You pay every month to keep playing one online world.
A flat fee is predictable and pays for real running costs, but it makes your time the thing being sold, so the world is built to keep you in it.
Access to one persistent online game for as long as you keep paying: its servers, game masters and a steady run of expansions. It is usually layered on top of a boxed or downloaded client. Stop paying and you lose access to the characters, gear and guild you built.
A flat fee inverted the incentive of the hourly meter that came before it: instead of limiting hours, the game's job became to fill them. The fee funds server farms, staff moderating persistent worlds (online worlds that keep running whether or not you are logged in) and an expansion every year or two. Design follows the revenue: daily quest hubs, weekly raid lockouts (big group challenges you can only attempt once a week), guild politics and gear you would hate to abandon. The number that matters is no longer your skill but your time. Players nicknamed EverQuest 'EverCrack', and the joke had a point.
When you know exactly what a month costs, can pause or cancel easily, and the world is one you would happily visit anyway. A subscription with no extra shop on top is the most straightforward kind of live game.
Ultima Online launched on 24 September 1997 at $9.95 a month on top of a boxed client of around $55, and passed 100,000 subscribers by the end of 1998. EverQuest followed in 1999 at $9.89 a month (a wink at developer 989 Studios) and players nicknamed it 'EverCrack'. World of Warcraft launched on 23 November 2004 at $49.99 boxed with the first month free, then $14.99 a month, and peaked at 12 million subscribers in October 2010; Activision Blizzard has reported that it grossed over $9 billion by 2017. Final Fantasy XI (Japan, November 2002) charged around $12.95 a month and showed the box-plus-subscription-plus-expansions stack worked on console as well as PC. EVE Online ran a galaxy's economy on subscriptions alone for years. The model fractured as free-to-play and hybrid models chipped away at the standing monthly fee, and browser worlds such as RuneScape (membership from 2002 at around $5 a month) and Club Penguin used a cheaper optional membership aimed at children and paid for by parents.
Historical prices and revenues are in US dollars at the time unless marked A$.
Ultima Online launched on 24 September 1997 at $9.95 a month on a boxed client of around $55, and passed 100,000 subscribers by the end of 1998.
EverQuest (1999) billed $9.89 a month, a wink at developer 989 Studios, and players nicknamed it 'EverCrack'.
World of Warcraft launched on 23 November 2004 at $49.99 boxed (first month free) plus $14.99 a month, and peaked at 12 million subscribers in October 2010.
Activision Blizzard has reported that World of Warcraft grossed over $9 billion in lifetime revenue by 2017.
Covered in Video Games & Money: Ep 16 · Sub mmo, Ep 18 · Browser.
