I don't know...I definitely make make the most of my monthly subscription to WoW and I think that if it was a per hour charge I would be paying more than the $15 a month I do now.

on the topic of aion, i would give about anything for a beta key

How does an hourly rate mess with the account number? A player still needs an account to log into for their characters etc even if they are charged by the hour. That account is either active or inactive based on recent activity.

Sure that might be from an investment point of view, but I think that is a different kpi. I was referring to total number of 'active accounts' If activity is being logged against an account then there is a way to measure the metric.

'Active accounts' itself may have a different meaning in the Asian market, but if the entire market is based on that type of subscription model, it can be compared across the market. From a 'money brought in' perspective the implication is different, but I dont see it as a stretch to be able to present an honest global 'active account' number. I.e. even if a particular asian user has 12 accounts, if no money is generated by 7 of them, and they log into 5 of them over the course of the month... those 5 are active, though revenue generated may be much more variable.

The investor point of view is looking at money generated per active account. That measure is much easier to assess in a monthly subscription model, because of the correlation between an active account and money generated. My point is just that 'active account' is a different measure than revenue per account etc.

Oh well, i just got tripped up on the idea that its problematic to measure 'active accounts'

fang you are correct to covet a beta key for Aion. I did manage to get in the chinese open beta with the english patch but decided not to play anymore until the NA release this fall for 2 reasons. First and foremost the EULA was being broken with the english patch and I didn't want to risk buying time and then getting banned and 2nd I was only able to get a non adult account which limits the amount of play time to 5hrs a day. The time a day thing didn't bother me but honestly this game sucked me in very fast. It had a nice combination of alot of games I have played before only in one big platter. The graphics are gorgeous think lineage 2 but w/o any humped over toons running around. Music is very Final Fantasyish feeling. There are cut scenes with and with out your character ala Guild Wars some are 30sec and some are short 5sec ones. Then there is the pvp aspect which reminds me of DAOC. 2 factions fighting for controls points in the Abyss (or the middle between the 2 halves of the world) with bonuses given for caturing them. For those not into PVP they will do things which add to your contribution such as clearing a dungeon and killing a main boss may yeald a piece of PVP equiipment like a trebuchet for example which maybe your guild could use in pvp. Overall I made it to about level 15 in open beta and was thrilled to play and missing it terribly now. I would say this will be a great game for some but be ready the leveling is back to the old ways where by the time you make level 20 you feel like you accomplished something not just an afternoon of playing.

Paying by the hour is just another flavor of subscription, which means you can count me out. Oh well. This one looked interesting.

I think lobster's issue with with paying for a game that he already paid for at the cash register (steam window, internet payment site...etc).

You bought the Hellgate london lifetime subscription right? You are a crustacean of extremes...

I wouldn't mind doing an Aion catch all but the release is in the fall so I fear that the thread will get buried and forgotten by the time talking about it picks up steam close to release.

They aren't doing an open beta but apparently will be doing events like, I assume, preview weekends. Maybe when one of those is announced we can start a Aion catch all.

The other frustrating thing about Aion is the press for it here absolutely sucks. The best info on the game comes from random links in forums linked to from youtube gameplay videos. I hope beyond hope this game isn't as kiting dependent as it appears in the videos. (especially since the chanter, templar, cleric, assassin, and gladiator can't kite)

OT: That 200 hours for $18 seems like a great deal. The first month will be the month I always play the most and that's included in the purchase price. So the next month even at a heightened play rate 200 hours would still be almost 6 weeks.

$6 bucks for 60 hours would be great. I'd need to play more 2 hours a day to pay more than $6 a month, which I haven't ever done in WoW I think. I'd probably still be playing WoW if they had this.

I don't think I would ever go in for a pay by the hour system. If I'm paying by the hour, then give me an epic mount at level 1, and make those flying taxis faster. With summoning stones, warlocks etc. and just plain better quest hubs now WoW is better than it used to be, but I don't think I could stomach running back and forth between flight paths on some Fedex quest knowing I was paying by the hour and spending twenty minutes of it on autorun.

Unless it was priced so it worked out cheaper than the monthly sub, which I doubt would happen. I play 2-3 hours a day at the moment, and easily double that on a weekend.

I really like the idea of hourly MMO pricing, as long as it's reasonable of course. The main reason I don't even consider playing subscription MMOs is the monthly fee, which you have to pay regardless of how much you play in any given month. So if I pay $15 for a month and, for whatever reason, only end up playing 60 hours (which fits this comparison nicely and is a reasonably accurate example for me), I'd feel like I didn't get my money's worth considering that I already paid $50 for the initial purchase. The fact that the hours don't expire makes it that much better.

I feel that the option of hourly pricing works not only for someone who only has time to play 10-20 hr/wk, but also for the hardcore players who don't play the game as much after a few months, but don't want to cancel their subscription because they won't be playing enough to justify the $15 charge.

Just picked up my pre-order box. I'm downloading the client now.

Heh, Gamestop is so sad. I got one of the two copies they had. They were going to send them to another store. The store had absolutely zero, 0, nil, zilch, nada, goose eggs PC games.

Showing my age again but when AOL was new it hosted an early MMO called Never Winter Nights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_(AOL_game)

You got to play the game for free as an AOL member but AOL access back then was hourly. My memory fails me on the exact price I paid back then for AOL by the majority of my time was spent, gasp, playing NWN. I would easily rack up $300 a month bills playing that game.

Ah the good old days.