Playing costs

[falkao]

Thanks for voting.

63% do judge EU playing costs as not adequate.

here some background...

MA mentioned in some older financial statements that playing cost is about 2.5 USD per hour. From their description about EU on mindark they state that mean "service fees" are .5 till 1.5 USD per hour. So it seems there have been some changes.

Interestingly, now a range is given. No idea to what this refers, maybe an interval for the mean or related to professions. Who knows.

Since there is an indirect cost due to this "service fee", EU is not as free as promoted. So what I'm interested to know is, if the given fees are ok for you or not.

So what do you think?

Are EU playing costs adequate?

Result with 311 votes out of 3891 views

Roughly 8% of the viewers did respond to the poll. So only a small part is interested in the matter. From those that did vote, about 63% do believe that playing costs are not adequate. Under the assumption that we have a random sample, this would imply that the real freq. of those that believe that costs are not adequate is between 57.9% and 68.5% (with 95% confidence), but I doubt that we have random sampling.


The main pro arguments are:

1) EU is a game and you pay for the fun.

2) It’s yourself to decide how much to spend.

3) Contrasted to other MMORPG’s with subscription fees this is clearly an advantage.

4) EU has become less expensive over the last years with respect to overall ROI, but you have however to play longer.


The main cons arguments are:

1) Assuming a playing fee of .5 to 1.5$ per hour (for simplicity lets take 1$ per hour) and if we assume 10 hours of gameplay per week, we end up with a monthly fee of 40$. So nothing special here. However, if you take the cost of needed gear into consideration (armor, fap, weapon, etc..), then one would have to invest quite more than that (at least 200$ to start with L items). So effective playing costs per month might be quite higher than 40$. So quite expensive.

2) To reduce costs in EU you have to downgrade and this leads to less fun and hence less motivation to play.

3) With higher skills and if you want to hunt mobs with more hp, you’re urged to buy expensive gear instead of looting it, and hence less fun.


My personal view:
To find an answer for myself I took several considerations into account. EU must make fun, otherwise I wouldn't play it. The cost of that fun should be comparable to other fun activities. So from this point of view the high initial investment is ok for me (sporting equipment costs also its money).

However, since return on the long run is limited (maybe 90%), and with progressing to higher hp-mobs (the fun part) the more it will cost me in absolute amounts (200 HP -> 15 PEC cost, 2000 HP Mob 200 PEC cost, the unfunny part). Dropped items have a too low markup so that I can't recover some of the costs, and hence I judge EU as too expensive. But this is only my opinion.

[onyx oZ Zombie]

if you mean 'are the returns adequate based on the playing costs?,' then i would say 'no'

[falkao]

Originally Posted by onyx oZ Zombie

if you mean 'are the returns adequate based on the playing costs?,' then i would say 'no'

I intentionally did let this open. For some return might relevant, for others the fun you have ingame and for others there might be something else; but I'm sure everybody has a feeling about what he spent.

[Nighthawk]

I think that... the answer will vary ALOT depending on who you ask

[falkao]

Originally Posted by Nighthawk

I think that... the answer will vary ALOT depending on who you ask

indeed, but I thinks it's interesting to see what the majority thinks.

Btw, this is also important for the rest. Assume the most see it positive, then also EU's economy will be seen positively and hence we might see a prosperous future ;

[Noggin]

The unique way EU is funded does bring this into question somewhat.

To me, there's a different set of questions:

1. How much does EU cost, using your normal playing styles/professions/etc?
2. For the enjoyment you get, is it worth it overall?
3. How much fun could you get from an equivalent subscription based MMO instead?

If you can answer in EUs favour to all of them, then I think it's fairly safe to say that EU is worth it.

Some people play (effectively) for free. When I used to play more actively, I found the 'free' style rather tedious, although I know some people thrive on it.

Some people really pay a lot of money. Some hundreds, some thousands per day. Some of these people obviously have no appreciation for money, and on the same token, others have a great deal of spare cash.

There are plenty in the middle, which I would say constitutes the average player. These people are the ones who really pay to play. I think these people are the most likely to say they're getting a bad deal from it.

I think these are also the people who will forget that quickly, and carry on regardless, losing a fair amount of money along the way, and trying to justify it all the while.

Personally, with the wealth of online entertainment to which we have access today, I think for the kind-of person who wants to come in every-so-often, shoot a few mobs, have some fun, then get on with their RL, EU is not worth it. It's far too expensive.

If you're spending all day, every day in-world (as quite a few here do), you have a much better chance of making the system work to your advantage.

There's no easy answer to this as far as I see, but somehow it works.

[falkao]

Originally Posted by Noggin

The unique way EU is funded does bring this into question somewhat.

To me, there's a different set of questions:

1. How much does EU cost, using your normal playing styles/professions/etc?
2. For the enjoyment you get, is it worth it overall?
3. How much fun could you get from an equivalent subscription based MMO instead?
...
There's no easy answer to this as far as I see, but somehow it works.

Well said Noggin.

[Ironheart]

In the nearly 4 years Ive been playing Ive deposited just over $1000.

If we take 20 hours/wk as a nice average, then that works out at $1000 for 3900 hours, just over $0.25/h

Thats in itself isnt too bad imo.

But if we consider that my avatar is worth about $3000, then it seems MA have been paying me around $0.50/hr for the priviledge of playing their game.

Now, thats the kind of company I like. Thanks MA.

[valentin]

Originally Posted by Noggin

The unique way EU is funded does bring this into question somewhat.

To me, there's a different set of questions:

1. How much does EU cost, using your normal playing styles/professions/etc?
2. For the enjoyment you get, is it worth it overall?
3. How much fun could you get from an equivalent subscription based MMO instead?

If you can answer in EUs favour to all of them, then I think it's fairly safe to say that EU is worth it.

Some people play (effectively) for free. When I used to play more actively, I found the 'free' style rather tedious, although I know some people thrive on it.

Some people really pay a lot of money. Some hundreds, some thousands per day. Some of these people obviously have no appreciation for money, and on the same token, others have a great deal of spare cash.

There are plenty in the middle, which I would say constitutes the average player. These people are the ones who really pay to play. I think these people are the most likely to say they're getting a bad deal from it.

I think these are also the people who will forget that quickly, and carry on regardless, losing a fair amount of money along the way, and trying to justify it all the while.

Personally, with the wealth of online entertainment to which we have access today, I think for the kind-of person who wants to come in every-so-often, shoot a few mobs, have some fun, then get on with their RL, EU is not worth it. It's far too expensive.

If you're spending all day, every day in-world (as quite a few here do), you have a much better chance of making the system work to your advantage.

There's no easy answer to this as far as I see, but somehow it works.

(There are plenty in the middle, which I would say constitutes the average player. These people are the ones who really pay to play. I think these people are the most likely to say they're getting a bad deal from it.)

Yes its true i just past that level and begining to be a "baby" uber and i can see that the loot is better.but now days to be in the mid-level is shit with the bad loot and no good items in the loot.

it cost to much to be here in EU ( .5 till 1.5 USD per hour ) the game is same shit like WOW but there i can pay 25 USD/day only difference is that we play about money here.

[Ionar]

Originally Posted by Noggin

I think for the kind-of person who wants to come in every-so-often, shoot a few mobs, have some fun, then get on with their RL, EU is not worth it. It's far too expensive.

If you're spending all day, every day in-world (as quite a few here do), you have a much better chance of making the system work to your advantage.

I'd say the opposite. If you don't spend a lot of time in game it's not that expensive compared to a subscription game. After all, you only pay while you play i EU. Subscription games you pay the same regardles of how much you play, so the more time you spend in such a game the lower the cost per hour of play is.