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Star Wars Galaxies Date, Pricing
by Maarten Goldstein, Jun 17, 2003 10:28am PDTLucasArts today announced that Sony Online's long awaited MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies will ship June 26. There will be four subscription plans: $14.99 per month, $14 per month for 3 months, $13 per month for 6 months or $12 per month for 12 months. Thanks Dominick. There's also a new developer interview here.
"The current subscription plan for Star Wars Galaxies is reflective of the game's high quality and competitive with the current marketplace. No matter which subscription option players choose they'll be able to look forward to a constant stream of dynamic content and features, first-rate customer service and much, much more."
Comments
First, they cost a lot more to make than any single player game, as in somewhere between 10 and 20 million for SWG (based on comments from sony folks at last years GDC), which is where your 50 bucks for the box goes. Second, the online part of it takes a lot money to pay for the insane bandwidth and server maintainance these things require.
30 days of SWG - $15
1 movie with small coke (no popcorn) - $15
1 pizza - $15
It comes down to how much enjoyment you get from these games. Is it worth skipping one movie a month to play this game all month? Is it worth staying home for dinner rather than grabbing a pizza one night a month? Depends on you really, if you don't like MMOGs, no argument in the world will convince you it's worth it.
Bottom line, these types of games are very expensize to make and very expensize to maintain. Although they do make a good chunck of change in the long run, the monthly fees are a necessary part of playing a MMOG.
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Been in beta for months now and oh does it suck. This game is so boring I was in shutting it off after only minutes of game play. To this day I can't test for longer than an hour at a stretch before I just say "Whats the fucking point?". Ah well LA and SOE have pissed away an excellent chance to do something really original and in stead have come up with something very much like the Sims.
Ming
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etc
Anyone willing to pay $50, then $15 a month is just paying for a beta test. As much as I love the game I won't pay for a buggy game that crashes, characters nerfed, patch after patch, not enough features, etc.
I am now waiting for Half-Life and then waiting for the SWG expansion because only the suckers will by it at release. It ain't worth the headache and grief.
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Fuck you in your stupid ass sony.
First off, your game is a shoddy piece of shit. Stop lying.
Second, no other game is 15/month. Stop lying.
Third, Are we to expect monthly content updates just like in ..oh say everquest? Stop lying.
Finally, First rate customer service? GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK, Sony has THE WORST customer service on the face of this planet.
and of course the token "and much much more", go fuck yourself with your unfun game Sony.
/end SOE rant.
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it already has 2 built in audiences, everquest players and star wars nerds
a powerful combination if you ask me...
it dont matter how soe prices this game, it will make money
so if anyone is all pissy about it, dont sweat it... just dont play the fucking game
no one is forcing you to go buy it and pay a monthly fee for it
imo, the only game im considering paying monthly for, is worlds of warcraft
if anyone can do a mmorpg right, it's blizzard.. i have high hopes for the game
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Remember these are the same shitheads who want to charge YOU 11 bucks to beta test THEIR product. Don't even tell me about shipping charges and crap, I've been in plenty of private betas where the company has mailed me the CDs free of charge.
Theorem:
Games aren't priced right- most cost too much, and there are some that cost too little.
Steps take to assumption-
I. Content
1) May Payne war priced at $50 when released. Morrowind was also $50.
2) Max Payne offers about 10 hours of gameplay. You can play it again, but it doesn't change- its the same game.
3) Morrowind has endless hours of content- many people have put 80 hours into the game and not done the same quest twice.
4) Max Payne should not cost as much as Morrowind. Either Morrowind is too cheap, or Max Payne is too expensive.
Shouldn't there be pricing structures based on the content of the game? Something very finite and quick shouldn't cost the same as something that is playable online for years, should it?
SWG will cost $50...and the $15 a month to play (all mmo's include the first month, btw. I've not seen one that does not). Warcraft 3 was $50, and is free to play on battle.net. Does that make SWG overpriced? Because SWG (even if you don't like it) will have ASSLOADs more content than WarCraft 3?
Should games be priced by content? Can they be priced by something as vague as "amount of fun potential" ? The hours you can potentially put into the game?
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Unlimited time is $17
200 hours/month is $13
100 hours/month is $10
50 hours/month is $7
Not everyone is going to play 1000hours of gameplay. Those who play 16hours a day should pay more than casual 3hr/day players. Replayability of MMoGs are high but think about how many of those hours are spent just sitting, waiting, corpse recovering, chatting, or other boring things. GM events are rare, mmogs are released with tons of bugs, tech support sucks, and very little content is added free. Especially Sony/verant, they keep charging for content. Everquest has about 6 expansions now. If SWG doesn't release 2 expansions each year and gives the players loads of content just for the monthly fee, then $15 is worth it. I doubt this will happen. I don't think $15 is too high for an mmog, but I do think sony/verant don't deserve that much. Try other MMOGs soon to come out. Like Darkfall, Horizons, Lineage2, and Dragon Empires.
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Just read that as 'constant beta testing' I've had beta access for a few weeks and it is just amazing how undone it is. scripting for basic combat messages are broken, no mobs to fight in the newbie areas. so it's near impossible to level up.
if you're looking to not have a good time, this is the game for you.
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this game will cost an infinite amount of money :(
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I have tested nearly every aspect of this game out, I have played missions, no beta tester was allowed to see Jedi characters though other than the devs testing them out.
I can tell you, this game bored me to death. The absolute worst is being a dancer or an entertainer. This is basically a large chatroom offline. The game is setup very well for what it wants to do. This is starwars everquest done very very well, but it's definitely not for me. The combat just wasn't enthralling enough, and the battles weren't as large as I thought they would be.
I will await the expansion pack for Space Travel before I consider purchasing this game.
I was looking forward to this game for a long time, but after completing the beta on it and months of work, I just can't say I'm that impressed. Planetside though on the other hand is loads of fun (although alot of you don't agree)
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If they sold this game for like $20, in which you got a CD, book, and a month of play time, wouldn't they sell like twice as much? Parents would snap up a "must have" game that cheap over more expensive alternatives, and students or people without lots of money to toss around could pick it up right away.
I was gonna suggest it be even cheaper, but it has to at least cost more than the first month of play time.
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i mean i really like starwars.. but you just have to draw the line somewhere.. it is ridiculous what some companies think they can get away with.......
forget this game, im waiting for starwars jedi academy..
$230 is the first years cost to own and play this game.
That is ridiculous...and nothing any of you will say will convince me other wise......
This game would have to have every feature implemented that they origonaly said it would have (off planet, drivable space craft..blah blah blah) befor I even considered laughing at them.
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SB was a great concept but horrible execution, not only in the bugs and crashes but the whole feel of the game was a little too passive to keep me playing.
I just hope that someone can finally come up with and idea that's as inovative as EQ was back when it was released(I'm not saying EQ was inovative rather putting a graphical interface to MUDs). Maybe something where you have true user content, only time will tell.
Well, it is cheaper than drugs, and that's about all I have to say about it.
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If you keep buying and paying for these EVIL Massive Multiplayer Online games they'll keep coming out...
A year from now they'll require 19.99 per month to play and be the same boring level treadmills every other game like it is...
Just say no! so games can be free to play Online! YEAH!!!!!!!
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I wish the NDA weren't in effect. All I have to say is that as a vetren Shacker and an fps gamer since doom I know a polished high quality game when I see one.
This is being pushed out the door. If this was blizzard they would spend 6 more months on it and make it a christmas game.
The 'GTA' system of defining a set of rules and then letting everything else happen is more prevalent in UO than in any other MMORPG. Just look at the ways people invented to decorate their houses, or shit I can even point to the massive number of bugs as evidence of many many complex systems at work. UO regularly updated their content to the point where at several stages in its evolution it appeared to be a COMPLETELY different game. I bet a lot of people don't realize just how radically different the game is today (of course I haven't even played it in years so I can't be completely sure about it's state today, but from what I remember it had changed a lot since release).
It makes me so sad to see one of the first major MMORPGs still leading in the creativity department. So many of today's MMORPGs seem hollow and lacking in depth.
A previous poster claimed he would gladly jump on the bandwagon of a MMORPG that could deliver UO's gameplay with modern graphics. Although I think 3d has hurt these games in the gameplay department I would also gladly play any game that could accomplish this.
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Sorry to bring this up here but let me tell u people - Lineage in Korea costs about $30 a month and many, many other clones follow its path pricewise - yes, around 25-30 bucks a month. Millions of we damn Koreans are paying the money to play these kind of game as of now. Maybe that's why lord british works for NC.
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when are developers going to learn!
This should be all subscription. You sighn up online and they send you out a disk, or let you download it. Or maybe make the game $20, and it includes teh first month.... but Im not paying $50 and then $15 a month... no way!
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At what price is bitching justified? There is no price, it all depends on the individual.
For some its just the cost of the boxed game, whether it be 49.99 or 29.99, this will determine their complaint and whether they make a purchase or not. Some people might think even 1 dollar is too much for a MMORPG that makes you pay monthly, others think game companies need the initial sale to break even and recoup development costs and are fine paying 50 bucks out the door.
Monthly charges are no different, some people think there should not be any monthly costs at all, while others would pay just about anything to play the latest MMORPG.
So where does this lead us? the bowels of hell if you ask me Well, it means that no price any MMORPG company sets will ever be acceptable to 100 percent of the market. They obviously realize this fact, and deduce that even if their current price point pisses off 10 percent of the possible market, and prevents them from buying, that the added revenue generated by the other 90 percent FAR OFFSETS IT.
It's simple economics: (I'm going to assume 9.99 as a fair price point, just agree)
900,000 slightly disgruntled users paying: 14.99 = $13,491,000 per month
1 million happy users paying: 9.99 = $9,900,000 per month
-----------------------
diff = $3,591,000 per month
That's a ridiculous difference in profit. Finally, lets look at just how much of the market SOE can piss off and still break even if they charged 9.99:
1 million happy users = $9,900,000 per month
$9,000,000/14.99 = 660,440 users
That means they can lose 34%!!!!!! And not even break a sweat. Think about that.
So in summary, SOE doesn't give a shit that we don't like their price point, they know they will end up making more money in the end regardless of if we buy the game or not. End of story.
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<nerd voice> Yeah, you should have to do that, it's cool! We can put in dance animations</nerd voice>
WTF is up with there not being any kind of public com channel either? Christ this game is packed with people but feels like you're playing alone half the time. I've never had a harder time finding groups in any other game, and I blame it on SWG retarded lack of public communication channels.
<nerd void> It's not realistic to see people talking across the city </nerd voice>
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$15 is NOT a lot to pay per month.. SWG is just the first in the line of MMORPGs to adopt the higher pricing.. you have to look at the amount of support, bandwidth costs, server upkeep, payroll for employees, etc that goes into keep a game like this online.. any new MMORPG that comes out in the future will most likely be $15 a month from now on.. it's the cost of these games, and if you still think it's too much, well, stay away from the game, don't bash it ONLY becuase it's your opinion that it costs too much.
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