Maybe you are quite right. Let the niche players pay more -> but also deliver them what they want. It gives them the satisfaction of being in somewhat elevated and exclusive company! It works for many other industries, it works for cars, wine, food, and not to mention fashion.

After years of WoW and trying many other MMOs, I’m currently playing Atlantica Online, and while it has its problems, it is definitely a challenging and competitive game.
Carson´s last [type] ..Community through labour

I still hope that MMOs get not reduced to games for vegetables. Or casuals. Whatever we would like to call the huge group of gamers that are currently pandered to.

People are not that dumb. They are also not that hardcore. Gamers can learn and overcome challenges.

I am afraid it is utter disdain of the MMO designers for their gamers and a lack of ingenuity on their part. Can we really expect fun game design if the designers feel they have to design for a supposed horde of morons?

Deep and complex game design does not mean it must be inaccessible. And easy accessbility should never mean the game has to be shallow!

If we go so far to say the movement rules of various pieces in chess are unnecessarily complicated and confusing, then we are in real trouble and can forget about more engaging MMOs.

Let’s take a real world example – say a specialized book on experimental physics (or really any field of science). Have you seen what those things go for? If there were lots of people interested in them, it would pay to sell them for much less money. As it is though, the publishers need to at least recuperate their costs for creating the low amount of books that will actually be bought. If it wasn’t for the high price, these books would never be written at all.

I’m simply offering the same: I would pay more if that got me into an MMO that I actually like.

This would, by definition, not be a wow clone. It mustn’t be darkfall either because hardly anyone will pay money for a bad game. (By production standards, not even considering design decisions.)
scrusi´s last [type] ..Paying to Keep the Casuals Away

http://systemicbabble.com/videogames/misplaced-elitism-and-a-future-mmo/

It got too big for a comment box.
Andrew´s last [type] ..Misplaced elitism and a future MMO

People always talk about how WoW is “casual friendly”. The content may be, but the player base has taken up the gatekeeper duties by falling back on the attitude that your gear represents your ability. The whole e-peen culture allows the casuals to play their game, and the elitists to play THEIR game…all within the same game.

I think that your idea of doubling e fee would certainly keep people out of the game. Seriously, do you really think that 2x the current norm would be an attractive proposition, especially if it were explained that it was intended to accomplish what you propse here? They might as well just say “pay twice as much for a fraction of the community!”

Usually I hear people saying that people play MMOs for the multiplayer and community. You may not always like the community, but no player is ever 100% pigeonholed. Casual players may decide to ramp up their game, and the more involved players may decide to take it easy.

Erecting an arbitrary gate to create some kind of exclusive enclave would damn the game from day one. Yeah, these games are out to make money…they’re a product. But if there’s one thing that all developers and publishers SHOULD know at this point in the evolutiom of the genre, its’s that word is worth more then a larger monthly fee. I think your overestimate the number of players out there who would be willing to pay 2x as much for your dream experience.

Instead, developers have turned to creating niche games. Charging twice as much is a slap in the face, but creating a game that appeals more to hardcore players through mechanics is a “softer” way to target a community, and in the end, more effective. A lot of casual players won’t evenk think about going near Darkfall, for example, but I’m sure there are a lot of current players who will never go back to other games, and are happy that it’s reputation keeps weekenders away. Same with EVE. Simply making another WoW clone and then upping the monthly fee just because of the popularity of WoW (which is ironic, wouldn’t you say?) is not the answer.