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Why don't companies do a "daily/weekly" subscription aswell?
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Member Posts: 424
So i posted about this in another thread about a month ago, and wanted to discuss it with everyone.
Sub fee mmorpgs have monthly fees, but also 3 and 6 discount subs. Sometimes even lifetime ones.
So, why don't companies ever try a 1-2 days subscription for like 50 cents- 1 dollar/euro, and something like a 10 day one for 10.
Like i said before, the reason people like F2P/B2P is because of teh freedom of choice and the psychology behind it. 13 euros isn't alot of money, but when people realize they're investing in a game for 30 whole days, it makes them uneasy.
Would offering a smaller cost for smaller time help out? Let's also not forget that 30 day subs makes it harder to return to simply try out abit of content here and there, or when there's a biggger patch.
Sure, these players may be paying less then the more profitable monthly subbers, but i believe that not offering them any choice simpyl results in lost players and money.
Finally, why not simply reward longer subscription plans with a few exclusive cosmetic items or something else, to simply make to simply make it feel like commitment to the game pays off?
Comments
They could offer a prepaid cellular type system where you pay for hourly access. Could get ugly though.
Actually I kind of like this idea. Maybe. Sell hourly access in many different increments and they expire after 30 days.
Because if they did the next post someone will post is why not a hourly based sub ... then it will be minutes .... then seconds and I wouldnt put it past someone asking for micro seconds...
Basically monthly is a good standard for a subscription.
Yeah and what if they did? Would that hinder your gaming experience? I personally would still pay the cheaper monthly sub because I like saving money. Whether someone else payed by the minute or the day that wouldn't affect my game play in the least bit. Plus they would have more freedom with their money. Explain to me how this would be bad.
Just to question the philosophy. Army of Socrates.
Do you not remember paying for internet by the hour? its a horrible system and why most services moved to a subscription or monthly billing plan.
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If i remember right , China WOW servers use hours .
It do well , players who play more (8h+/days) pay more , and casual players who play few hours/days pay less.
That would be a really tough way for a developer to determine Bandwidth and costs.What if one week there is 25% less players,then they have all that wasted server space.Then what if there is a xpac or an event weekend and they get 25% more players,open new ones or over crowd available ones,neither option is good.
There is a VERY good reason we ALWAYS see really nice HD marketing videos then the games look really bad when actually in game,these are businesses trying to maximize profits.Point is anything and everything that MIGHT cost them even a few thousand dollars more per week/month is not acceptable.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I don't keep up on foreign affairs that much but is China not in same boat as Korea where you are only allowed certain amount of hours to play online video games?That system would not benefit players if they had to pay sub fees but only allowed to play until say 11pm or so many hours a day.
I could see the system working here but the cost would never benefit players so why bother?The cost would of course be MORE expensive ,example would probably cost maybe $15 for 2 weeks instead of a month,the only benefit being if for some reason you could only play 1 week that month.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
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6 months - 77.94 - 12.99 monthly
3 months - 41.97 - 13.99 monthly
1 month - 14.99 - 14.99 monthly
1 week - 3.99 - 15.96 monthly
Daily - .99 - 29.70 monthly
It would get crazy...
I would be worried about the "free trial" system that comes with games later in life. I think TSW is kept alive by their buddy key model, essentially five days free if you seemed to enjoy the game. Three initially, and an extra two if you complete X quests. By offering a one week subscription there's a more tangible dollar figure lost, and I think it would replace the "free trial" system completely. Would you rather pay $5 for a week, or get five days free? That's an easy decision for me.
The idea of "X hours of actual play" reminds me too much of the cell phone data charge switch we already went through. I do understand the opinion that someone who plays a game for 10 hours a month shouldn't pay the same as someone who plays 100 hours. However, I think it discourages difficulty in a game. I can't even imagine this in a game like Everquest, and certainly not in a FFA PVP game where gankers could literally cost you money. Having playing time based subscriptions encourages developers to make everything fast, and further placates the "instant gratification" gamers these days seem to love so much, but has actually made gaming almost pointless for the rest of us.
- Nellus
What a horrible idea, I do not like the sound of this at all.
This idea needs to be forgotten and buried for eternity.
Thank for remind me that stupid playing hours limit law hahaha , you right.
Loktofeit was heading in this direction, but I'll spell it out more explicitly. Whenever you charge something to a credit card, credit card company takes part of the money that you spend. This is generally a flat fee per transaction plus a percentage. For large purchases, the flat fee per transaction isn't terribly significant, but for sufficiently small purchases, the credit card company might take most of the proceeds.
This is a major reason why in game item malls, they may offer items for a pro-rated $1, but they usually won't charge your credit card $1 at a time. Rather, you have to pay $5 or $10 or whatever up front on the credit card, and they give you some game currency that you can break into as many transactions as you want. This lets them only pay the credit card fee once, and allows them to keep most of what you spend rather than letting the credit card company take a large fraction of it.
If you're going to break subscription costs into a per-day thing, they'd probably have to do something similar. For example, you pay $10 up front, and then $1 of that gets used up on each day that you actually play the game.
DING DING DING... winner!
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Well as I recall in the early days of online access, (Genie, Compuserv) they charged you by the hour for your usage, but I don't recall them billing you every time you logged in. Rather they would accumulate the charge and then charge you all at once on a monthly basis. Lead to some entertaining monthly bills in the several hundred dollar ranges on occasion for some folks, but they could do the same here.
Of course, then they aren't getting the money up front for services rendered, they are billing in arrears and of course, there is a strong likelihood of getting stiffed.
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