Every week it seems like a new block buster game is coming out at $65 (taxes) per game, and most of them svck. The ones that dont svck, tend to be really short with little replay value. this is the reason why i like MMOs!

Any game, especially the TES series, that can hold my attention for more then 10-15 hours is a massive success in my book. Call of duty isnt a great game, but ive played it for enough hours to justify the $65 ive spent on it, on the other hand games like Tomb Raider (new one), bio shock1/2/3, resistance fall of man1/2/3, most FPS games, as well as JRPG (long yes, but tedious and boring as hell) last only 5-10 hours and cost the same price. JRPGs being the exception that i can only stand to play them for a short time.

basically i see it like this....

entertainment per hour using theater prices (movies)

**$10.75 @ 2 hours = $5.38 per hour

using this as generic value for an hour of entertainment

**a 5 hour game, IE. resistance fall of man 1/2/3,

$65 @ 5= $13 per hour

was this a good game, yes, was it expensive, HELL YES! more then 2x the price of going to the movies, and that game had very little replay value to me.

lets look at Skyrim

**$65 @ 150 hours (lol yeah right more like 1500 hours) = $.44 per hour

it was an great game, and well worth the price with very little content by comparison to an MMO.

ESO will cost $230 for the first year (i think)

**$230 @ 730 (2 hours per night average, even though most MMO players average closer to 4 per night)= $.32 per hour, then drops to $.24 per hour the following year.

that's less per hour then Skyrim.... and yet i didn't hear anyone crying about Skyrim being over priced. now comparing Skyrim, the king of RPGs, to an MMO is apples and oranges BUT remember this is about the value of an hour of your time. the lower the cost for you, the better.

Honestly in conclusion i think that paying the subscription fee is actually better then being nickled and dimed by a F2P game, or being over charged by a "Block Buster" must have single player that will get shelved and collect dust soon after being purchased. i personally think MMOs are the most cost efficient "WASTE OF TIME!!" you can involve yourself in, and sub based MMOs are much more enjoyable then F2P.

Yeah, I think for most it's the subscription fee on top of being nickled and dimed. But I get your point.

Great thread, been thinking of writing one of these myself!

Nickled and dimed for what? I bought the game, set up my subscription, but i havent seen anything else. There is no store at this point.

Am i missing something or do you mean the rarely used options like character name changes and stuff?

Wow, just wow. Really 4 hours a night every day for an entire year. You need some other hobbies my friend. That is nothing like the average, I'd be surprised if the true average over a year was much more than a couple of hours a week. Sure there will be much higher peak use but there will be weeks with little or no play at all also.

Also justifying something cost by saying look compared to these things which are a rip off its not too bad is just asking for trouble.

14.99 was ok when there was only a handful of other MMOs around and they all charged about the same. These days there is a wealth of other options many of which now have totally free to play options or Guildwars style pay once models. It also would be easier to justify if ESO stood out from the crowd in some clear way. Instead its sort of the same give or take a couple of innovations and a lot less content and development (what with being new). Why pay 14.99 a month to play ESO when I could get a free account for LOTRO or buy Guildwars 2 and play for free or any number of other options out there which are more or less the same as ESO whatever you might think about full voice acting or first person perspective.

I think someone at Bethesda (or whoever it actually is making this game) is suffering from denial about the state of the MMO industry and the appeal of another Wow-a-like at a full sub price like the old days.

someone missed the ENTIIIIRRREEE point in the post, it is to show you that people spend money in different ways. entertainment is entertainment if you go to the movies you pay x per hour, watch tv you pay x per hour, if you read book its costs x per hour, $.35 per hour for an MMO which you may enjoy isnt expensive at all. Shoot cable ($86 per month in my area) costs you more per hour then this MMO will.

I didn't miss the entire point of the thread, I just disagreed with the basic assertions being made.

You also can't compare for example and MMO subscription with a TV subscription (Edit - or multiple non-subscriber games) or seeing a film at the cinema (which is a massive rip off but that's besides the point) because they are not comparable items.

At the end of the day the customer will decide if this game is correctly priced or not. I tend to think, like has happened to pretty much every big MMO of recent years, they will see a huge subscriber crash after the first couple of months and not too long later they will start scrabbling for ways to reinvent their model with probably only limited success. But its always possible I'm wrong. Hell I thought Flappy Bird was the biggest pile of dung and yet apparently people loved it.. Although it was at least free

We only need one thread talking about the subscription price. Please http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1491552-anyone-else-completely-turned-off-by-the-cost/.