Why Sega is in Trouble with Phantasy Star Universe

Many of us were delighted (myself included) to learn of the upcoming week long open beta of Sega's Phantasy Star Universe for Xbox 360. I for one can't wait to try the game out. However, along with this announcement came the reveal of the GUARDIAN license. A $10 a month fee to play the game.

Here's the thing. The original PSO for DC was free to play online. With version 2, a $15 for three month pricing scheme came about with the promise of server side storage, updates, and new content. We got the storage, but updates and quests were far and few between. PSO was one of the most hacked games out there and Sega did little to fight against it. I am not condemning the game for charging on top of my Xbox Live Gold membership. Final Fantasy XI does it, and Microsoft flat out told us all other MMORPGs would too (the benefit being you only need Silver to play these games online).

I normally wouldn't have issue with the pricing structure for PSU if it weren't for a little game called Guild Wars. With Guild Wars, you get basically everything Sega is promising; constant updates, patches, server side storage, etc. Both games also operate similarly in that the only time you see large groups of people are in towns broken down into lobbies. When you and your party venture off, a seperate instance of the game world is created for you party, yet you remain connected to the larger world via in game messaging. Guild Wars does all this with no monthly fee.

I understand that Guild Wars makes most of its money on episodic releases in the form of new chapters in the Guild Wars universe. However, Sega also did virtually the same with PSO (Phantasy Star Online, Phantasy Star Online ver.2, Phantasy Star Online Epsidoe I and II, and Phantasy Star Online Episode III). And between those releases, there was hardly the level of new content present in the Guild Wars expansions. Just a few more dungeons, not entire new worlds (excepting Episode III which was a card game of sorts that I never had the oppurtunity to play).

The question we have to ask is, if Guild Wars can do all it does for free, what is Sega charging us for? Previous PSO games proved not much, and now we're paying more for this one. I'll certainly try out the beta and I'd get the game at least for the single player, but as it stands, Sega has a lot to prove to me is they want my $10 a month.