Why should I continue a subscription?

With all the free to play games, what keeps me subscribed to a game?

I was wondering that today as I looked over my email and saw that one of my Eve Online accounts was due for a resubscription. With fewer and fewer games retaining a subscription payment model, why do I continue to pay for some of them?

WoW

I think the main reason to keep resubing to WoW is my guild. Without the people, I wouldn't be subscribed, and even with them, it is a tenuous thing as my guild has expanded to many games.

The expansions bring good content which is a plus, and I usually prefer the long term subscriptions because they average cheaper than a month at a time. For the most part, though, I could see myself stopping my WoW subscription after I get through the WoD content, but for now I want to get my new Druid up to max level and play through the new content.

Wurm online

This game doesn't require a subscription, but you can get higher level skills that enable horse riding and better building and such. You actually get something for the subscription even though you don't need one. You also can own and control a deed which for me is a pretty big draw to the game.

Eve Online

I think Eve has a pretty good plan for keeping people subscribing. First of all they offer the option of earning money in game that can be used to pay for game time. I think this is a good plan to get people to participate in various activities in game. Need money to subscribe you can do station trading, faction warfare, anomalies, planetary interaction, ratting, and even simple mining. Or you can pay cash. Secondarily, there is a reason to stay subscribed. Even if you are doing nothing actively in game, you can be gaining skills – and skills can take a long time to develop. Learning to fly a carrier – it can take a year.

Wildstar, Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy

Subscribe while giving it a try, maybe a run to max level, but I am not aware of a compelling reason to subscribe long term.

Rift, LOTRO, SWtOR, Guild Wars 2

The free to play modes let you do almost everything so subscription is not a must now.

Basically, I can see myself staying subscribed to WoW while WoD is still new, but games like Eve and Wurm provide motivation without even adding new content – I'll stick with them long term.

This is post 23 in my Blaugust Challenge.

#Blaugust #Eve #Wurm #WoW