Planetside monthly subscription going up by $2

by Alexander Sliwinski { Mar 3rd 2007 at 1:11PM }

Sony Online Entertainment announced that the cost of playing Planetside is going up by $2.00 USD. For those still fighting it out in the MMO-shooter four years after the game premiered, consider this reasonable inflation. The cost as of April 2, 2007 will be $14.99 a month.

Although we're sure that there aren't as many people playing Planetside as there were when the game first came out, it is nice to see that SOE is continuing support. Although it's very rare to see an increase in an MMOs monthly subscription, it certainly sounds like this action was done to allow the game to continue. They could have just unceremoniously canceled the game like EA did with Earth and Beyond years ago. Goodnight sweet Jenquai, we hardly knew ye.

Tags: planetside, sony, two dollars

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Snipermike @ Mar 3rd 2007 1:29PM

Good for them if they want to make 10 extra dollars from the five people who play it more power to them

Dave @ Mar 3rd 2007 1:29PM

Well, Earth and Beyond needed to be cancelled--it sucked. The ship customization options were amazing--but, beyond that, it was crap.

Koji @ Mar 3rd 2007 1:40PM

I thought that game was free?

REUYL @ Mar 3rd 2007 1:52PM

Cool, another game I'm not going to play.

Hello @ Mar 3rd 2007 2:08PM

I liked Earth and Beyond... :(

Doomstalk @ Mar 3rd 2007 2:35PM

The reason the player community shrunk so much is largely their own fault. They tried to re-balance vehicles and weapons algorithmically, and wound up wrecking things that didn't need fixing. Then they added in giant robots that were way overpowered. Basically, they screwed it up.

mike @ Mar 3rd 2007 6:53PM

In its height planetside was great those 250 player battles were awsome, it had some great squad mechanics aswell..its been at leaset 3 yeasr since i last played it htough

mkoracer @ Mar 3rd 2007 3:33PM

Damn... I've always wanted to get into this game and I finally am on the free trial (lets you get to level 6 or March 24th http://planetside.station.sony.com/reserves/ )

But sheesh 15 bucks/mo seems steep (for me who would be playing it probably 8 times a month) and while using the ships and stuff seems cool I haven't been able to drive a single vehicle yet after playing for 3 hours (it won't let you drive a vehicle until you are certified on it or something) I guess I just don't have time for these games :( which is sad because I really really like the idea.

Lord Chako @ Mar 3rd 2007 3:04PM

"For those still fighting it out in the MMO-shooter four years after the game premiered, consider this reasonable inflation. The cost as of April 2, 2007 will be $14.99 a month."

Or just the prelude to cancellation.

I never realized there was inflation in MMO's. Isn't the cost of technology supposed to go down, as time goes on? It's not like subscriptions have gone up since it debuted 4 years ago, and they are adding more servers.

Looks more like they are milking the cow, right before they slaughter it.

Alex,
if MS raised the price of XBlive from $49.99 a year to $74.99 a year, would it still be considered "reasonable inflation"?

Adam Chance @ Mar 3rd 2007 6:13PM

I would play UO, EQ and some more of the older games if they were like $5 a month

Charging the same price as WoW is robbery.

Mick @ Mar 3rd 2007 6:24PM

I liked this game when it first came out. I was in the open beta. Then after the first patch the game slowed WAAAAAY down on my computer. After that I just couldn't cut it anymore for those with supercomputers/connections at that time (just barely a 1mb cable line at the time, can't remember which PC I used to play it on, perhaps an athlon xp 2200).

I also loved Earth and Beyond (short term, didn't play for long), but I played in the beta, never bought the game, as I didn't have a job at the time it came out. They had a good idea, but not enough innovation.

Jdoki @ Mar 3rd 2007 6:48PM

This seems like an odd decision to me.

I played the game for a few months shortly after it released and quite enjoyed it. Few games managed to capture the sense of being part of a huge war as well as Planetside.

But things stagnated and changes were made to the detriment of the game.

A few months back I returned to check out the current state, and was pleasantly surprised by how much better it had become.

However it was painfully obvious it was a game in decline. There didn't seem to be as many people playing and the game felt horribly dated.

So a decision to increase subscription rates seems odd... Putting the price up is unlikely to draw in many new players! Playing it for free is good enough for a lot of people (with the reduced level cap etc), and if those people wanted to upgrade their accounts they would have done by now. Also there's bound to be a few people who quit the game because of the price hike.

Weird...

Bill @ Mar 3rd 2007 8:46PM

Thats so they can pay for all those free PS 3 accounts..lol

Uncle Ruckus @ Mar 3rd 2007 9:02PM

Ahh, I miss Earth and Beyond so much.

Anonymous @ Mar 3rd 2007 10:14PM

The game simply didn't run very well on the hardware that was available when it came out. I payed for the game, payed for a month of service, and when I realized that there was no getting past the insane lag (which still exists, only this time it's server side and not the fault of my 7900GT's SLI'd together) so I quit. When it went back to free 3+ years later, I tried it again and realized that the game looked horrible in comparison to new games (It had NOT aged very well) and that I couldn't stand to play anymore (not that there was anyone on the game to play with anyway).

Sony needs to let this beast die already

carg0 @ Mar 4th 2007 2:30AM

they want to keep players happy so they raise the monthly fee? you don't reward customers who've been keeping an MMO going for four years by raising prices. that's not keeping the game alive for the sake of it's fans, that's called exploiting the fan base.