**note - there are no real answers in this post...only questions.**

so, I'm watching the many forum threads on "will you pay for ESO", "why won't you" "it's too much" "it's just fine", etc etc. and of course, it's a relevant question - it's one I've been asking myself, and one I've discussed with a good friend of mine that I've been playing the beta stress test weekends with.

but, going over my own reasons and interests, it's sorta called up a larger question in my mind, and because I'm bored and it's a slow day at work, I've decided to put my thoughts down in the forums...because reasons.

How much money *should* people pay to play an MMO?

what's a reasonable amount? what are the costs involved? how much is too much and will chase people away? how much is not enough and will keep the game from really growing and expanding?

truth is, there aren't really any solid answers to be had, because the companies *making* the games won't give us solid numbers, for any number of reasons. F2P models are often accused of hiding their numbers so we (the potential players) can't know how much money they're making off of us, or so we won't know that they're failing as a company/product. Subscription models (of which there are only a few left) are often accused of the very same things. Truth is, I have no idea how much money LOTRO is currently making off their hybrid f2p/subscription model, I have no idea how much money GW2 is making off their pay once and make money off the store model; and neither do any of you. Not really - you can guess all you like, you can surmise and deduce, but in the end, the only people that really know how much money they are/are-not making, are keeping quiet about it.

so, all we can do for our own part, is ask how much money we *want* to pay, how much money we *should* pay, and at which point is the price too high.

#1 - The game company needs to make money. They need money to justify their initial expense developing the game. They need money to continue providing servers for the game. They need money to justify creating expansions for the game. If we want to play the game at all, we *have* to admit that the company needs *some* of our resources in return, so they can continue to keep providing the game. We *also* really sort of have to admit to ourselves that the company won't do it at all if they can't make at least *some* degree of PROFIT (that is, money over and above what they need to create new content and maintain the servers). So, we *have* to pay for the product - those of us that want to play, at least - and we *have* to either pay a whole lot up front so there's a lot of resources with which to maintain and expand in the future, or we have to pay *some* amount for a long time.

Now, because none of us know how many of us are paying how much, there's no real way for us to gauge, if we're being gouged. if 200,000 people pay 15 dollars a month, that's what - 3 million dollars EVERY MONTH!!...that seems...like a lot, right? How much is that in game development/server cost world? I don't really know. Is 200,000 people a lot? is it WAY over what will actually play? again, I don't really know...

but the answer to #1 really sort of hinges on how many people are paying, how much money the game development/service company is making, and how much it costs to give us new stuff while making a *reasonable* profit. All of which are numbers none of us really have access to. Probably for very specific reasons.

#2 - so, above is why the company has the right to charge us...something, for the game. #2 is all about - how much is too much? How much am I actually *getting* out of the game? how exciting is it? how pretty is it? how immersive is it? how competitive is it? etc...etc... Everyone comes to the game with different expectations and priorities, and a LOT of forum argumentation isn't really about definitive qualities of the game, so much about our personal perceptions. Some people think that the game isn't worth it if there isn't enough pvp - others think that too much pvp ruins the game for them - and so on, and so forth.

So, if we're going to answer #2, I suppose the first thing we have to admit to ourselves, is that it isn't *just* us playing the game. The game is designed to appeal to a community of gamers - it's designed to offer incentives for pvp'ers, for pve'ers, for fashion mavens and combat junkies and drama addicts and lore lovers, for group-ers and solo-ers and so on and so forth, and if YOU get the game YOU want to play, you ALSO have to accept, to at least *some* degree, that there will also be OTHER parts of the game for that OTHER guy to like.

like taxes in America - you're not just paying for the things *you* personally approve of - you're paying for the things *you* need, and you're paying for the things some other guy *needs* that you may never see in your lifetime - and by the same token, THAT guy is paying for *your* roads and *your* kids to go to school, even though he *personally* may never benefit from the things he has to pay for.

If *you* want an elder scrolls game, you *have* to expect, to at least *some* degree, to have to pay for the elder scrolls game that some *other* guy ALSO wanted to play, but with a slightly or even drastically different focus.

So, the game breaker, is just how little of your own priorities are reflected in the game, and how flexible can you be? Is the pvp *really* SOOOOO very bad that it makes every other aspect of the game, no matter how appealing, not worth your time/money? Yes? Sorry to hear that - maybe the next game that comes along will be closer to what you want. Is the game *really* SOOOOO very PVE-centric that you absolutely cannot stand to set foot within the game? Yes? Sorry to hear that - maybe the next game will...well, you know. And so forth...

Anytime you make an entertainment product for a large community, the product itself is going to have to balance out between a wide variety of different priorities, preferences and interests, and YOU are going to have to decide if it got close enough to what *you* want, that you can get past all the things you didn't, or not.

I've wandered a bit, I know. I do that - so, How much money is an MMO that we *can* stand, worth to us?

now, people have fought, backwards and forwards, over whether 15$ a month is too much, not enough, just right, or at the very least, acceptable. I expect that debate to continue for a very, very long time. There's always going to be something to fight over, because EVERYONE has different things they want from the game, and depending on how much money you *have*, how badly you like the game, and how much faith you have in what it will be in the future - that's how much money you'll be willing to pay, right now.

So, the only way to pare down the arguments over how much is too much, is either A - get the dev company to give us much more solid ideas on how much money they make, how much they need, how much they're spending on us. You can all start holding your breath....NOW!

or B - honestly ask ourselves, how much give and take are we willing to have with our fellow ESO players (assuming you've decided to join them)? How much am I willing to allow the PVP crowd to share the ESO world with me? Just how much do you hate the RP'ers with their music festivals, or can you live with them so that you can enjoy your 6-man raid? Just how many books do I feel HAVE to be in the game to sate my lust for stories about Sheogarath and Boethia and the ABC's for Barbarians, and if they're not there, I won't be either?

This is a shared game world. There's no way around it. You can't expect to walk into this world and assume that the whole thing HAS to be built around you and only you - if that's what you want, you won't be happy, unless you're the one in a million definitive generic gamer that they built every feature of the game around. Instead, gauge how much of each feature you want/is here/you can stand, and then decide if 15$ sounds like too much (again, because, unless we get solid numbers on accounting from the game dev company, we're unlikely to ever be able to determine for ourselves if they're gouging us or not, and so that's what you're going to be paying). If 15$ is too much, that's cool. I'm still not sure if it's too much for me or not. Don't buy and don't pay. It's all good.

Sure, we'd all like to pay less. I certainly wouldn't mind paying less. But I *will* mind paying less, if paying less means having to endure the eventual creation of an in-game store, or less frequent fixes or content update, etc, etc. And since (again), I have no idea just *how* much I have to pay to keep the above things running well, and all I can do is *trust* Zenimax online to tell me how much they need, that's pretty much the number that I have to decide about.

Like I said, no answers. Just questions. But I feel a little bit better - and I blew almost a good half hour at an excruciating slow day at work - anyone else bored and in a critical thinking mood, feel free to hop on! and if anyone ever comes up with solid numbers on dev costs server maintenance costs and company profits, feel free to throw that in! That'd make answering these questions a whole lot more doable.

Not sure really - I am a little annoyed that my digital download of the Imperial version will cost be the equivalent of 116 dollars 90 cents when it's available to US players for 79 dollars 99 cents though. (Even though we have a tax on online services in the EU which will add a percentage to our version it's still a very big difference and their emailed reply wasn't very satisfactory when I enquired).

I didnt read the whole post, I kinda stopped at the part where you talked about how we dont know how much money they are making. Is there some reason why you should know?

Its not relevant. In a free market the consumer sets the price. Think $15 is too much, well then it must be, dont buy it. If how much money the company makes is actually a factor on wether you will buy something from them or not, just go to your local mom and pop MMO with the other hipsters.

an MMO is only worth what its players are willing to PAY for it, it doesnt matter if you make the coolest most beautiful MMO in the world if the players dont feel its worth their money then the mmo is worthless

They need to charge as much as they can, while still maintaining mainstream appeal. All the F2P scrubs acts like they are just being greedy pigs and tend to overlook that ZOS spent something like 150-200 Million to make this game. They need to recoup their costs.

I read somewhere that ESO was one of the most expensive, if not the most, MMO to date. !00+ mill invested. With good Presales and initial market sales they should recoup initial cost within the first few months (lets say 6). after that the sub fee will be used to keep the game alive. and yes bring in income to the people who have developed it.

If you want to and can afford to pay the initial cost, as well as the sub fee, you are good to go. If you don't want to pay any of the costs associated with ESO, that is fine too.

Exactly as much as this game costs.

No more, only sometimes less.

This is the perfect price.

umm no I am pretty sure that SWTOR was the most expensive mmo developed and it didnt even recoup 1/2 of its development costs, if Elder Scrolls really cost 100 million to make then they better be looking to appeal to the largest possible audience and that means catering to a lot more ppl than what they are currently catering to

regarding differences in cost between different countries - I'd guess that's more an international politics issue. As far as I know, the differences in costs between different countries is a combination of currency value, import/export taxes, and local legislation. I'm sorry there's some value discrepancy, but I'm not sure how much of an effect the dev company alone can have on that issue.

As for the above two comments regarding "what the market/consumer WILL pay" - that is at least one of the points I tried to cover, although I'll grant it might get lost in other thoughts. See, it *isn't* just what the market/consumer will pay. It never really has been. It's a combination of what the market/consumer WILL pay vs what the producer NEEDS in order to provide the product. In short, you can say you no one will pay 15$ for the game. If Zenimax online NEEDS 15$ for the game, and you won't pay it, then you don't get a game. The end.

so the question really is, what are you WILLING to pay VS what can the company provide for what you are willing to pay. So, you're half right, I suppose - if you're not willing to pay for the game provided, regardless of how good it *could* be, then it won't be provided.

I just think it's hypocritical to demand a product with a certain degree of quality, without being willing to provide the necessary resources and profit incentive to produce the quality product you're demanding.

Price of game is fine. Monthly subscription model needs to change. F2P is also terrible idea..

Should be pay as you play type model. Costs money to maintain servers,pipes, support people etc..

Should it be a flat fee or paid by the hour played. I would like to see a pay by played time type model come to existence one of these days.

you do know that free2play makes more money overall than pay to play right?

It failed because it tried to be a single player MMO - nothing wrong with a story based MMO if done properly but they made travelling a chore. The mechanics with the cut scenes etc were straight out of one of their single player games with no thought given to the needless repetition. They also suffered from problems with too many players in the hubs at one time causing heavy lag too.

Only when the game is so bad that nobody wants to sub to it.

If what you said was true in the case of SUCCESSFUL games, then WoW would have been free 5 years ago.

Not necessarily true. If this game has 5 million people playing it, and only 10,000 people buying stuff from the cash shop that looks like a loss right there. I can go on and on about F2P but its a dead issue.

I paid 79.99 for a collectors edition of WoW in 2004, and then paid 12.99 a month for several years, buying 3 months at a time. That was in 2004, 10 years ago....there were no digital editions. I will pay for a good game, and I will continue to pay for a game as long as it stays good. SWTOR I bought when it came out and loved it, as soon as they started messing with it and ti went f2p, I tried to hang in there but it wasn't the same. The player base changed and other elements made the game not enjoyable so I canceled.

You can't blame a company for trying to make money, they've been spending money for years developing the game. It doesn't take a few months, it's years of $ invested. The industry standard has been 14.99 a month unless you buy a bigger block of time, for awhile now. They have to pay people to maintain the game. and they have to have ongoing development or the game with get boring.

I'd imagine it's like having a baseball team

wow was an exception to the rule for the most part most gaming companies are finding free 2 play makes more money which is why they are switching to it and pay to play is almost obsolete

Yeah, like, people who have games that nobody really wants to play, like SWTOR.

And mobile app games.

It doesnt matter how much their profit margin is, whatever they think is "enough" is the right amount I suppose. "More" would be the best answer, but companies have managed to stick to the $15 fee because its a precedent and it works. Thats as good a reason as any in pricing a service that isnt tangible.

Customers of any enterprise have never been intricately involved in deciding how much clear profit a company makes is fair as compared to their upkeep and debits. I dont see why MMO's should be unique in this regard.

swtor is actually doing a lot better now that its free 2 play as is EQ2 and DCUO and several other games that started as pay 2 play and switched to free 2 play

Do you know why they went F2P? Maybe because it wasnt about money but releasing half finished crap games

And im sure you know that since there is no guaranteed revenue stream that usually the staff is severely reduced after launch.Which means most work is then transferred to the cash shop items and you will usually never see a true expansion ala new continent,new race,game mechanics,raised lvl cap all in one.Im sure you could find a F2P game that disproves this but i bet it was a P2P game before it went F2P and probably had alot of work already done on the expansion before it went F2P. Actually im just parroting what a friend of mine who is in the mmo industry working as a translator told me so take it for what its worth.

no the most expensive, as far as I know, is swtor, 200m (lol) but they gave about 150-170 to the sound... lol

I wonder, who charges so much money for creating a game... Who takes the most of it... marketing? anyway strange amounts of money. They could give some in africa and the children they die everyday

Nvm

very noble thing to say but honestly lets take care of the children at home first we have a lot of starving children right in our own back yard, I consider myself one of the fortunate ones I am actually able to give back to my community some from my disability check each month

here is the development costs for ESO http://www.examiner.com/article/report-elder-scrolls-online-cost-200-million-to-produce

ESO and Swtor = 200m each

Where all these money go? If I play you some violin, are u gonna give me 1m? I dont know how to play violin though, but is going to be at 432hz sound and modern art in the hearing. hahahaha