Personally, I would pay any amount up to $100 as that doesn’t represent a lot to me. I don't care what that includes. Paying for a $50 expansion once or twice a year is no big deal. However, you are asking the wrong people.
I think we should take a step back and think about people not on these forums. Think about the people you didn’t ask. Everyone that is responding to the message paid at least something to VR, otherwise they couldn’t participate in this very conversation. So, knowing that, most of us are not the average customer that will be joining the game after launch. We are but a small sliver of the future community.
Most MMO’s are $15.00 a month. I think it’s reasonable to ask people to pay $20 a month and expect to not lose business. I just worry that any higher amount will turn off a lot of people. I hope I’m wrong though.
Sweety said:Personally, I would pay any amount up to $100 as that doesn’t represent a lot to me. I don't care what that includes. Paying for a $50 expansion once or twice a year is no big deal. However, you are asking the wrong people.
I think we should take a step back and think about people not on these forums. Think about the people you didn’t ask. Everyone that is responding to the message paid at least something to VR, otherwise they couldn’t participate in this very conversation. So, knowing that, most of us are not the average customer that will be joining the game after launch. We are but a small sliver of the future community.
Most MMO’s are $15.00 a month. I think it’s reasonable to ask people to pay $20 a month and expect to not lose business. I just worry that any higher amount will turn off a lot of people. I hope I’m wrong though.
I think your right on the Money look how fast Xbox live rolled back its price Increase.
"Nearly half (42.4 percent) of working Americans make less than $15 per hour" Bureau of Labor Statistics. most of these workers have less than 50 a week to cover any thing that is not food rent utilitys and where a very big part of the player base in eq/eq2 (at least many I played with)
$15 range $40 range for expansions. Though it is 2021, blockchain technology is here, eventually every gaming company will have to intergrate some type of Blockchain technology flavor. Better to be a pioneer, then have your product fall behind and suffer with Cash Shop that make players go running away from your product.
$15 a month $40 for expansions. Let me keep my legendary Sword and tokenize it on the blockchain, and redeem into whatever I like within the framework that you define with your business partners, and take your cut of profit. This way I don't have to buy anything from a Cash Shop.
Sweety said:Personally, I would pay any amount up to $100 as that doesn’t represent a lot to me. I don't care what that includes. Paying for a $50 expansion once or twice a year is no big deal. However, you are asking the wrong people.
I think we should take a step back and think about people not on these forums. Think about the people you didn’t ask. Everyone that is responding to the message paid at least something to VR, otherwise they couldn’t participate in this very conversation. So, knowing that, most of us are not the average customer that will be joining the game after launch. We are but a small sliver of the future community.
Most MMO’s are $15.00 a month. I think it’s reasonable to ask people to pay $20 a month and expect to not lose business. I just worry that any higher amount will turn off a lot of people. I hope I’m wrong though.
But VR is not looking to attract a standard modern MMORPG audience are they?
I believe that they *will* *build* a big audience - pre-release, even - because people will come to realise that the game VR are building is better than the modern MMORPGs that have been coming out, but their target is intentionally a niche, eg. ex-old-school MMORPG players.
It is a bit of a gamble, but a gamble I was willing to back whole-heartedly because I believe it will work on two levels: 1) There are enough ex-old-school MMORPG players desperate for a game like Pantheon for it to be a success anyway and 2) There will be many 'converts' to the 'old-school' who will enjoy it for the same reasons us 'old-school' players enjoyed it back in the day.
VR need to not be tempted to 'go modern' and try and grab the 'mass market'. If most MMOs are $15, that's almost a reason in itself for VR to charge more, because they should not want to be like 'most MMOs'.
Does this sound like old-guy or financial elitism? *shrug* I don't care. There are a ton of free/cheap easy/solo games out there aimed at the mass market and, while not all are bad, even the good ones don't last. I want a grown-up, challenging, community-based MMORPG I can play for years and if that means players have to make a slightly bigger sacrifice to do so (re. subs) then fine.
If someones finances are so on the edge such that $15 is fine, but $20 is too much, then they shouldn't be wasting money on gaming at all.
That brings to mind an even more elitist thought: Maybe there should be 'cheap' or even F2P servers? Give them cash shops and no customer service (like a modern MMO) and take their money, but keep them away from me on my 'premium' server hehe. Win-win?
I'm aware I don't come off in the best light in this post... Lol. Maybe all this talk of cash shops and worries about funding are making me more militant?
bryanleo9 said: ^ I agree if and extra $5 a month will send a person into the red and out of money for the month, I highly recommend they get some Dave Ramsey in thier life. Also look into where all the money is going in a want vs need breakdown. I say this as someone who use to be poor.
and for the retired guy the disabled vet the other reasons one may be limited income and earning its not so black and white.
Vixx said:bryanleo9 said: ^ I agree if and extra $5 a month will send a person into the red and out of money for the month, I highly recommend they get some Dave Ramsey in thier life. Also look into where all the money is going in a want vs need breakdown. I say this as someone who use to be poor.and for the retired guy the disabled vet the other reasons one may be limited income and earning its not so black and white.
Be realistic. No one will be spending their last $15 a month on a games subscription.
I think VR is smart enough to realize that by asking us what we would pay they are not getting a full picture of all people. This is a small subset of fans that have already put down money without a guarantee of any return. I am just glad I do not need to come up with a number and I can leave that to VR. It is I am sure not an easy decision to make. I do find it amazing though that for some reason the price really has not changed over the years. There cannot be many things you could say cost the same over such a long period of time.
Thinking more on this maybe the price has changed. Many of the free to play games cost far more then 14.99 a month. Granted you can play for free but not really if you want the whole game. Anyways just a thought, maybe the price has gone up but in hidden evil ways.
I have always felt a letdown when I buy sonething from a cash shop. it always felt cheap because I didn't really earn it. When I would see another player with something from a cash shop, oh yeah, no mystery, he spent $20 at the cash shop.
Compare that to examaning a High level character in EQ in the year 2000. I was just like Wow, how do I get that? it would lead to conversation, very social.
So how does a old school social item-centric game survive in today's world without a crappy cashshop?
You keep the game how you like it and allow players to keep those special unique items and turn them into Non-fungible tokens that become badges of honor and truly show your ingame accomplishments. Monitize the game tokenzation. Along with subs and expansions for revenue. At least plan for it, because it is coming. Find the balance on how to implement it correctly. Plan on intergrating the Enjin Unity SDK even if you don't allow Non-fungible tokens yet. Item rarity, risk and reward and social aspect of this game are Pantheon strengths, Non-fungible tokens complements that. just saying..
Starblight said: "Many of the free to play games cost far more then(sic) 14.99 a month. Granted you can play for free but not really if you want the whole game."
I won't try to speak for everyone, but I personally would never ever play a Free-to-play game where I had to pay to get access to the whole game. And from my experience there is not any majorly successful Free-to-play game that locks you out of some part of the game unless you pay any amount of money. Those that do do this often find that their overall player base is very quickly limited.
As I mentioned before in one of the cash shop threads; The real key to the Free-to-play model is making sure you have as many players as you can. Players who buy cosmetics will only do so if they have a large number of 'non-buying' players to show off to. In Fortnite people do not usually use Skins that everyone else already has because then you feel like just another Generic player. The Skins people use are the ones that only a few people have, so they can show off. So the more players who do NOT buy the skins you have... then the more players you will have that WILL buy the skins.
This is the way all the very successful games do it: League of Legends, Fornite, Smite, etc... They give everyone the FULL game (and it has to be fun and fair to everyone) with no Pay-2-win and only add cosmetic things that players can buy to look 'Unique' and 'Cool' to show off to those players who don't pay.
To answer the origional question from Kilsin:
I would only pay what is the standard MMO subscription rate which I believe is around $15 these days. This usually ends up being like $17-18 Canadian which really sucks since most games don't give us the fair market rate in our own currency but rather make us players take the hit on the Exchange rate converting to US currency :-(
Vixx said: That $9.99 a month in 99 is about 15 today adjusted for inflation so 6.99 to 9.99 to 15-to 20 is 20%+ increase over inflation
$9.99 a month from 1999 adjusted for the median household income of today is: $12.21
$14.99 a month would be $16.83
People generally don't have much more money today than they did in 1999. Almost the entirety of 2002 through 2016 saw income lower than 1999 for U.S. households.
But to my original point I think it depends on what you consider the whole game. GW2 had a cash shop and if you paid real money you could get things that are part of the game. One just has to be ok with not having that part and it is free. So, for some it is cheaper but I wonder if the company makes more or less with this model.
disposalist said:But VR is not looking to attract a standard modern MMORPG audience are they?
their target is intentionally a niche, eg. ex-old-school MMORPG players.
While I agree the game seems to be indented for more old school players, I'm not sure that's a big enough audience for finical success. As I said before, everyone posting here is the target audience or we wouldn’t be here. VR certainly will want to attract all paying customers, even if they come from the likes of modern WoW. (I felt sick typing that, lol)
Sweety said:disposalist said:But VR is not looking to attract a standard modern MMORPG audience are they?
their target is intentionally a niche, eg. ex-old-school MMORPG players.
While I agree the game seems to be indented for more old school players, I'm not sure that's a big enough audience for finical success. As I said before, everyone posting here is the target audience or we wouldn’t be here. VR certainly will want to attract all paying customers, even if they come from the likes of modern WoW. (I felt sick typing that, lol)
People seem to throw around "niche" as if this game can only appeal to old timers and extremely limited amounts of people outside of that. The devs never really felt that this would only appeal to a narrow and shallow pool of people like that.
We are being clear about what Pantheon is and is not, about who the audience we are targeting is, and that we are not making a game trying to appeal to everyone, all of the time. I think that's fair, and our responsibility -- pretending the game is something else, or something more in order to get more people to try it out wouldn't be right, it wouldn't ethical IMHO. We need to be honest and open.
That said, I do think we (and the people who are already following Pantheon, our supporters, our fans) should be careful about how we present to others who aren't familiar with the game what it is all about. There's no need to be rude or to make the person who has issues with Pantheon's premise feel belittled or marginalized or to feel unwelcome. I understand that when someone comes in and demands Pantheon be something different than what it is can be frustrating. Especially if they come across as if they are 'entitled' to have their tastes and desires met in every game, as if every developer has some sort of responsibility to make everyone happy. I get that, and I can understand the desire to rant against the 'entitlement' mentality that some people have. I get it.
But I also strongly believe that there are a lot of players out there who have never experienced a game like Pantheon. Perhaps they were too young when the earlier MMOs were out and so never experienced them. Perhaps they had a bad experience with a game that had some features or mechanics that sound similar to Pantheon's. So when they read about the game, its tenants, its core premise, perhaps some of it seems strange to them, or unnecessary, or unattractive. Perhaps on the surface, because they lack perspective and context, they voice an objection or are skeptical as to whether some aspect or mechanic is going to work or not.
I truly believe that many of those people, if they give Pantheon a try, will end up liking it. I can't tell you how many... most? some? a few? I can't predict that level of specificity. But I do strongly believe that a significant group of MMO players who haven't experienced what we are trying to create (and in some cases re-create) and who therefore challenge, or question, or even criticize aspects of the game, if they eventually give the game a chance, will find out that they actually love it. I really believe that. Some things in life simply have to be experienced before you really know if you like something or not.
You can read more in Brad's blog here.
If VR can nail in the challenge, risk/reward, and fulfilling group play then I think the "niche" will be far larger than expected. Especially since the MMO genre is both larger than ever in terms of total players yet at the same time extremely stale. At this point many have dipped into the major players already (likely more than once) and would jump if something substanial came around that they could pour their time into.
Iksar: People seem to throw around "niche" as if this game can only appeal to old timers and extremely limited amounts of people outside of that
Agreed; in this case niche is more about the game mechanics than the number to whom it will appeal. It is harping back to the original designs of EQ1 more than it is to ESO and its ilk. It is niche in its design philosophy. I would argue that once people experience the real risk/rewards that PRotF will offer, either for the first time or re-experience, the gaming community will not end up being small. It is niche, because MMOs are not currently designed in this manner, not because it will remain a small clientele. SUVs were niche once, they aren't any more.
If VR build it the way it should be, they will come!
I'm fine with $25 - 30 / month and could even go higher, but I think that's ill-advised since I think that's past the point where the extra money VR makes per person does not exceed the amount they lose by having too many people skip / leave the game. But I am also aware that a large initial price will scare away many potential players and will also cause many causual players to quit. To help with that, I would love to see some lower-tier prices to help bring people in and to keep infrequent players from quitting altogether.
Alternate Pricing Tiers:
Intro Pricing: $10 / month - This allows new players to log in for up to 25 hours a month, have one character, and not be able to level up past level 20. They can be at this price for up to 3 months.
Maintanance Account: $10 / month - This allows formerly fully subscribed players to continue to use their account and play, but only up to 12 hours a month. This is to keep infrequent players from quitting.
24,15 US/month. For the basic game. But it would have to have excellent client support, bug fixing or at least replies to reported bugs. GM interaction with the community, finger at the pulse kind of deal.
I'd pay for expansions. As long as they are 1/year.
I'd expect about 20 US/month.
You can sort your discounts for paying upfront or not, by your own discretion. If the game is good enough, I'll gladly pay per year. If it's shady, I won't invest more than 1/month and see how it goes.
I might consider a pay by the (in-game) hour deal. If that's designed properly.
Sweety said:disposalist said:But VR is not looking to attract a standard modern MMORPG audience are they?
their target is intentionally a niche, eg. ex-old-school MMORPG players.
While I agree the game seems to be indented for more old school players, I'm not sure that's a big enough audience for finical success. As I said before, everyone posting here is the target audience or we wouldn’t be here. VR certainly will want to attract all paying customers, even if they come from the likes of modern WoW. (I felt sick typing that, lol)
And I believe they can do that *without* compromising their principles. In fact, I believe they will do that *because* they don't compromise.
There are a ton of people playing WoW and other MMORPGs because there is no decent MMORPG with eq-like tenets.
Once there is, they will come.
Also a ton of them will try Pantheon and realise that old-school tenets result in a better experience. Something we know, but they will learn.
If VR compromise on fundamental things like a cash shop which damages the prestige of items (yes, even if there is a toggle (yuck) or cosmetics are self-only, it will still damage the prestige of earned items) then they will, to some extent, just be offering what WoW and the like does already and, because it's in line with their model, does better (though a 'better' cash shop is an oxymoron).
I wound love nothing more than to pay a subscription for Pantheon. But the bottomline is you still need another revenue stream and then need to think about what the future will look like in 10 years. I have not seen any interest in discussing Blockchain revenue channels and how that would work. (and that's ok) Or how to integrate it without breaking the tenets of the game. But blockchain technology is going to have an impact on the gaming industry. I believe VR should be contemplating the ramifications of blockchain technology on the industry and be able to adapt when competitors find solutions in the blockchain space. They need to plan on how this technology will impact VR and industry as a whole.
Caine said:I wound love nothing more than to pay a subscription for Pantheon. But the bottomline is you still need another revenue stream and then need to think about what the future will look like in 10 years. I have not seen any interest in discussing Blockchain revenue channels and how that would work. (and that's ok) s. But only if there is awareness and discussion.
People have been proselytizing blockchain everything for over a decade now and it just isn't likely to be something adopted in the next 10 years for gaming, especially an MMO. As far as I can tell most games wouldn't really benefit from blockchain over a centralized database, to say nothing of cost and performance. You'd need a radical new P2P concept for a game like an MMO with no central servers.