Why should VIPs pay for anything?

Cool, I'll have to bookmark that site when I go into my "you haven't gotten a pay raise in the past 30 years" rant!

Was cool for an interesting comparison, for what I paid for my car in 2009 I could have bought a 427 Shelby Cobra brand new in 1964 or 65 and had I the foresight to hold on to it, I could have went to the Stoned & Drunk car auction (aka Barret Jackson) and probably sold the car for a nice six or seven digit price tag.

It's a combination of things: It's the points (800 points just sounds like a lot. Especially when you only have 300 to your name). It's the market interface... it's kinda slow, and I have to slog through all that every time I want to grab a rename token on a whim, compared to before. Since I'm bound to never have enough points, I always have to go through that extra step of first buying the extra points, then wait for the market to figure out that I have enough points, then buy the thing I actually wanted.

Well, I shouldn't complain. It been keeping me from grabbing stuff on a whim. That's good for me (maybe not so good for Paragon )

You get free points as part of your subscription. You can save those points to buy whatever you want without spending a dime past your subscription fee. If you can't control your own patience in an effort to buy new stuff that otherwise wouldn't exist because of this new hybrid model, you get to pay for it. Contrary to popular belief, this game is a business.

A business (also known as enterprise or firm) is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners.

This isn't exactly a new idea. I subscribe to my cable company.... but they still charge me for pay-per-view. There's additional channels I have to pay MORE for.. Heck, despite me paying, I still have to watch &*^*&(*&@# commercials.

It fits here, too (minus commercials (fingers crossed)).

Your subscription only pays for so much. If you want more, you pay more.

The devs have made a point of stressing that subscribers aren't going to get LESS than they would have gotten had they not gone F2P. They're getting the same, if not more, content via the subs than they got before. The extra stuff that goes beyond that just would never have been made if it didn't open up another revenue path to cover the development costs.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Some people have entitlement issues.

except we've paid for expansions.
and we've paid for booster packs.
and this trend is hardly new, as other games have had adventure packs (mini-expansions) and paid extras for years.

so we have a pattern of paying for a basic level and then paying more for "extras". Pretty simple.

Make it cost only $5 and you have an even better deal. Players would love it. Devs... notsomuch when they don't get paychecks.

There are two parties in a deal, and both of them have to see value in a deal. The devs need to know that their effort will result in enough profit to AT LEAST pay the bills and keep investors happy, and the players need to know they're getting value out of their $.

We're not able to compare and contrast here on the boards, but I'll skirt close to the issue to just say that COH VIP benefits already are in the top tier of hybrid models.

It's not an entitlement issue to want to get the most for your money. Businesses want to make money, customers want to get the biggest bang for their buck. That's how capitalism works. It's a push-and-pull situation.

Personally, I like being able to buy more things, but I do want to make sure I don't get less for my subscription cost. So far, it's been fine. I expect that to continue, but I will be paying attention.

It is an entitlement issue if you don't just want more, but believe you deserve more.

I always want more. But to complain about getting less than before when City of Heroes Freedom is actually giving more than before requires a very specific mindset that is not at all about simply wanting as much value as can be achieved.

Absolutely. But when you think you should get everything you want for free, then it's an unreasonable position. As an example, I direct you to the thread title.

The thread title isn't an example of wanting everything for free, VIPs pay a monthly subscription.

As already noted in this thread, with an Annual sub (or even better a 14 month sub) plus the Tier 8 150 bonus Points, there are already people paying the equivalent of around $6 a month. And that doesn't take into account the free Server Transfer also included.

The question posed in this thread glosses over the extent of the content included with the subscription fee, and assumes as self-evident that no amount of content should ever cost extra money. If that isn't suggestive of a sense of entitlement, then what is?

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

True, but they are a small portion of the overall population and the income generated by the items being purchased in the store more than cover the discount they are getting.

And we always have. And we have also always had to pay extra for expansions and booster packs - i.e. extra 'stuff'. This is an entitlement thread, plain and simple.

Yep, I'm one of those... two accounts (myself and the missus) and we'll be here until the servers shut off.

Not to mention one big offset.

Fraud loss.

At a conference a few years back, some presenters pinned the cost of fraud and extra CC processing fees associated with it take about $3 out of every $15 monthly subscription.... particularly since most card disputes don't come till the end of the month, so the service had already been delivered.

They also found that multi-month subscriptions were much less likely to be fraudulent (since they'd be caught long before the service was fully rendered) meaning that there were less "fraud loss" associated with them.

That, and the fact that these accounts bring a degree of stability in what can be a volatile market to make revenue projections in, and the yearly subs probably work out to a great deal for both the devs and the players.