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Subscription subsidies
Divinefairy
Member Posts: 66
I was wondering, just throwing it out there:
Say a game is released with a $15/M sub fee.
Say a bank (or group of banks) worked with a game developer such that if the player used a credit card/bank account linked with that bank (or group thereof), they would get a $1 or $2 discount per month on their sub fees, which would be paid to the game company by the bank itself in exchange for the business.
Your sub fee goes down to, say, $13.50, but the company, say Bioware, receives the full $15.
Essentially, given the assumption you were going to play the game anyway, you receive $1.50 in savings per month by using a certain bank.
Further, assume you have no convenant reason to keep your funds with any particular bank, or even further assume you only have a chequing account that is easily and costlessly transferrable
For a bit of completeness, also assume chequing accounts between banks have the same charges, or the savings from moving banks would offset any charge increase.
Poll: Would you change banks?
If not, please comment on what would be required, working with MMO billing and subscriptions, that would entice you to change banks, with the given assumptions.
Please be as creative as possible, but be realistic, educated, and business oriented. Do not try to impress people with your knowledge of economics. Everyone knows economics, you're not impressing anybody.
Thanks all.
Comments
Nothing is free where banks are concerned. If I'm paying a monthly fee for a bank account, and they're paying part of my fee to a game company, I'd rather just pay a lower bank fee.
And I have lots of serious reasons to choose one bank over another, quality of customer service and availability of branches/ATMs being two of the biggest. I'd never choose a bank on a basis like you're suggesting.
By extension then, on a $15 dollar per month threshhold, you do not care how much the bank subsidizing ,you will not change.
Does that not by extension suggest that if your fees were $15 higher, given superior branch/atm layout, you are still entrenched with your current bank?
IE. Since you feel your current bank is so competitive, you would take a $15 hike in fees and not change.
Depends on the variety of financial institutions that would be involved. If we are talking about large national banks, then I'll stick with my credit union.
I don't understand why you're trying to characterize what I said that way. It's simple math:
If a bank is subsidizing something that costs money, the bank is going to pass the cost on to me one way or another. It's much better, in my opinion, to pay a lower bank fee. It doesn't matter how much my bank is charging me.
If you are trying to set up a scenario where my overall banking cost would be lower AND my gaming fees would be lower, that's one thing, but you didn't say that.
It's not about being "entrenched". It's as simple as: My reasons for choosing business relationships will be based on business-type factors. Costs are just one criterion, and not the most important one.
Also, my relationship with banks are usually very long term. My relationships with games are short term. It would be (IMO) shortsighted to change a long lasting and successful business relationship for something I may stop using in a month or a year.
I'd have to be saving substantially more than $1.50 a month to even consider it. I mean, take those Sears cards for example. If you sign up for one when making a $200 purchase, they give you something like 20% off, right? And then, in theory, all you have to do is pay off the balance in full and then never use that card again. That's $40 right there. Despite the fact that I know I can pay off the balance immediately—I wouldn't be making the $200 purchase unless I had the money to pay for it—I'm not going to sign up for a Sears card. Incurring even the slightest risk that there's something in the fine print that I missed, or that my credit rating will be negatively affected in some small way, isn't worth $40 to me. And it definitely isn't worth the $9 that I'd save from being subscribed to an MMO for 6 months.
I would imagine that most people in that age range have been exposed to the purely malevolent nature of the credit industry - either through first or second hand dealings - and are in possession of the wisdom to not open an account with a lender for anything other than a major financial necessity, which starting a new MMO does not qualify as. Blizzard already hit on the credit card thing, and they had the foresight to target the late teens to early 20s crowd; the age range where people typically possess the freedom to make financial descisions of that nature, but have not yet learned how to avoid making a bad one. Far easier to prey on.
The problem with attempting to ensare people in their 30s into switching banks, other than the fact that many banks make it a laborious process to completely close out a customer's accounts, is that by that age, many people have started to accumulate long term financial responsibilities. It isn't like the next age range down, where all they have to worry about is a school loan that won't start to compound until after they graduate, and maybe a minor payment on a used car. Transferring debt, and getting it refinanced under a new lender, is a pain in the balls even if you manage to break even in the process. Probably what karbonista was referring to in terms of relationship with a bank.
I don't see why you have to invoke financial terrorism (that is all credit companies are, even if the tone of your rhetoric suggests some degree of brainwashing) in order to improve relations between the MMO provider and the user. If publishers are that concerned with such a relationship, they should try actually letting their developers make proper use of the feedback coming from their core fanbase. You know, instead of the popular big money method of mutating a developer's creation into something that the game's intial fanbase wants nothing to do with, and then relying on outlandish tactics to draw fans in from an outside source.
Okay, to reduce cost and hastle. Assume you are in good credit standing and have access to credit cards.
Say it's anywhere from $1 to $15 discount on your fees, would you open a credit card with the discount bank and use that card?
That would still be at odds with the first paragraph, credit ratings would really have nothing to do with it.
This isn't really such a bad idea, though I think the scope is a bit limited. How many Xbox Live users would get an "Xbox Visa" from BignamebankX if it allowed you to spend your earned reward points on Xbox Live subs or features? Same could be said for a Blizzard Visa or EA Visa with similar rewards. Would I give up my financial institution for just a discount on my sub, no, would I do it if it afforded me a plethora of benefits across multiple games and platforms, most certainly.
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which paragraph?
anyways, basically, its taking the current structure of credit cards that provide rebates every month depending on spending, but grossing it up.
A bank has a relationship wit hthe game developer to the extent that if the player pays the sub fee through the bank's card, only a given portion of the fee is payable by the player, the rest by the bank.
The service could be expanded to say, depending on how much you spend on the card, the bank will pay proportionately of your fees.
This would be a bigger rebate than current rebate scenarios, since the whole idea would be for the bank to attract new customers.
Well, I voted no.
I don't/won't pick banks on any perks they can give me regarding video games. Even if they made the game free.
I pick my bank based on availability, what type of checking and savings accounts they offer, availability of ATM's, etc.
Basically I pick the bank based on the bank.
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I'm going to pretty much echo what karbonista said.
1) Nothing is free - the bank needs to recoupe that cash so the cost is simply transferred to a fee someplace else.
2) Reasons for choosing business relationships and reasons for choosing how to spend entertainment dollars have nothing to do with each other and are based on completely separate factors.
3) Bank relationships are long-tem, MMO relationships are often 3-6 months. Changing how one manages their money based on the game they are playing this month is not normal behaviour for most people.
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I wouldn't change my bank, but I might be convinced swap credit cards if the rewards were good enough. A dollar or two a month off a sub wouldn't come close to that. Right now we are getting about $350 per year back on our cash back credit card, so it would have to have a value that would make it worth the trouble to switch cards.
It would also have to be portable to multiple games. Possibly reward points that could be redeemed for either cash or for gift cards usable at various gaming franchises. We have played three games in the past year and we are currently playing a progression server in EQ that will eventually come to an end. We would not switch cards to support our current game, knowing that in a year we would need to switch again to get more relevant rewards.
That whole thing just reeks of too much scheming. I can't see an MMO player wanting to go out and put an extra 100 dollars on a card just so they can get an additional dollar (never seen a credit card with one of these ratios that actually makes sense) taken off their monthly fee for Thingsandstuff Online.
Again, your age demo might be a factor too. An average age of 30 would also assume that a large portion of the target demographic would be able to see through the shinies attached to any offer from a bank, and cut to the important statistics: interest rates, service fees and so on. Sales features such as rebates, discounts, and the like never have any real impact on the obscenely high revenue that these societal vampires get from "customers" (read: victims), they are mostly put in place to trick the younger crowd.
ohh i like this.
This benefits both sides: A) it brings customers to bigbankX and
it provides a purchase incentive for the customer.
The other part of it is, how is the bank going to make money without cross selling.
How is the game company going to make money?
How open would a game company be to this sort of deal?
Nice idea, but forbidden by law in Europe. And even if it would be able, I won;t change bank, since I'm with the best bank in The Netherlands right now. The only one paying actually debit interest, and changing bank I'd only loose the money in interest income over what I'd gain in paying less sub ;-)
I understand the public feeling around financial institutions, but disagree on obscene revenues. It is very difficult to come out with a good credit card idea, and in fact, you may not know it, but the rebate scheme and incentives from each card are driving forces of who gets what card. Many Canadian banks do not actually have a compeititve credit card idea, with CIBC's aeroplan miles taking the show home.
It's actually difficult to make money on an individual credit card idea and have it add value.
The demographic of 30 could also be said to be financially responsible and understand that regardless of interest rate on a card, they will never pay interest, because of their responsible nature to never carry a balance.
The card would be indistinct from other cards for everything other than the rebate scheme. I like the idea of removing the sub fees only covenenant and adding to that.
It would be like Scotiabank's Scene points credit card, where as you purchase you gain points to go see free movies. Except now, it would be credits toward video game purchases and sub fees, your choice, via online banking.
Didn't know we were talking Canada here, I'm not sure how things work up in moose country, but in the US, credit companies are allowed to do everything they can to force you into falling into an interest trap. Arbitrarily changing their contractual rates being one of their biggest powers, which wiill no doubt come back into effect after this current saboteur leaves office. That makes it a far more personal, and contemplative jump for the average customer whose net worth doesn't contain more zeros than a WWII naval battle.
Even in the US, more than 40% of all borrowers pay their credit card in full each month and avoid interest payments. The banks can make enough of a profit off of the merchant fees to pay some rewards back, although obviously they don't make as much off of these accounts as the ones they can load up with fees.
The real issue to me would be if they could come up with an attractive enough package to interest some gamers when they are competing with cards that give back cash that can be spent anywhere.
Personally I think having yet another institution that knows nothing about games that has an incentive to tell developers how to develop games and than target me, because I play games, to enlist in their service and create a middle man between how and where I spend my money and the game developers is just a horrible horrible idea.
Bad for games and bad for the consumer.
Venge
Our discussion does not include game development, it does not have the banks instructing companies on how to produce their products.
As for being targetted. You are part of a group of people, those people play video games. When you are part of a group, you will be targetted. Money is to be made in this industry, it hasn't even been tapped. As the flow of money relating to the gaming industry explodes, it is important (and rewarding) for financial intermediaries to get involved and capitalize on the flows. Added ability of cross selling other products and involving the gaming community further in their finances is a fantastic idea.
The ideas are great for games since they inscend you to purchase more of them or use your money in the industry somehow, this improves the industry as a whole.
To think that a bank giving a company money, potentially a lot of money, on behalf of their customers and then saying that that bank won't try to affect the development, or that the developers would ignore the bank (a potential huge amount of income) is patently rediculous.
Therefore the discussion would include game development, banks would consider themselves part of the community and attempt to impact it, probably with much much more success than anyone on these forums.
The point is I don't want to be targeted by my financial instiution for my gaming hobby.
I don't feel that introducing yet another level of bureaucracy , another level of marketing, another level of people who don't play games, who can impact game development choices would be good for anyone other than the banks.
Venge
End of Thread.
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The problem with discussion threads is that during them the OP becomes irrelevent. We are no longer considering changing banks, but opening a credit card with one that offers a large rebate to be spent on computer games.