Since we aren’t charging a monthly subscription fee, we are to some degree building the cost of running the service into the price. So I don’t think we can charge much less than that and commit to the cost of running an MMO service. We’ve run the numbers on a lot of different business models internally and that’s the one that made the most sense to us.
So far based on our feedback (e.g. the survey we sent out after the Alpha) it doesn’t seem like the price is a huge deterrant to people who like the game. And I’d rather start with a smaller community that really likes the game and is willing to pay for it and then investigate options to expand it later on down the road if that’s something we need to do. We’ll also be doing things like running free weekends or sales after the game has been out for a bit.
Also, just to note, you have until August 18th to purchase the game here on the site for $30 if you’d like to do that. It will increase to $40 after that date.