(Note: this was written about five months ago, but work and other factors got in the way of me posting it. I still stand by what I ‘ve written, but if something seems out of date, then that’s why. Hope it’s a good read!)
(Edit: I made a mistake with WOW’s level cap and how expansions are charged in FF XIV, so the post has been edited to correct this. Thank you to Sera for letting me know!)
I’ll be perfectly honest: I do not enjoy MMOs. At least, I have not enjoyed the MMOs that I’ve played. Granted, that amounts to about three games (World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, DC Universe Online) and a few more that I only played for a few minutes, but I can’t imagine I’m missing much. Combat always feels repetitive and unengaging, I rarely get invested in the story since most of them seem to start at a pace that matches continental drift, and there is always this general difficulty in believing that I am the only hero capable of saving the land when there are five other people standing in the same spot listening to the exact same speech.
Even still, I do get the appeal of a massive world filled with hundreds of different players. It gives these games a different feel from their traditional RPG counterparts. A well-crafted world can do wonders for immersion, and I understand roleplaying is a huge draw for these games. It just isn’t for me, but I can accept that these games appeal to a different crowd, and I’m glad people have fun playing them.
However, there is one problem with some MMOs that has always irritated me, and I’m still shocked to this day that no one else seems to take issue with it. Most people won’t defend it directly, but they will downplay the impact it has on the gameplay experience. It is the single factor, more so than anything else I’ve mentioned, that turns me off from ever playing most MMOs. And that factor is this:
The subscription-based pricing model.
It completely blows.
For those unaware, “subscription-based MMO” is a whole subgenre of MMO that requires you to pay a monthly fee to access all the game’s content. Granted, most games like this do allow you to play some of the game for free, but certain features are locked behind the subscription. World of Warcraft, for example, will only allow you to level your characters up to Level 20. You will not gain any experience after this point (for reference, the level cap is 60). The free versions of these MMOs are functionally demos, allowing you to preview what the gameplay experience is like, enticing you to pay up to see the rest of the game.
I don’t have an issue with this in and of itself. Games that are free to play have to make money somehow, so allowing players to effectively play a giant demo to see what your game is like is a fine concept to me. Nintendo has tried something similar, with their “free-to-start” games that let you play a set portion of the game for free before making you pay up to see the rest of the game. This approach has had… mixed results, to say the least (the amount of negative reviews Super Mario Run got on launch had to be seen to be believed).
The main difference between these two models is that in the second example, you pay a flat fee (in Super Mario Run’s case, $10) and then you have access to the rest of the game forever. With MMOs, you are paying a fee to play the game for a set amount of time. After that amount of time passes, you need to pay again to continue having access to the game. And this is where all the problems start.
The number of issues I have with this is almost staggering, but I think I can start with one of the things that annoys me the most: the fact that you don’t actually own the game. You can spend hundreds of dollars on an MMO, but the second you stop spending money on it and run out of bought time, you are immediately brought down to the inferior version of the game. Doesn’t matter how much you enjoy the game, how much you are physically able to spend – once the subscription is done, you’re done. And you’ll never see any return on the recurring money you’re spending.
I suppose, technically speaking, you don’t own digital games that you purchase normally either, but at least I don’t have to worry about losing the ability to access it because I stop consistently paying for it. Even though video games are a luxury in the first place, pricing them this way feels so cynical to me. It always looks like a bald-faced attempt by gaming companies to get as much money as possible from their customers. After all, to my knowledge, MMOs are the only genre of video games to be priced this way, and I can’t imagine people would like it if other companies started doing this for online games.
Maybe I wouldn’t have be as frustrated with this model if the games that used it stuck to it. That is, if the monthly fee was the only way these games were monetized. However, most subscription based MMOs also have microtransactions as well. The worst offender for me is Final Fantasy 14, which has a flat fee to purchase the game (which gives you 30 days of play time), additional expansions that are purchased separately from the base game (purchasing the most recent expansion will give you all the previous ones, however), a monthly subscription fee, AND an optional microtransaction store for the game’s cosmetic items.
Why?????
It is true that you get a generous free trial that lets you play the base game and first expansion, but you also miss out on some pretty basic features. This includes the ability to trade with other players, send in-game letters, and, worst of all, the ability to add friends. Free players cannot have a friends list, meaning you must manually link up with players you want to play with. There is no reason for a restriction this asinine except, of course, to get you to buy the full game.
I understand why the game doesn’t let you have access to everything in the free trial – there would be no reason to spend money on it in that case. However, I would expect actual game content to be blocked off, like late-game towns or bosses. Not basic gameplay features that every other free to play game has.
The other major reason why this model is so awful to me is that it make me feel like I have to give the game my constant attention. If I’m paying a monthly fee for something, I want to make sure I’m getting my money’s worth. I work a full time 9-5 job; I’d have to spend most of my weekend playing the game to internally justify the recurring monthly fee. This fee would be on top of my actual monthly fees that I need to pay.
At that point, playing a game with a subscription fee would just feel like a part-time job. Except I get to pay the game company to play the game, and I don’t get anything to show for it besides the rare drops I MIGHT get from quests (this depends on the game, obviously). This isn’t much different from traditional RPGs, but again, I don’t feel obligated to play those consistently. Once I buy it, I can play it on my own time when I feel like it, and I don’t have to worry about paying $15 for the “privilege” to play a game for a month.
I want to reiterate that I’m not trying to take anyone down for liking these MMOs. If you love FFXIV, that’s great! I just wanted to explain why I feel the model they’re built on feels so hostile to customers and why I can never get into these games. If you do think the subscription model is good, I would be interested in hearing your case. Feel free to tell me why I’m wrong down below.
Also, hopefully my next post won’t take seven months to write. Maybe.
So I definitely get where you’re coming from on the feeling the subscription model, it can feel like you are “forced” to play the game when you’re subbed to it for some. Coming from someone who often times is subbed to multiple MMOs at a time, it to me doesn’t feel like a necessity that I play every day (if it’s a game that doesn’t emphasize playing everyday or you fall behind like WoW), these games are the original “Games as a Service” model, and it’s probably the most literal interpretation of that model. Yes, you have to pay to access these games, but it’s usually, partly for the server upkeep, since the game is always online and must be run from centralized servers. The other option for online multiplayer games is like how GTA Online does it and is peer to peer, but that leads to a lot of problems from technical to vulnerability. Some free to play MMOs often end up as freemium pay to win games to keep the money coming. Content is also (supposed to, again, glaring at WoW) released on a regular basis post launch of an expansion. Games such as FFXIV hasn’t felt like a second job to me due to the fact they don’t have systems in place that forces you to log in every day to do your chores (like WoW), I log in because I want to experience the story and be in the world. Some games do want them to be your second job though, that is true. As for the restrictions on free players, those are mostly in place to keep real world traders such as gold sellers from making hundreds of easily disposable free accounts or to just keep people from spamming constantly by making free accounts after getting banned. Yeah some of the restrictions such as adding friends is dumb in my opinion (you can receive friend requests, you can’t send them yourself though).
A few corrections as someone who plays MMOs regularly; WoW did lower it’s level cap to 60, but the level 20 trial is still an abysmally small look at the game; most MMOs don’t sell past expansions separately anymore, whenever a new one is released, the previous one gets folded into the main purchase of the game, such as FFXIV, which you can buy just the original 1-50 game for $20, or everything from the base to the previous expansion for $60.
I will say, that MMOs aren’t for everyone, and I will always respect that. As someone who greatly enjoys them, it’s always interesting to hear from an opposing voice, as we’re all built different and enjoy different things. Your feelings on the subscription model are valid as well, it’s not a perfect system and maybe I seem like a simp for these games sometimes, but they are some of my favorite types of games so I’m a bit biased. There’s a lot I have to say about the genre so I may not have touched on everything, but I think I did okay getting a few of my thoughts out there.
Thank you for the reply, Sera! I really appreciate hearing the other side of this since I haven’t really had a chance to ask people who regularly play MMOs about this. I guess when I say I feel forced to play, I more mean that I feel like I need to play a certain amount a month to justify spending that month’s worth of payment on the MMO. I know most games in this genre aren’t like WOW and require daily logins for rewards, but I feel there is an implicit requirement to play, since if I play the game for a small amount of time during a month (or none at all), I feel like I’m not getting my money’s worth and that month’s payment could have gone to something else.
Server upkeep does make sense for a monthly subscription, and I didn’t consider that. However, I feel like this would only apply to smaller companies. Activision Blizzard and Square Enix are large multi-billion dollar corporations that release multiple games every year, and have other games with a live service-type model. I don’t feel that they need to charge the monthly fee since they would have enough revenue from other sources (and the game itself through the microtransaction store) to cover that expense.
Wanting to experience the story is a fair reason to want to login to play, and I will concede that I didn’t make it far enough into Final Fantasy XIV to get invested in the story. I had issues with other things in the game that stopped me from playing, but I didn’t bring them up in the post because they weren’t relevant to the main point. If it’s a game I love playing, be it for the gameplay or story, I would definitely log in every day to play. I was trying to say that even if I did love the game, paying a monthly subscription to one game just wouldn’t appeal to me.
I didn’t know about the level cap for WOW and the expansions being combined for FFXIV, so thank you for letting me know. I will be sure to edit the post soon to reflect this.
Again, thanks for commenting. I will admit I cannot get into these games, but I’m fine with other people enjoying them since I know there is an appeal. I do appreciate being able to hear the other side of this topic, so thank you for reading my long rambling post about it!
No problem I definitely focused to much on the MMO second jobs thing, but yeah, I do get that feeling for needing to make sure you get your monthly sub worth in. Usually for me, who does sometimes jump between MMOs, I specifically plan to play a lot when I’m subbed to an MMO and will unsub when I stop playing often.
There is definitely an element of that feeling even for me, but I guess I’ve gotten used to it in a way?
While I believe it’s totally justified to give the MMO genre a try and simply not having it click for you, some of your criticisms lack accuracy, which is understandable considering some of the reasonings behind certain MMO business models and descriptions are much better understood after being an active and involved member in an MMO. I hope to elaborate a bit on my perspective in hopes that you don’t see the genre as antagonistic as you portrayed it in your post. Full disclaimer however, all of my positive points will be almost entirely attributed to FFXIV because, while I have tried several other MMOs (including paying a WoW subscription for roughly 3 months), XIV is the only MMO that has managed to click with me and make me feel like every penny that I put towards that project is well spent.
For starters, you mentioned the slow start that these games tend to have, which is a perfectly valid criticism. This is the same argument I have against watching anime like One Piece or Naruto. Sure it might be incredible after a certain point, but why must I dedicate so much time towards something in hopes of maybe enjoying it a lot more later? Quite simply, there’s no reason to. This is precisely why the free trial point of entry is so important to these games, and the manner in which they are handled is pivotal when it comes to convincing new players to continue playing the game. A free trial must be as close as possible to the full experience to be effective. I can’t speak for the WoW trial, but the FFXIV trial does this as well as an MMO could feasibly do. It’s become a meme for a reason. The trial provides at no cost, years worth of content that is more than enough for a curious player to decide if the game is for them or not. All without asking for a cent from the trial player. Yes, there are additional restrictions on the trial that, on the surface, seem irritating for the sake of being irritating, but most (if not all) of these restrictions are countermeasures to prevent exploitation of the games’ systems via easily accessible free accounts in order to uphold a high standard of enjoyment for the player base that financially supports the game. Free trial players can’t send friend requests to prevent targeted harassment towards existing players, they can’t use the market board to prevent people easily destroying in-game economies, there’s a currency cap to prevent them from abusing the housing market… See where I’m going with this? When you have a game that has countless systems where the user experience hinges so immensely on other, real, players, it’s paramount to put restrictions in place where there are holes in the infrastructure that may sour the experience of players who pay. It’s difficult to find a balance, but for obvious reasons paying players are prioritized over free trial players when a decision favoring one vs the other has to be made. (Note: Free trial players in FFXIV can join parties and accept friend requests, it just needs to be done with the involvement of a paying member).
As for the gaming experience feeling like a job due to your awareness of a monthly subscription looming over you, not to be too blunt but this is almost entirely a personal issue and not a business one. Subscription models are seen in all forms of modern media and it’s very much up to the individual’s discretion wherever or not a subscription is justified. Would you feel like you’re wasting money if you go a few days without listening to anything on Spotify or watching a few episodes on Netflix? This is a question that will vary drastically depending on the individual answering the question due to the effect of so many impactful variables.
With that out of the way, I can say with absolute certainly that my MMO of choice has never felt like a job to play through. Meanwhile, other games without paid subscription models have felt like chores. Animal Crossing, Genshin Impact, and Apex Legends all come to mind. The former of which is a single purchase game and the latter two are free to play with mostly optional “micro” transactions. We play games to have fun, and with that in mind, FFXIV has always been a joy to play for me. I’d also like to point out that Yoshi P, lead director of FFXIV, has openly encouraged players to pause their subscriptions and play different games if they ever happen to feel burned out or dissatisfied. With a public presence like that, it’s really hard to not want to monetarily support this game when there’s so much greed and malice being exposed left and right in other corners of the gaming industry.
Finally, I’d like to address how the money players put into the game can be felt in positive ways as the game gets updates. It’s difficult to describe without going into every new feature added over time and at the rate at which these features are implemented, but the growth and consistent improvement felt in the game results in a gaming experience that is uniquely premium. Many games adopt the “games as a service” model but most fail to deliver quality content at a regular pace, especially if they don’t have a subscription model. Look at Overwatch, Team Fortress 2, Fallout 76, Genshin Impact, I haven’t heard the best comments from the Destiny 2 community, and most of the myriad of free to play MMOs that have gone offline. Lost media until devoted fans make strained attempts to bring it back to life. I have little reason to believe that FFXIV would be anywhere near as great of a game as it is now if it weren’t for the steady flow of money being funneled back into the game through the subscriptions of it’s players. Yes, I know this isn’t the case for every MMO with a subscription model, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t the case for the one I choose to support every month. I feel like the game that I pay a monthly subscription for is a game that has provided me with an experience unlike any other game, with touching, unforgettable memories forged with the real friends and stories that I’ve spent time with in its world. And, sure, I might not play as many different games as a game reviewer but I feel like I’ve played more than most.
(Sorry, I got a little emotional there…)
But yeah, those are the biggest points I wanted to get across. It’s fully acceptable to be turned away from a game for the reasons you stated, but people like me don’t find enjoyment in their MMO of choice in spite of the intricacies that may potentially make the game unapproachable. We find enjoyment because of them. Because of how they preserve and continually enhance the game that we spend so much of our time in. And if you gave an MMO a shot and didn’t enjoy it, that’s okay. We all have our preferences. But I wouldn’t be too surprised if someday years down the line you decide to give a new MMO a shot and you’re blindsided by how wonderful the experience is… in awe because you didn’t fathom that it was even possible to love a game this much. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Thank you for the reply! I appreciate hearing another point of view on this topic, and I’d like to talk about some of your counterpoints.
I get that some of the restrictions of a free trial are in place to prevent exploitation of the system, but they feel like a hindering element to the gameplay experience regardless. I know that is be a personal issue, and I’m not holding that against the game since it would still exist even without the subscription based pricing. It is just another factor that turns me off from starting these games, and it was a fairly small part of the post since I know that it doesn’t impact the pricing model.
I have to disagree with your comparison to other subscription services, however. In both the examples you provided, those platforms give you access to a wide variety of content, in many different genres and formats. Final Fantasy XIV, by comparison, is just one game for the same cost as the near infinite amount of movies or music I get with the other streaming services (or, on a front closer to home, the many games I could get if I subscribed to Xbox Game Pass). I will admit that it is up to an individual’s discretion if this is reasonable, but I cannot imagine paying a monthly fee for any of the games I love that have many hours of content (like Xenoblade or Shin Megami Tensei). And while this is more of an anecdote than definitive proof, I have other friends who told me they can’t get into MMOs, and the subscription cost of playing them was one of the main reasons why. So while it may be a personal issue, I know it is shared by other people.
It’s good to hear that Yoshi P has that attitude towards the game and doesn’t pressure people into continuing to subscribe, and I really respect that. When I criticize aspects of FFXIV, I am not in any way casting shade towards the developers or community. It is primarily a criticism of what I perceive to be Square Enix’s corporate mandates on how the game is structured. Developers can only go so far against corporate’s wishes before they get forced to change it to what the higer-ups want, and even if that is not the case with FFXIV, it’s this unshakable feeling with how many ways the game monetizes itself.
I also don’t feel like the subscription model is why the game is regularly updated, and I don’t agree that it is necessary for regular updates. Square Enix does not exist in a vacuum where this is their only game that they profit off of. They release many games a year and have other live service games that they make plenty of profit from these sources, as well as from the microtransactions from FFXIV itself. If they dropped the subscription pricing, or at least lowered it to less then what it costs for a Netflix subscription, then they would still be able to pay for server upkeep and new updates. That’s what I was trying to get at when I said it feels greedy – it feels unnecessary to price the game this way.
I want to make clear that I don’t want to diminish your experience with FFXIV. If you love the game in spite of what we talked about, then that’s fine, and I’m glad you have a game that has had such a positive impact on your life. I have games I love where parts of the monetization really irritate me (Shin Megami Tensei V was great, but all those stupid DLC quests should have been in the base game, and there absolutely should have been a discounted bundle to buy them all), but I enjoy the game regardless because of what it offers to me personally. I may find an MMO priced this way that I do love somewhere down the line, but I guess because of the way I view games I would always view that subscription as a negative aspect of the game I wish didn’t exist. Thank you again for the reply, and thank you for coming to my second TED Talk.
We seem to agree that the perceived value and tolerance towards a subscription based game will almost entirely depend on the individual playing the game. That much is clear, but I do want to elaborate a bit on some of the points I made to clarify why they were made in the first place.
In regards to my comparison towards other subscription based services, my point wasn’t necessarily towards the specific content that each service provides, rather the notion that one might feel like they’re not getting their money’s worth if they’re not actively using the service. The same principle applies regardless of what content is actually offered. We can look at Game Pass, like you mentioned, because at the very least it’s still a video game service. It has a monthly fee and offers an expansive library of games to play, but I ask you this, do you know a single person with a Game Pass subscription that within each month they actually get around to playing more than 2 or 3 games on that service? Maybe it’s just my own personal experience, but 9 times out of 10 when I purchase a Game Pass subscription I get it for 1 or 2 games. Sure, I’ll download like 5 to 10 games that pique my interest but in most cases I wont actually get around to playing them. Whether or not I feel like I’m getting my money’s worth with Game Pass varies from month to month. So what do I do when I feel like I’m no longer getting my money’s worth? I do precisely what I would do when I feel that way about any subscription service. I cancel it. My experience with Game Pass is my own unique experience, but I believe that the same logic applies to subscription services as a whole.
You also brought up how games like Xenoblade and SMTV provide a ton of content for one upfront price (mostly anyways), and while I agree that those games have a ton of content for a reasonable price, I’m pretty sure the vast majority of people would find it absurd to pay a subscription for just one single-player game, no matter how much content it has. Those games don’t really evolve over time the same way “service” games do, so the comparison doesn’t make much sense if the point you’re trying to argue against is the subscription based model. When games like that get substantial updates, it’s usually done via individual, optional DLC purchases which makes much more sense for games like that. Maybe someday (if it hasn’t been attempted already) we’ll see some publisher attempt to sell a single-player game as a service game with a monthly subscription, but I for one hope to never see such a ridiculous idea attempted and I’ll shut up about it right now just to not entertain the notion any longer than necessary.
You also brought up how FFXIV doesn’t exist in a vacuum and Square Enix is a company with a vast amount of IPs and avenues for income. While this is true and surely only a fraction of the profits made from XIV are put back towards development costs for it, it’s important to consider that if a single game brings in a substantial amount of money for a company, it wouldn’t go unnoticed. Businesses exist primarily to make money and if one game is basically printing money for them, the most logical thing to do from a business standpoint is to maintain and improve the quality of that one game so that it continues to provide a steady flow of money. Of course we’ll see non-consumer friendly decisions made in some cases because at the end of the day businesses will still attempt to see how much money that can get from its audience with as little effort as possible made on their end, but that’s when it falls on the consumer to vote with their dollar and voice their dissatisfaction towards decisions like these. As long as the quality of a product is up to the standard the the consumer expects from the price they are paying, then the product has successfully done its job. Of course, the acceptable ratio of quality to price will vary from person to person.
Hopefully I was able to clear up my reasoning behind some of my initial points. Thank you again for bringing up this topic for discussion!