One thing I noticed is interesting is that people tend to be saying like: "Oh paying $ for 'fun' stuff is okay as long as it doesn't have a game impact."
I mean, seriously? You really think there are many pepole that will pay $200 on a EQ LoN booster box if it wasn't going to make you more powerful or at least a lot cooler in game? In a Free 2 Play (F2P) game I read that something like 5% of the population supports the whole game (i.e. they pay for stuff). Well if 1 out of 20 guys are responsible for paying a game I'm trying to sell, yeah you'd bet those 5% guys will be treated like kings. EQ had a premium server that charged about 3 times the normal cost and those guys got a lot of free stuff for being there. Now power isn't necessarily all loot, but it's probably a lot easier to say 'here's your extra uber sword' than actually taking time to come up with an equally cool idea that doesn't actually make you more powerful.
I think the statistics I saw is that the average F2P paying guy pays around $30 a month. I'd assume even in subscription based games that's probably the amount of money they'd like to see. Well if I'm going to pay $30 a month on top of a $15 a month fee, yeah I really do expect to be like a walking god compared to those who do not for that money, because I'm sure plenty of other games will be willing to do that for a total of $45/month.
I mean, seriously? You really think there are many pepole that will pay $200 on a EQ LoN booster box if it wasn't going to make you more powerful or at least a lot cooler in game? In a Free 2 Play (F2P) game I read that something like 5% of the population supports the whole game (i.e. they pay for stuff). Well if 1 out of 20 guys are responsible for paying a game I'm trying to sell, yeah you'd bet those 5% guys will be treated like kings. EQ had a premium server that charged about 3 times the normal cost and those guys got a lot of free stuff for being there. Now power isn't necessarily all loot, but it's probably a lot easier to say 'here's your extra uber sword' than actually taking time to come up with an equally cool idea that doesn't actually make you more powerful.
I think the statistics I saw is that the average F2P paying guy pays around $30 a month. I'd assume even in subscription based games that's probably the amount of money they'd like to see. Well if I'm going to pay $30 a month on top of a $15 a month fee, yeah I really do expect to be like a walking god compared to those who do not for that money, because I'm sure plenty of other games will be willing to do that for a total of $45/month.
