sounds kinda lame to me...

and only 200 hours of gameplay? ive played WoW for 1000 hours and im still not bored of it...

ZORK MMO fix zelda like puzzles in a unique non-D environment as you text your way among friends in all new zany jay adventures

There are a ton of similar games that are ACTUALLY free. It's obvious the free part is only to get you hooked and giving them your cash. NOBODY should pay to play. The software people make cash by selling you a freaking $60 DVD/CD that cost them less than a buck programming time. Even if they work on a project for two years, if they sell a million copies they've made a good bit. Let's see, markup is $20, so that means they make about $40 a game, and less after it's 6 months to a year old...

Still, if they sell even a QUARTER of a million copies at $40 a pop that's 10 million bucks. Now granted, some of that goes for patent and legal fees, and the actual DVD production...but even 9 million bucks divided amongst a small team of oh...20 people for a few years work? Hmm. Do they REALLY need to charge us to play? I think not. Then there's royalties if the title is good...

Just imagine how much a game like HALO makes Bungie and Micro$oft...

Only 1000? How many expansions and content has been added over the years? Not fair to compair a old game with a brand new game like that. I just know I've played 5 hours of WoW. Then I cancelled my subscription out of boredom, and went back to Guild Wars. And speak of Guild Wars... Same company behind GW and Dungeon Runners, so I'm definatly going to check it out.

Played the beta, no real diversity to the game. To be expected with a free game, though. Fun for a little while as a time killer.

Lame because you get 200 hours free or lame bacause you have paided hundreds of dollars for warcraft.

Also the game is new and they are adding contect every month. I play the beta and it was fun. Now it not some big budget game with a earth size world. But also you dont have to team with 40 others plays and do 5 hours runs. Thier is no farming or crafting so you get in play the game and leave. No 20 minutes it take to get to a dungeon either. Team up if you want or go solo, the dungeon will level to your group.

@JohnDoe

You're forgetting the largest part.

Server costs

They are very expensive.

That is why you pay monthly.

Okay, let's start with more than 20 people earning an average salary of between $45K-$60K a year.

Now throw in health, benefits and vacation and costs for the facility they work in (incld. power/water/network/furniture/computers).

And while DVD's cost about $2 to press you forgot to speak to the other costs including package design and manufacture, package assembly and labor. Costs which account for 15%-27% of the price to manufacture.

That takes us to advertising which is never cheap.

Lets not forget the infrastructure support costs involved in maintaining and upgrading the gaggle of servers in multiple data centers the allows for the game to actually function (as there is no offline or self hosting option).

Oh I almost forgot the people they have in place to help if you have issues...they call that a helpdesk I believe (no freebie there I can tell from experience)...oh...and what about on-going costs for developing new content (just because the box is on the shelf doens't mean innovation can stop).

I'm not saying Bliz and a few others aren't raking in big money, but, when you take a look at more of what's involved in getting the game running on your computer $9M doesn't barely start to cover operational costs.

It's not the people that actually work on the game who get the millions, it's the publishing company that slaps the box together. And it's not even everyone at the publishing company, but rather the officers of the company with their millions in bonuses. If you're going to start playing the greedy corporation blame game, point your finger in the right direction.

You also forget that this is like any other business, there are risks involved. The video game industry is quite volatile and many companies lose millions on games, so for the ones that succeed, the payoff had better be worth it. Developing a game is not money in the bank by any means.

A free 2D MMORPG..
Pretty lame if you see the graphics and it has no sound.. but it's fun nonetheless. :)
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