Fee Increases

[Koullyn]

    Due to the increased costs of running the EverQuest game service, we will be increasing our subscription rates in June. Effective June 12, 2005, the new monthly subscription rate will be $14.99/month. While this announcement may be unpleasant, the cost of operating a top tier MMO has increased significantly over the past three years and this change will help us achieve our goal of seeing that every player has a consistently enjoyable experience in the world of EverQuest. We will continue to offer discounts from the new rate plan on multi-month subscriptions. The new price for a 3-month subscription will be $41.97, a 6-month subscription will now be $77.94 and a 12-month subscription will now be $143.88. The 24-month subscription will continue to be $199.95. You don’t have to do a thing; you will automatically be migrated to the new billing structure under your current subscription plan when your current subscription plan expires. Subscription rates are subject to tax and value-added taxes, as applicable. These price increases will not affect the SOE Station Access™ subscription rate.
    Additionally we’d like to thank our current EverQuest players by offering a 6 and 12-month limited time promotional offer. For a limited time only, you can take advantage of 6 or 12-month promotional subscriptions and reap great savings. Between May 12th and June 11th, 2005, we’re offering a special discount on the new monthly subscription price:

        * A 6-month subscription costs only US$69.99 -- that’s a 10% discount off of the new monthly plan.
        * • Even better, a 12-month subscription costs only US$99.99 -- a 31% savings off of the new monthly plan.

    For more detailed information on the new subscription rates please go to www.everquest.com/rates.
    -Sony Online Entertainment

[Koullyn]

So right after a new expansion is released that they gained money on they hike the rates of the service. My prediction a year ago was they were going to push people to move from EQ to EQ2, its coming true. Condensed servers, rate increases, expansion after expansion to add anything new and still lots of fixes that need to be done all the way back four years ago.

[Oneiromancer]

Hmm, pushing people to EQ2 is one way to look at it, the other way is that EQ still has more subscribers than EQ2, who have shown by now that they aren't willing to go to another game (or have come back from one), and so they stand to make a lot of money by raising EQ's subscription rate. 

Game on,

[Khayden]

Salaries only ever go up.  So do labour costs.

Maintenance of legacy code costs more the older and more complex the code is.

Condensing servers costs money (the merge takes hours of support) and saves none at all other than energy which is barely noticeable in comparison to labour.

Pushing people to EQ2 is extremely unlikely to be the motive behind this, it's a silly strategy as people are far more likely to go to WoW or wait for Vanguard.

EQ is still awesome value for money in my book.  The longer it remains profitable the longer it will be around.

Khayden

[SillyWalrus08]

im annoyed..ghey sony..i definately didnt and will never goto EQ2 btw, but i also dont think im going to pay new increases..hell no..i luvs playing eq but omg sony get real..psh ><

[Koullyn]

They continue to find ways to dig into their subscribers pockets. They are releasing multiple expansions every year now at $40 a pop and hiking rates to try and dig deeper. They need to abandoned EQ or EQ2 if they can't afford to keep it running.

[SillyWalrus08]

for trues, i find it hard to believe with all the money they make from people buying expansions, paying current rates, having multiple accounts, playing both EQ and EQ2 in some cases. and omg we cant keep our server running with all the current income lets kick up subscription a few notches and milk some more money outta players before they quit. say it withs me..sony is GHEY. psh =p

[JillieMT]

Protest with your wallet then 

[SillyWalrus08]

i am..im qutting i tihnk /cry

[Graice]

not only are they making money off of the expansions and the increases, etc as you all have stated, they are saving money by combining the servers and only having to run half of them...so if anything they should be LOWERING our monthly subscription (yeah, right_lol) not raising it...
by the way...hi everyone im a new member...

Graice Ninelives
Ayonae Ro-i cant remember who we merged with i'll write in next time...lol
43 Apprentice Beastlord

[Knodey]

its one dollar if you can't afford one extra dollar why are you playing this game already your cutting your budget way to close...

[Iskandar]

Expecting a company to pay staff, maintain equipment, and provide updates without charging a single cent more (and still remaining competitive enough to retain that staff) is... well... silly -- even the "free" Guild Wars charges for updates. *I* certainly don't work for free, why should a programmer at Sony? Companies like Sony, Blizzard, Mythic, Microsoft, Ubisoft and a host of others don't spend the time and money to develop, maintain, and expand a MMPORPG for the betterment of Mankind... they do it to make money, plain and simple.

It's sort of a given that prices will eventually go up -- I used to buy new paperback books for $2.00 each... now they're around $7.00+... gas used to be $0.25/gallon (a bit before my time admittedly)... now it's $2.25/gallon... when I was a kid, a Coke cost $0.15... now the average is $0.75. In another fifteen years, I'm willing to bet that even those prices will seem low.

And, frankly, if a $12/year increase for a leisure item is enough to make you scream bloody murder, perhaps you should step back and take a look at the price of non-leisure items, such as groceries, gas, electricity, rent, insurance, healthcare, and countless other things that have gone up in the last 12 months. My rent, my gas, and my electric have all gone up much much more than #12/year in the last year alone -- heck, most have gone up more than #12/month... all this huff over a $1/month game increase is kinda silly in comparison imho

[JillieMT]

True enough.

This is all just basic economics. Reducing servers will not necessarily reduce operating costs, as an above poster alluded.

Suppose that you supply the world with a product; apples, for instance. Everyday you load a truck up full of apples, and drive them to the market. Someone else has invented oranges, and your demand for apples lowers. Thus, you reduce your apple production by half. Will this lower your price by half? Not necessarily... You still need the truck... and you still drive the same distance, so your fuel consumption for said truck is the same. How will you keep up with your constant operating costs, and maintain a profit for you? You may need to actually raise prices.

Ahhh, my head is hurting. Supply and Demand. Marginal costs. Production probability frontier. Elasticity of demand. Arrrrgh, economics! 

[Jikaabx]

Yea, ya merge the servers, shutting down half of them, cut your CS down by half... Yup thats a increase in costs alright 

[Khayden]

Yea, ya merge the servers, shutting down half of them, cut your CS down by half... Yup thats a increase in costs alright 

Less servers = less GMs?  Don't think so somehow, they havent allocated CS staff per server for YEARS.  How is that even close to making sense when the total population post merge is no different than it was before?

They did NOT do the server merger to reduce costs.  It simply doesnt work that way.  The servers are probably still running incorporated into new clusters or farms in fact I think SOE even stated this.  The time spent by the technical team means doing the merger actually cost them money and the reason they did it was so that they kep servers at a level of population to make playing more rewarding and keep people playing longer.

Honestly you'd think it was doubled in price or something the way some people react.  It's a comparatively small increase, the first in a long long time, if you don't like it noone is forcing you to pay it.  If you don't like the prices for expansions noone is forcing you to buy them and f you pay for a year in one go it's still less than $10 a month.  As a consumer the only recourse you  have is to not buy the goods.

Yeah price rises are never fun but honestly if you expect them to do anything else when their costs go up and the number of subscribers come down then you're being naive I'm afraid.

Khayden