Quote:
Originally Posted by Mist  You can pirate MMO clients. You will never, ever get the same game experience that paying customers receive, unlike when you pirate something such as Call of Duty 4. |
Well I see something here that validates Ruben's point. What is the majority of fund being spent on after servers? Customer service.
What's so special about the customer service? CS does things like get you out of bugs that immobolize you and argue with you on bad credit card transactons.
No, I believe the major factor that private servers can't compete is that private servers won't do content updates. Without those updates customers wouldn't see as much continual value. Also I never used private servers, but I doubt they are willing to support as many player simultaneously as companies do.
But all that content updates for MMOs are essentially the same ensuring that the overwhelming majority of mmos are turned into clones of each other.