Membership and Subscription Limitations

How do you feel about them

  • Total voters
    7
chillv

chillv

9-Volt must be my video game counterpart.
What do you feel about these in video games. If you don't know what a membership or subcription limitation is, let me explain. It is when they don't allow you to access certain stuff without you paying a fee for a membership or subscription.

I personally hate these and I hate whoever invented them in the first place. Heck, even nintendo is going in on this scam with Flipnote Studio 3D. The worst offenders of this are any MMOs by disney. Mostly MMOs like world of warcraft and club penguin have these bullcrap membership restrictions. Because of this, I have been completely turned off of MMOs. (except for ROBLOX)
 
Well, I've never played video games like these, but these sound totally annoying.

I DID play games that require online to play. THAT was annoying.
 
What, like those MMOs? Or the free MMOs which required membership to do anything important?

Well, I never used them. Basically, I never used anything that cost money. But I get why MMOs need a constant amount of money pouring in, they need to keep the servers up and running constantly. It's not like they just make the game and they can sit back and relax.
 
Purple Yoshi said:
Well, I never used them. Basically, I never used anything that cost money. But I get why MMOs need a constant amount of money pouring in, they need to keep the servers up and running constantly. It's not like they just make the game and they can sit back and relax.
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There are other ways of keeping servers up and running other than resorting to membership and subscriptions
 
You mixed up his quote. It was
The worst offenders of this are any MMOs by disney. Mostly MMOs like world of warcraft and club penguin have these bullcrap membership restrictions.
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Two different sentences.
 
The way he juxtaposed WoW into "MMOs by disney" might have caused some confusion
 
Xbox live is the same thing, pay them money so they can let me play online with friends. It's so ridiculous and yet people pay for it!

Games just aren't like they used to be folks, not only to you pay an up-front cost for the game, but you have to keep paying to keep on playing. Thats a waste.
 
Geno said:
Xbox live is the same thing, pay them money so they can let me play online with friends. It's so ridiculous and yet people pay for it!
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There are benefits for paid Xbox Live compared to Nintendo's free WiFi, though
 
Purple Yoshi said:
What, like those MMOs? Or the free MMOs which required membership to do anything important?

Well, I never used them. Basically, I never used anything that cost money. But I get why MMOs need a constant amount of money pouring in, they need to keep the servers up and running constantly. It's not like they just make the game and they can sit back and relax.
Click to expand...
However, the sandbox music game osu! (even though that's not an MMO) seems to be doing fine with just asking people for donations. I feel if they need money so badly, they could ask them to donate money. Not force them to pay you for something that's not their fault or their problem. People are more generous to those who ask than those who force. (im totally sigging that)
 
chillv said:
However, the sandbox music game osu! (even though that's not an MMO) seems to be doing fine with just asking people for donations. I feel if they need money so badly, they could ask them to donate money. Not force them to pay you for something that's not their fault or their problem. People are more generous to those who ask than those who force. (im totally sigging that)
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Exactly the point of my post: there are other ways of obtaining money other than forcing memberships or subscriptions for more content.
 
Most of Disney's MMOs have restrictions that make no sense. For example, in toon town you have to have a membership to fish in certain lakes. In both toon town and club penguin, you have to have a membership to buy clothes and furniture for your house. So basically your toon will always be in the same clothes and your penguin will be bare and they both will have vacant houses with nothing in them.
 
chillv said:
Purple Yoshi said:
What, like those MMOs? Or the free MMOs which required membership to do anything important?

Well, I never used them. Basically, I never used anything that cost money. But I get why MMOs need a constant amount of money pouring in, they need to keep the servers up and running constantly. It's not like they just make the game and they can sit back and relax.
Click to expand...
However, the sandbox music game osu! (even though that's not an MMO) seems to be doing fine with just asking people for donations. I feel if they need money so badly, they could ask them to donate money. Not force them to pay you for something that's not their fault or their problem. People are more generous to those who ask than those who force. (im totally sigging that)
Click to expand...

Well, a lot of games ARE free-to-play, with paying being optional. You could say that is pretty much a donation.
 
Purple Yoshi said:
chillv said:
Purple Yoshi said:
What, like those MMOs? Or the free MMOs which required membership to do anything important?

Well, I never used them. Basically, I never used anything that cost money. But I get why MMOs need a constant amount of money pouring in, they need to keep the servers up and running constantly. It's not like they just make the game and they can sit back and relax.
Click to expand...
However, the sandbox music game osu! (even though that's not an MMO) seems to be doing fine with just asking people for donations. I feel if they need money so badly, they could ask them to donate money. Not force them to pay you for something that's not their fault or their problem. People are more generous to those who ask than those who force. (im totally sigging that)
Click to expand...

Well, a lot of games ARE free-to-play, with paying being optional. You could say that is pretty much a donation.
Click to expand...

I know that already but it is good to expose corruption, scams and money grabs in the video game industry.
 
It's either buying a game once, and play as much as you like, or get the game free, and do all of the Subscriptions.
Or put Ads on them, if it's not on a Console, but then the game must be Online all the time.

In the end, we make games to earn money from, entertaining you is the second most important thing, which results in what we're looking for in the most important thing.
 
^who is "we"? You're not a professional game developer, mate.

Regardless, your rather dismissive repeat of the common stock argument "companies exist to make money" is trite and shallow. It's true that companies exist to make a financial return, yes, but that doesn't mean they need to be dickheads about it. They decided to get into a strongly consumer-focused entertainment medium, they sort of have an obligation to balance making money and keeping their customers satisfied.
 
Maybe not a professional one, but still a Game Developer.
In fact, I'm about to Apply for a job this Summer, as the HBO Level is way to high, after all.
Especially for somebody that came from MBO.
 
Crocodile Dippy said:
^who is "we"? You're not a professional game developer, mate.

Regardless, your rather dismissive repeat of the common stock argument "companies exist to make money" is trite and shallow. It's true that companies exist to make a financial return, yes, but that doesn't mean they need to be dickheads about it. They decided to get into a strongly consumer-focused entertainment medium, they sort of have an obligation to balance making money and keeping their customers satisfied.
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What dippy said. Companies can make money without being dicks about it, and studies show that the most profitable companies operate under these grounds.

Take the F2P MMO model for example. The most profitable are the ones that are free to play, but offer large amounts of micro-transactions in game for things like costumes, exp boosters, etc. Also, the most profitable subscription model, is the one that combines f2p with micro-transactions, where ALL game content is available to f2pers, who want to play for free or who want to buy micro-transaction content, but then offer a subscription which ADDS bonuses to the game, rather than a f2p model which takes AWAY from non-subscribers.

The subscribers get their boosters and bonus incentives: costumes, shorter que times, in game cash shop cash, etc, but the f2pers are still happy because they have access to all the content that makes up the game. Happy f2pers are more likely to spend five dollars here and there in the micro-transaction shop on a game that keeps them around long term, rather than on a game that frustrates them by locking them out.

So yeah, the dismissive argument that companies exist to make money, not to entertain you is inherently flawed. If the user is not entertained and does not stick around and keep playing the game, the company doesnt make money.
 
Magikrazy, I'm not talking about Channels, I'm talking about Education Levels.
 
Ssssshhh!
 
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