Forums » Suggestions

How about pre-paid system? (buying time)

«12
Feb 28, 2005 Forum Moderator link
Wow, you really DID put your money where your mouth is! I think you will be really glad you did before the year is up.
Mar 01, 2005 Renegade ++RIP++ link
still though,

if the devs have some sort of a method to take graphs and averaging and stuff. And have stored the general playtime for everybody and then average it. Like there are excessive playnumbers on both sides, filter them out.

Put the average as the number of hours used to pay 10 bucks a month. Then make a division.

Like somebody else stated, if you pay 10 bucks for 20 hours (<1 hour a day), then that means that you are paying 50 cents for an hour. In my eyes that seems ok. If people play in general 10 hours, they will only pay 5 bucks.

Now you have 2 options:

1) 10 bucks for a month and the brackets (6 months 48.99 etc...)
2) 50 cents for an hour, only able to pay for this month.

This way you satisfy your entire customersbase which reaffirms the link the devs want to have(and have, check irc) with the customersbase. Not to mention that this will be a perfect way of baiting new players to actually play beyond the trial period untill they have been sucked into the addicteveness factor of the game. And actively favour a non advertising policy. Not to mention that your company will be one of the only ones doing this, giving you another edge that you can use later on in your advertising campaign and also helps in the worth of mouth campaign. Which are both semi- low cost advertising options.

PS: I would however never choose that option since I hate being constrained in options, but it will help the people that are severely strained in time, not to mention actually have a life :D

PPS: I do however not know if this option is actual profitable on the short run, but on the long run it is. Especially if you try to make it part of the gamecard options, since it would link in to the same offer as telephonecompanies do, namely you prepay to be able to telephone x number of hours.

EDIT:

naturally the advantage of paying for a month is that you do not need to watch your playtime not to mention that you set this amount as somewhat lower then the average number that people generally play the game. EXAMPLE: Like 70% (number to your preference) of people play 25+hours, then you set the average on 20 hours for 10 bucks. Giving them the option but still retaining the fixed income on which you are depending to survive and further develop.