I'm torn, play or not play

[Veld]

Psst oh yeah Vor, we ain't gunna letcha go until u finish ToAU either *wink*

 

[Tristam Green]

I have a question, considering it's usually the "12 bucks a month" people get annoyed with after awhile for FFXI couldn't, in reality, SE lower the price to a buck a month and still make enough money to keep the servers up? (I'm betting WoW could easily at this point lol) I mean, how much does it cost to keep their servers up (if you included EVERYTHING like staff, GM, server, other hardware, etc)?

Cause let's say FFXI has 4 million subscribed (at least that's the last I heard XD dunno the number now), that's 48 million a year if it was a buck a month. Isn't that enough to run the servers and still make a bit of a profit? XD and if it were that cheap I'm betting more would return and even more would play.

It's more than just breaking even though; there are R&D costs, designers (for the expansions), likely outsourced network administration for datacenters and the like, marketing, sales, private jets, food for Sage Sundi, you know...

 

[naue]

in order for them to lower the price, theyd have to up their productivity or lower their wage rate lol...

neither will happen with SE thats for damn sure.

SE may seem like a bunch of kooks, but when it comes down to it they have financial analysts as well, and the price they charge must obviously give them the highest profits.

If charging a lower price would attract enough more customers to raise profits, SE would do it, they are in the business of making money.

 

[Elemmire]

that's the thing though, even at a buck or two a month for playing they'd STILL make a profit lol. At least assuming they still have 4 million subscribers I just think it'd be smarter to lower the price to so low as 5 bucks a month if they want to draw more people to the game.

 

[naue]

what are you talking about lol...

you have no way of knowing (unless you requested to see their public financial documents), that for 1$/month they would make a profit.

Think big man...every one of those GMs, programmers, R&D people, execs, computers they use to program on, computers the GMs use, servers, ISP, etc etc etc etc cost money.

I mean, sure its possible, but you cant make sweeping statements like that.

For instance, even if it "would" make them profit, who knows how large their accounts payable (basically what money they owe others, simplest form to think of would be a generic loan) is...

and even so, i mean its basic microeconomics man...if lowering the price would attract enough more subscribers to have a higher profit margin, with all costs marginal and not held constant, then i am 100% sure that SE would do it.

They arent keeping the price where it is to be mean..lol. If they raise it, theyll lose to many customers, if they lower it they wont gain enough more customers to make a profit, and presumably they are at equilibrium at whatever they charge now.