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It's not for everyone, that's for sure. But for the average gamer it's a steal. You can think of it many ways, seeing two movies a month = about 4 1/2 hours of entertainment, or one movie at a month + popcorn, candy, and soda is about equal to the subscription fee. So 2-4 hours of entertainment a month for $15 for movies, or lets say about 30 hours for $15? 30 hours is only an average of 1 hour a day. Many of the types who play WoW will easily play that or more. Another comparision is drinking, you can easily spend more than $15 for one night alone.
While some games last off and on for a long time, their prime is usually done in a month. For many of my gamer friends they normally get 1 or 2 (new) games a month, but lets say an average of 1. So that alone is between $49-$60 per month.
Granted, not everyone goes out drinking, sees movies, or buys a new game every month, but for those that do, replacing some of those activities with WoW is a huge savings.
Awhile back I read an article about what that money goes toward, and almost all of it is used for upkeep. Also keep in mind you get free patches, updates with new content, occational events, and support as well. Bandwith takes up at least half of the cost, and paying for the current staff another significant portion. Part of the monthly payment, plus the initial investment of $40-$60 for the game can also be seen toward paying off their initial development investments (which is way more for an MMORPG than a single player game).
Also, after awhile (a year or so) the game will go down to about half its original price, so around 20-30 bucks for a game that is still pretty good. With EQ after it was out for a couple years, you could buy the original game, plus about 4 expansions for 30 or 40 bucks. That is a massive amount of content considering the price.
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