Why is monthly pay a thing?

[chazus]

we all pay the same monthly fee we don't all get the same "bang" for that buck.

Nor should you.

Does every person use 100% of their phone minutes? Does every person use 100% of their internet bandwidth? No.

A monthly fee does not mean you 'get' a certain amount of product, or can even make use of a certain amount.

[Deleted]

Just out curiousity?

Why would people ever would think of paying for a game (50 dollars or euro's for a box) and then further more, even have to pay monthly to acces the content. Like who invented this? It's not like a game is that special to be worth to pay each month for.

So why does this thing excist?

is the genre MMORPG just such a expensive cost?

EXPENSIVE?!?!?!

Even for a scrub on minimum wage, a monthly fee is worth only slightly over TWO HOUR pay. That is not expensive AT ALL.

[Blufossa]

Subscription gaming was the norm. A free-to-play model didn't exist in any mass-market form. Also, Blizzard's quality of game is leagues above most free-to-play but really pay-to-play gaming.

The "free to play" MMOs aren't really free. They have shops for monetary reasons (GW2, Allods, ESO, etc).

Also, paying monthly became a thing long before MMOs. It's a payment model that works. They get money, and we get access to their game/servers.

[Deleted]

Always nice to see compassion for the fellow human that is underpaid and probably working at a job to serve us (an example: the "scrub" who makes sure our internet connection is stable so we can play wow).

Its very subjective whats expensive or cheap. I find even 1 euro spent on crap, a wasted euro. I value my 1 euro and respect the job that helped me earn it. So to me bad content doesn't deserve a subscription. Would you eat a bad food because its cheap? Same thing.

Well social pressure to get a better job is a good thing, as it helps the person motivate to improve and get a better job, rather than work at McDonald's for the rest of their lives.

[chazus]

I could agree with you if not* only for the fact that the people who feel like me quit the game so fast that soon enough people who feel like you won't have a game to play.

Thats the thing about opinions... They differ. Regardless of what you feel about the game, or what I feel about the game, or what anyone feels about the game... The cost is still the same, regardless of if you like it, don't, or the amount of the game you consume.

I don't feel like I should pay any less because I don't do X things. Nor do I feel if I paid more, I should get more.

We all pay $15 to play it or not, and that amount is what keeps the game running. Just like a cable package, it's all or nothing.

[skatblast]

If your worried about 15$ you need to be doing odd jobs instead of playing wow

[Deleted]

Subscription gaming was the norm. A free-to-play model didn't exist in any mass-market form. Also, Blizzard's quality of game is leagues above most free-to-play but really pay-to-play gaming.

Past tense? I'd agree about that. Currently, no. They're below many F2P games both in quality and quantity.

[Mamut]

I wonder why people are so obsessed with this 15$ per month. In most f2p games you have to spend alot more than that to be even competive with other players.

[Deleted]

I rather pay subscription then getting nickel and dimed in a free to play mmo.
Sure you CAN play them completely free but you will be so far behind the paying costumers you are basically playing a glorified demo.
Some mmo's even demand payment for extra hotkey bars...

[roahn the warlock]

Because back then WoW probably cost a whole lot more to run than it does today. A lot of people don't understand this. That when wow came out, servers were a fuck ton of money, but every year servers get more powerful and cheaper. Now a new server costs something like 10k, where in the 90s a server cost 33k a day just to run!

The monthly service was also in relation to a relatively low box cost, I imagine vanilla wow was like 30 bucks.

[Deleted]

Even Guild Wars 2 which is a B2P with cash shop has some stuff you can buy from shop that gives you in-game benefits.... And with the money you pay, Blizzard is the only one that actually shows you something for it

When you word it like this, you're being disingenuous. You can buy exp boosts, and other short-term boosters, but you also get a lot of them just by playing. I know, I haven't spent a penny on them and have a bank full. The rest of the stuff is the same as Blizzard; convenience or cosmetic. You can also buy everything in the cash shop with in-game gold, so as long as you're prepared and smart enough to accumulate gold, you can afford almost anything you want without spending a penny. Blizzard doesn't offer that same level of fairness. Instead, you are expected to pay, and then pay again for things they've made when they should have been working on a new Moonkin model, or ingame art assets so we get less copying and pasting.

GW2s prices are also MUCH lower than Blizzard's prices... for comparison:

800 "gems" costs £8.50.

Here's the Balthazar cosmetic armour set (no stats). It costs 700 gems, so ~ £7.40 value.


Here's the Blizzard cosmetic armour, a single helm that costs £10.


Let's not even talk about the mounts and pets, which are £17-22, and £9, respectively. GW2 offers players much better value for money on cosmetics, and a fair system that allows you eventually earn them just by playing the game and converting your in-game gold into store gems. They ask lower prices, despite not charging you anything to play. It's one of the fairest micro systems on the MMO scene today IMO.

The rest of your post is horseshit. What great "content" has Blizzard released lately? They're slower than ever in fixing bugs and balancing, usually waiting until major patches to fix broken classes, and they typically don't add lots of new mechanics nor do they revamp mechanics mid-expansion. Most B2P and F2P games release monthly or bi-monthly content patches, some of which include mechanic changes, and they balance classes far more regularly.

[Adoxe]

Did you see what happened to Heroes of the Storm when it went out of closed beta? Yeah, that's what would happen to WoW if it went free to play completely. We don't need toxic players from other communities *cough*League of Legends*cough* in the game.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Because back then WoW probably cost a whole lot more to run than it does today. A lot of people don't understand this. That when wow came out, servers were a fuck ton of money, but every year servers get more powerful and cheaper. Now a new server costs something like 10k, where in the 90s a server cost 33k a day just to run!

The monthly service was also in relation to a relatively low box cost, I imagine vanilla wow was like 30 bucks.

The prices averages about the same, though.

The biggest change has been HDD storage is very cheap now compared to 2004 when SCSI HDD were used (remember renting a server box back then and just a Raid 1+0 cost $300 for 80GB -- I learned to backup frequently instead as to rent that box alone was almost $300/mon in itself!).

Total data space now is so cheap they're doing RAID 10 setups (which used to be the most expensive arrays, now data is but pennies on the dollar).

But the power and the bandwidth and the OTHER hardware costs ate up those savings now. The bill never gets cheaper, you'll just get more space and bells and whistles but paying the same rental fees as before.

[Deleted]

Content isn't made out of thin air. There are people working on these games who need to put food on their table.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Content isn't made out of thin air. There are people working on these games who need to put food on their table.

Well, Blizzard isn't the company to work for if they wanted food on their table. It pays some of the lowest wages in the game industry (and is a major complaint of employees, as Orange County, CA is very expensive to live at).

[Deleted]

Well, Blizzard isn't the company to work for if they wanted food on their table. It pays some of the lowest wages in the game industry (and is a major complaint of employees, as Orange County, CA is very expensive to live at).

Probably thats the reason many devs went to Riot and other companies.

[Zlevate]

usually a f2p model creates a p2w atmosphere so I prefer the game being on a subscription model.

[bigmac]

...has nothing to do with the sub fee.

https://web.archive.org/web/20011013..._general.shtml

"Why isn't World of Warcraft free?
World of Warcraft will require a fee to play. This fee will be used to support the costs associated with the high-quality levels of service, support, and ongoing content creation that we are planning for World of Warcraft. "

[geniebsmart]

it's funny because some f2p games have far higher quality service and support, and create far more content.

[Deleted]

Did you see what happened to Heroes of the Storm when it went out of closed beta? Yeah, that's what would happen to WoW if it went free to play completely. We don't need toxic players from other communities *cough*League of Legends*cough* in the game.

You mean like bots, jerks and people who are extremely arrogant? Yea, WoW obviously doesn't have those