My wife and I were talking about this subject earlier and I think it would make a good subject to talk about here. We are pretty sure that we are set on a subscription model and I'm pretty happy about that as I don't like what the FTP model has brought to the MMO space in recent years.
So when I was 14-15 my brother and I would mow yards or do odd jobs to help pay for our gaming addictions and we were able to pay for our monthly fee of $15 a month to play the MUDs and other games like Magestorm that we played at the time. When EQ1 came out of beta we were around 16-17, and played until PoP and of course we had jobs and were able to pay for that addiction then as well. Now 16 years later... both employed with pretty decent jobs we are certainly still able to support our gaming habits.
I wanted to state here that I personally find that $15 a month seems like a really small amount of money for a monthly entertainment fee 17 years later. I feel that the monthly fee should be more towards $20-25 a month. With that said, I was curious what other people thought about that. I know it's more money however... I do have reasons for my thoughts.
I would think that we need to increase the monthly price due to the simple fact that this is a niche game. That brings up another question about how much is too much? Would you pay more if it meant the game would actually be made and we could all enjoy playing the type of game we love? I think personally for this kind of entertainment I would be willing to pay upwards of $50 a month for this type of niche game to be made, though I know that is a lot of money that is less than what we would pay to eat out one night with the kids by a fair amount these days.
Anyway enough rambling... on with the pitch forks! haha
It's definitely an interesting topic. I always hesitate to reply because I don't want to look like a money-grabber or something, but what if we did charge $20 or $25 a month AND we also used that income to give you guys a better experience and a deeper world and *more* content? We could do monthly updates that would have a lot more to them -- same with full Expansions every 9-12 months. Would Pantheon's target audience want this?
Bringing up the financial component of any game can be very controversial from both the developer and player perspective.
Personally, I dont think raising the price of the subscription model to above $15-20 a month is a great idea. Why? Well, you started gaming when you were young too right? working to fuel that gaming addiction. Well, so did I, and if the subscription was 30 or 50 dollars a month i wouldve never even considered trying MMOs. It's like a barrier to entry type of thing, but from a customer perspective.
Another reason is, although it might not seem like much for your monthly entertainment, it is not the only form of entertainment for many players. I mean it adds up, just like anything else. If you plan on staying subscribed, that's $180 a year, pretty cheap if you have a halfway decent job, but that's not true for a lot of people in our country. Not to mention, If im paying for a multiplayer game that is $30 to $60, I damn well expect it to last at least 2 months. Maybe my expectations are high, idk, but I know im not the only person that thinks that. So, if im paying a $180 a year, im basically buying a new multiplayer game every 2-4 months. That seems reasonable but if we're talking 30-50 a month, I mean...it really starts to become a lot.
It's a tough game to play as a producer, that's why so many games are trying different models. The F2P, P2W, DLC or w/e iteration of those models. Look at a game in a different genre, League of Legends. Riot's game is 100% f2p and you can earn EVERYTHING, except cosmetic items, from just playing the game. They are one of the largest and most profitable gaming companies in the world, it's f2p and the game shows no signs of fading away anytime soon.
We may be 'niche' but I think that is more in regards to gameplay, not subscription model.
Aradune said:
It's definitely an interesting topic. I always hesitate to reply because I don't want to look like a money-grabber or something, but what if we did charge $20 or $25 a month AND we also used that income to give you guys a better experience and a deeper world and *more* content? We could do monthly updates that would have a lot more to them -- same with full Expansions every 9-12 months. Would Pantheon's target audience want this?
If you can promise that, then yes I would want that! :)
Xeravik said:
Bringing up the financial component of any game can be very controversial from both the developer and player perspective.
Personally, I dont think raising the price of the subscription model to above $15-20 a month is a great idea. Why? Well, you started gaming when you were young too right? working to fuel that gaming addiction. Well, so did I, and if the subscription was 30 or 50 dollars a month i wouldve never even considered trying MMOs. It's like a barrier to entry type of thing, but from a customer perspective.
Another reason is, although it might not seem like much for your monthly entertainment, it is not the only form of entertainment for many players. I mean it adds up, just like anything else. If you plan on staying subscribed, that's $180 a year, pretty cheap if you have a halfway decent job, but that's not true for a lot of people in our country. Not to mention, If im paying for a multiplayer game that is $30 to $60, I damn well expect it to last at least 2 months. Maybe my expectations are high, idk, but I know im not the only person that thinks that. So, if im paying a $180 a year, im basically buying a new multiplayer game every 2-4 months. That seems reasonable but if we're talking 30-50 a month, I mean...it really starts to become a lot.
It's a tough game to play as a producer, that's why so many games are trying different models. The F2P, P2W, DLC or w/e iteration of those models. Look at a game in a different genre, League of Legends. Riot's game is 100% f2p and you can earn EVERYTHING, except cosmetic items, from just playing the game. They are one of the largest and most profitable gaming companies in the world, it's f2p and the game shows no signs of fading away anytime soon.
We may be 'niche' but I think that is more in regards to gameplay, not subscription model.
But also this.. 25 bucks is a lot of money.
I think a standard sub or a one time buy to play and cash shop for extra features and items work well. Most indie niche games that are crowd funded are going buy to play with optional subscription for bonuses and a shop to buy items. Like Shroud of the Avatar, The repopulation, and Crowfall.
Aradune said:
It's definitely an interesting topic. I always hesitate to reply because I don't want to look like a money-grabber or something, but what if we did charge $20 or $25 a month AND we also used that income to give you guys a better experience and a deeper world and *more* content? We could do monthly updates that would have a lot more to them -- same with full Expansions every 9-12 months. Would Pantheon's target audience want this?
I personally wouldn't pay more than $20 a month, but I also feel that if you go above $15 a month it will really limit your ability to invite new people in or for me to say hey guys get this game its only $20 a month. Even though that $5 a month is really negligible it really puts people in a different mindset and the last thing I want to see us do is limit our player base available for the game. Even though this is going to be a niche game I would say this is probably the biggest niche out there, and that if the core game is good enough we can expand that into something much bigger.
I mean look at vanguard, and EQ2's launches. They were massive. People will want to play, but we will also have to spread the word around to.
In order to put the payment model up to $20 a month or more you would really really need to have really solid updates per month, and have a lot of new content being generated to even make it worth it for people. Personally I pay for both myself and my girls subs to mmos, and $50 a month would really suck to pay out.
That being said currently I am playing FFXIV, and I am only paying $12.99 a month per sub, but at the same time those accounts have limitations. I am limited to 1 Character per server. I only have 2 brokers instead of 4 to sell stuff on the market. I feel that PROTF could have subscription levels that would enable/ disable certain things going up. So maybe for 12.99 a month you could have 1 character per server with market restrictions, but at 14.99/15.99 you could have 3, and at 20$ you could have unlimited. This wouldn't offer any real advantages over another person, but it would allow for that type of pay scale. The last thing I want to see is another Free to Play game, and will only play sub games.
So pretty much if you could really pump out amazing content per month for us to play and keep us entertained while preventing that new content from making the older content 100% useless then yes I feel you could get $20 a month or $25, but I feel like if you go above 15$ it will really limit the player base. Anyway those are just my thoughts.
Aradune said:
It's definitely an interesting topic. I always hesitate to reply because I don't want to look like a money-grabber or something, but what if we did charge $20 or $25 a month AND we also used that income to give you guys a better experience and a deeper world and *more* content? We could do monthly updates that would have a lot more to them -- same with full Expansions every 9-12 months. Would Pantheon's target audience want this?
Allow me.
I decided to wait on an in-depth discussion regarding this very topic. But, I have been parsing the outer community about this subject for many years. Consider this a particular field of interest and one of the reason I started the Age Poll here. With several more on the way.
I'd love to have a sit down with Chris and pick his brains.
I think if Pantheon can have the basic Crafting -and- Housing mechanics in place, before release.... So that VRi's future isn't utilized/consumed designing further mechanics, but further content. With Pantheon having real time GMs, that are not only Customer Service, but actual Role Players who moved about the world Playing with people at will. A premium MMORPG experience..?
I think the market will easily support $20~$25/month ($240~$300/year)
Myself, it comes right down to the game world the Developer will provide. I am not thrilled about Pantheon's "zones", but I understand the reasoning. If they are seamless, then I will pay more. But... if there are loading screens in 2017, I might not play at all. (I have a SSD & 16GB of ram). I dislike zones, because they break immersion...
On the other hand, If VRi decided to deliver a VG sized Open gameworld/engine like ArchAge, as an oldschool full-featured MMORPG...? $35/month easily...
I would like to stress that subscription rate should not apply to expansion of the game. I think EQ set the perfect mold and one of the reasons it lasted so long, was an extra $49 bucks for each expansion. Subscription is for the service VRi provides.
People should still be expected to buy your product. Free to Try, is a mistake..! ($5)
Lastly, quicker content is not what people want. They want a game free of hackers and GM that yanks them from the game, and names & shames them...
God Kings that protect the sanctity of our game.
Aradune said:
It's definitely an interesting topic. I always hesitate to reply because I don't want to look like a money-grabber or something, but what if we did charge $20 or $25 a month AND we also used that income to give you guys a better experience and a deeper world and *more* content? We could do monthly updates that would have a lot more to them -- same with full Expansions every 9-12 months. Would Pantheon's target audience want this?
20 to 25 dollars a month for 24 hour a day 365 days a year access to fun
In the words of the great Pete Townsend (song writer for The Who)
I call that a bargin
The best I ever had
I have always wondered why the $15 had never moved with inflation, has always been that amount but i think a lot of company's based their price of the big boy WoW, why WoW ?
It's what everyone uses as a comparison, it has the most content of any MMO due to the money from subs and it's age, when you tell your niche market you want to charge more our answer is, if the game stands up to the extra amount we will pay it with no complaints, you say that to the general MMO gamer and they will turn their back on your game and say why should I pay more when WoW only charges $15 bucks.
I think $20-$35 I would be happy to pay if the game is worth it, anything over 35 I think your starting to go beyond what I would pay for.
I have always wanted to see how a tier payment system would work i.e. you pay for pure game time per month/week
$5 - gets you 20 hours for a month
$10 - gets you 40 hours a month
etc etc
If i'm a hard core gamer you have a maximum of say $25-$35 a month and you get unlimited access a month, but if I know I only play a few hours a week I could cut my costs and go a cheaper month sub.
If your max lvl and just a weekend raider you could pay less for your game time, the only restriction in the sub is once you reach your time limit per month you lose access till month roles over or you pay for extra time?
I have been a big fan personally of paying more to support a company/game that I enjoy, I did this with EQ and VG, in VG I had 7 active accounts and 4 were filled with a ton of characters and fully paid subscription, that's $60 AUD a month for VG and I would've paid more on each account to have the game properly managed and supported. Easily.
It sounds weird me saying this now that I work for VRI but I am still very much in support of this increased subscription method for increased content/support.
I believe strongly in you get what you pay for and this should be no different in my opinion. I would personally be more than happy to pay $20-$25 per account for multiple accounts again to support this game as I would for any other game worth playing that returned that investment by supporting and releasing content on a semi regular basis.
Aradune said:
It's definitely an interesting topic. I always hesitate to reply because I don't want to look like a money-grabber or something, but what if we did charge $20 or $25 a month AND we also used that income to give you guys a better experience and a deeper world and *more* content? We could do monthly updates that would have a lot more to them -- same with full Expansions every 9-12 months. Would Pantheon's target audience want this?
I feel that $20 a month is really the most you can charge without putting potential new customers off the game. personally i would pay 25 maybe even 30 to play a retro style game with some challenge to it, but how many gamers are one of us 30 somethings that played eq1 and now have decent jobs? almost noone i played eq1 with plays mmos at all anymore. so we really need to keep it affordable to draw in the newer gamers that dont like the contemporary MMOs
Zandil said:
Would anyone be willing to spill the beans on what a MMO like Pantheon would potentially cost to run on a monthly basis ? does it need to make 10's of thousands a month or 100's of thousands a month to sustain it self ?
It is actually really hard to say mate, it can vary quite a lot depending on numerous factors, we will not know until we get everything up and running in full swing during Alpha/Beta and push the servers to their limits etc.
We also have to factor in wages and a number of other things that again, can vary widely, so it really is too tough to even guess what that will be at this early stage.
Sevens said:
I am still in favor of a "Legends" style server
Pay more (30-50) a month but you get the content rolled out a month or two sooner than on regular servers
We had discussed similar topics but our biggest issue with this is separating our players into tiers and we wanted to avoid that if possible.
We would rather everyone be on a level playing field and all pay the same subscription price per month across the board but again, this is something we are discussing internally and haven't decided what will be best for us and our target audience yet, so keep throwing your suggestions at us to help us decide ;)
Kilsin said:
Sevens said:
I am still in favor of a "Legends" style server
Pay more (30-50) a month but you get the content rolled out a month or two sooner than on regular servers
We had discussed similar topics but our biggest issue with this is separating our players into tiers and we wanted to avoid that if possible.
We would rather everyone be on a level playing field and all pay the same subscription price per month across the board but again, this is something we are discussing internally and haven't decided what will be best for us and our target audience yet, so keep throwing your suggestions at us to help us decide ;)
I agree that this can create an "elite" attitude amongst the players and should be avoided...but to be honest I would be happy to pay the extra just to help support the game and to keep it niche and to avoid having to reach out to the mainstream...I also like the idea of charging for character slots above the first one (but actually would love to be restricted to 1 toon per server a la Firiona Vie)
Paying $20 to $25 a month for a game that you love isn't a problem for me. However, it would also increase player's expectations and put a bit more pressure on the devs to deliver more content faster. If the dev team has no problem doing that, then by all means set the price accordingly.
Secondly, if the choice ever came down to paying $20 or $25 a month versus $15 a month with a cash shop, I would totally rather the higher subscription fee.
For the last 5 years at any given time i have had 1-4 EQ accounts subbed/gold/all-access so I wouldn't mind paying $20-25 a month for a game sub if the funds were use to greatly enhance game play such as having daily interactive events that were actually worth doing, etc. EQ is sorely lack in the tools provided to their guides, they do the best that they can and it's greatly appreciated but i wouldn't consider paying extra for that level.
Aradune said:
It's definitely an interesting topic. I always hesitate to reply because I don't want to look like a money-grabber or something, but what if we did charge $20 or $25 a month AND we also used that income to give you guys a better experience and a deeper world and *more* content? We could do monthly updates that would have a lot more to them -- same with full Expansions every 9-12 months. Would Pantheon's target audience want this?
yes.
I have always said that I would pay more if the game is worth it. I think it is more understandable given how all the MMO's have cash shops nowadays (blech)
(i am a lifetime subber however)
The issue is, Sub based MMO's are a very very thin market now. As you see, if we take WoW out of the picture, there really isn't any other MMO who can stand on a Sub based game. So in the market where F2P is taking more and more people in. I think raising the price of a very very niche game like Pantheon is risking the price. I think it might be nice to be able to give a little more here and there if need be but I don't think raising the price will help it in the long run.
I know were sick of cash shops in MMO's but it might be worth having tier'd sub models that maybe would add non beneficial features to users who choose them.
Rivacom said:
The issue is, Sub based MMO's are a very very thin market now. As you see, if we take WoW out of the picture, there really isn't any other MMO who can stand on a Sub based game. So in the market where F2P is taking more and more people in. I think raising the price of a very very niche game like Pantheon is risking the price. I think it might be nice to be able to give a little more here and there if need be but I don't think raising the price will help it in the long run.
I know were sick of cash shops in MMO's but it might be worth having tier'd sub models that maybe would add non beneficial features to users who choose them.
Actually sub based games are not that rare...in fact unless you are going by the mobile f2p apps then most MMOs do actually run a sub along with their cash shop / F2p model...EQ EQ2 Planetside TESO SWTOR LoTR et al uses a Hybrid of F2P and Subs
I feel the people that want to play this game are the people that want to earn every thing in-game. So for them a sub is the best payment model (non-tiered).
For me this is a huge selling point for Pantheon. I am so sick of cash shops.