JosephCain

@(Unverified)

When did I say I was talking strictly MMOs? Before you morons started paying $15 a month, we used to buy our games... and own them... and not have to pay to keep playing. I grew up in the days of the NES, so when I pulled out my cartridges and wanted to play, I didn't have to put in quarters that would magically reappear in the company's office, or in their magic money bin where they swim in kid's change (you know Capcom has one of these...)

Yes, we had online games we didn't pay for, too. That was later, when PCs became a huge thing. Doom and the like started out rocky, then we had master servers (like with Starsiege Tribes, which also had the Tribes RPG mod, a PERSISTANT RPG WORLD created by modders...)... the list goes on. As it stands, you pay for the game, you don't even own it, and you literally rent the right to play the game. And for what?

Customer service? All I hear are horror stories from even the richest. Servers? Lag lag lag is all they scream, it takes people LEAVING to get the servers to actually work right. Patches? Every 2 or 3 months at best, and usually they aren't massive, mindblowing changes that you'd pay $30 for. You know, expansion packs. Oh wait, you have to pay for those too... yeah. I'd say you're the idiot in this case. I can NEVER justify "renting" the privilege to play a game that I paid for.

This is what I thought about after Free Realms hit their free users with a nerf bat, knocking out entire sections of the game. They saw that they could get more money out of members by strangling them, and locked off entire later levels, not just classes and the like. I gave up on that game a long time ago, and am better for it.

To be frank, Gamers never took paying out of the equation. We've always been in love with buying games... just not a frelling subscription. It's also true a lot of these games are nothing but marketing ploys. Locking out entire characters, entire levels, CONSTANTLY reminding a player to "become a member" or "hey, pay $10 for this cool outfit!". I tend to stay far away from any MMO that doesn't let you buy cash shop items in it's auction house, or locking off entire levels until you "become a member".

The sad fact is, a lot of games that do it right don't do the "cool costume" or "awesome avatar" deal. They get by on functionality, lore, and drawing older players in. Most kids will wanna play Free Realms or Wizard 101 instead of LOTRO. Thankfully, most kids tend to prefer consoles, and those games you just play a flat price on, easily making them superior... until you get to the overpriced, useless DLC they try and throw at your head.

Apparently, selling you pieces of an incomplete game is acceptable nowadays. A pity.

@Echou

Bobby Kotick went from 4Kids to Activision. It can always get worse.

@mrantimatter

I hope this "Buy to Play"/"Free to Play" thing catches fire soon. I'd rather have EVER game be buy to play with expansion packs. Y'know, the way games used to be before idiots started buying into monthly fees...

@Mtor

And frankly, it can't happen sooner. I'd be tickled pink if they'd just go with a "Buy To Play" system. I don't want just everything handed to me, but for the life of me I'm done paying monthly for the right to play a game I already purchased, and whoever thought up such a system should be decked with Mighty Fist of an Angry God for such a horrendous idea.

My hope is they'll eventually offer continued gameplay in some way (be it just PvP access) for those that buy the game. If they did, I'd run out and get it right now. I had an idea where PvP levels and PvE levels were both seperate, and if you carried PvP gear into PvE, then you're gear would be the max of PvE gear for that level.

@tooright

Pardon, but some of us don't believe in paying a monthly ransom to play the game we already purchased. You buy the game, then you take it home, then you have to pay for the right just to play the game you purchased. You're literally renting access to a game you already purchased, and it's the biggest malarkey I've ever seen, yet chumps like you feed so lovingly into it. Thanks for that, you've made that business model lucrative, and an accepted industry standard.

Second, F2P and P2P do not mean a thing in terms of what they're worth. Sure Korea pumps out a ton of cutesy anime style F2Ps, but a lot of F2Ps are coming out from Western Developers, and they're actually very good. Some games would have died if not for F2P. So by all means, preen your wittling ego by calling us the unwashed. My game's free, you paid $50 for your game, and $30 just to get 2 months of game time. Chump.

@henbot

Who said I was still buying EA games at all? I swore off EA after I bought the Dragon Age: Origin Ultimate Edition (this was after finding out about the Day 1 DLC with Dragon Age 2), and the last Activision product I purchased was Call of Duty: Black Ops, and I skipped Modern Warfare 2 after the dedicated server debacle. I was one of the few who actually STOOD by my words of boycotting.

Sadly, it's done nothing to deter what they do, and you know they won't fix it. They'll just drag it into the ground, and when people speak with their wallets, they'll toss the series or the team (or both) onto the scrap heap and keep business as usual. The only thing that could make EA pay is something like what happened with Squeenix and FFXIV, which sobered them up real quick about paying to play an MMO with stamina (IE, can't EXP past a certain point in a week's time).

Still, I'm sticking to my guns. The only game I MIGHT purchase is Kingdoms of Amalur, and that's only because that game doesn't have giant chunks of the game missing at launch and then penned as Day 1 DLC, like it's oh so special...

@CaptainProtonX

I've got you all beat. I stopped using my PS3 at all, save to play single player only games, and even then, only older titles like Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, the Dynasty Warriors series, Castlevania, the list goes on. I've never used my credit card on their shop, and y'know, I feel a great depth of joy to this.

If they want to create a monopoly on the gaming industry, fine, good luck on that, I won't be part of it. They can take their Day 1 DLC, rushed out bugs and glitches, and year-long life of their games, and shove them. This is what happens when you give absolute power to an entity as greedy and filthy as what EA has become.

Personally, I'm tired of seeing something I've been enjoying since my childhood go to shart, all for the sak of a few extra bucks, which is the only thing folks like EA see. Besides, in 10 years, no one will be able to get these games to work anyway, since all the activation codes are online. God help you if your internet connection ever gets cut, because even if you could hack the games back into working, you can't without bricking the entire system.

@syklonis

You forget, it's EA. They'd rather let it die than admit the game isn't worth free-to-play. Besides, I learned real quick not to play games based on existing IPs. They tend to die the fastest because royalties and whatnot have to be paid, contracts continually renegotiated... it's just a nightmare to imagine.

Still waiting for the game to go F2P... I'm really missing my Asmo toons. I'm a little wary to wait now, as I saw someone on the Asmo side before I got kicked off with that beautiful Coliseum set from the Elyos side. It was the Plate Mail sort. I'm still trying to find out how they got Crucible Coliseum gear from Elyos on the Asmo side, since I want it for my Templar pretty badly. I LOVE the way gear looks in this game...