers do not run off of 600MHz computers with a cable Internet connection, like some dedicated servers for games such as Half-life and Unreal Tournament. Bandwidth for 84000 players is not cheap.

 

So take the millions of dollars spent developing a huge game such as Star Wars: Galaxies, add on the costs of keeping 100000+ players happy and lag-free 24/7, and finally, chalk in the salaries of the developers constantly working to eliminate bugs and add content. Hopefully you’ll understand why $10 a month is honestly required to keep Massively Multiplayer games running smoothly.

 

I hope I’ve helped you comprehend why you’re paying to play, and I hope this will put to rest the droves of people who refuse to get into an Online game because of that measly $10 a month. In the big bad world of Massively Multiplayer, it’s really only a grain of sand on the beach.

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