80 replies to this topic

[CeeKay Boques]

Rhaythe, on 20 June 2014 - 06:09 AM, said:

1) It's a fine idea, but that's not their business model. Expecting a company to change business models 2+ years after it's implemented is unreasonable.

Meh, this is computer money. Changing this model is as easy as few days of coding, this is not a production change or requiring them to comply with new environmental standards for their factory... this is probably the same coding level as adding or removing repair and rearm. Totally doable.

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4) Again, if you don't like it, don't buy it. But just because you don't want to spend money on it doesn't mean it shouldn't be made available. I'll never purchase a McLaren MP4-12C. But I'm damn glad they exist.

I've already purchased a McLaren. I'll just never drive it because I'm not allowed to get out of the car to take a piss for 30 days.

[Nightfire]

Technoviking, on 20 June 2014 - 06:00 AM, said:

Here Nightfire, I can help:

You don't get to tell PGI what to spend the money on. You only get to give it to them. We have all received, to the letter, the things for which we gave money.

So "Are you serious" is a good response, because you don't get to tell them how to allocate their accounting, you can only use their services.

Helping, not so much.
I'm not telling or even attempting to tell, PGI how they spend their revenue. To interpret what I say in the way you have can only be willful misinterpretation for the sake of arguing a strawman.

So saying "Are you serious" doesn't even come close to a good response.

[Rhaythe]

Technoviking, on 20 June 2014 - 06:15 AM, said:

Meh, this is computer money.   Changing this model is as easy as few days of coding, this is not a production change or requiring them to comply with new environmental standards for their factory... this is probably the same coding level as adding or removing repair and rearm.  Totally doable.

Code-wise, sure. Convincing their investors and stakeholders of a business change away from an already-successful model...? Good luck.

[Nightfire]

Rhaythe, on 20 June 2014 - 06:02 AM, said:

If I purchase goods or services from you, I don't get to instruct you on how to use the proceeds. How is it any different anywhere else?

Perhaps because I am not instructing, or attempting to do so, PGI on how to spend their funds?
All I am saying we don't pay to keep the servers running. That is not among the goods we are sold. The proceeds may be used for those purposes but that is not what we pay for.

How is this a difficult concept to understand?

[Rhaythe]

Nightfire, on 20 June 2014 - 06:20 AM, said:

Perhaps because I am not instructing, or attempting to do so, PGI on how to spend their funds?
All I am saying we don't pay to keep the servers running. That is not among the goods we are sold. The proceeds may be used for those purposes but that is not what we pay for.

How is this a difficult concept to understand?

Because your argument has not been presented in a clear manner. You seem to be complaining because your purchase of premium time, MC, or mech packs goes into an unidentified PGI coffer where we are blind to its use. This is business as normal. If your argument is different from this, then it needs to be restated in a clearer manner.
Especially because we DO pay to keep the lights on, just not directly...

Edited by Rhaythe, 20 June 2014 - 06:23 AM.

[NextGame]

Rhaythe, on 20 June 2014 - 06:09 AM, said:

1) It's a fine idea, but that's not their business model. Expecting a company to change business models 2+ years after it's implemented is unreasonable.

It's entirely reasonable, and it doesn't change their business model one iota. They still sell MC for real money, and then players spend this imaginary currency on other imaginary things in game.

Secondly, specifically for games, there have been frequent instances of business models changing, particularly for subscription based MMO's moving to free to play. In fact online video game business models are very fluid.

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2) Expecting businesses to sell goods and services based on what's best for the consumer is great in theory, but rarely ever seen in practice. Businesses sell based on what works for their spreadsheets. If we're lucky, it lines up with our budgets. If not, then don't buy. The free market hopefully takes care of the rest.

rhetoric

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3) Just because you don't like the benefits of the subscription doesn't mean it's not a subscription. I didn't say that it lined up with other games (even though it does in many situations). It is what it is. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

4) Again, if you don't like it, don't buy it. But just because you don't want to spend money on it doesn't mean it shouldn't be made available. I'll never purchase a McLaren MP4-12C. But I'm damn glad they exist.

Well, here's the fun thing that you obviously haven't even bothered to consider. You can buy premium time in quantities of 1 day and therefore activate it in that block of 1 day. Once again, I put to you that it is entirely reasonable to buy it in quantities of more than 1 day, but simply have the possibility of not having to activate it in an entire block, but ad hoc with a minimum value of 1 day.

You are arguing against people being able to do something that already exists in game, but want to punish them because they supported the product more? Think about that for a moment before boring us all with more hyperbole.

Edited by NextGame, 20 June 2014 - 06:32 AM.

[Rhaythe]

You don't agree. Then don't buy.

There! Done.

[Nightfire]

Rhaythe, on 20 June 2014 - 06:22 AM, said:

Because your argument has not been presented in a clear manner. You seem to be complaining because your purchase of premium time, MC, or mech packs goes into an unidentified PGI coffer where we are blind to its use. This is business as normal. If your argument is different from this, then it needs to be restated in a clearer manner.
Especially because we DO pay to keep the lights on, just not directly...

My argument is actually quite coherent.
We don't pay to keep the servers on, period. We pay for virtual goods (Premium time, mechs, etc) and that is what we are given. It ensures that PGI can meet legal obligations of supplying said goods without the legal obligations that would come with paying to keep the servers on. If we paid to keep the servers on, there would be an expectation that we would get what we paid for. If PGI could not, for whatever reason, meet that obligation then it would be a legally sticky situation with the possibility of whatever the Canadian equivalent of Chapter 11 is.

My main point that spawned that statement of pure fact, was that giving players the ability to control the activation and deactivation of play time would not necessarily lead to less Premium time being purchased. Such a deduction relies on assumptions about consumer behavior that are not in evidence or even a given.

[Rhaythe]

Nightfire, on 20 June 2014 - 06:35 AM, said:

My argument is actually quite coherent.
We don't pay to keep the servers on, period. We pay for virtual goods (Premium time, mechs, etc) and that is what we are given. It ensures that PGI can meet legal obligations of supplying said goods without the legal obligations that would come with paying to keep the servers on. If we paid to keep the servers on, there would be an expectation that we would get what we paid for. If PGI could not, for whatever reason, meet that obligation then it would be a legally sticky situation with the possibility of whatever the Canadian equivalent of Chapter 11 is.

My main point that spawned that statement of pure fact, was that giving players the ability to control the activation and deactivation of play time would not necessarily lead to less Premium time being purchased. Such a deduction relies on assumptions about consumer behavior that are not in evidence or even a given.

Beautifully put. I don't agree with your conclusion, but I agree with your entire first paragraph. It's my opinion that PGI sells more premium time as-is than they would if they allowed an on-off switch. Since the business model is what it is, however, we may never know the actual answer to that.

[NextGame]

Rhaythe, on 20 June 2014 - 06:32 AM, said:

You don't agree. Then don't buy.

There! Done.

There you go folks: Example of someone who realises their position has no legs, and are too stubborn to accept it.

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

Asked for a million times and PGI refuse to do the right thing.

[Rhaythe]

NextGame, on 20 June 2014 - 06:38 AM, said:

There you go folks: Example of someone who realises their position has no legs, and are too stubborn to accept it.

I've made my points. I believe they're valid. You've chosen to shrug them away as rhetoric. I don't have the desire to repeat them, so yup. I'm done here.

[WarHippy]

116th NorskaFresh, on 20 June 2014 - 04:43 AM, said:

Correct Rhaythe. I don't want to burn the premium time I had and the clan premium time at once.
I think the logical thing to do is have the premium time count down only when one is logged in. That way it is actually based on when you are playing.
I view it as similar to buying talk time on a mobile phone. We purchased hours in mechwarrior online not hours out of it.

But I also am not the kind of person that would pay for a subscription on a monthly basis.

Lets assume you play 3 hours a day five days a week, and 9 hours one day a week for a total of 24 hours a week. That would mean with the 90 days of premium time you got from the Clan pack(bonuses not included) you would have premium time active on your account for the next 90 weeks under your system, or in other words nearly 2 years worth of premium time. Do you really think it is a wise business plan to allow people to pay a small amount of money every 18 months to get bonuses that allow them to more easily avoid buying other things in game?

[Nightfire]

Rhaythe, on 20 June 2014 - 06:37 AM, said:

Beautifully put. I don't agree with your conclusion, but I agree with your entire first paragraph. It's my opinion that PGI sells more premium time as-is than they would if they allowed an on-off switch. Since the business model is what it is, however, we may never know the actual answer to that.

On that point we can agree to disagree. PGI would have to do some market research and I am not advocating that they SHOULD change if players could control the activation and deactivation of Premium time. My personal position is, because of their "all or nothing" approach I, personally, have on occasions not purchased Premium time when I otherwise would have. That is a failed conversion from player to revenue. It is entirely possible that there are more players who are in the same position.

Simply stating that people would buy less Premium time relies on the assumption that the revenue gained by converting more players to revenue would not be larger than the change in player behavior. You can't tell this for sure.

[HeavyRain]

You know, we could have both business models?
The hardcore, 8-hours-a-day player will use the existing model which is in essence a subscription and make the most of his investment.
The casual player could pay-per-match, say 5 dollars for 50 premium matches (these are figures i came up with after rigorous scientific research btw).
If you provide more options, you catch more categories of people in your net.

[CeeKay Boques]

Rhaythe, on 20 June 2014 - 06:37 AM, said:

Beautifully put. I don't agree with your conclusion, but I agree with your entire first paragraph. It's my opinion that PGI sells more premium time as-is than they would if they allowed an on-off switch. Since the business model is what it is, however, we may never know the actual answer to that.

This is definitely not true in my case. Their policy, for sure, gets less premium for me. I get random hours and days to myself to play, and would love to buy 1 hour to 1 day Premium. There have been times when I wanted to run a private for just a few buds.

But I can't, because I'm locked into my 170 day monster. Therefore, I don't buy, and never will use, PT until this policy which makes makes no sense changes.

which it will, inevitably. Who else uses this days on end system?

[JohnnyWayne]

I just recently contacted the support with the same question. They don't know either.

The real question is:

When I buy a product in example a 30 days subscription and I buy a second product a 7 day subscription. I should be able to activate these 2 products independently from each other. We can't and there is no reason for that.

Wo why can't I activate the products I bought independently, independently?


You can do that too with subscriptions btw, just saying. (game time cards any1?)

Just wrote a message to Niko about the same thing and suprise someone made a thread about it - lol.

Edited by JohnnyWayne, 20 June 2014 - 07:19 AM.

[Jeb]

TamCoan, on 20 June 2014 - 04:50 AM, said:

Personally I just want to be able to activate in "chunks". I'd prefer to be able to activate a week at a time. Heck even a month at a time would be worth it. The "All or nothing" activation we have now is very frustrating as anyone who gets packages have to activate their 60-90 days of time all at once.

I think any premium time you buy starts as soon as you buy it anyways, so you can buy it in shorter chunks, and even though it costs less to buy the longer chunks, if you don't play every day, you probably gain more for your money for the shorter ones...

The problem is the premium time you get as extras like the clan packs or founders packs as TamCoan mentions... It is all thrown into the same pool.
I didn't get it as one chunk of time so why do I have to use it as one chunk of time... even if it wasn't something I could pick like a week chunk to use at a time, at the very least I should be able to just use my founders time, or just use my 7 days time from the march clan purchase bonus, or my 90 days time from my clan pack...

Edited by Jeb, 20 June 2014 - 07:32 AM.

[Ghogiel]

Technoviking, on 20 June 2014 - 06:03 AM, said:

Why they complied... is a question I cannot answer.

Dunno about mektek but the MWLL situation is pretty obvious too. PGI is a client of crytek. MWLL devs employees of crytek. any non compliance would likely put not only jobs in jeopardy but just end up reflecting bad on everyone.

oh and yeah they could petition MS to revoke license then sue. Ain't nobody got time fo dat.

Edited by Ghogiel, 20 June 2014 - 07:33 AM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

I don't buy premium time because my play time is so crazy and I refuse to not buy in bulk. But if I buy in bulk, it gets wasted.

It's lost money, because a lot of people are in my situation.