1/22/2012 New Members' Pricing

[codecRS]

honestly not bothered by the rise and fully expected it after the nuke, its not even that much of a difference.

[jijilentosm]

Eh, even if my membership lapses and I'm stuck paying 7.95 a month, it's only about $95 a year. Hopefully we'll see an equal hike update content.

[Chrishankhah]

Being one who tends to take longer breaks from games, I can see this not being great for some people. It sucks in the obvious way that no one wants to pay more money, but I'll still be playing as a member even if I do lapse out of membership. =p

 

I think it was obvious how much the number of average players on at any time sank with the removal of bots. As fantastic as it was to see them gone (they made portions of the game absolutely unplayable,) there's no doubt in my mind that it was making up a large percentage of Jagex' income from subscribers. While so many bots existed, Jagex most likely purchased the servers to handle so many players, and now they have to continue to afford that, so the price is falling onto the backs of legitimate players. For me, it's worth the trade-off: $8 for a playable game vs. $6 for a bot-ridden one, and the extra $2 is well spent. Still, I cannot help but think that this price increase wouldn't have been necessary if bots hadn't taken over to the degree they were able to, in the first place.

[Sephy_]

I'll gladly pay 1 more if they manage to keep the bots out.

[999134]

I am not sure who else follows this rule but I generally expect one hour gameplay per £ I pay for a game, and runescape gets me way over that.

[Alg]

On the plus side, those among you who have been grabbing every vanity item they could won't have to worry about this for another year :mrgreen:

Humor? In TIF? MADNESS

[CharlieBrown]

Its an extra $2 or something

A cup of coffee costs more

Get the hell over it.

[Hajutze]

Its an extra $2 or something

A cup of coffee costs more

Get the hell over it.

For us with 400$ income, 2$ here 2$ there ... 2$ is kind of a lot.

Considering that most of the said 400$ are used for things you kind of need like rent, clothings and food .. you aren't left with a lot to spend.

[Sy_Accursed]

Its an extra $2 or something

A cup of coffee costs more

Get the hell over it.

For us with 400$ income, 2$ here 2$ there ... 2$ is kind of a lot.

Considering that most of the said 400$ are used for things you kind of need like rent, clothings and food .. you aren't left with a lot to spend.

 

If you live off a $400 income I'd question why you have RS membership even before the price increase, heck I'd question why you have the internet and probably some form of cable tv.

[Piu]

That's not the point. He's trying to point out that although $2 is a small amount compared to other things, it causes a larger impact on a percentage of people than most of you here claim it to be.

[Sy_Accursed]

My point is if it makes THAT MUCH of an impact on your finances to shell out $2 more a month (which as people quite rightly pointed out is a lot less than u pay for a coffee or even a sandwich from a cafe) you should probably not being paying for rs in the first place.

[Ginger_Warrior]

You need some sort of escape, even when you haven't got much to spend. A book costs more than RS membership these days. There's nothing wrong with buying RS membership on a low income... after all the whole point is that RuneScape is so cheap. I can easily appreciate why some people on low income would feel worried about every pound/dollar right now, with the cost of living rising.

 

I don't see who you are to judge other people's finances.

[Riptide Mage]

Its an extra $2 or something

A cup of coffee costs more

Get the hell over it.

For us with 400$ income, 2$ here 2$ there ... 2$ is kind of a lot.

Considering that most of the said 400$ are used for things you kind of need like rent, clothings and food .. you aren't left with a lot to spend.

 

If you live off a $400 income I'd question why you have RS membership even before the price increase, heck I'd question why you have the internet and probably some form of cable tv.

 

Having the internet is an unavoidable necessity for most people.

 

What concerns me most about the price increase is that it is a 33% increase not too long after a 20% increase in the price. The only memorable "update" of the past year as compared to the years before was the removal of bots, hardly deserving of this large an increase in price. It looks to me like instead of the botters paying jacmob's salary that we now are.

 

For comparison xbox live has only increased in price once, by 20%. A service that went from a simple friends list and game matchmaking service to a full blown entertainment and social media platform.

[Hajutze]

Its an extra $2 or something

A cup of coffee costs more

Get the hell over it.

For us with 400$ income, 2$ here 2$ there ... 2$ is kind of a lot.

Considering that most of the said 400$ are used for things you kind of need like rent, clothings and food .. you aren't left with a lot to spend.

If you live off a $400 income I'd question why you have RS membership even before the price increase, heck I'd question why you have the internet and probably some form of cable tv.

I questioned myself the same question ... the reason I haven't played RS for 1+ y.

 

I do have internet because I can do my job using the net in my home so I dont pay for transportation and I pretty much save more than I pay for the internet. And the price I pay for my internet is the same as one monthly payment for RS (as it is now).

For my country:

 

The 2nd test is for London:

 

Quite good by my standarts.

 

 

My point is if it makes THAT MUCH of an impact on your finances to shell out $2 more a month (which as people quite rightly pointed out is a lot less than u pay for a coffee or even a sandwich from a cafe) you should probably not being paying for rs in the first place.

This should answer your question

 

I am not sure who else follows this rule but I generally expect one hour gameplay per £ I pay for a game, and runescape gets me way over that.

[Kimberly]

That's not the point. He's trying to point out that although $2 is a small amount compared to other things, it causes a larger impact on a percentage of people than most of you here claim it to be.

 

While that is very true, if someone had such limited income, it's really important to have a strict budget. Luxuries are always cut out first. Stating the obvious, I know, and I'm sorry for that. But I think the entertainment industry, like MMO's, console games, and so on aim to markets with more disposable incomes. And since Runescape is slowly scaling up the quality of graphics, audio, and gameplay (too slowly for most of us veterans, but they are) it seems like they're inching out further and further from the "budget gamer" demo.

 

But there's always the free game, which thanks to the bots isn't terrible and people can actually make some decent cash there now via skilling (decent for f2p).

 

 

For comparison xbox live has only increased in price once, by 20%.

 

At the risk of sounding like a jerk, that's a really terrible comparison. Yes, XBL is approximately 3$ a month (pre-price raise @ yearly rate), but you're basically paying for a portal with no content! Oooh, you could have fiddled with last.fm and facebook. That's not exactly a quality expense for the return you get. Even if you buy one new game and subscribe to one media service--we'll go with netflix because of it's popularity--you're looking at different issues here.

 

Breakdown:

• One new console game that focuses on online play, like BF3 - $5/month *
  
• Netflix (streaming only) - $9/month
  
• Xbox Live Gold Yearly Subscription - $3.33/month (pre-price raise)

* factored over the time period you have XBL for, since a game like BF3 is nothing but online play

 

That's 17.33$ a month. Now you try to sit here and tell me that it's cheaper than RuneScape...It's simply untrue! Even if you cut out netflix, XBL/gameplay was more expensive than RuneScape's new price BEFORE they raised XBL costs!

 

If you want affordable gaming, play free-to-play MMO's like Dead Frontier, Runescape, AdventureQuest Online, and so on. Or pick up the humble bundle every few months for a buck. Or play flash games, there are some amazing flash games out there with fantastic stories.

 

Yeah. Small increases add up. RuneScape is still affordable. The only question is whether you find it worthwhile enough to keep playing and paying.

[Zargo_VI]

"Yeah. Small increases add up. RuneScape is still affordable. The only question is whether you find it worthwhile enough to keep playing and paying."

 

^This :)

[lordkafei]

Ill be interested to see how much of a bump up the members population takes. If this doesnt drag prior members back to paying status, I cant imagine what would.

[CZ_TOH]

While still cheap, it will affect the amount of time I will spend playing it as I play on and off throughout the years

 

At least the game is not going down the toilet like WoW is (Playing both currently)

[Syd]

On first glance, the change of membership cost does look like a big raise - and is very likely to affect on new subscribers. That's a shame, because it's hard for new members to reason the "efficiency" of buying membership. Of course, everybody hates paying more than they were used to - but the price still isn't very big. Or well, I leave that for everyone to decide themselves.

 

This is why I have been, and will keep on paying membership also in the future.

 

Let's see now. I've been paying membership a bit on and off, but overall more than 5 years. 5,95ea month. It actually sums up to quite a hefty amount.. 357e. At first stance, thinking I've spent 357e on a game seems ridiculously high. Considering if the price had been 6.95e a month, it would've been 417e. Even more.

 

However, let's take a look at my adventurers log. 137 days and 9 hours! That's a total of 3297 hours of playing! So let's see... I've spent 357 euros for 3297 hours of gameplay (of course this is a bit off as I spent couple hundred hours as f2p for sure). 357/3297 = 0,108e per hour. Ok wait... I'm paying almost as much per minute (or two), for simply speaking on the phone! Let's not forget the fact that I haven't played even THAT much. I barely have time to play even one hour a day nowadays, and sometimes there are periods of days or even weeks I don't log in. Of course, sometimes I might play few hours in a row, or dozens of hours on a weekend. I know most people get even way better bang for their buck than I do.

 

RuneScape is a game that takes time. It's designed to be spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on. I can personally say I did it to enjoy my time, and it's the only reason I keep doing so. I have been gamer as long as I remember, but there has never been a game that could've kept me entertained through multiple playtimes, or more than couple hundred hours. And those were also MMO's. 3000 hours with RuneScape is way on different league. Of course, one could contemptuously say that time well spent, when one could do so much more with ones life. I don't know how much truth that holds, as I can honestly say I enjoyed the time I've spent. And what else do you need for a reason?

 

Even at 20% price increase, I would've still paid only like 0,13e per hour for the time I spent. Even as a trainee, working on a minimal wage of like 5e/h, I only use like 2% of my hourly wage to something I no doubt spend most time compared to it's cost. Aside from maybe sleeping on a bed. One should really invest on a good bed.

 

I also don't mind spending more for a bot free game.

 

If you can put the time investment into a rightful context, you should be able to measure if the price change will have any difference to you or not. Or if the game costs too much. I can honestly say I've spent thousands of euros alot worse. Drinking, cigarettes, fast food, sweets... I think the price raise hurts the most to the younger players, who are not paying for the costs themselves. But is that necessarily a bad thing?

[Carl]

Interesting to see the price per hour, Sydan! And very valid post.

 

I'm at 6,433 hours (268 Days & 1 hour) and probably paid for membership for 5 years. So that's 0.042 per hour? Crazy. I'm still at 4.60 per month so that's 276 for the last 5 years. Money well spent indeed.

[Crossed_Body]

 

For comparison xbox live has only increased in price once, by 20%. A service that went from a simple friends list and game matchmaking service to a full blown entertainment and social media platform.

On another hand, you have to view ads on a paid service.

[Sy_Accursed]

 

For comparison xbox live has only increased in price once, by 20%. A service that went from a simple friends list and game matchmaking service to a full blown entertainment and social media platform.

On another hand, you have to view ads on a paid service.

 

And there's accounting in the fact, as Kimberly mentioned, you pay for Runescape; you get Runescape.

You pay for xbox gold you get the opportunity to use xbox gold; you still have to buy the games (some of which require extra subscription charges thou not many) and pay subscription charges for the various services you can use within gold.

 

They are two totally different services, on xbox you are essentially paying for a very small privilege that is still primarily useless without buying extra content/subscriptions, on Runescape you are paying for runescape.

[Norpaw]

I've been a paying member for a long time. The change doesn't affect me (still paying only $5/month). Does this price match the 1-month membership card now?

[XxTearGodxX]

Well I would assume the price of cards is going up much higher. I am in shop rite doing some grocery shopping atm and found some runescape cards with old but updated prices.

 

There are 4 types of runescape membership cards out at the moment.

 

1) 30 days for $7.95.

2) 35 days for $10.

3) 90 daysfor $22.50

4) 1000 days for $25.

 

With that said Jagex did state new cards with new prices are going to be printed. And from what I see I predict these will be the new prices below when they hit store shelves. I've lost all respect for Jagex to charge this outrageous price.

 

35 days $12.50

100 days $27

[lordkafei]

There are 4 types of runescape membership cards out at the moment.

 

1) 30 days for $7.95.

2) 35 days for $10.

3) 90 daysfor $22.50

4) 1000 days for $25.

 

 

Perhaps 100 days for $25 is what you intended.

 

1000 days = roughly 2¾ years