MMOs... why they cost money, justifiably

Many people have argued in the past that MMO subscription fees are a ripoff. However many of us have argued that it is used to sustain the game word. ASIDE from the subscription fee being used to help further development for FREE new content, here are some additional things they are used for...

Blizzard just revielded some raw numbers:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25307

In a keynote to GDC Austin, two Blizzard developer pulled back the curtains on some aspects of World of Warcraft that players might not consider much, and dropped an interesting tidbit about how the series evolved from RTS to MMO.

Gamasutra, covering the keynote, reports that World of Warcraft grew out of a Blizzard team's frustration with a concept called Nomad, which was to have been a squad-based RTS. Unable to find much purpose in the work, they chucked Nomad and asked "What would we do if we wanted to start a project today?" The answer was World of Warcraft.

"Operating an online game is about more than just game development," said Pearce. "World of Warcraft has completely changed the organization".

As proof, Pearce supplied numbers for the staggering amounts of manpower and computing infrastructure the game needs just to stay up and running, such as:

• 20,000 computer systems
• 13,250 server blades
• 75,000 CPU cores
• 1.3 petabytes of storage
• 4,600 staffers
• A partridge in a pear tree.

Kidding about the last. But they don't stop there. Warcraft's a game with 7,650 quests, 70,000 spells, 40,000 NPCs, 1.5 million game assets, and 5.5 million lines of code. QA's swatted some 180,000 bugs. And the playing community has unlocked 4,449,680,399 rewards.

The keynote, mostly a department-by-department breakdown of those who keep the World of Warcraft running, is reported fully over at Gamasutra. Here's another number: 5. It's World of Warcraft's age as of November. I'm not sure if it seems like it released just yesterday, or a dozen years ago.

While Im sure noone knew these exact stats, it makes sense that this is what it takes to Run WoW. They wouldn;t be abke to do this without the monthly fee, IMO. Good on em.

Some MMO's may be a rip off, but WoW isn't one of them, you clearly see where the money is going, Blizzard support is Ace.

Many people have argued in the past that MMO subscription fees are a ripoff. However many of us have argued that it is used to sustain the game word. ASIDE from the subscription fee being used to help further development for FREE new content, here are some additional things they are used for...

Blizzard just revielded some raw numbers:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25307

In a keynote to GDC Austin, two Blizzard developer pulled back the curtains on some aspects of World of Warcraft that players might not consider much, and dropped an interesting tidbit about how the series evolved from RTS to MMO.

Gamasutra, covering the keynote, reports that World of Warcraft grew out of a Blizzard team's frustration with a concept called Nomad, which was to have been a squad-based RTS. Unable to find much purpose in the work, they chucked Nomad and asked "What would we do if we wanted to start a project today?" The answer was World of Warcraft.

"Operating an online game is about more than just game development," said Pearce. "World of Warcraft has completely changed the organization".

As proof, Pearce supplied numbers for the staggering amounts of manpower and computing infrastructure the game needs just to stay up and running, such as:

• 20,000 computer systems
• 13,250 server blades
• 75,000 CPU cores
• 1.3 petabytes of storage
• 4,600 staffers
• A partridge in a pear tree.

Kidding about the last. But they don't stop there. Warcraft's a game with 7,650 quests, 70,000 spells, 40,000 NPCs, 1.5 million game assets, and 5.5 million lines of code. QA's swatted some 180,000 bugs. And the playing community has unlocked 4,449,680,399 rewards.

The keynote, mostly a department-by-department breakdown of those who keep the World of Warcraft running, is reported fully over at Gamasutra. Here's another number: 5. It's World of Warcraft's age as of November. I'm not sure if it seems like it released just yesterday, or a dozen years ago.

SquatsAreAwesom

Funny how the Korean developers/publishers can offer them for free but because of the above you suddenly think it's fair to be charged a monthly subscription fee.

Paying one time for a game you own is fine. Being able to play a game for free is brilliant. Paying a monthly subscription fee for a single game is a joke.

I'm sure the montly fee is set so it satisfies two requirements:

1: To maintain whatever effort is needed to keep it running.

2: to make it profitable (which probably varies but not by huge margins).

There r so many MMOs that dont charge monethly fees and yet they have survived.This is just BS by Blizzard.It aint that bigger that they r showing us

I don't think anyone disagrees that the monthly fees are necessary to keep the game running. But it's still a ripoff from the consumer's perspective. It doesn't even get you free content -- you have to make a completely separate payment for expansion packs.

xDimMaK

I don't think anyone disagrees that the monthly fees are necessary to keep the game running. But it's still a ripoff from the consumer's perspective. It doesn't even get you free content -- you have to make a completely separate payment for expansion packs.

xDimMaK

There r so many MMOs that dont charge monethly fees and yet they have survived.This is just BS by Blizzard.It aint that bigger that they r showing us

sandeep410

There r so many MMOs that dont charge monethly fees and yet they have survived.This is just BS by Blizzard.It aint that bigger that they r showing us

sandeep410

Yeah, I can understand why it costs money -- it's just something that I don't ever see myself paying.Stevo_the_gamer

Right.... for only one game. And MMOs require a level of time commitment that I simply don't have. For those that get into MMO's, more power to you guys.

If I'm paying a monthly fee then I would only play that game to try to get my moneys worth. I would never do that because I don't like that kind of commitment, I like to play a lot of different games.

[QUOTE="sandeep410"]

There r so many MMOs that dont charge monethly fees and yet they have survived.This is just BS by Blizzard.It aint that bigger that they r showing us

dog_dirt

Funny how the Korean developers/publishers can offer them for free but because of the above you suddenly think it's fair to be charged a monthly subscription fee.

Paying one time for a game you own is fine. Being able to play a game for free is brilliant. Paying a monthly subscription fee for a single game is a joke.

amaneuvering

[QUOTE="SquatsAreAwesom"]

Many people have argued in the past that MMO subscription fees are a ripoff. However many of us have argued that it is used to sustain the game word. ASIDE from the subscription fee being used to help further development for FREE new content, here are some additional things they are used for...

Blizzard just revielded some raw numbers:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25307

In a keynote to GDC Austin, two Blizzard developer pulled back the curtains on some aspects of World of Warcraft that players might not consider much, and dropped an interesting tidbit about how the series evolved from RTS to MMO.

Gamasutra, covering the keynote, reports that World of Warcraft grew out of a Blizzard team's frustration with a concept called Nomad, which was to have been a squad-based RTS. Unable to find much purpose in the work, they chucked Nomad and asked "What would we do if we wanted to start a project today?" The answer was World of Warcraft.

"Operating an online game is about more than just game development," said Pearce. "World of Warcraft has completely changed the organization".

As proof, Pearce supplied numbers for the staggering amounts of manpower and computing infrastructure the game needs just to stay up and running, such as:

• 20,000 computer systems
• 13,250 server blades
• 75,000 CPU cores
• 1.3 petabytes of storage
• 4,600 staffers
• A partridge in a pear tree.

Kidding about the last. But they don't stop there. Warcraft's a game with 7,650 quests, 70,000 spells, 40,000 NPCs, 1.5 million game assets, and 5.5 million lines of code. QA's swatted some 180,000 bugs. And the playing community has unlocked 4,449,680,399 rewards.

The keynote, mostly a department-by-department breakdown of those who keep the World of Warcraft running, is reported fully over at Gamasutra. Here's another number: 5. It's World of Warcraft's age as of November. I'm not sure if it seems like it released just yesterday, or a dozen years ago.

Funny how the Korean developers/publishers can offer them for free but because of the above you suddenly think it's fair to be charged a monthly subscription fee.

Paying one time for a game you own is fine. Being able to play a game for free is brilliant. Paying a monthly subscription fee for a single game is a joke.

I don't think anyone disagrees that the monthly fees are necessary to keep the game running. But it's still a ripoff from the consumer's perspective. It doesn't even get you free content -- you have to make a completely separate payment for expansion packs.

xDimMaK

WOW has implemented mulitple new raids, dungeons, quests and PVP battlegrounds for free since the last expansion. And there is at least one more major content patch due before the next expac.

[QUOTE="dog_dirt"][QUOTE="sandeep410"]

There r so many MMOs that dont charge monethly fees and yet they have survived.This is just BS by Blizzard.It aint that bigger that they r showing us

HuusAsking

[QUOTE="SquatsAreAwesom"]

Many people have argued in the past that MMO subscription fees are a ripoff. However many of us have argued that it is used to sustain the game word. ASIDE from the subscription fee being used to help further development for FREE new content, here are some additional things they are used for...

Blizzard just revielded some raw numbers:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25307

In a keynote to GDC Austin, two Blizzard developer pulled back the curtains on some aspects of World of Warcraft that players might not consider much, and dropped an interesting tidbit about how the series evolved from RTS to MMO.

Gamasutra, covering the keynote, reports that World of Warcraft grew out of a Blizzard team's frustration with a concept called Nomad, which was to have been a squad-based RTS. Unable to find much purpose in the work, they chucked Nomad and asked "What would we do if we wanted to start a project today?" The answer was World of Warcraft.

"Operating an online game is about more than just game development," said Pearce. "World of Warcraft has completely changed the organization".

As proof, Pearce supplied numbers for the staggering amounts of manpower and computing infrastructure the game needs just to stay up and running, such as:

• 20,000 computer systems
• 13,250 server blades
• 75,000 CPU cores
• 1.3 petabytes of storage
• 4,600 staffers
• A partridge in a pear tree.

Kidding about the last. But they don't stop there. Warcraft's a game with 7,650 quests, 70,000 spells, 40,000 NPCs, 1.5 million game assets, and 5.5 million lines of code. QA's swatted some 180,000 bugs. And the playing community has unlocked 4,449,680,399 rewards.

The keynote, mostly a department-by-department breakdown of those who keep the World of Warcraft running, is reported fully over at Gamasutra. Here's another number: 5. It's World of Warcraft's age as of November. I'm not sure if it seems like it released just yesterday, or a dozen years ago.

Funny how the Korean developers/publishers can offer them for free but because of the above you suddenly think it's fair to be charged a monthly subscription fee.

Paying one time for a game you own is fine. Being able to play a game for free is brilliant. Paying a monthly subscription fee for a single game is a joke.

Funny how the Korean developers/publishers can offer them for free but because of the above you suddenly think it's fair to be charged a monthly subscription fee.

Paying one time for a game you own is fine. Being able to play a game for free is brilliant. Paying a monthly subscription fee for a single game is a joke.

amaneuvering

[QUOTE="amaneuvering"]Funny how the Korean developers/publishers can offer them for free but because of the above you suddenly think it's fair to be charged a monthly subscription fee.

Paying one time for a game you own is fine. Being able to play a game for free is brilliant. Paying a monthly subscription fee for a single game is a joke.

Brownesque

[QUOTE="xDimMaK"]

I don't think anyone disagrees that the monthly fees are necessary to keep the game running. But it's still a ripoff from the consumer's perspective. It doesn't even get you free content -- you have to make a completely separate payment for expansion packs.

myke2010

WOW has implemented mulitple new raids, dungeons, quests and PVP battlegrounds for free since the last expansion. And there is at least one more major content patch due before the next expac.

If they didn't imagine the player base that would quit on the spot when you have to PAY when the class you play gets nerfed....yea that would go so well /end sarcasm.

Im curious to know how much Blizzards Electric bill is though for having to run all those servers.

uh, its not FREE new content, cause you are paying a monthly fee.

as a MMO player this is old new to me what i cant get my head around though is all the people who constantly complain about the monthly fee, do they think the game runs on air or something.

and to the others who wonder why some MMO's offer a no fee service the servers costs are recovered with micro transactions or heavy advertising.

uh, its not FREE new content, cause you are paying a monthly fee.

dxmcat

Im curious to know how much Blizzards Electric bill is though for having to run all those servers.

Ballroompirate

as a MMO player this is old new to me what i cant get my head around though is all the people who constantly complain about the monthly fee, do they think the game runs on air or something.

and to the others who wonder why some MMO's offer a no fee service the servers costs are recovered with micro transactions or heavy advertising.

AGMing

[QUOTE="AGMing"]Spoiled by Sony would be a guess of mine. After all, Sony bleeds through the nose to provide dedicated servers for most all its 1st-party multiplayer games, and the gamers don't pay a dime out of pocket apart from the cost of the game itself.HuusAsking

[QUOTE="AGMing"]

as a MMO player this is old new to me what i cant get my head around though is all the people who constantly complain about the monthly fee, do they think the game runs on air or something.

and to the others who wonder why some MMO's offer a no fee service the servers costs are recovered with micro transactions or heavy advertising.

HuusAsking

to be honest i think its just the mentality of people these days everyone seems the think they should get everything for free, rather than something being the source of there way of thinking. AGMing

Well your statement held more weight before GW came out. theres no ads, the microtransactions are never neccecary to experience the full game, and the way they profit is by constantly pushing out expansion packs. and if your argument is that GW isnt a persistant world then GW2 will follow the same model but withh be a persistant world.

what about guild wars :0

Well your statement held more weight before GW came out. theres no ads, the microtransactions are never neccecary to experience the full game, and the way they profit is by constantly pushing out expansion packs. and if your argument is that GW isnt a persistant world then GW2 will follow the same model but withh be a persistant world.

Thessassin

Guild Wars is instanced peer-to-peer. The servers only do matching, which has relatively little overhead and therefore cost, especially in terms of hardware and bandwidth (XBOX Live works much the same way). Guild Wars also has relatively little content for an RPG, which makes it "episodic". i.e. it's really short without the expansions. Serious bugs are addressed in... expansions, which you pay for. Basically, in Guild Wars the expansions are all but REQUIRED which has provided them enough a a revenue stream to keep the matching servers going.

GW2 will still be heavily instanced and relies on peer bandwidth as well. It remains to be seen how much of a persistant world the game will really have.

None of this is a slam on GW. I'm just pointing out that the model of GW reduces costs (and, in effect, content). It's not really in the same genre as MMORPGs like World of Warcraft.

Holy $%#, that game is huge.

[QUOTE="SquatsAreAwesom"]That doesn't make *any* sense. How is it a ripoff from the customer's perspective, when they are paying for a virtual world? It can only be a ripoff if there is something of equivalence that can be got for a less, or no cost. That today does not exist whatsoeverxDimMaK

Secondly, MMOs *do* add free content... all the good ones, that is. Which one doesn't? Expansions are exactly what they sound like, and usually add more zones, and is in all cases essentially a new game all together. Just look at WoW for example. They add new content patches every 3 months or so, with buttloads of new content. Their expansions though, are in themselves months worth of additional content that redefined the game.SquatsAreAwesom

There r so many MMOs that dont charge monethly fees and yet they have survived.This is just BS by Blizzard.It aint that bigger that they r showing us

sandeep410

Many people have argued in the past that MMO subscription fees are a ripoff. However many of us have argued that it is used to sustain the game word. ASIDE from the subscription fee being used to help further development for FREE new content, here are some additional things they are used for...

Blizzard just revielded some raw numbers:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25307

In a keynote to GDC Austin, two Blizzard developer pulled back the curtains on some aspects of World of Warcraft that players might not consider much, and dropped an interesting tidbit about how the series evolved from RTS to MMO.

Gamasutra, covering the keynote, reports that World of Warcraft grew out of a Blizzard team's frustration with a concept called Nomad, which was to have been a squad-based RTS. Unable to find much purpose in the work, they chucked Nomad and asked "What would we do if we wanted to start a project today?" The answer was World of Warcraft.

"Operating an online game is about more than just game development," said Pearce. "World of Warcraft has completely changed the organization".

As proof, Pearce supplied numbers for the staggering amounts of manpower and computing infrastructure the game needs just to stay up and running, such as:

• 20,000 computer systems
• 13,250 server blades
• 75,000 CPU cores
• 1.3 petabytes of storage
• 4,600 staffers
• A partridge in a pear tree.

Kidding about the last. But they don't stop there. Warcraft's a game with 7,650 quests, 70,000 spells, 40,000 NPCs, 1.5 million game assets, and 5.5 million lines of code. QA's swatted some 180,000 bugs. And the playing community has unlocked 4,449,680,399 rewards.

The keynote, mostly a department-by-department breakdown of those who keep the World of Warcraft running, is reported fully over at Gamasutra. Here's another number: 5. It's World of Warcraft's age as of November. I'm not sure if it seems like it released just yesterday, or a dozen years ago.

SquatsAreAwesom

Unless they created their own database system, wichI doubt they would have, licenses for the database system alone would be ultra expensive.

^ I can't answer that question because I'm biased: I think MMOs in general suck. But there are certainly plenty of people who play free-to-play and one-time-payment MMOs. A monthly fee is not a requirement for MMO fans to have a good time. But please. Keep trying to justify it to yourself.

xDimMaK

Many people have argued in the past that MMO subscription fees are a ripoff. However many of us have argued that it is used to sustain the game word. ASIDE from the subscription fee being used to help further development for FREE new content, here are some additional things they are used for...

Blizzard just revielded some raw numbers:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25307

In a keynote to GDC Austin, two Blizzard developer pulled back the curtains on some aspects of World of Warcraft that players might not consider much, and dropped an interesting tidbit about how the series evolved from RTS to MMO.

Gamasutra, covering the keynote, reports that World of Warcraft grew out of a Blizzard team's frustration with a concept called Nomad, which was to have been a squad-based RTS. Unable to find much purpose in the work, they chucked Nomad and asked "What would we do if we wanted to start a project today?" The answer was World of Warcraft.

"Operating an online game is about more than just game development," said Pearce. "World of Warcraft has completely changed the organization".

As proof, Pearce supplied numbers for the staggering amounts of manpower and computing infrastructure the game needs just to stay up and running, such as:

• 20,000 computer systems
• 13,250 server blades
• 75,000 CPU cores
• 1.3 petabytes of storage
• 4,600 staffers
• A partridge in a pear tree.

Kidding about the last. But they don't stop there. Warcraft's a game with 7,650 quests, 70,000 spells, 40,000 NPCs, 1.5 million game assets, and 5.5 million lines of code. QA's swatted some 180,000 bugs. And the playing community has unlocked 4,449,680,399 rewards.

The keynote, mostly a department-by-department breakdown of those who keep the World of Warcraft running, is reported fully over at Gamasutra. Here's another number: 5. It's World of Warcraft's age as of November. I'm not sure if it seems like it released just yesterday, or a dozen years ago.

SquatsAreAwesom

I hate to break this to you, but if you have to pay for it, the content isn't free.

Shame on Blizzard on trying to turn a profit! I shall tell Barack Obama at once!hiiijack

Congratulations, do you want a cookie?

I think the fee is justifiable if we get content for free/no additional fee, but some MMO's charge for additional content in the form of expansions which kind of defeats the purpose of paying monthly.

If you play an MMO for 10 hours a week (a modest amount, it's easy to do more than that when you have friends you want tosee everyday) and pay $13.00 a month, that's $13.00 for 45 hours of entertainment. For the price of a full retail game ($60), you get 208 hours worth of entertainment. It's the best value in video games. I played FFXI for 4 years and it ultimately saved me a ton of money since I didn't have to buy any console games. Now I can buy a new car.

So what's the problem with the monthly fee?

[QUOTE="sandeep410"]

There r so many MMOs that dont charge monethly fees and yet they have survived.This is just BS by Blizzard.It aint that bigger that they r showing us