Free to Play model needs to change slightly! - IDEAS FOR RYZOM

Tuxi

The idea that some people never pay for online games just because of some principle or philosophy is appalling. Online games take work to create, promote, and run.. they don't just happen. It's hard to understand how so many people don't appreciate that and refuse to support the people who made their entertainment possible.

Sometimes I would pay if the content has reasonable prices. A bad example is Star-Conflict, which asks for my monthly money above my expense just to get into the mid-game, tripples that for early-late game and 10x to play in the top tier.

I also don't pay for games that act as Gate-keepers or footpads between Linux or your hardware and community content.
I believe that community content leads to digital slavery - The game that collects the most valuable content and steals it by locking it away from users via proprietary software, easily-changeable terms of use and sold access will be the most demanded. This can't be right.

EDIT: I call this is not a question of payment, but a vote from a citizen. The evil comes in shape of a gift here.

BUT

For all other games, I figured out a good formula for how much you should pay:
– (Your PC's cost) * (the time you play this game) / (the time you keep this PC)

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My PC purchase cost is about 100€ per year, but my internet cost + taxes for "digital media usage" is about 500€ per year.

I think it's not very surprising that we easily spend between (400€ / 4 years) and (800€ / 3 years) when the main factor is internet and tax costs.

I am ready to pay about 20€ a month for games, wikipedia donations, etc.
BUT
I would never pay 10€ a month for a single game. I pay more 10€ once for a game I enjoy over a week and play 2.

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I remember the times before 2007 when I bought offline games such as "Earth 2160" on a CD to play it's campaign – back then me and my brother paid 20€ total for 1-2 games about each third month.

When I compare this to the develope-once, get-paid 1'000'000-times games from today I fear that the most demanding games with most community-content or money to pay developers are the ones that catch all customers rather than the really good ones.