On the $15 a month- I'm not getting anywhere and I already feel I adequately stated my point. By deserve I already said I meant it on a business scale, not a personal one. And orchist- half those things you mentioned aren't upkeep and bring new money and new players into the game (new expansions pay for themselves, same goes to ads and blizzcon despite what they tell you.) Companies are not a charity, they don't do cons for the lawls, marketing is either worth it and they do it, or its not and they don't. Blizzcon is just another marketing avenue. And scaling up is actually the opposite, it gets more profitable and more efficient rather than the other way around. That's just general business principle, look to walmart and target for proof.

Old EQ- I also loved how races actually felt different. I remember the lighter races feeling a certain racism toward dark elves and laughing at the dark elves that would have to beg for food when they came to our zones. On the other hand, I remember this dark elf warrior fully decked out in bronze armor (the thing at the time) and being a terrifying sight to behold. We all gathered atop a hill and had an anime style fight and took turns rushing him like some old movie where the henchmen only fight one at a time :)

Selling tangible goods is not the same as selling server ended services. All the initial hardware from the launch of Wow is not the same hardware any more. Being on one of the original servers it was one that had extended downtime because they had to upgrade the hardware so that it was inline with the rest of the newer servers.

On a business scale they still deserve the $15 because it's a great price point versus the total cost of their operations. Look at gyms, they have a similar subscription model. If everyone showed up that had subscriptions it would be horrific, that's what happens during times like now where everyone is in Lagalaran, and the World Event times.

I don't get what you're saying Cyn, that only supports my point :) Gyms do do the same thing for the most part and are just as much of a ripoff. Except people don't show up 24/7 so I fail to see how that has anything to do with the subject. If people did start showing up more then they'd change their business model to reflect it and become more profitable. It almost feels like you guys don't see them as a business. Upgrading hardware also attracts new people to the game to an extent, but yes, that is a point, that would be an additional upkeep cost. Still not seeing the total cost though. Server hardware has also gone down a lot since the days of EQ.

In general you can't argue a company is doing something out of kindness or "quality," it is always for profit margins, don't kid yourself. The bigger the company, the better they are at doing it (and hiding it). The question is if those margins are reasonable. When something dominates and gets out of hand and inches toward the monopoly side of things we get things like Windows and I really really don't want to see a homogenized gaming culture.

First of all the way that I understand that they have created their backend is that it isn't just run on one single server. Each server is many blades and many blades are set in clusters.

Depending on how Blizzard sets up their costs, this could be an expensive contract for them.
now AT&T is expanding their datacenters to the tune of $1B, so they aren't giving this away to Blizzard for nothing. Also because AT&T knows that Blizzard has a lucrative userbase, they probably have a decent profit margin as well.

I don't care if something is reasonable or not if there's no other player in town, that is to say, I don't have to pay $5 for a cup of coffee from the nice restaurant down the street if I can go to diner and pay $1. But if I want to be in that nice restaurant, I have to fork over the $5.

I still think you don't consider just how much upfront costs there are to games. GTA4 supposedly is the most expensive which was $100M to develop. But the real profit money isn't in the box or the software, it's the subscription and the merchandising.

That's 4-5 years with NO INCOME on that product. None, zero, zilch. Do you think they are making any money on Starcraft 2? or Diablo 3? That's all sunk in development costs which are in the millions of dollars these days. This isn't just the personnel, but the hardware that they design on, and the software that they use for modeling, engines that are licensed, code that is licensed, etc.

Here's an article about the costs to maintain, it's from 2008.

World of Warcraft Cost Blizzard $200M in Upkeep Since 2004
I don't want that kind of gaming culture either, but yet it already exists, and has existed since the days that the Pac Man look and feel laws affected how gaming and computer software development is today. Look at the FPS and fighting games, they aren't much different, as are the MMOs or the RPG arena.

Bring it down to the Popcap casual gaming level and you really start to see the originality of game development that was the hallmark of the 80s gaming culture. The smaller development houses can be freer with their ideas and development because well, it costs little and the payback is large.

The development time is generally covered by the box sales. Maybe a little less from MMORPGs, but not much less. And that article supports my PoV. Thanks for finding the article.

Things certainly have already affected our gaming culture, but I think we can keep it from influencing it further and pigeon holing it even more. With MMORPGs I think we have a special opportunity as it is a rather untapped genre still.