f13.net

Does anyone here know how much WOW, EQ2, and Halo2 will cost monthly.  I also need to know the box price and if possible.  Thank you for your help.

If you want to can throw in the release date, but I am looking that up now.

Edit because I can read 3 posts down.

Edit: I can't fathom what the hell I was trying to say with my opening sentence.  

Halo 2 (Ships Nov. 8): $49.99 box. No monthly. XBL to play it online is $5/mo.

Guildwars (Feb release date): $49.99 (guessing). No monthly.  Regular expansion releases supposedly to make up for this.

World of Warcraft (Ships Nov. 22): $49.99.  Most likely $14.99 a month past the first free.

Everquest 2 (Ships Nov.  8) : $49.99. $14.99/mo (I stand corrected).

What the fuck? Halo 2?

WoW - $49.99 - 11/22 - $14.99/mo
EQ2 - $49.99 - 11/09 - $14.99/mo
Halo 2 Limited - $54.99 - 11/09 - CONSOLES DON'T HAVE MONTHLY PRICES, N00BLER.

Oh, and these all might be wrong. Have fun.

EQ2 is definitely $14.99 a month, but they may have some cheaper per month, multi-month subscriptions available.

XBOX live

K THX

$39.99 a year for Xbox Live.

I heard long ago that EQ2 would be added to SOE's All Access pass, which allow you to play multiple games (EQ, Planetside) for one price. I don't know if that's still accurate.

It is.  You get EQ, Planetside and EQ2 for that $22 a month.

Not that I personally think that 15/mo is outrageous but I don't like the trend of increasing subscription fees just because it is new game. Aside from being new and shiny these games are not improvement over previous generations in any significant way to warrant charging more per month. My personal 'favorite' was EA's move to increase monthly fee to 13i/mo shortly after outsourcing customer support and game masters to India.

One word: Inflation.

It's actually disappointing for EQ1. The less the distance between EQ2 and Gold pass the more likely it was to retain (or even gain) population. However an extra $7 a month is a non-trivial amount. I was honestly expecting them to try for $18 for EQ2, guess they might well have if they didn't have a serious competitor.

Doesn't FFIX represent a monthly subscription on a console?

Inflation doesn't quite cut everything.  Because I was bored at work I trolled a bit around the US Department of Labor (http://www.bls.gov/schedule/archives/cpi_nr.htm) and the CPI figures between 1999 (when EQ launched) and today vary between 1.8% and 3.4%.  Play with a calculator and you find that EQ's original price of $9.89/month, adjusted by CPI, comes in at $11.45 today.  Whats the monthly rate for EQ these days, $13?  And if EQ2 is charging $15 thats even more of a hike on top of CPI.

Of course, its their game, so they can charge whatever they damn well want.  If you enjoy it and catass 20-30 hours a week on it, even $20/mo is still damn good value for money.  This does all start to add up if you want to dualbox/hydra etc though.

Plus Everquest Online Adventures. Not sure about the Phantasy Star games, but they probably do, too.

So: Lots of monthly fees on console games, it is, then.

Owned.



That's one idea on how not to cannibalize your own playerbase.  EA could have done that twice now but they chose the "spend boatloads of cash, then cancel production" route instead.  I'm sure that's just part of the plan.  We mere mortals shouldn't question it.



I think the general thinking in the industry now is, "charge higher fee and hire more CS.  Better to potentially alienate 1% of the playerbase with high prices than to potentially alienate 50% of the playerbase with poor CS".

Of course if the CS is still poor in EQ2 then you have gone nowhere, but that's an implementation detail.

MMORPGs started at what? $12? 7? Either way. $15 ain't that much considering costs. new MMORPGs cost about 15-30x more than the first ones. There's no reason not to pass that kind of savings on to the customer.

This is just the natural market correction. All industry players believe that UO started out way too low because they didn't think many people would pay more than $10 a month. Each successive game, despite very little real innovation, is raising the price because they can AND because they are pushing the envelope of what MMOG players will pay to a more correct pricing structure. 2-3 years, and you WILL be paying $20 a month for the new MMOG's.

Of course, I believe the monthly subscription fee is an imprecise and ultimately wasteful pricing scheme for MMOG's.

More like the rest of you will.  Me, I have problems paying what almost amounts to a utility bill for an online game.

Lower-tier games (probably everything except EQ2 and WoW) are going to have to get more creative with the billing model.  The top two will drive up fees until most people can't afford to play in two games simultaneously, which will kill off their competition, which will make them happy.  I'm expecting a lot of people will be making the CoH or EQ2/WoW choice.

One interesting side effect of monthly billing is that the publisher doesn't actually want you on the server.  They get your money anyway, so if they don't have to spend any money on server space or support for you, that's just more profit.  Which is why models like the SOE pass are a good idea.  You obviously can't play EQ2, EQ, and PS at the same time, so they get your money and all 3 games get server load relief.

Lower tier games should buddy up and offer the same model.  Get an all-access pass to play CoH, ATITD, Ryzom, and DAOC for like $30 a month.  They all split a massive subscriber base without having to expend the server resources on it.

I don't think rising subscription fee to the point where cost 'felt' by large chunk of your target audience is a good thing for players or mmorpg business. For example I subscribed to UO for many years but actually took few breaks from it, just never bothered to cancel since monthly cost wasn't a big deal. I’m also more likely 'to linger' in a game with cheaper subscription fee even if I'm not happy with it or don't play that much. Now make subscription fee 20-30$/mo and I will be out of there moment I'm not happy with something and also would never consider buying second account.

UO started as 10/mo and recently raised subscription to 13/mo and lost rather large chunk of 'sleeper' accounts - so precedent is there in the industry. I think correct way to get more money out of subscribers is to maintain cheap monthly fee but strongly encourage use of multiple accounts.

sinij, why does your name look so familiar?

You know a smattering of Russian, or you are familiar with one of ~2500 posts on the Ubi (Shadowbane) boards, or you played on Corruption?

I google-fu joo.