Can we double the price of subs and Krono?

A persistant issue with EQ is the general lack of development resources. The game must do more with less. However a major component to this is how the subscription cost of the game has barely changed in 25 years.
The cost of doing business (server prices, salaries, electricity, rent, insurance, ect) has easily doubled in the last 25 years. Yet sub prices have only gone up $3 or so?
What does DB think about increasing the price of the subs (and krono), which will give them more funds to better the game?

Ummm. No. You would likely just kill the game faster. Was that a serious suggestion or just trolling? I can't speak for everyone but I would not pay double the sub cost. I am guessing money is no issue for you or you have lifetime accounts. What about all the folks out their who can't afford that kind of increase?

Pass not without a guaranteed contract of what the extra money will give us, roll outdates with refunds for not meeting OUR expectations.

Current price of a krono $17.99 us - 1 month recurring $14.99 us - 3 month recurring - $38.97 - 6 month recurring $71.94 - 12 month $119.88 - there are also the various "perks" for an additional cost per month.

$14.99 - $3 = $11.99 - that's about where op puts the cost by their calculation of going up. Don't know about some other players but that's not what I started out paying per month it was lower than that so there has been more than a $3 up per month. And it is still easy entertainment inspite of all the problems when there's 1' of snow on the ground and 50mph winds.

Now ... there are some that are grandfathered in at lowered amounts and some that went the lifetime amount. That isn't going to be the enough to cause a drop in revenue.

Krono being bought for in-game plat and used for membership rather than off the marketplace and used for membership eats into the revenue, no new krono being circulated eats into the revenue, players deciding to drop back in membership as non-paying players for any numbers of reasons eats into the revenue.

So to answer the op - no that won't solve the problem.

Might be cool to have some sort of Marketplace campaign that worked sort of like a kickstarter where you can choose a "bucket" for your purchases to fund toward goals related to that bucket.

Before anyone flips out the following are JUST EXAMPLES:

Live! Bucket
Tier 1 - Mid-year new zone release
Tier 2 - Seasonal content reboot
Tier 3 - Extra raid tier for next expansion
Tier 4 - Epic 3.0
Tier 5 - Private instancing everywhere

TLP Bucket
Tier 1 - Extra TLP next year
Tier 2 - Seasonal TLP
Tier 3 - Discord Server returns
Tier 4 - Project M for TLP
Tier 5 - Automatic TLP creation on a schedule

Base Game Bucket
Tier 1 - Autofollow improvements
Tier 2 - Expanded scripting for boxes
Tier 3 - Multi-account UI
Tier 4 - Alts/personas as mercenaries
Tier 5 - New player models!

Supply and demand.
If you raise the price A of an item your number of buyers B will be reduced. You want A*B to be maximized. If B falls too much you arent gaining you are losing.

Instead of raising prices for everyone, just allow folks who have excess cash to give to a special campaign...

EXTRADEV 2024

Your donation will help us to buy the services of an unemployed game dev. Give now!

Your reward will be the knowledge that you care.

There is no guarantee it would fund EQ. Leave it alone. If they ever get the UI and DX stuff fixed then it might get a second look but right now it would only drive away more players.

And it would be like giving money to the homeless guy on the corner who looks so bad off and dejected then he turns around and spends it on his 401 or a trip to Hawaii.

EQ has always paid for other games under the umbrella while getting short changed.

For example to all of us who wanted armor display stands? Well, they got them over at EQ2 yesterday. Yes, they are $2 but they are going to sell like hot cakes.

Let's talk about affordability.
An annual subscribtion plus the cost of an annual expansion plus taxes combined is under $15 per month per account.
Comes March 1st - what kind of entertainment you can buy for the month of March for $15 (as in comparison to EQ)?
Perhaps a monthly Netflix or Prime subscription? Honestly speaking - I can't watch THAT much streaming comparing to time spent playing EQ. And I have both of those.
All other forms of entertainment typically cost much more than $15 per month.
Yes, there are some free activities out there. Those are simply not as abundant to make a dent as a statistical "weighted average".
So, a question would be: if EQ cost doubles to $30 per month then where would end up on the scale of "cheaper" entertainments? In my opnion - it will remain on top.
So a strong case of EQ prices increase can be made from a viewpoint of market research.
Meanwhile, knowing the nature of humans, how greedy and selfish they are I simply expect that if EQ prices increase it will only increase the amount of money EG7 execs will pocket. That extra money will not be spent wisely on EQ improvements/development, and as such I do not believe that would be a wise decision.

Good example on the homeless guy. I recall a story where an old lady they called the shaky lady. Was always pan handling then someone got a picture of her being picked up in a spanking new caddy. And many years ago my wife and I were downtown and she saw one of her coworkers out there begging for change while they had a good paying job. Ruins it for the folks actually needing the money.

If they want to make a little more money off of EQ-- where's the merch? T-shirts, etc- Or they could do a few more obvious things like re releasing the cat and chick boxes, put Guise of the Ancient Gods on marketplace for $100- I'd pay that in a heartbeat.

Lert not start that whole story about affordability. What is affordable to you is not affordable to others. And boxing in the game is here to stay that will not change. I suspect most boxers would be against paying double.

I know a lot of folks who find money in short supply. So as far as I go your comments about doubling the subscription amount falls on deaf ears when it comes to me.


And I have news for you a lot of folks can't afford netflix either its a silly argument.

What you are really saying is that because the current price is negligible for YOU and because YOU would be happy to pay more for x y or z that raising the price is a good idea. I am happy that you have the cash to make suggestions like that. Good for you.

Then we talk about keeping the game going. Hey doubling the cost might get rid of boxers. But then it might also turn EQ from profitable to not profitable. I have five lifetime accounts so it wouldnt affect me personally very much. Thing is I have no problem understanding it would affect others a lot more. So someone boxes say 3 accounts that they sub for. Suddenly they are paing not 45 dollars but 90 dollars. 45 dollars more thats a heck of a lot of streaming. But lets say they are paying 12 bucks per account.that gets doubled to 24 so they go from 36 a month to 72 so thats then yearly it goes from 432 a year plus 3 expansions top 864 a year plus 3 expansions. Not everyone has that extra 400 bucks a years.

Do you think doubling the cost of subscriptions might be a problem for others or is that not your concern? Really interested to know.

I sub to several streaming services. I take vacations. Thing is... I am not the whole player base. Nor are you.

I completely get folks suggesting things that will make the game better for them personally but can we at least thing about others who that may be detrimental to? Is no one out there able to see things from more then their own perspective?

And lastly if DB thought they could get away with raising prices it would have already happened.

Doubling the cost of EQ will certainly be a problem for others, no doubt. It will alter the player base and it will affect me and is my concern.
In fact, I may drop an account or two myself if they double the price. Just because I might have a dollar or two laying around does not mean I am not a frugal scroodge. I am. I recalculate in my head the cost of EQ every month and my subscriptions are hanging on a thin thread. But marketing people don't see me as a person, I am just a number for them. One day I am a paying customer, another I am a disillusioned schmuck - all the same for them, they just look at statistical averages, which by the way, simply ignore those who can't afford EQ. Personal feelings aside, only those who can still pay matter to marketing teams.

And DB would raise the prices ina heartbeat, but they do analyze data and are well aware of the balance of f2p-to-Gold accounts all the time. The moment they increase the prices they see what percentages of accounts turn into f2p. They are well aware of the math, that is their "check and balance".
They continuosly try to increase the revenue by offering all kind of purchaseable goodies like Heroic toons, perks etc. Because those are sold to only those who can actually affort it. Meanwhile cost of subscription is much more sensitive matter. I am just of an opinion that there is room to increase it, which my inner greedy self actually not happy about.

I would be in the same boat I can afford them doubling the cost but that would be well past what I was willing to pay. But I do know of folks who would find such an increase would be too much for them. So me making an argument about what I find cheap or what I can afford would not really add anything to the conversation I guess. It just bothers me that some folks think because a cost is trivial for them that it is trivial for everyone.

I know folks who sub to zero streaming services and they play EQ excessively (from my perspective but it works for them). And I suspect as the EQ population ages more folks will be in that category of seeing the current costs of the game being pricey enough regardless of what other things that money buys.

Sounds close to Wendy's recent "surge" or dynamic" pricing. If anyone has Wendy's stock you may want to sell. It has done its damage and its still a year away. And that is what an increase in EQ would do.

I have gone F2P on all my accounts until things get fixed. If they don't? Oh well.

I would gladly pay a few more dollars a month for EQ if they could guarantee that every single penny the game makes goes back into EQ, and NOT one of their other crappy, worthless games...including EQ 2.

Everquest appears to be charging the same rate that other MMO's are charging for a subscription, if that was doubled that would give every subscriber a hard choice of paying more for a 25 year old game or less for a modern one. Not to mention it would have a larger impact on players that maintain many accounts with a subscription and cause them to reduce the number they keep subscribed if they don't just move on.

Wow, didn't expect this level of angry. How dare we do things to try and improve the game. Obviously DB owes us everything

Nope. Not sure how you got that out of this and maybe that is the problem. People said on doubling the price is crazy and you turned that into DB owes us everything. I know all I look for is that when folks make suggestions like that they are thinking about everyone OR are fully fine with folks critiquing what they say.

I have been in the same boat as you where I made a suggestion and folks found a lot of negatives for them in it. Gotta just roll with that stuff as its fair for them to comment. You came off as a bit tone deaf as to what doubling the cost could result in. Or at least that you had given it no thought. And that might not be the case but that is at least how it came off as to me. My apologies if my responses came off as angry but not everyone is as fortunate as you or I when it comes to finances. I worry about kids now in high school never being able to afford buying a house when they get older. So again apologies it is a sensitive point for me.