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| Thread: Pay to Play Games | |
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william
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
LummoxLewis
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posted March 31, 2007 12:19 PM |
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Pay to Play Games
Well some, or probably all of you know about Pay to Play games, or in other words P2P, as it is commonly known as.
Now many of you would have played p2p games, World of Warcraft being a classic example, and for those who are too keen, then becoming a paying member of Rune scape, might be another game.
Now some of you may be thinking, well if they are really good games, then wouldn't they be worth paying to play?
But here is my answer:
NO
First of, you buy the actual game, this doesn't apply in all cases, seeing as though Rune scape is an online game, and you cannot buy it, but take World of Warcraft for an example.
Now, you buy the game at the shops, for however much it costs, let's just have an example and say about $50.
Now, you fork out $50, and then buy the game, and then you install it at home.
Now, what do you do?
To actually play the game, you have to then fork out even more money (although it isn't that much), and then like somehow send that money to the game company, which is Blizzard.
Now, what is up with that?
Blizzard are like Millionaires, why would they even more money?
Well because they are greedy most likely.
If they are millionaires, or even Billionaires or whatever they are, then they would already have the specific amount of money needed to perhaps produce another game, they just want more money, and putting out a good game on the market, and then making people have to pay to play is a good way of making more money, because let's face it, World of Warcraft is extremely popular.
But, hold on a second, haven't Blizzard made more games?
Yes, that's right, they have, and another very popular game, is Diablo 2.
Now, with this game, you don't have to pay to play, you buy the game, and the expansion pack (Highly Recommended), you install it onto your computer, and you have some choices, such as:
Single Player
Battle.net
Now, there are 2 versions of the battle.net, and they are:
Open battle.net
Closed battle.net
Open uses your single player characters, which if you chose to, you can use hacks and all that, making your items very very cheated, or you can go to closed battle.net, where to play first, you have to register an account, which can be done via the game, and then you can sign in, create your character and then play.
Closed battle.net has had hacks and all that in the past, but those player's got banned and all that, because hacking in the closed battle.net is not allowed.
Now, why couldn't Blizzard done the same with World of Warcraft???
World of Warcraft doesnt even have a single player, all you can do is multiplayer, and to do that, you have to pay to play it.
Now what is up with that?
Now, I know that some other games are also p2p, but it really is just stupid.
As if the game developer's don't already have enough money, but to play their games, we have to pay them even more money.
It really is stupid, and this can also be really bad for those really 'obsessive' gamer's out there, who will probably waste alot of their money to play these p2p games.
It is all just a big waste of time in my opinion, because you can get much better games where you have multiplayer and you don't have to play to pay the actual multiplayer game.
Well that is enough of me talking, now let's hear your opinions on this matter.
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~Ticking away the moments that
make up a dull day, Fritter and
waste the hours in an off-hand
way~
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Lord_Woock
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Daddy Cool with a $90 smile
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posted March 31, 2007 01:09 PM |
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You say it's not worth it. Fine, so do I. The problem is, you seem to lack a basic understanding of how it works.
Sure, compare Battle.net to World of Warcraft. They both require continuous work and eat up resources over an undefined period of time. True.
But which takes more?
How much more?
Keeping the Battle.net up, running and enjoyable for all involved is beneficial because people will be more likely to buy the game if they know that Battle.net exists. Also, Battle.net supports several of Blizzard's games. I'm no longer sure about Warcraft 2, but all the other non-MMO Blizzard products all make the thing worthwhile, simply because it keeps up customer interest in the games.
Now, World of Warcraft uses dozens of times more hardware, human effort and other resources. The $50 "box price" just can't support the game for too long on its own.
Sure, Guild Wars is fairly successful without the monthly fees, but it uses all sorts of tricks and shortcuts to minimize the upkeep costs. How much game time does a Guild Wars player actually spend online?
Runescape and other free MMOs are both less popular and require less resources per player than WoW, so they can be paid for with the voluntary payments.
It's not really greed. WoW and such are so expensive because of the unrestrained volume.
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Yolk and God bless.
---
My buddy's doing a webcomic and would certainly appreciate it if you checked it out!
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william
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
LummoxLewis
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posted March 31, 2007 01:15 PM |
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So basically World of Warcraft and all those other kind's of games, are p2p not because of greed or whatever, but because of the effort it takes to actually make or let alone play the game?
All the human effort and resources and all that?
Well I can see how that would work, but if it required that much effort and all that, why not just employ more worker's?
Blizzard are very rich, so they could probably afford more worker's, and that would ease of some of the strain of doing these kind's of games, right?
____________
~Ticking away the moments that
make up a dull day, Fritter and
waste the hours in an off-hand
way~
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Lord_Woock
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Daddy Cool with a $90 smile
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posted March 31, 2007 01:28 PM |
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Meh. Employ more workers! Yay!
Employing more people than they are now won't mean it'll be cheaper to pay them all, you know. As for "bah they're rich, they can afford any strain", how about this for a comparison.
The United States are a rich country, so they can afford having Bush spend billions upon billions on a stupid war.
A company like that is not there to cut their throat for your entertainment. Do you think the average Blizzard programmer or WoW moderator is eating caviar for breakfast and flying to work with a random pick from his three Jumbo Jets? Have some respect for the peoples' work, even if you're not interested in buying their product.
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Yolk and God bless.
---
My buddy's doing a webcomic and would certainly appreciate it if you checked it out!
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william
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
LummoxLewis
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posted March 31, 2007 01:39 PM |
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I do have respect for the company, I do, but I still don't like the idea of p2p, it just doesn't seem worth it, you know?
Especially with those mega addictive games out there, people will spend a lot on p2p'ing for those games, and that could lead to RL money troubles.
I didn't mean the "they are rich, they can afford any strain" that way, in fact, I probably didn't even mean to say it that way.
But, being rich would allow you to have just a bit less strain, since money in this kind of business means a lot, and for a gaming company, you need money for many things, like worker's, equipment, etc etc.
Now, I would probably be interested in their product, being World of Warcraft, but am kinda turned off about p2p, if it was like Diablo 2, I would buy it, but I am not that keen to pay to play it, I mean I need that money for RL stuff, not to amuse myself for a couple of hours in the cyber world.
Does that make sense?
____________
~Ticking away the moments that
make up a dull day, Fritter and
waste the hours in an off-hand
way~
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Daystar
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Back from the Dead
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posted March 31, 2007 02:23 PM |
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I understand. I'm kind of in the same boat.
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PhoenixReborn
Promising
Legendary Hero
Unicorn
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posted March 31, 2007 05:27 PM |
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Hold the phone just a minute!! Wait!
I haven't played either game. I'm not really into online gaming and thus my impression may be off.
Here is my question with Diablo 2 do they add new content every so often? I don't think they do, correct me if I'm wrong.
I thought that the reason you pay monthly fees with WoW is because you are actually getting new quests and levels and places to explore?
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Bask in the light of my glorious shining unicorn.
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william
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
LummoxLewis
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posted March 31, 2007 05:30 PM |
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Diablo 2, with the updates, with the versions, they have updated and added new stuff, like fixed bugs, added new rune words etc etc.
Rune words are really good in the game, and it is better to have even more 
I am not sure about them adding new quests, but yeah.
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~Ticking away the moments that
make up a dull day, Fritter and
waste the hours in an off-hand
way~
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TitaniumAlloy
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Professional
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posted March 31, 2007 05:36 PM |
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sounds like anarchy to me
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John says to live above hell.
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lord_crusader
Promising
Supreme Hero
UHU!! supreme!
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posted March 31, 2007 09:00 PM |
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that's why I play guildwars 
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Dig Out Your Soul
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Guitarguy
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Rockoon.
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posted April 03, 2007 08:41 AM |
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PC Gamer's January 2001 magazine issue had a rather nice two pages that talked about the economic aspect of the gaming industry. The article explained that quite a bit of money goes into making and releasing these games. In addition to making the game itself (which is quite often an expensive task), money has to be spent on corporate connections, public relations, advertising, tech support staff, etc. Knowing all these things, it's easier to see why Blizzard has to keep up its rate of income. Perhaps it's more complex than that, but that's what I gather.
In the case of WoW vs Diablo 2, I just look at it in simple terms. D2 has been out since around 2000, thus making it kinda old by now. Why are people still into it? A lucky coincidence, combined with the fact that it was a really fun game. Blizzard has turned its focus away from the Diablo realm for now, it seems, and has been tackling other projects. Bigger projects, as WoW proved. Obviously, a game of WoW's caliber takes a lot more money to design and maintain than its predecessor. So despite our wishful thinking, Blizzard won't slack on the P2P price tag.
-Guitarguy
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