{"id":1638,"date":"2007-02-28T22:18:10","date_gmt":"2007-03-01T05:18:10","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2007-03-02T22:11:04","modified_gmt":"2007-03-03T05:11:04","slug":"","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/node\/1638\/","title":{"rendered":"SOE Station All-Access pass, thirty bucks"},"content":{"rendered":"

What I told you about SOE’s business practices and trends<\/a>?<\/p>\n

I saw this looking at other blogs feeds (Cuppycake and Krones). I guess Brad McQuaid pretended the price to raise in order to keep Vanguard vaguely profitable.<\/p>\n

The price is now thirty bucks (in Europe add another $5 of taxes) and they even rebill you automatically with the higher fee (effective April 2, 2007).<\/p>\n

Firstly they publicize Vanguard and the All-access pass as both part of a very convenient deal, then, I guess, they are successful but so successful to the point that they cannot keep all games and live teams alive with one reasonable monthly fee that has to be split thin.<\/p>\n

So it’s now thirty bucks. Still cheap? Well, it’s almost what you would pay for a FULL brand new game with years of development behind it. And you pay that MONTHLY.<\/p>\n

Prediction: this will break either EQ2 or Vanguard, as they are now forcing players to pick one side. As I anticipated, only one will survive.<\/p>\n

Next step is obviously rising the single monthly fee. But they just cannot do that before the competition moves the first step ;p<\/p>\n

They also gave NCSoft the perfect occasion for a winning stab. Release Dungeon Runners, Exteel and Tabula Rasa and launch their own version of an all-access pass with an accessible monthly fee. If they are going to miss this opportunity then they are just crazy. A victory handed on a silver plate. With their accessible games and variety of styles it even makes sense to play more than one mmorpg.<\/p>\n

P.S.
\nPlanetside monthly fee is also going up: $13 -> $15<\/p>\n

The player-reported news on VE3D is worth a quote:<\/p>\n

After more 3 years of continually dwindling subscriber numbers, corporate mismanagement, a botched expansion, the addition of in-game advertisements, and numerous unpopular gameplay changes, SOE in all their wisdom has decided to increase the subscription rate from $13 to $15, citing investments to improve the game’s support and infrastructure. Any long-time player knows the only support they have given is life-support. Barely keeping the game running is their idea of investing in it.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

EDIT-
\nAnd another quote from Amber<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The short-sightedness of this approach is staggering. In a marketplace that Sony hasn’t come close to dominating for well over 5 years, they’re behaving like a monopoly with a captive player base.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What I told you about SOE’s business practices and trends? I saw this looking at other blogs feeds (Cuppycake and Krones). I guess Brad McQuaid pretended the price to raise in order to keep Vanguard vaguely profitable. The price is now thirty bucks (in Europe add another $5 of taxes) and they even rebill you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-1638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-tinfoil_hats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}