30 replies to this topic

[Sandpit]

Justin Leroux, on 21 November 2013 - 04:10 PM, said:

Who can afford to purchase a whole year of premium time at once? The over-30-working-family-fathers or the under-18-i-don't-have-a-job-mummy-please-get-me-this-kiddies? And now the trick-question: who has the time to use the 1-year-premium-package? Right, it's other way round. That does not make sense. Give the working adults the possibility to buy premium in packages with a discount and use it day by day.

They do, they have fairly regular sales on premium time.

A start stop button to use indscriminately just defeats the purpose. If you bought an entire year of premium time and you could start and stop it only when you were playing that year would last most 2-3 years at least. That's just not a smart business model. Think of it like this:

In a regular P2P title, you pay $15/month to play. You can't just stop that 30 day timer any time you want. In SOME cases if you've bought a large package you might be able to contact support for that game and have it paused one-time if you have extenuating circumstances and they're feeling generous but there's no way they would let you just start and stop that time any time you wanted. That defeats the entire premise behind the models whether it be F2P or P2P

[Justin Leroux]

Sandpit, on 21 November 2013 - 04:58 PM, said:

They do, they have fairly regular sales on premium time.

A start stop button to use indscriminately just defeats the purpose. If you bought an entire year of premium time and you could start and stop it only when you were playing that year would last most 2-3 years at least. That's just not a smart business model. Think of it like this:

In a regular P2P title, you pay $15/month to play. You can't just stop that 30 day timer any time you want. In SOME cases if you've bought a large package you might be able to contact support for that game and have it paused one-time if you have extenuating circumstances and they're feeling generous but there's no way they would let you just start and stop that time any time you wanted. That defeats the entire premise behind the models whether it be F2P or P2P

Well, i think it depends on the customers if this is a smart business model or not. If i could star/stop my premium time, i would buy a bigger package for more money and PGI gets the money now and not in small pieces if at all. Simply because: if i can play it mostly is for 1 or 2 hours. If i buy 1 day of premium it's like a playing tax of 1.40$ per day i play. Without knowing in advance of the purchase if it would be worth it, because i play as a PUG exclusively and therefore does not have a great influence on the outcome of a match (i'm just out of cadet bonus with 42 games yet, so i am not that good), which means there is a not so small possibilty for losing 8 out of 10 matches, leaving me with roughly 25-35.000 CB/match. Premium would just not be worth it, so i do not buy it anymore since my cadet bonus is over. If i could buy premium time at a discount and start/stop it, the "tax" would be lower and therefore buying it would get more interesting.

Another problem i have with all these MC-purchases: i simply cannot pay only for what i want. There is no chance to spend 1$ for a colour, 1 day of premium time, consumables etc., i have to buy a MC-package first. And that is where MWO misses the whole point of micro-transactions in F2P. There simply is no chance to spend money in micro-transactions, you have to purchase a package, leaving you with MC you just do not need at this very moment. It's more of a psychological aspect, but it's an important one.

Oh, and concerning the sales of premium time: they are not useful for me because i cannot decide when to start it. So if i have no or little time to play at the moment the sale is on, it just makes no sense to buy it.

Edited by Justin Leroux, 21 November 2013 - 05:38 PM.

[Sandpit]

Justin Leroux, on 21 November 2013 - 05:36 PM, said:

Another problem i have with all these MC-purchases: i simply cannot pay only for what i want. There is no chance to spend 1$ for a colour, 1 day of premium time, consumables etc., i have to buy a MC-package first. And that is where MWO misses the whole point of micro-transactions in F2P. There simply is no chance to spend money in micro-transactions, you have to purchase a package, leaving you with MC you just do not need at this very moment. It's more of a psychological aspect, but it's an important one.

Now this I agree with. I really think they're missing the boat on micro transactions but that's neither here nor there with the cost of MC or premium time.

I understand perfectly what you're saying. I also understand WHY you want what you're asking for. I'm just explaining why, from a business point of view, it's not in their best interest. Example:

I buy 30 days of premium time.(720 hours) I start it on friday, play for 2 hours, stop it. I start it again on Sautrday, play 4 hours, stop it. Sunday I use another 4 hours.
Over that weekend I've used 10 of my 720 hours leaving me a balance of 710. Now if I only use it in that manner and don't deviate, that 30 days of premium time will actually last me over a year. That's over 12 months of premium time for the cost of a month. Would I love to have that option? Sure, everybody would. That doesn't mean it's a good idea for PGI. If they adopted a stop button like you propose a 30 day purchase for $15 gives me over a year's worth of premium time.
That's why it's not going to be implemented and, in my opinion, shouldn't be implemented.

I don't know how else to show why the way you're wanting a stop function implemented just isn't a good idea and isn't going to happen from PGI's standpoint.

You can say you'd buy more all you want but there's no need to buy more if you could stretch that 30 days into a year or more. That makes absolutely zero sense for PGI to consider. There would be absolutely no need for you to buy more. $30 for two years of premium time? I'd love it, but it would be dumb of PGI to adopt that policy

[Justin Leroux]

Perhaps you misunderstood me. I do not want a start/stop at an hourly base, a daily base would be just fine. They can make it more expensive then a straight 30-day-package, but less expensive then 30 single day purchases. Just another offer for different customer needs. It just feels like there is a gap between the quite expensive single day purchase and then unrealistic "hey, i can play for 30 straight days every day for several hours"-package.

I would also be fine with a subscription-model that gives additional bonuses in exchange for a longer-term-commitment like an away-bonus, a free or half-priced Mechbay every month etc....

[Sandpit]

I understood. A daily stop would do just what I stated in my above example. If you can start and stop it once a day the scenario I laid out is exactly that.
I start it when I begin playing Friday, then stop it that night.
Start Saturday, stop when I'm done playing
Start Sunday, stop when I'm done playing

If you meant this:
Start friday it automatically deducted a full day then that's no different than buying one day of premium at a time, but for argument's sake we'll take that scenario as well

30 days premium time with a 1 day stop
I use 3 days every weekend leaving me with 27 days after first weekend.
If I follow that pattern that means I get 10 weeks which is 2 1/2 months. Essentially I just doubled my premium time. Again it jsut makes no sense from a business standpoint to do that.

[Justin Leroux]

Attracting more paying customers is never a wrong way of doing business. They could atleast try this out and have a close watch on what is happening. If they are losing money after 2 or 3 months they can cancel it, if they make more they just go on with that.

Or try out a subscription model. There are so many ways to make a subscription interesting:
- away-bonus
- discount on Hero-Mechs und Mechs purchased with MC (which eventually would generate more sales on MC-paid Mechs)
- discount on Mechbays or even free Mechbays
- premium time with additional bonuses (perhaps 20 or 25% extra on CB and XP and additionally on LP)
- early access for new camos (again: possibly generating even more MC-purchases)
- special sales for subscribers

Make subscriptions possible for atleast 3 months, then a 6-month-sub and one for a whole year with descending prices the longer the subscription lasts. I'd pay 25$/month for 3 months, 22,50$/month for 6 months and 20$/month for a year. And this would be a fix income they can plan with, not this "hopefully this guy will spend another 250MC next weekend, too"-style of sales they have now...

[Sandpit]

you're talking an entirely different thing when you get into subscriptions. That I could see them doing but that has nothing to do with a stop button on premium time.

[Justin Leroux]

Sandpit, on 21 November 2013 - 06:56 PM, said:

you're talking an entirely different thing when you get into subscriptions. That I could see them doing but that has nothing to do with a stop button on premium time.

Not directly, true. But from a "how to attract paying customers" point of view both thoughts are not that different: sell something that has a worth for the customer and not only "buy 30, use 20, waste 10" kinda deals.

I paid for MC direct from the start. Roughly the amount a retail-game costs. Now nearly all of my MCs are spent and all i have is a Hero-Mech and a couple of days of premium to get the most out of the cadet bonus, some colours and a camo to customize my Mechs plus 2 more Mechbays to be able to master a 2nd chassis. Now i am not willing to pay anymore cash because in my opinion it's just not worth it. And to make people like me (more spare money then spare time) being willing to pay again s should be a top priority for PGI.

[Sandpit]

Justin Leroux, on 21 November 2013 - 07:41 PM, said:

I paid for MC direct from the start. Roughly the amount a retail-game costs. Now nearly all of my MCs are spent and all i have is a Hero-Mech and a couple of days of premium to get the most out of the cadet bonus, some colours and a camo to customize my Mechs plus 2 more Mechbays to be able to master a 2nd chassis. Now i am not willing to pay anymore cash because in my opinion it's just not worth it. And to make people like me (more spare money then spare time) being willing to pay again s should be a top priority for PGI.

So you got a permanent 30% c-bill boost
Custom mech
premium time
colors
camo

For roughly what you'd pay for a regular game, you got endgame content, a lifetime c-bill boost, extra mech bays, and colors and a camo to further customize them. I'd say you got what you felt was your money's worth.

I'm not arguing against the pricing on mechs. They're high in my opinion. I'm also not arguing that they should offer things in a bit different manner as far as increments of MC, lowering mech prices a bit, and offering more content. Still that has nothing to do with premium time stop/start option which was the whole point in the OP

[Justin Leroux]

Yes, we got a little offtopic. But only because this feels like a healthy discussion with an exchange of opinions where new ideas come up.

Sadly, the 30% lifetime boost does not work for me as i liked it to, just because the Dragon Slayer cannot mount an AC20 where i like the stock layout of the original Victor and i am simply to dumb to use the Gauss right...

But yes, i knew what i was paying for and i got exactly that. But after the cadet bonus the current system with premium time is, for me, not worth spending more money. I paid the price of a retail game just to get a head start and now the grind even with premium ist too slow for me, so i think i'll just stick to my Victor and play from time to time. In other words: PGI now has lost me as a paying customer. That's not good for either side.

[Sandpit]

Well what would make you want to spend money?