xbox 360 fees?

[Crispin]

On 2006-08-15 21:50, Saner wrote:
Maybe people should think about others instead of just themselves. nothing is really free. someone has to pay for it.

Companies live off of profits. Whether they demand too much out of you, that is debate that leads to nowhere. The fee is very reasonable considering things like 4 character slots at no extra charge (FF11 charges 1.00 added to the fee for every extra character), so Sega is generous in some aspects. But they shouldn't simply open the gates for free and let everyone in. That would do harm to themselves, and most people who don't wanna pay fees do not value the priviledge they are given, they completely takes things for granted. Fees on the bright side also filter outout some of the bad spoiled brats, no need to spoil thm further with free online play.
But in any case fees are more positive than negative for both sides. If you take a moment to stop thinking about just yourself, you would notice why.

All you have to decide is if you are willing to cooperate and pay to get what they created, maintain and offer.



If you don't think its worth it, there's the door.

Oh, come on. The concept can't be that hard to grasp.

The point that you continue to somehow fail to grasp that's being said over and over again is not that being forced to pay a fee is a crime against gamers or whatever you keep on assuming after ignoring people's arguments, but that there's other methods of getting revenue which can not only bring in even more money, but even have benefits that wouldn't be possible with a simple monthly subscription for both the developer and the playerbase. I'd list them out, but they've been posted enough times in this thread, and I don't know if they're being ignored or they're just not being posted in terms simple enough for some of you guys to understand.

[Ether]

For Cross:

On 2006-08-15 21:32, Saner wrote:
our post is worthless before we post it?

In your case, yes

On 2006-08-15 21:50, Saner wrote:
Fees on the bright side also filter outout some of the bad spoiled brats, no need to spoil thm further with free online play

History proves otherwise. A lot of people had this idea before PSO version 2 came out for dreamcast. People said the cheating would get better now that the game wasn't going to be free anymore

It got worse



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ether on 2006-08-15 22:14 ]</font>

[Saner]

okay well maybe I'm just too dumb to understand what's the problem,

I guess this topic was about the fee itself being the problem, and people are coming up with solutions that would help Sega still make good money and people don't have to pay a fee.

if I was in charge of whether there is a fee or not. With something like PSU, (which like PSO is not as popular as WoW, FF11 and other cleverly advertised games), I wouldn't take any chances.

I would rather slap on a fee than gamble on just game sales to make money back and more. FF11 and WoW are making money off of fees so why shouldn't PSU?



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Saner on 2006-08-15 22:16 ]</font>

[Saner]

Saner wrote:
our post is worthless before we post it?

Ether wrote:

In your case, yes

hmph.

[Cross]

On 2006-08-15 21:34, Triela wrote:
It's a losing battle, Cross.

Yeah, I'm starting to see how this might just be pointless. Well, I guess you can only bash your head against a brick wall for so long before you pass out. That's gonna happen soon.

On 2006-08-15 21:53, Zinsian wrote:
[Stuff about Xbox Live fee]

You're probably fairly close. To be honest, the Xbox Live fee isn't remotely like the PSU fee. For one, it's much cheaper; an annual payment of $50 works out to a little over $4, and the fact that it's paid once a year makes it a lot more convenient. It supports matchmaking across every game on the Xbox, even the ones that Microsoft has no hand in (and thus won't see too much of a profit from extra sales anyway, aside from a bit of licensing). It also subsidizes a lot of the other Xbox Live features. I have no problem at all paying for Xbox Live.

There's a good argument for an XBL fee. Not so much for a PSU fee.

On 2006-08-15 21:50, Saner wrote:
Maybe people should think about others instead of just themselves. nothing is really free. someone has to pay for it.

Companies live off of profits. Whether they demand too much out of you, that is debate that leads to nowhere. The fee is very reasonable considering things like 4 character slots at no extra charge (FF11 charges 1.00 added to the fee for every extra character), so Sega is generous in some aspects. But they shouldn't simply open the gates for free and let everyone in. That would do harm to themselves, and most people who don't wanna pay fees do not value the priviledge they are given, they completely takes things for granted. Fees on the bright side also filter outout some of the bad spoiled brats, no need to spoil thm further with free online play.
But in any case fees are more positive than negative for both sides. If you take a moment to stop thinking about just yourself, you would notice why.

All you have to decide is if you are willing to cooperate and pay to get what they created, maintain and offer.



If you don't think its worth it, there's the door.

Thanks for posting this. Before, I wasn't sure if you were reading my posts at all!

Now I'm sure that you're not. I even included this:

It's fine if you've got a reason to disagree, and have a valid refutation for the points (any of the points) I've made, but everything I've posted in this thread so far has apparently been completely ignored, and the same few variations on "They need to keep the servers up somehow!" and "It's not a lot of money, don't be so cheap!" have been repeated ad nauseum. If that's all you have to contribute, your post is worthless before you post it, and it'd be much appreciated if you saved us all the time reading it.

I did! That was absolutely in my post, if you had read it. Just to be a nice guy, I bolded the relevant parts.

You seem to think I'm sitting here saying, "Oh gee golly I think Sega is really going to alter their business because of this!" I'm not. I hold no false hope that they'll improve their system. The point was to have a discussion. Because we're on a forum. A discussion forum.

When I say "your post is worthless", I'm not being an egomaniacal jerk and thinking of myself. I'm saying that my last few posts have all refuted everything you've said, before you even replied.

You say, "Companies live off profits. [...] Someone has to pay for it."

I've already given valid reasoning as to why companies can still get their profits and still pay for it without a monthly fee. My last post even used math. If you've got a genuine reason to doubt my math, then say so, but you're just repeating "Sega's gotta pay for them things somehow!" while ignoring the fact that I've already explained how there are other "somehow's" that they can use, that can earn just as much, if not more money, than a monthly fee.

It's not "opening up the floodgates for free"; in my ideal scenario the customer has already paid. They're not getting anything free. An individual player pays less, and Sega makes the same money because there are more players each shouldering a smaller portion of the upkeep cost. It's like a model for communism that works! And it does work. I've proven that.

Nobody is "valuing the privilege given to them", because playing these games is not a privilege. I don't know how you can think that. It's a service that you pay for, and there's more than one business model that affects the way an individual player actually pays. Don't fool yourself: A fee doesn't keep out anyone that wouldn't be kept out by any other payment method. You can, in fact, still be banned from a service even without a monthly fee. If you get banned from WoW, you have to buy another copy, and resume paying your fees as if nothing happened. If you get banned from Guild Wars, you have to buy another copy, and resume paying your fees as if nothing happened (except in this case the fee is $0).

If you're going to say something like "fees have more positives than negatives for everyone", you're going to have to actually give reasons for what you're saying, especially when I (and Crispin, and a few others) have given compelling reasons for why it isn't better for us, and might be worse for Sega as well.. You can't just say it over and over until it magically becomes true.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Cross on 2006-08-15 22:20 ]</font>

[Saner]

okay so you have good ideas to avoid paying a fee and Sega would still profit, but you don't work for Sega. oh well.

[McLaughlin]

In some cases, optional content (that costs money) can be a bad thing. For instance, in Mech Assault (Not an MMO, but an example none the less) there are several mechs and maps available for purchase, and no monthly fee. However, not having this content limits the number of people you can play with (severely in some cases. Halo 2 forced you to buy the map packs or quit matchmaking). Now, I can't speak for everyone else's parents (myself being on a 0.00$ income at the moment) but my mom tends to deny me the money to buy said extras. With a monthly fee I can be assured (most of the time) that I won't have to pay anything ontop of the cost. Now instead of saying "Can I have 20 bucks to buy this content?" and being denied, I can just say "Hey mom, if I give you 5 bucks a month out of my allowance, can you put it towards the monthly fee for this game?" She sees the number immediately and doesn't really consider the long term. I have a running tab with her, and she frowns upon ne asking for money, but the smaller the number, the more likely I can talk her into it. 20 bucks at once or 5 dollars over 4 months. More convenient to pay it over a period of time.

That's just my unique situation however, and I suppose it can't really be considered in the debate. Hence, I thought of something relevent!

For one, You can play FFXI on Xbox 360 with a silver membership, which only costs you the 12.00$ a month + 1.00$ per extra character. PSOX costs 13.00$ (CAN) plus the Live fee. Problem with the FFXI fee? Nope, at least once a month there's some kind of maintenence or updsate going on, and that makes me feel like my money's being put to use. Problem with PSOX fee? Yes. I haven't seen the servers updated since November. We still have christmas lobbies. No new quests (and only 1 downloadable one over the span of PSOX's life). Not even server maintenence. They've gone to hell. The cheating it out of control (which is partailly Microsoft's fault for not banning the people I constantly report).

I guess the point of my ramblings is that I don't mind paying a fee, as long as it's used for more than lining wallets.

[Kyuu]

All I have to say is that the comparison of DDO to Guild Wars is rediculous. You are choosing to ascribe the difference in sales to the monthly fee issue when, in fact, you have no real data to support that conclusion. I, for one, would ascribe the difference in sales to the fact that most people who've played DDO say it simply sucks. Not to mention, I've already demonstrated one game that's outsold Guild Wars many times over even with a monthly fee: World of Warcraft.

Yes yes, I know you can come up with myriad excuses why World of Warcraft is an "exception" or some other bullcrap, but whatever. I have little inclination to argue the point.

[Crispin]

On 2006-08-16 19:23, Kyuu wrote:
Not to mention, I've already demonstrated one game that's outsold Guild Wars many times over even with a monthly fee: World of Warcraft.

Yes yes, I know you can come up with myriad excuses why World of Warcraft is an "exception" or some other bullcrap, but whatever. I have little inclination to argue the point.

How many games can you think of that have the potential to do even half as well as World of Warcraft? Can you also explain why it's a better game to use in a comparison with PSU?

[Ryudo]

On 2006-08-15 21:31, Cross wrote:
Uh... No.

1) The expansions are $50 every six months, and the first expansion took twelve months to be released.
2) The expansions do not, and will not, raise the level cap or give more powerful new equipment. The equipment that was top-of-the-line in the first release is top of the line in the second expansion, and will still be top-of-the-line in the third expansion.
3) It has as many selling points as any random MMORPG you might be able to name. The degree of its success was based on the fact that it's got all of the qualities that most people want out of an MMO without a monthly fee, yes. That was exactly the point I was making.
4) My argument was for a business model that doesn't require a subscription fee. Not a business model that doesn't have any possible recurring sources of revenue.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Cross on 2006-08-15 21:33 ]</font>

$30 every 3 months $50 every 6 months, either way it's floating around the same cost per month as any MMO

It may be your point that it did well without a monthly fee, but when people figured out it basically DID have a monthly fee in the form of the expansions, it saw a sharp decline in popularity.
Just because it worked once for GW doesnt mean it will ever work again for any game ever. You can generally only fool people once.

so your argument is against monthly fees but recurring fees equivalent to the monthly fee are ok?
Explain to me the difference between $8-10 a month for a game that's regularly updated with new quests and content and $50 every 6 months for a game that gets new content in bulk?