Playstation has no monthly fee. It has a Playstation store and Playstation Home. In the amount of time I've owned my PS3, I have spent THOUSANDS of dollars on stuff from the store and for Playstation Home. Just last night I spent $30 on Playstation Home accessories.
Now lets think about this rationally...
Games companies that charge subscription fees do so because of an outdated business model which suggest people will pay to "play". This is true in cases where there are no alternatives. However, in the new millennium, what has been true is that people are willing to pay to enhance what they play. The Sims is the best example of this - how many multi-millions of dollars was made on expansion accessories? Never with a subscription fee.
This game already has a C-store. This should be employed to great effect releasing things that can be added to the Avatars, unique ships, unique game areas, etc. All these things can be sold for real money in lieu of a subscription model. In a month of unique releases, Cryptic could earn more than it does from a pre-order lifetime subscription.
The key is simply offering something necessary for the advancement of happiness in the game. For me, ships...lots of ships... For others, clothing and accessories for their avatar... For others still, weapons...glorious weapons!
Unfortunately, it really needs to be one OR the other, not both...either a subscription or a store...and since people have continued to complain about running out of content, adding content is the more financially responsible activity.
Boy would the lifers be mad if this were to come to fruition.
As for your parallel with the Sims -- to my knowledge there is no online multi-player activity involved in the sims that would require a significant amount of bandwidth. The subscription fee covers the bandwidth cost and, while I'd love to see it go away, I don't think it's likely given the lack of other revenue generating opportunities out there - example: C-Store has fairly empty shelves at the moment.
Wow op whata horrible idea and i laugh that you spent all that money on home seeing as sony devs have already stated that home was a total failure, as does pretty much everyone that has every tried it.
This thread is a waste of forum space.
The monthly fee is fine.
Playstation has no monthly fee. It has a Playstation store and Playstation Home. In the amount of time I've owned my PS3, I have spent THOUSANDS of dollars on stuff from the store and for Playstation Home. Just last night I spent $30 on Playstation Home accessories.
Now lets think about this rationally...
Games companies that charge subscription fees do so because of an outdated business model which suggest people will pay to "play". This is true in cases where there are no alternatives. However, in the new millennium, what has been true is that people are willing to pay to enhance what they play. The Sims is the best example of this - how many multi-millions of dollars was made on expansion accessories? Never with a subscription fee.
This game already has a C-store. This should be employed to great effect releasing things that can be added to the Avatars, unique ships, unique game areas, etc. All these things can be sold for real money in lieu of a subscription model. In a month of unique releases, Cryptic could earn more than it does from a pre-order lifetime subscription.
The key is simply offering something necessary for the advancement of happiness in the game. For me, ships...lots of ships... For others, clothing and accessories for their avatar... For others still, weapons...glorious weapons!
Unfortunately, it really needs to be one OR the other, not both...either a subscription or a store...and since people have continued to complain about running out of content, adding content is the more financially responsible activity.
PS@Home is nice. I prefer Second Life on the PC because it does have more freedom to create your own content. I do love the idea of not having a monthly fee and instead just paying real money for ingame items.
RMT shops like C-store or like you see in the F2P MMORPGs don't work as well as PS@Home/Second Life because when the items in the store are tied to gameplay and how effective your character is, you have much more incentive to spend a lot of money. Sometimes you're forced to spend money to unlock gameplay. In PS@Home and Second Life, the items you can purchase are purely cosmetic (for the most part).
Wow op whata horrible idea and i laugh that you spent all that money on home seeing as sony devs have already stated that home was a total failure, as does pretty much everyone that has every tried it.
This thread is a waste of forum space.
The monthly fee is fine.
What a pity you have no idea what you're talking about. It would have made your insult all the more valid... Sony has made so much money off of Home and their store that it will soon be able to subsidize their hardware.
Though I do have to thank people like you for giving money to sony to keep online free for the rest of us.
XBL is more fun though
That statement is subjective. I happen to own an Xbox 360 and I didn't find anything 'fun' about listening to 8 year olds run their mouths over voice. :rolleyes:
Wow op whata horrible idea and i laugh that you spent all that money on home seeing as sony devs have already stated that home was a total failure, as does pretty much everyone that has every tried it.
This thread is a waste of forum space.
The monthly fee is fine.
This thread is a waste of forum space? How about the dozens of useless threads you've created just so you can whine about the game? Why are you even here?
What a pity you have no idea what you're talking about. It would have made your insult all the more valid... Sony has made so much money off of Home and their store that it will soon be able to subsidize their hardware.
Wow, this is so not true. It is so not true that Sony is considering charging a fee for the Playstation Network.
RMT shops like C-store or like you see in the F2P MMORPGs don't work as well as PS@Home/Second Life because when the items in the store are tied to gameplay and how effective your character is, you have much more incentive to spend a lot of money. Sometimes you're forced to spend money to unlock gameplay. In PS@Home and Second Life, the items you can purchase are purely cosmetic (for the most part).
And in this case, that could be true too. But I'd still be willing to pay to have a special ship - even if the ship was not substantially different than one I already had. Like the Nebula class as opposed to a Galaxy class. And even though you could buy these items instead of earn these items, you couldn't outfit them with heavy weapons while you were still a Lt. Cmdr, you'd just have a big ship with weapons indexed to your rank.
What a pity you have no idea what you're talking about. It would have made your insult all the more valid... Sony has made so much money off of Home and their store that it will soon be able to subsidize their hardware.
Yes, and as is the case of the OP, the free subscription store suckered them into not realizing they paid a mint for one trick pony hardware.
Lets not turn this into a PS3 vs Xbox 360 vs Wii thread.
There is already a billion on the internet.
Actually, all are one trick ponies.
Hardware boxes are designed to lock a consumer into a single platform for a game, restricting content choices. Rarely do the boxes have backwards compatibility with new models, and even subsidized the boxes are expensive. One trick ponies.
On the positive side, and this applies most to the wii, families without computers can enjoy interactive games.
Comparing a free service on PS# and a free MMO though is impossible because of the issue of entry cost.
Also, you really can't compare the MMO pricing model to a console network like PSN. Even if you have to pay for access to the console network (as is the case with Xbox Live), you still have to pay a monthly fee for any MMO type games that come out for said consoles (see Final Fantasy XI and the Phantasy Star Online games).
Sure, given enough time, monkeys may spontaneously fly out of your orifices, but that's not the way to bet.
You're comparing an online multi-game service tied to a console to an MMO and completely disregarding the fact that they're not remotely the same thing.
And calling subscription fees an outmoded business model is laughable. It's outmoded because everyone does it?
OP, there's only been one truly successful F2P triple-A MMO - that didn't switch from P2P because of "failure" - and that's Guild Wars. Now, while GW has a lot in common with STO as far as structure is concerned, the only reason F2P worked for it is because they released a lot of expansions very rapidly - the expansions were also playable standalone, so were more expensive than the average expansion pack - and they didn't have a fourth of the population STO has.
Ever.
The only way switching to F2P would work is if they made a lot of expensive expansions AND lost about 80% of their player base. I really don't see either happening any time soon.
That's old news. It goes along with the US Post Office issuing stamps to anyone who wants to send an email...:rolleyes:
Actually, it's not old news. It's from February 4th. And the fact that they are thinking about charging for Playstation Network kind of disproves your whole starting argument.
Comments
Items that wouldn't have a severe impact on actual gameplay.
Sure, they may add extra character slots. And they may allow for buying Respecs.
But having another alt doesn't have any impact on the character you're playing now. And Respecs will also be available in-game.
So being able to buy a better ship or weapon for cash, just means the best players will be the richest players.
And any amount of effort I put into the game, is trumped by someone's credit card.
As for your parallel with the Sims -- to my knowledge there is no online multi-player activity involved in the sims that would require a significant amount of bandwidth. The subscription fee covers the bandwidth cost and, while I'd love to see it go away, I don't think it's likely given the lack of other revenue generating opportunities out there - example: C-Store has fairly empty shelves at the moment.
Maybe down the road but I doubt it.
This thread is a waste of forum space.
The monthly fee is fine.
Where did you get the free Playstation?
Though I do have to thank people like you for giving money to sony to keep online free for the rest of us.
XBL is more fun though
What a pity you have no idea what you're talking about. It would have made your insult all the more valid... Sony has made so much money off of Home and their store that it will soon be able to subsidize their hardware.
That statement is subjective. I happen to own an Xbox 360 and I didn't find anything 'fun' about listening to 8 year olds run their mouths over voice. :rolleyes:
The same place you got your free $80 CE copy of STO...
This thread is a waste of forum space? How about the dozens of useless threads you've created just so you can whine about the game? Why are you even here?
Wow, this is so not true. It is so not true that Sony is considering charging a fee for the Playstation Network.
http://slashdot.org/story/10/02/04/0727249/Sony-May-Charge-For-PlayStation-Network
Given enough time, anything can happen.
PS@Home = Win
And, of course, you're welcome.
And in this case, that could be true too. But I'd still be willing to pay to have a special ship - even if the ship was not substantially different than one I already had. Like the Nebula class as opposed to a Galaxy class. And even though you could buy these items instead of earn these items, you couldn't outfit them with heavy weapons while you were still a Lt. Cmdr, you'd just have a big ship with weapons indexed to your rank.
Yes, and as is the case of the OP, the free subscription store suckered them into not realizing they paid a mint for one trick pony hardware.
Lets not turn this into a PS3 vs Xbox 360 vs Wii thread.
There is already a billion on the internet.
Actually, all are one trick ponies.
Hardware boxes are designed to lock a consumer into a single platform for a game, restricting content choices. Rarely do the boxes have backwards compatibility with new models, and even subsidized the boxes are expensive. One trick ponies.
On the positive side, and this applies most to the wii, families without computers can enjoy interactive games.
Comparing a free service on PS# and a free MMO though is impossible because of the issue of entry cost.
That's old news. It goes along with the US Post Office issuing stamps to anyone who wants to send an email...:rolleyes:
Sure, given enough time, monkeys may spontaneously fly out of your orifices, but that's not the way to bet.
You're comparing an online multi-game service tied to a console to an MMO and completely disregarding the fact that they're not remotely the same thing.
And calling subscription fees an outmoded business model is laughable. It's outmoded because everyone does it?
Ever.
The only way switching to F2P would work is if they made a lot of expensive expansions AND lost about 80% of their player base. I really don't see either happening any time soon.
Actually, it's not old news. It's from February 4th. And the fact that they are thinking about charging for Playstation Network kind of disproves your whole starting argument.
That's not true. We're talking about a game console not a vacuum cleaner. Pay closer attention next time.
It may be old news, but it torpedoes your whole argument.