Seriously SE???

[Gramul]

By less, I'm talking more about things like vanity DLC's where you're expected to pay comparatively remarkable amounts for not even a fraction of the game.
I've never played a game that asks for so much money from me before and I am not someone who spends off the cuff.

To me, it's remarkable how willing people are to give into the idea when I've heard so much complaints about other companies doing the same or less. Games I usually avoid like the plague.

[Nominous]

By less, I'm talking more about things like vanity DLC's where you're expected to pay comparatively remarkable amounts for not even a fraction of the game.
I've never played a game that asks for so much money from me before and I am not someone who spends off the cuff.

To me, it's remarkable how willing people are to give into the idea when I've heard so much complaints about other companies doing the same or less. Games I usually avoid like the plague.

I don't know how this applies to expansions. Expansions (and Heavensward definitely is) are typically the size of the base game at the very least, if not more. Or, they add a ridiculous amount of depth, items, and systems to play around with. Or maybe it does all of that. It's not vanity, it adds substantial depth to gameplay. I can't speak on Heavensward yet, but the simple addition of 3 Jobs and a level cap increase is sure to mix things up in a big way.

As for 'giving in' to the practice. People here 'give into' (I hardly think this is an appropriate phrase) the practice because it's not a big deal, and it's commonplace. It's like... part of the territory, if that makes any sense. It's the same concept that playing a F2P MMO almost certainly comes with the caveat of needing to empty your bank account to be any good at it. It's the balance of the MMO genre right now.

F2P have massive-scale Cash Shops with much more than just vanity purchases, and generally have much wider gaps in content updates. Non-quality updates, poorly managed, and paying to win. P2P games have (now) low scale, vanity based Cash Shops, with sub fees, and expansion costs. The payoff is higher quality content, with more rigid and swift updates, and a better managed game (comparative to a F2P, or most other MMO's). And if I'm going to be honest, in the MMO genre right now, your money is way safer, and less stressed in a P2P scenario.

Go talk to people who played Maplestory, and literally spent thousands of dollars in short time frames just to compete at the end-game level. There's literally items that are sold on paypal for hundreds of dollars in that game. Or talk to people who played Dungeon Fighter Online for years, and sunk money into that game just for it to be shut down, losing all of their money and hours in the process. Or go play 1 of many MMO's that have 0 community, 0 updates, and no kind of quality content.

[Gramul]

I don't know how this applies to expansions. Expansions (and Heavensward definitely is) are typically the size of the base game at the very least, if not more. Or, they add a ridiculous amount of depth, items, and systems to play around with. Or maybe it does all of that.

It's the fact that in spite of all these extra costs, they still feel the need to charge an expansion pack more than the base cost of the game itself. Where is the line actually drawn?

Just because the value of the game has depreciated, does not mean that the addition of content amount equivalent automatically depreciates as well.

Considering the expansion uses the expansion uses the original game as a core base, I'd be inclined to disagree.

[Nominous]

It's the fact that in spite of all these extra costs, they still feel the need to charge an expansion pack more than the base cost of the game itself. Where is the line actually drawn?

The line is drawn when you realize that the game was 40 dollars for PS3, and that the expansion was likely to be the same price. When you realize the only reason the PC version was 30 was because 1.0 got lowered to what... 20 dollars because of how poorly it was received?

All things considered, if all versions were released at the same time, bar the poor reception, it would have been the same price across the board, and definitely not 30 dollars.

The extra costs? You mean the optional things that nobody actually needs? I mean, maybe just maybe the extra retainers. I've been playing since 2.0 launch and I've never once needed more inventory space than currently available. I don't need the vanity stuff in cash shop, but if I did want it, what's a few bucks to me if I'm paying 15 monthly? To exaggerate, I could find the money to pay for extra retainers or optional 'vanity' on the ground.

There's no reason to treat MMO's different than any other industry. What can be monetized, will be monetized. If you have a problem with that, take that up with God or something, because that's not just gaming, that's literally everything, ever. It isn't changing any time soon, and if it were, it'd need a big movement with tons of big names, and radical influence behind it.

[SinisterJointss]

It's the fact that in spite of all these extra costs, they still feel the need to charge an expansion pack more than the base cost of the game itself. Where is the line actually drawn?

Ok I've been trying to avoid this thread because to me (as mmo player since EQ beta) this price is actually cheaper than they were during EQ (expac's were 60 then)


$40 is industry standard for expansions, in any mmo. What extra costs are you talking about? the OPTIONAL retainers? OPTIONAL Fantasia? OPTIONAL vanity cash shop?

You talking about the monthly sub? again... industry standard for ANY mmo. Actually ARR's monthly sub is cheaper than other mmo's. I'm confused here gramul, what is it you are talking about??

Oh dear people taking retail Game stores as official price tagging. Considering they have not even given us a release date for 3.0 why are people so gullible. I will wait for the Heavensward site to be updated and to buy from the SE store.

It actually was on the SE store this morning, I seen it myself but has since disappeared from there also.

[Zohnax]

By less, I'm talking more about things like vanity DLC's where you're expected to pay comparatively remarkable amounts for not even a fraction of the game.

To me, it's remarkable how willing people are to give into the idea when I've heard so much complaints about other companies doing the same or less. Games I usually avoid like the plague.

>Vanity
>DLC

We're talking about expansions for MMOs here. In actuality, when 2.0 launched, it had a complete story, and then new elements added into the game were woven into the story in later patches. But saying that you're being pillaged by Square Enix for having all these optional features that have zero impact on gameplay is ridiculous. Video games have come a long way in 20 years, and yes, production costs have become a problem because games have become more graphically intense and demanded for sequels.

Here's some reading material on the subject:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/econo...st-explains-15

It's the fact that in spite of all these extra costs, they still feel the need to charge an expansion pack more than the base cost of the game itself. Where is the line actually drawn?

Just because the value of the initial game has depreciated, does not mean that the addition of an equivalent content amount automatically depreciates as well.

The initial cost of 1.0 was $50.00 USD for standard, and whenever it was basically re-released as A Realm Reborn(2.0), it was $30, ($40 for PS3), because it wasn't really new content and they realized how much they had screwed up with 1.0. There was actually a period during 1.0 where they stopped charging people to play because of how poorly it was doing and even when the tsunami hit, they reimbursed players for their servers being offline.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/06...pricing-model/

[Zumi]

By less, I'm talking more about things like vanity DLC's where you're expected to pay comparatively remarkable amounts for not even a fraction of the game.
I've never played a game that asks for so much money from me before and I am not someone who spends off the cuff.

To me, it's remarkable how willing people are to give into the idea when I've heard so much complaints about other companies doing the same or less. Games I usually avoid like the plague.

You keep saying the price is too expensive and I know I seen you post during the 1.0 era so you have a legacy sub which means you are already paying $5-7 less pre month then everyone depending on how many months you pay for at a time. If you take that $5 you save each month vs the normal sub you could pretty much buy all the vanity stuff and have money left over.

[Welsper59]

You keep saying the price is too expensive and I know I seen you post during the 1.0 era so you have a legacy sub which means you are already paying $5-7 less pre month then everyone depending on how many months you pay for at a time. If you take that $5 you save each month vs the normal sub you could pretty much buy all the vanity stuff and have money left over.

You should take a look at the post above you (if you're not doing that now lol).