WildStar: Costs and fee plans

 

In its August 19th post, The Business (Model) of WildStar, the WildStar team revealed it will be necessary to buy the game. As of yet, there’s no indication of the cost. In the same entry, they also revealed their subscription fee model. If you want to play WildStar on an on-going basis, you have two options:

1. A monthly subscription fee

As yet, the fee has not been announced. As $14.99 is a bit steep given all the MMO competition, these days, expect the monthly fee to be more in the range of $9.99. That’s just a manylaughs wild-ass guess, but $14.99 seems to chase people away.

2. C.R.E.D.D.

C.R.E.D.D. is a commodity you can buy and sell on WildStar’s commodity exchange. You use in-game gold to buy C.R.E.D.D. which will give you 30 days of game time.

If you’re really good at making gold, this option will work really well for you. You might want to stock up on C.R.E.D.D. early, if possible: As more and more gold enters the game, the price of C.R.E.D.D. will inevitably rise.

Having these two options available is a nice alternative to the free-to-play option that’s recently become prevalent. Cash stores work, that seems clear, but it also seems clear that with few exceptions, such as Guild Wars 2, most free-to-play games aren’t of the same caliber as those that start their lives at subscription games. And even GW2 required an upfront game purchase.

However, by charging for the game and requiring a subscription, if you’re no good at making money, WildStar is setting expectations high. The game had better be good at launch. It can’t be beta junk like many F2P games are at launch. If WildStar is beta junk, this pricing model will doom it within 3 months.