Article: Penny Arcade comments on the pay-to-play system

[Mistkerl_Zwo]

Castelak writes, "Penny Arcade (http://www.penny-arcade.com/) has some of the same views about the pay-to-play system of PSO v2 as others. Click Here (http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2001-06-01). Also be sure to check out the news associated with this image here (http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2001-06-01) "

Thats a great comic! Thanks to Castelak and Redvento who both pointed this one out.
Note from Gideon: PennyArcade own. :)
Note from Watashiwa: Yes it does, Gideon .. irl.

[protosakura]

So people don't like the idea of paying like 2.50 a month to play a kick ass game with all their friends? Stop whining it'll be worth it, paying to play means they will HAVE to translate all the d/l quests, it means everything japan get's we will get (i.e. contests and and all the rare weap give aways) so c'mon guys.

It doesn't matter if it will cost that little per month. Also, there is NO set price, that is just based on what they pay in Japan. My problem: no credit card. Simple as that. I work part time, put myself through college, have car payments bills etc. Just buying a game is a little light in my life. Oh and you might ask why not get a CC? The answer is, because I know I'd use it and probably end up in debt. :p

The fact that players may have to pay a monthly fee in order to maintain the PSO servers does not bother me one iota. Japanese players have been paying access fees since the introduction of PSO, and have basically been subsidizing our access to American PSO and European PSO servers. It does not seem fair that one geographical collection of players should shoulder the financial burden of maintaining a collection of servers that cater to a worldwide audience of players.
I am far more concerned with the possible release of yet another "broken" or "incomplete" version of PSO. I would prefer for Sonic Team to delay the release of Version 2 and implement all of the new features, improvements, and levels that the fans have been slavering over for months, rather than some hastily assembled addendum to the original game. I believe that the addition of these features would more than validate the monthly fee that has been touted about as the possible price for PSO Version 2 online access. Failing to deliver such features will not only ensure a launch failure for PSO Version 2, but will surely sabotage the success of any sort of online subscription plan that Sega may wish to implament to cover United States or European server maintenance costs.
I really do hope that Sonic Team decides to pursue this development path, rather than shipping off some half-baked addendum to PSO. Moreover, I hope that the GameCube release will be polished and refined enough as to make it worth my while to purchase a game I already own, whose save games I will be abandoning in order to create new ones on a new, more technologically advanced gaming platform. Otherwise, it may be time to move onto another online multi-player game...

Aw c'mon, guys!
Pso v.2 pay-to-play! Thats already hard enough for young players like me! You're probably peoples who owns a credit card or you are bathing in money.
Look, PSO v.2? It doesnt support Broadband, it doesnt have enough stuff to my criteria, and worse of all (you guessed it) its P2P!! Im sure as hell aint gonna buy it. Its like paying additional money when you open a can of soda! Its stupid!
About the japanese peoples... they are almost 10 times more crowdier than we do. Thats why they are charged money. Im sure Sega thought that the PS2 would attract the attention of many gamers and they wouldn't buy/play PSO. But seeing how it was a hit in the North America, Sega probably decided to squeeze, no, choke and twist our arms for money. Its outrageous! That they dont put more than 7.00$ (canadian) dollars, or they will sink ALOT more down.

"Pay to pay = we get what Japanese got" ??
r u sure about that? who said so?

[RedVento]

1st. Sega has NOT released a pricing plan. While 2.50 a month would not be bad, it is probably not realistic. Most pay per play services are $10.00 a month. I see no reason why sega would not adobt this plan since it works well for the services they say they are like(AC/Everquest)
2nd. Sega does NOT have to translate anything more than they have to. Sega has been screwing the US and EU since PSO came out. While Dreamcast sales in Japan were horrible the US bought the DC rather well. Much better than the Saturn. They have had their head's up their asses since the dreamcast release, it cost them their hardware division, and now to make up for it they plan to punish the one group that actually bought the Dreamcast, and PSO in numbers.

[RedVento]

You don't mind paying $50 for a game, and another undisclosed amount per month for maintenance on a non-persistant world. What updates do the servers need? Anit cheat measurments? Same as Diablo 2, which charges nothing. What other maintenance? Characters are not stored server side, most of the work is done by you or the host DC, the servers are there simply as a meeting place, and a language filter. Great. I need to pay for the privilage of playing the same boards with no new changes, over and over, and over, with no hope of new weapons, monsters or locations? Quick let me get my credit card out. So SOJ got Japan to shell out $10 per 3 months for access.. They also get contests, and new quests. I also believe that internet service in Japan is extremely expensive, and this additional cost is not extreme. The US is prolific with cheap internet service, dialup being an average of 10.00 per month. So paying an additional 33% per month is outragous.

>>"Pay to pay = we get what Japanese got" ??
>>r u sure about that? who said so?
I didnt say that I was sure about that, I'm just saying what I've read from another post that said that. I know there is NO set price, I even said that in my original post.

Listen folks PSO is no & never will be a Diablo. Yes it is a blast but I am not going to pay a monthly fee to play ANY game I purchace once. If they do want to charge me a monthly fee that the game disk should FREE. I already feel screwed because of the whole BBA thing.

[Stoned_Cat]

I agreed entirely. If PSO v.2 brought anything vastly different to the game I might pay. As it is the rampant cheating has already moved my focus almost entirely towards Diablo 2 (which is free). And the Diablo 2 expansion is coming soon (it costs less then PSO v.2 and its free afterwads, also it has new goodies galore). PSO v.2 will also have cheating. This is a result of the client side saves, and little can be done about it. Someone will hack it. I hate to say this, but PSO was fun for a little while. Now its just boring, Diablo 2 is a much more in-depth and complex game with greater variety.

i agree, i am not buying ver.2 if its gonna cost me more than zero bux a month to play online beyond the price of the cd. i understand buying the expansion disk (even if its about the same price as the original now), but i am not buying the same game more than twice. heck, its not even a sequel.
i got a dreamcast around the time sega made their big announcement (the one about their hardware plans, not PSOv2) to play games like skies of arcadia, shenmue, nfl/nba2k1, sonic adventure, soul calibur, etc... and decided to buy and try out PSO cuz it was FREE and it even had that cool sonic2 demo with it.
with the announcment of ver.2 i was excited about it (up until other recent big announcement, the one about the monthly fee). but even then, i thought it was ridiculous to release a game that doesnt even double the content of the original and forces us to at least pay the price of a new game. yeah, i was interested in the dressing room and deathmatch and 2 new 'levels' and especially goin up to 200 with new rare weps... but all that doesnt interest me when i have to pay more than the price of the original game just to unlock those features. i still like pso and im sticking with the FREE psov1 servers.
im sorry sega, but it looks like this is the beginning of another end... tisk, tisk... you heard our petitions, but you didnt love us. i dont smell a petition this time, but more of a silent boycott almost.
im saving my money and getting sonic adventure 2 instead--the other game made by sonic team and had a demo included in the original pso, something that psov2 probably wont have: a demo or even an extra
im might save the money i was gonna spend on psov2 to get me a ps2 (aw yeah, soul calibur 2 baby!!!) or a gamecube (gotta love those nintendo franchises...).
ps- you know you're a rich spoiled kid or a huge loser if you suck up to sega's plan... i pity you all...

"ps- you know you're a rich spoiled kid or a huge loser if you suck up to sega's plan... i pity you all..."
Well then there are going to be a lot of huge losers when v2 comes out, and I guess that makes all the Japanese players huge losers as well? If you ask me you're just a crybaby that got spolied to hell with the original. You're the one that I pity...

[Fargo]

er....
I thought the strip was hilarious...!!
everyone in the Mac lab at Uni is giving me funny looks...

[motosada]

The only problem I see:
I am out of Europe, I have
to pay per minute I am online with DC.
I reach every Month around $ 70.
So If I also have to pay per month for
the Servers, that will be really to much.
Damn unlimited free accses to the Internet
with DC is only a dream for me. Maybe is also
PSO Version 2 only a dream for me......
that depens on a PAL release and on the payment situation

[Back-Lash]

Shut the hell up and get your azz out of here than. Thats all you Americans fukking think FREE FREE