Star Wars Galaxies (A dent in the pocket?)

[munik]

$10 isn't greedy at all. When you multiply it by 100,000, and come up with a million dollars, it may sound like it is, but it isn't. Each person who plays costs the company money. It's not like the first 3,000 player's subcription fees pay operating cost, and everything extra is profit. Far from it. Each and every player cost money. So a chunk of that $10 goes to operating costs, things like bandwith, paying the support staff, GM's, the people who fix bugs, the people who come up with new content, paying the server farm where the servers are hosted, upgrades on the servers, etc. Probaly alot more stuff then I can think of right now.

 

When you purchase Star Wars Galaxies, you aren't paying $60 for a game per se, but a user interface. The game is on their servers, not on your computer. Then you pay a monthly fee to access these servers, and play their game. Similiar to cable television. For me, I don't own any of the hardware used to access cable TV except for the television set. I rent the cable box from the cable company for around $5-$10, then pay a montly fee to access cable television. Somewhere around $50 bucks a month. That's a monthly fee. Oh, and my initial outlay was around $50 for instalation. Cable television costs me an assload more money then an mmorpg.

 

$10 a month for unlimited entertainment, 24/7, isn't unreasonable at all. I pay $6 to watch one new movie at the theatre--two hours of entertainment. I pay $2-$3 to play Tekken Tag at the arcade--half hour of entertainment. I pay $40 to watch one Tool concert--two hours of entertainment. Paying $10 to play Galaxies for 720 hours? That sounds unreasonable?

 

For a real example, I used to play Everquest. I started in December of 2000, just stopped this month. That's 19 months. I paid $60 for the game, and $30 each for both expansions (approx., it's been so long). That's $120. Plus a $10 montly subscription fee, 19 x $10 = $190 + $120 = $310. That's $310 total money I spent on EQ. I played the game 1224 hours and some odd minutes over the course of a year and a half.

$310 / 1124 = $.28 (roughly). That's $.28 per hour. 28 cents per hour! Not much at all. That breaks down to about 15 hours per week that I played. On the low side for EQ players.

 

 

Anyhow, to summarize a long post, it seems to me that some of these examples or testimonies as to why Galaxies is gonna be bad or won't catch on hold about as much water as examples or testimonies as to why the combustion engine is bad or won't catch on. My point being that mmorpg's have been around for years, and so have the subcription fees. This isn't a new and shocking way for a game company to leech money out of customers. This is just how it is, and how it always has been. People don't work for free, and people don't provide continuous services for free.

 

 

 

Munik

Breaking down the Truth, shotgun style.

[BCanr2d2]

I think there is a lot of people thinking, geez $10-$15 a month is a lot....

 

Try and see where you could easily NOT spend $15 a month. See that you have McDonald's, KFC or Burger King a couple of times a month... That you purchase 2-3 PC/XBOX/Console Mags....

I have probably at least looked at about $20-$30 of money that you could prioritise, to whether you give it towards Galaxies...

Or getting money to buy food at school, or after school - that would make quite a nice pile of money if you could save that.

 

Believe it or not, it's called budgeting...

 

There never was really anything for free on the internet, Free Music - nope - just programs helping you avoiding paying royalties for songs you don't own. Free Internet - really an PC advertising service, chewing up bandwidth...

 

As mentioned before, the game is more of an interface, a portal to join to the server. Think also that the extra money that may not seem to cover anything also account for server upgrades as well. Think also of us poor unfortunate people down here in Australia that NEVER get a local server for any of these games, that have to deal with lag to either join a European or US based server. Where does our subscription fee go? Not for local server costs.... Your fee may also help to pay for a server network here in Australia....

 

It really depends to where I get Galaxies, as to whether I get the XBOX version on top of the PC version I will get.

 

 

For these games, depending on the infrastructure spending MS is prepared to spend on XBOX Live in different countries, especially somewhere like Australia, where the distance is the killer, creating the lag, will depend on whether companies like LucasArts, EA, etc will spend relatively less. If someone like MS can create the infrastructure, other companies can take advantage of it to help serve their games....

 

So when I hear an American or European screaming about paying for an online fee for Galaxies, think of us Aussie's, who don't get a local server, where lag is a way of life.

[QuietSith]

I find the more 'social' a game gets the more idiots end up taking over and creating chaos.

 

SWG will turn into a flame fest drama in less than 2 months of release.

[Redwing]

Yet another bump...

 

@QS: I hope not. I intend to get SWG myself...despite the price which teeters on the edge of being too high...but from what I've heard, it sounds and looks to be totally worth it.

 

Now I just need a new video card...

[NerfYoda]

Originally posted by QuietSith

I find the more 'social' a game gets the more idiots end up taking over and creating chaos.

 

SWG will turn into a flame fest drama in less than 2 months of release.

 

Have you ever played an MMORPG? My experience with EQ, arguably the largest MMORPG out there is I never ran into any problems with the immaturity you see regurlarly in FPS games. Eq had, and I'm assuming Galaxies will, had a small army of GM's and staff to keep the users in line.

[munik]

You don't even need GM's or what not for immature players. The player community as a whole will most likely not be immature, so those that are will be ostracized. In a mmorpg, you need to work with other players to accomplish goals. If people don't like playing with you, you won't really be able to play.

 

 

The very nature of mmorpgs keeps the players mature. Unless you are allowed to kill anyone without consequences. Then it goes down the tubes fast.

 

 

Munik

[Tie Guy]

Has everyone here forgotten developement? The 60 dollars covers developement as well. Most games cost around $50 or so new, and no one argues that they are incredibly unfair and expensive (ok, so maybe R15, but he doesn't count). Thats because its cost money to develope a game, lots of it. Paying programmers, artists, directors, testers and other staff isn't cheap, and lets not forget that every company must make a profit. You can't blame any company for trying to make a profit, thats what they are in business for. And this game isn't a normal game, either. Its not some game where they bought the engine and just left it as it is and plastered some new graphics on it. They spent lots of time on this, and they are truly committed to making it a great game. And the price of that is money. And then lets not forget retail. The store selling the game must make money too, and they usually add at least $10-20 onto how much it costs. So if you want to complain about the monthly fee then it is fine with me (although it is actually a very good price, as others have pointed out), but you are being totally unfair and selfish is you are comlaining about the 60 dollars just to buy the game.

[AgentSmith]

My worry about costs with SWG is that I'll need a new Computer to be able to play it. (Expect easily 1000$ to 1700$ for something decent.)

Also the 10-15$ is enough of a cost as I consider always when I buy a game how many hours of entertainement will it be in the sense that will it be worth it's price. Munik said it all quite nicely that if you play for so many hours, the investment is actually profitable, because you would else spend more money on other things (arcade, movies, etc...).

 

What I fear though is that if I get the game, the subscription and pay the monthly fee I won't be able to spend enough hours playing the game to learn it properly and make my investment worth it. (Having a job and a partner makes it harder to spend many hours playing a game daily. I think for SWG it'll be really worth it only if you play it a lot. - The reason I didn't get e.g. Dungeon Siege, loved the demo though, is that it'd take up too much time. JKIIJO took me a long while to finish due to lack of time.)