Almost a year ago I was wondering whether people would pay less for a game if it meant they got less playtime — rather than paying $15 a month for unlimited access. This is one such post, and here’s another, though there were others and I’m just too lazy to go look for them.
Well anyway, it’s happened. I just got this in the mail from the Everquest II team:
It’s not perfect, because it’s not X amount of time over a 30 day period, but rather 3 consecutive days, but it’s a first step. I know tons of people who’d make use of something like this — pay your 5 bucks, get a weekend’s worth of being able to check in on a game, hook up with old friends, and see what’s new.
It’s also not a bad way of trying before you buy back in.
If more games start offering this kind of thing, I can actually see myself playing more than one game. I don’t want to buy a whole sub to EVE because I don’t think I’d play it enough — granted, $15 a month really isn’t much but when it’s $15 a month for 4 games it does start to add up. 5$ a month for 4 games, on the other hand, is only a little more than one monthly sub and should provide plenty of game time.
Like I said, the only downside I can see to this is that the days have to be consecutive. I expect it’s probably easier to keep track of (start now, expire now +3 days) but it’s not like it’s hard to keep track of playtime either. I’m sure it wouldn’t buy you 72 hours of playtime (yeesh! I’d be all over that!), but they could have done $5 buys you 5, 10, or 15 hours.
Still, it’s a start. Thumbs up to the EQ2 peeps!
Stylish Corpse 
Good call eq2 peeps
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It is a start and I applaud that more payment options than the regular subscription fee is popping up.
But still, I wonder what they consider their target audience for this offer?
I would think that a casual player would likely not have 3 consecutive days to spend MMO gaming in one game and certainly not extended amounts of time each of these days.
For me personally it would rather be 1-2 hour sessions and spread out a bit.
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I have a feeling it’s aimed at unsubscribed previous players.* It’s a carrot — come back and see what we’ve done (this last big update) and you don’t even have to pay more than $5!
I imagine there will be restrictions, but in any case it would get very expensive very quickly to use this method instead of a normal sub. My guess would be that their target is people who used to play but don’t want to cough up fifteen bucks when they know full well they might not spend more than one weekend in game.
We’ll have to see how it works out. I certainly don’t think it’s intended to replace the standard subscription, but more to supplement it (a $5 customer is better than no customer) and probably to lead to full (re)subscriptions.
*EDIT — actually I’m almost certain it is. My guess is this was sent to me because hubby’s (now unsubbed) accounts use my mail address as a contact address. It’s a “Come back!” email.
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So it is a trial for old players, which costs $5.
That explains the target audience, but I still think the restrictions are a bit weird.
EQ2 is not the easiest game to pick up if you have been away from it for a while, it would have been better to let player control their time a bit more.
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It is interesting, I got that email as well, and they’ve obviously thought hard about exactly who might use it and why.
It is absolutely aimed purely at veteran players (they say so if you go to their website), but I could imagine a player who had got bored of EQ2 but might still want to drop in to pick up some seasonal event goodies or something like that.
You’d never use this instead of a normal sub but definitely interesting. They also suggest it might be useful for people with second accounts who don’t need them active all the time but might want to focus their dual boxing over a weekend.
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I saw that in my email today also. Pretty cool idea. Maybe my friends who wandered off will hop on for a weekend.
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I saw this in my inbox as well and immediately thought that it wasn’t a good deal, specifically because it was only 3 days, (1/10 of a month) and you’re still paying 1/3 the cost. If they did 10 days for 5 bucks, or hell, even a week for 5 bucks, I think it would be more fair.
I guess they plan on people using the 3 days over a weekend.
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That promotion is aimed at someone specifically like me. A veteran who wants to keep their mains current when expansions come out. So…I buy the expansion for $30 to $50 and spend $5 on my three-day sub. I play my main up the 10 levels and I’m done until the next event or expansion. So, I actually save $10 or so.
The real problem here is the three days, but for a different reason. It’s sad to me that they’re only producing three days worth of content in any one given expansion. What’s even sadder, they’re giving us a three-day rate. Bah!
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Meh. For $6 I can pick up MOO1&2 via GOG.com. Those will last me much longer than a three day binge in an MMO.
I like that they are opening up different options, don’t get me wrong, but I’m still only going to buy content instead of time. This is a good move for market segmentation… just not into my corner of the market. 😉
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