[Luvian]

No, it's not like that for vanity items only. I know that every time I go to a shop and see a product sold for less that is commonly accepted, I'm expecting it to be of lesser quality and craftsmanship. I'm not the only one, percieved value has it's effect on every product.

I know that Asheron's Call didn't get any more subscribers because I played every day, and the number of people loged on every day didn't raise. This show that they didn't get enough new players to make a population increase.

No company want to take a risk. Also, those games take years to make. By the time they come out, they are outdated already. As far as I remember, Horizons was in development at least 2 years. WoW around that much probably too.

There has been games that allowed people to play for free for a month. Ragnarok Online is an example of that. You can download the client, or even have a cd shiped to you for free, and then you can create an account and play it for free for a month. No credit card asked, nothing. I have a friend that created an account every month and just transfered his items.

Of course being able to play for free like that created a game full of exploiters, bots and macro. People would just register a dozen accounts and have them bot 24/7.

AC and RO didn't get much from their policy. Why? Because most people get a game because they like it, not because it's cheap. They won't mind paying for it, they might even pay extra for a collector's edition if it's a game they are really interested in.

Games are a luxury. If someone can't afford 50$ or 10$ per month, he should be trying to find a better job instead of worrying over a cheap luxury item.