I agree with listening to both markets and that this isn't simply another Eastern MMO, but you are completely wrong about this piece. The amount of time you can get out of this game for $30 is far greater than many games which cost $60 and you have no reason to play them again. That alone is enough to nix this statement.
However, no one says you have to play MMOs for the long run. If you absolutely hate everything about it, obviously it's not worth the money no matter how much time you put into it. Most people are informed enough as consumers to not make that mistake, however. But if you do like it enough to spend time, but not enough to invest months and more money, then you just got a month of fun at a fairly low cost.
In the age of F2P transitions, I look at buying an MMO as a future investment. I pay $30 now, get a month of solid playtime (which most single player games last a weekend) and then there's the potential I just bought unrestricted access to most of the game if they ever transition to B2P or F2P.
Glad I bought TERA, GW2, SWTOR, and Rift...glad I was gifted TSW. Now I can play all of those games whenever I choose for as long as they are active, which is likely years.
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My MMO time starts with WoW and I don't count anything else lol.
I meant in our modern era, when we have technology and intelligence on how to make it not so awful. It's quite understandable for pioneer MMOs with much older tech to be a disaster.