I think monthly subscriptions are legitament.

Pros:
Professional high-capacity servers that (usually) are never down.
Prompt removal of cheats and exploits.
Addition of new features and content.
Abusive players can and will be banned from the game.

Cons:
The monthly fee.
Many games requiring a monthly fee have little content that actually is worth paying for. I was going to buy Planetside, but during the beta I found how repetitive it was.

Monthly fees are required for massively multiplayer games, and are probably here to stay, whether we like them or not.

IMO, If the game charges a montly fee, the game should come free.

Ya, I had the same thing with Evercrack. Atleast with UO you can find free shards.

Life: No one gets out alive.

hmm you forget about shipping costs, the wages of the developers, the wages of the staff at the shops etc. the thing that makes pc games expensive is piracy, so if we all stop warezing them the price will come down

after a few months, EA made E&B freely downloadable off the internet so you only have to pay the subscription fee

Why are you so pissed about it? just don't buy the game if you don't like the concept. It's perfectly legit, for reasons Tach said.

How is this any different from satellite TV? You pay for the dish and the other hardware, and then you still have to pay a subscription fee. Subscribing to a game is basically the same thing, you are just getting a different product.

IMO, if it comes with hardware, you should be charged for the initial installation, lik satellite TV. But for software, the disk isn't necessary. Just make it downloadable and get your profit from the monthly fees.

If I go back and time and kill my grandparents, what will happen?

If you don't charge for your game, how are you supposed to recover the initial development and hardware costs? You can't do all of the above I listed and pay off a few million dollars easily. In E&B's case, it's not like it's done that well. Giving the initial game away for free isn't feasible in most cases, at least not at the beginning.

ok, firstly, DONT subscribe to planetside, after the trial month you will be so goddamn bored you'll be crying. at least i am at the moment. subscription charges piss me off but i can see the point and i suppose its only the price for a night out for a months gaming.

as for the price of games...the piracy excuse i think, is a fair bit of bollocks. i mean i can see the reason IF piracy was a problem, but think about it...when the ps2, xbox, gamecube came out, the amount of pirates out there was pretty damn low, so why do the games come out so much more expensive? i'll tell you why, cause were being played for fools.

-arcon
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arcon, have you heard of WAREZ? thats why the price is so high, yes you have the game blah blah blah but without paying for it the company doesnt recover there costs

dont take that tone with me young man, of course i use warez (did you say use or know about).
anyway, warez for console games i'm talking about, isnt MORE widespread than warez for pc games, so my point is, WHY IN GODS NAME DO YOU HAVE TO PAY MORE FOR CONSOLE GAMES. and if your thinking along those lines like i am now, you'll be thinking "well ahng on a minute, doesnt that kinda mean all computer games shouldnt be that high?"

-arcon
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dont take that tone with me young man

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You forgot the "go to your room" routine...
As for the warez, as long as there is the need for their existance, the games are gonna be overpriced. On the other hand, as long as the games are overpriced, there is a need for warez. It's a "cursed circle", and someone has to leave it first. If the software companies agreed to lower the prices to 5-10$ (I for one would buy the originals... I mean I do buy some games, out of respect), the warez would slowly perish, and the software manufacturers would eventually have a higher profit based on increased sales...
But, of course, I could be wrong...


Careful what you wish... You might just get it.

I don't think games will come down in price until programs like Steam allow developers to be truly independant and still make good games. Until then, prices will probably go nowhere but up. Frankly I don't find $50-$55 to be unreasonable considering you usually get at least twenty or thirty hours out of a game, and that's when they don't last long. I got over a year out of Tribes 2, for example. I've probably gotten 200-300 hours out of Freelancer. That's far more entertainment per dollar compared to a movie, which you will often pay $5-$10 for 1.5 hours of entertainment of arguable quality.