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Posted October 26th, 2009 by Ethec

#1,194 - What can save the subscription model? Should it be saved?
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Ten to twelve years ago, players got nothing more than the ability to play an MMO and an occasional minor patch for the price of the monthly subscription. The rise of subscription-free gaming led to "content updates," free expansions, and other attempt to periodically add value to subscription games, but is there a simpler, simpler approach? Our thoughts in today's Loading... The Sinking Sub.

Awesome read Ethec, Guild Wars has hung in there and is doing well too as a F2P w/MTs. I wonder how their transition to GW2 will go. I still catch myself logging into that game often.

Regarding out-of-game browser-based access to in-game info, I'd love to be able to view my in-game email and auctions without loading the game, logging in, and running to the appropriate place. I can see how manipulating those values from a browser would raise technical challenges. Fine. I don't need to *write* email or *create* auctions from the browser. Just a read-only view of the data.

Or to make it even simpler on the devs, I'd love it if the character selection screen would show ...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sepharious View Post
Awesome read Ethec, Guild Wars has hung in there and is doing well too as a F2P w/MTs. I wonder how their transition to GW2 will go. I still catch myself logging into that game often.
Looking forward to learning more about GW2 also.

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Years ago, when I started EQ I thought to drum up some social interaction by badgering my friends into playing. Many of them did, after a while join in the fun.

One of them stubbornly refused to join the fun though and held out for ages. His argument was "I'm not paying a bloody monthly subscription to play a game".

For my mind I thought it was worth it - at that time anyway.

All of us have now taken various paths through the history of MMOs that have unfolded since that time. I have...

I think the current subscription model of $15 a month (and usually a dollar or two less if you do multiple months) is really not that bad. As is noted for my girlfriend and I to go to a movie for a matinee is $14 for the two of us. It is not a lot of money honestly. Also in the case of WoW when you consider the major content patches being free for all intents and purposes I have not really spent all that much money in the 4+ years I played. I think all told it was right at about $1,000 wh...

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