I didn't have the best of starts with DC Universe Online. A bug meant I couldn't get past the tutorial stage for a week. Then when I finally got in last weekend, the game was still suffering from technical issues – such as broken voice comms on the PS3.
Despite this, I'm enjoying what I've seen so far. The action has an immediacy you don't often find in MMO games. Combat feels more visceral – button bashing is worryingly successful at the beginning – than other MMO games. The World of Warcraft style sense of inhabiting a huge world may be lacking at the moment, but flying around Metropolis with your friends is an undeniable thrill.
At the moment at least, I'm happy paying the £9.99 monthly subscription. But with so many MMOs now adopting the free to play model developers, Sony Online Entertainment has had to spend time defending the subscription cost.
Sony spokesman Ryan Peters told Eurogamer that the company felt the subscription cost offered good value:
We understand we're asking a lot and the equation I always give to people is that it's similar to DLC – if you were getting DLC from Red Dead Redemption every month, I'd probably sign up for that because I buy every piece of DLC they throw at me. We're trying to keep it on par with that kind of experience where it's compelling and you feel like you're getting good value.
I'm not sure I agree with the RDR comparision as it would depend on the size of the update each month. Undead Nightmare yes, new version of poker, no. Peters makes more sense when he compares PC owners who have been used to paying for MMOs and console users who haven't.
People on the console are a little more hesitant because this is a different scenario for them, whereas an established MMO person would say, 'OK, I play an MMO.' I would say two thirds of them are subscription-based and there's certainly a free-to-play marketplace out there.
Perhaps realising he has overstated the subscription model and underplayed the booming free-to-play market, Peters says:
In the PC landscape, sure free-to-play has become more and more popular, it's more competitive from an MMO standpoint. We did something kind of different with EverQuest 2 where we actually have a free-to-play server running in parallel with a paid-for service. It brought a lot of new people into the game and there's a different mentality and gameplay on that server – that works for us and is a different approach in terms of free-to-play across the board.
Still not convinced? Peters thinks you should compare the DCUO monthly cost to a movie ticket.
It's not so much a re-education process as saying, whatever price you're paying in your country, $15 in the States is a ticket to the movies and I guarantee you're going to get much more time and enjoyment out of this – especially the movie I saw last night, which was The American with George Clooney, which was awful. It was absolutely awful – 16 euros to watch it in my hotel was the worst investment. I thought, there was a month's subscription to DCUO right there, and I thought that was a better investment.
What do you think? Happy to pay for DC Universe Online? Do you think subscription games will become more common on the consoles?
