Station Access price hike. Still worth it?

[Engels]

I'd kept my station account active even though I only played EQ2 sporadically, and only visited the other games every 3 months or so out of a sense of nostalgia. For 21 bucks a month, it seemed somehow worth it, in a 'luxury goods' sort of way. They just announced a price hike to 26 dollars a month, and well, that's the straw that broke the camel's back. Cancelled account. No hard feelings for SoE, but I do think they have an unrealistic appraisal of their games' worth to folks.

[WindupAtheist]

I wouldn't pay for any of their games.  And if I did, it would probably be (oddly enough) Matrix Online.  Just because it's non-elfy and the chopsocky and super-jumps looked cool.

[Velorath]

I'd considered getting Station Access in the past when I was playing EQ2 a lot, but now I'm glad I didn't.  I'm not sure how they justify this increase.  Wasn't the last game they added the fucking Matix Online?  With that Planetside "fodder program" thing letting people mildly intersted in Planetside play for free, the NGE chasing away all their SWG players, and MXO just sucking, what two games do they think justify paying $26 for?  EQ 1 and 2?

[WindupAtheist]

What's the deal with MXO?  It looked cool when my brother played it, and he seemed to enjoy it.  He quit out of principle when it went over to SOE though, and out of certain knowledge that they were going to abandon all the fiction and live events.

[Velorath]

Never really seemed to be all that much to it.  While like most people, I thought the second two movies pretty much killed off the franchise, I had hoped the game would be good as the idea of urban combat with guns and martial arts would have been better than another fantasy game being unleashed on the market.  The game just ended up being kinda dull, and the live events probably didn't appeal to too many people since after Reloaded and Revolutions, nobody really cared where the story would go.  Am I supposed to care at this point that Morpheus dies?

[jpark]

Interesting.

Either there has been a wave of stupidity in the marketing department - or sales must be picking up for these guys.  The only way I can rationalize this move if sales are not climbing is if they believe their current market share - however small - is "locked in" and can be leveraged further.

1.  Stupidity.
2.  Climbing sales.
3.  Customer switching costs are believed to be high - current base locked in.

I wonder which it is :P

[Trippy]

Their subscription growth rate is at best flat or more likely on a downward spiral since the NGE fiasco. Nothing they are doing in their current games is likely to reverse that trend in the near term and they have no new games right around the corner to boost subscriptions and given the pressure Sony is under to increase revenues before the launch of the PS3 (since they are going to be losing a lot of money on the PS3 initially) SOE is probably trying to milk as much as they can from their existing customers (not that they aren't always trying to do that...) and are hoping the amount they are losing from the price increase is offset by the added revenue.

[Signe]

MXO has been crap since beta, WUA.  You probably need to check your brother into a hospital, pronto.  I'm sure he'll be just fine after a bit of electric shock therapy.  It helped me when I played Horizons.

[WindupAtheist]

To hear him tell it, the gameplay was mediocre with a couple cool parts, but there were staff-played movie characters running around doing their thing pretty much every single day.  They were going around handing out missions, interacting, dispatching Agents to attack people, and so forth.  And supposedly player actions were going to affect which way the story went.  Then SOE took over, and it was a foregone conclusion that all that was going away, so I guess why bother?

[sarius]

Their subscription growth rate is at best flat or more likely on a downward spiral since the NGE fiasco. Nothing they are doing in their current games is likely to reverse that trend in the near term and they have no new games right around the corner to boost subscriptions and given the pressure Sony is under to increase revenues before the launch of the PS3 (since they are going to be losing a lot of money on the PS3 initially) SOE is probably trying to milk as much as they can from their existing customers (not that they aren't always trying to do that...) and are hoping the amount they are losing from the price increase is offset by the added revenue.

I still play EQ2 and just actually bought a 90 day card for it.  Why?  Because I can't find anything out there that holds my interest and most of my friends are still playing EQ2.  I really am hoping for a new MMOG to hit, and have been eyeing some new ones, but the market just depresses me right now.

[Roac]

Good things about MxO included an interesting combat system (interlock), and a mission system that was very good to casual gamers and soloers.  Being sci-fi / anime-ish was a nice change from the typical fantasy genre.  Being able to swap out your skills was a huge bonus too.  You could in theory learn everything, but only have a handful of skills on you at any given point, which meant there wasn't much need to have multiple characters.  Big downside is that there didn't seem to be much to do outside missions, which were themselves fairly bland.  But, that was fairly early in the game and I dont' know how far it progressed since then.

[El Gallo]

I'm sure there are a lot of EQ2 players who use Station Access to keep their beloved EQ1 characters alive for the occasional nostalgia jaunt.  Maybe they just figured that most of those people would pay the extra $5 to keep doing that.  I assume that demographic represents the bulk of Access account holders.  They may think that they can suck a few more EQ2 players into Station Access with their new Progression Server plan, which seems to be squarely aimed at nostalgia-seekers.

[HaemishM]

For $26? Not worth it. Not at all.

Planetside is mildly amusing but a bit depressing. The NGE is... well, it's the NGE. The stuff of legends. MxO? It's bad enough that I haven't bothered to seek out a free trial. EQ1 has long since passed the sell-by date, and EQ2, while fun, isn't enough to hold me to a single subscription for more than a month or two.

Why would the combination of things I'm not interested in be better than just picking and choosing which singular punishment I want to inflict on myself for money?

[Venkman]

$26 isn't worth it. Yea, sure, it's only $5 more than what was. But it's an impulse vs thought-out thing. Any rise in price makes people take notice. Unless they think they're going to get a whole crapload of new people that never knew a time before $25.99, the only people who'd be interested in the All Access Pass already know about it. Price hikes are bad PR, particularly at a time when all of their games are generally believed to be stagnant or in decline.

[Engels]

If only they had a new game to tack onto All Access, then it might be worth considering. So far as I can see, SOE hasn't been creatively engaged in a new product since EQ2. Buying MxO doesn't count, nor does building on an existing project.

I don't have a degree in economics, but it just seems common sense to me that raising the price on a comodity without any added value to that commodity is going to lose you a lot of customers unless your product is irreplaceable, like oil. EQ at one stage may have fit that category, since the alternatives were just so so, but to do this in the light of WoW and on the eve of so many other releases seems a bit out of touch.

[shiznitz]

I upgraded to the Station Pass to get back into PS after tiring a bit of EQ2 after 18 months. The new price puts me right on the bubble between just picking PS or EQ2 each month. Not sure what I will do. It is still cheaper than both separately but I am still not convinced I will leave EQ2 for good.

[Toast]

The only possible explanation is that someone did a price elasticity study that showed that this price increase would result in higher revenues even if subscribers fell.

If SOE is not hitting internal revenue targets, then this is one lever they could pull. The move seems really unwise. It's like McDonalds suddenly charging $7.95 for a Big Mac.

[slog]

Assuming no one cancels   
Subscribers   300,000 (just a guess, but it's close enough)

Old price   21
total revenue (monthly)   $6,300,000.00
   
New Price   26
New total   $7,800,000.00
New additional  revenue   $1,500,000.00

Assuming 10% cancel   
New total   7,020,000.00
Change in Revenue   $720,000.00



Assuming 20% cancel   
New total   6240000
Change in Revenue   -$60,000.00

Soooo.......

If 10% cancel they win.  If 20% (or more cancel) they lose.

[Simond]

Based purely on baseless speculation, I'd say that Smedly has been set an...optimistic profit target this year by his superiors and this price increase is the only possible way he can still have a job by this time next year.

[Signe]

I cancelled.  I might renew my EQ2 sub at some point, but not right now, I think.  I haven't played for weeks.  I'm too distracted right now. 

[Kageru]

Regardless of the price I can only remember with nostalgia a period where I could afford to get simultaneously involved in multiple MMORPG's. I could imagine grouping a bundle of online action titles, where the investment before the fun starts is so much lower, but the only one the station pass has is Planetside, and as far as I know it's largely eclipsed by free equivalents like BF2.

I agree with the analysis that the only people really using the station pass are EQ1 veterans who play EQ2 in between raids, and this group has such an investment in both games they might accept the increase. For anyone not an EQ1 veteran (who'd want to start fresh in EQ1?) it seemed a poor deal at the old price.
 

[Numtini]

There were also people who bought it to use the adventure packs and for the extra characters in EQ2. I think this puts it at a pricepoint where that's not going to happen. Two months subscription buys you the adventure packs. And five dollars more gets you a second account.

Also Slog, you're analysis misses the number of new subscriptions. I would think an initial buy in at the new pricepoint is a lot harder than at the old one.

[Sky]

Just made it that much tougher to check back into EQ2 this fall. Developers should probably not do things to make people not want to come back, even small things. Between price hikes and CoH-style name changes, I really don't give a flying fuck about mmo anymore. I guess this fall I'll just re-up Planetside for a while. At least it's fun.

[Falconeer]

I know this is pretty obvious now, but the station pass will include Vanguard fee too (not sure about Hero's Journey though), as stated by Smed himself.
This changes the thing a little.
Now I wonder, why did they decide to raise the fee before announcing Vanguard?
I am pretty sure they already lost lots of subscription on this that *maybe* could have been saved.

[Reg]

Vanguard is being published by Microsoft isn't it?

[schild]

Reg, check the Vanguard thread.

If the Station Pass has Hero's Journey and Gods & Heroes (screw The Vision), it will probably be the best deal in town for online gaming. Unless WoW still blows your hair back.

[slog]

There were also people who bought it to use the adventure packs and for the extra characters in EQ2. I think this puts it at a pricepoint where that's not going to happen. Two months subscription buys you the adventure packs. And five dollars more gets you a second account.

Also Slog, you're analysis misses the number of new subscriptions. I would think an initial buy in at the new pricepoint is a lot harder than at the old one.

The same ratios would apply.  If they get 10% less new subs per month with the higher price, they still come out ahead.

[Falconeer]

Still, I can't understand SOE timing on this.
If they had announced Vanguard and THEN the price raise, I think they could have saved lots of subscription, as the news could have sounded a bit less unjustified.
This way, with a week between the 2 moves, I am pretty sure lots already unsibscribed, and they won't come back because in about 9 months you will have Vanguard. If anything, they will come back in 9 months, but those money are gone for now and I keep thinking they could have saved some of those "9 monthers".

I am no businessman, but I really can't understand SOE timing on this.

[Lantyssa]

Option 1)  It is business.  These are professionals.  You wouldn't understand.

Option 2)  They have no clue.  Thinking about it will hurt your brain.  You still wouldn't understand.

It is best not to think about it either way as it is beyond our meer mortal comprehensions.  However, you may point and laugh at will.

[shiznitz]

Reg, check the Vanguard thread.

If the Station Pass has Hero's Journey and Gods & Heroes (screw The Vision), it will probably be the best deal in town for online gaming. Unless WoW still blows your hair back.

I expect the Pass would go up again in that case, but can it ever exceed the price of two games separately and be viable? I don't think so. I know a few people that play three MMOGs regularly (WoW, EQ1, EQ2) but those people are not common.

[Morat20]

Reg, check the Vanguard thread.

If the Station Pass has Hero's Journey and Gods & Heroes (screw The Vision), it will probably be the best deal in town for online gaming. Unless WoW still blows your hair back.

I expect the Pass would go up again in that case, but can it ever exceed the price of two games separately and be viable? I don't think so. I know a few people that play three MMOGs regularly (WoW, EQ1, EQ2) but those people are not common.

I play three -- WoW, CoH, and EVE. I rarely am paying all three at once, though. In a sense, Station Pass is a good idea. Since SOE already consolidates their CSRs, and given you can only play one game at a time on the Account, you're really using the same bandwidth and CSR time as you would with just an EQ2 account, and paying 10 bucks more to do so.

Raising the price, though -- that indicates they're operating at a loss somewhere else. Someone's straight-up subs aren't covering costs, so they're dipping into the pure profit of that extra 10 bucks an account for Station Pass users to balance it out. Frankly, that's just another good feature -- you can carry really niche games that raise your profile along with mass market games, and look a far better bargain -- while really making more money.

I think SOE's right in that bundled MMORPG access is probably going to become more and more common. The problem they're having is too much of their bookkeeping and Dev time can't be bundled as easily as access, which probably explains their desire to move to a more common code base. Ideally, SOE would offer a number of games running off the same general template, through station pass. They games would run on consolidated server farms, use consolidated CSR, billing, and Development teams that could be shuffled around as games rose and fell in popularity.

EQ2 showing some serious problems? Shift half a dozen Devs off of EQ1, which is stable and not due for any major upgrades. The common code base means the Devs can pick up quickly, or the common tools mean the Art and Content team can get working right away....

The problem, of course, is that SOE offers several games that really DON'T have design or tools in common, and thus while they can the hardware and CSR support, they're hosed on the development/expansion side. It's not as efficient as it could be, and that's costing them money when one game operates at a significant loss because each game is still fairly discrete.

[HaemishM]

Raising the price, though -- that indicates they're operating at a loss somewhere else. Someone's straight-up subs aren't covering costs, so they're dipping into the pure profit of that extra 10 bucks an account for Station Pass users to balance it out.

I'm guessing that the ones not covering costs are Planetside, Star Wars Galaxies and Matrix Online.

But that's just a guess.

[Morat20]

Raising the price, though -- that indicates they're operating at a loss somewhere else. Someone's straight-up subs aren't covering costs, so they're dipping into the pure profit of that extra 10 bucks an account for Station Pass users to balance it out.

I'm guessing that the ones not covering costs are Planetside, Star Wars Galaxies and Matrix Online.

But that's just a guess.

I'd imagine SWG is probably the real culprit. I suspect their contract with LucasArts gives them a hell of a lot fewer options than Planetside and MxO -- Planetside is theirs, after all, and MxO was picked up when it was already struggling and SOE undoubtably got some really nice terms for it. (In that vein -- I call Bullshit on the "SOE is just publishing and has no control over Vangaurd" bit -- like hell the don't. For a license like Star Wars, SOE would bend over and take it up the ass from LucasArts to get the contract figuring it was a goddamn sure thing. On Vanguard? I'm guessing Brad had to agree to be Smed's pony on weekends for the cash.).

I'd imagine they have higher overhead and fewer options to cut costs on SWG than they do on Planetside and MxO. It wouldn't surprise me if all three were operating in the red (especially if you factor in their relevent share of CSR time), but I figure Galaxies has to be fucking them pretty good. They took a 100k sub hit or more in the last year, and they're still stuck with the same number of servers, same licensing and hardware/software costs and what appears to still be a damn big Dev team for a game that was bugeted and contracted on the assumption it would have five to ten times more players than it does now.

[shiznitz]

I wouldn't read a price hike as a response to losses necessarily. Company's raise prices when they think they can get away with it. SOE saw the vanguard thing coming and knoew that it would throw the Station Pass price increase off the "front page," so to speak.  People who were going to cancel Station Pass due to the price hike have already done so. The rest either don't care or won't notice it for a while.

[Morat20]

I wouldn't read a price hike as a response to losses necessarily. Company's raise prices when they think they can get away with it. SOE saw the vanguard thing coming and knoew that it would throw the Station Pass price increase off the "front page," so to speak.  People who were going to cancel Station Pass due to the price hike have already done so. The rest either don't care or won't notice it for a while.

Maybe. But SOE's bottom line this year can't look too healthy. Are any of their games really growing? Most appear stagnant or declining (or massively declining), and they've shelled out a lot of dough the last few years on SWG, on MxO, and don't have that much to show for it. And now they've put up the money for Vanguard, which is just some more red ink.....

Maybe they needed some good "projected increases in revenues" for this quarter when they report back to the home office.