Pay Structures: A Monologue/Rant

Free to Play - a.k.a Item Mall Dependant: Neat concept, but most of the time the stuff within the item mall is either worthless or way too overpowered. Granted, they're focusing mainly on some sort of insanely devout population to pay for the game via this method, and typically you end up spending MORE than on a Standard MMO. It's just less noticeable as you're spending it in smaller chunks.

Pay for Game, No Subscription: I -really- like this. Guild Wars is really the only game that seems to do this, but basically I can buy the base game, and enjoy it whenever I want without having to pay a subscription fee. They do release expansions or companion games, which have to be purchased, but there's a good bit of time between each. Some perks can be bought, but nothing that's not obtainable within the game itself if you work for it.

Pay for Premium: I generally like this format. The split monthly fee/item mall creates a good stable base for the game and allows those who regularly play it make a consistant, regular contribution to the game even if they don't like the items in the mall. While it's not as much as a Standard MMO fee, the split income allows for a reduction in price. The perks from premium tend to be useful, but not completely overpowering, and also make buying things in the item mall a little less costly due to adding bonus "points" when purchasing the currency for it.

The cool thing is that if there's a month or three that a player can't afford the premium cost, they can drop the monthly billing and still enjoy the game, albeit without the premium perks, until they can afford it again.

Most P4P games do not do "expansions" per se, but may add additional content as they can afford to, and generally these games are not boxed and sold in stores, so they survive completely off their split income. Surprisingly, they do well and some are almost as well made (or better) than a lot of Standard MMOs.

Standard MMOs - Single Game: While I love a lot of the Standard MMOs out there, I really hate the fact that I dump about 15.00 a month into it, and somewhere from 50.00 - 150.00 per year on expansions, depending upon the game. WoW hasn't been so bad, since the expansions have been fairly spread out, but EverQuest I & II were a huge money drain that got to a point where it just wasn't worth it (or EQ1 would have been if I had to pay for it).

Sometimes, the support for them is worse than for the "free" games, which is just sad. It often makes me wonder if it's worth the money, but most of the time the people I've met in the game make it worth it...not the support or the game itself. >.>

Standard MMOs - Multi Game: A good idea on paper, generally not so great in reality. It worked well for City of Heroes/City of Villains because they were sister games, but things like the SOE All Access Pass kind of lose appeal if you don't like more than two of their games enough to actually play them. Eventually, the mega pass becomes more of a financial waste than a bargin, as intrest in the extra games dwindles or your time dwindles - CoH/V being the exception. Especially when you start factoring expansions for more than one MMO...that's a SHIT TON of money a year.


Don't get me wrong, I realise that games need to make money for their companies, but I just feel that the majority of payment structures blow goats and end up screwing the user more than it works for them.