Tom wrote:
Perhaps we can come up with a way where players can kick-in smaller amounts to keep a hub "alive". I'd like to point to forum post 729834 As mentioned in the topic, you apparently liked the idea of this, and so did Lummy. Could this be integrated into the new system (in terms of Members, and for hubs too) | |
@Tom: You're not asking too much. If anything, you should ask more for a hub. Hubs are a very valuable thing to offer for so little. At $24 a year, that's $2 a month.
Good luck finding a semi-popular website with a community that would allow your game to be prominently displayed in multiple areas on a site for only $2 a month. You're already being plenty generous, there is no need to go lower. I feel like you take the complaints about the price as if they were coming from people that are dead-on serious about developing games, and when they complain to you about the price you take it as though what you're doing is outrageous because "look at all these people complaining about it." The people that are complaining aren't dead-on serious about developing games, some of them don't even have a single game released and they're still willing to complain about a price increase because that's what people do. If these people were serious about developing games they would flat out support your decisions because by increasing the price it cuts out the crap that could otherwise deter your possible player-base from discovering your game, just because getting a hub is no longer everyone's luxury. $24 a year is not too much to pay. | |
Tom wrote:
Is it really that much? I mean, we could do shorter amounts like a 6-month for $15 or something. Having a cheaper fee is a good idea for the simple reason: you will make more money. For example, people who would never buy a membership for a whole year might consider buying one for a month. That means, someone who wouldn't have given you money before, now will. There's absolutely no way you can lose in that case. The argument against that is, someone with the intent to buy a membership will pay the cheapest price, regardless of what you set it as, because either way they want a membership. In that case, it is in your best interest to force people to pay for an entire year. This argument sounds logical and valid. However, Psychology will tell you that it's better to have a monthly option. A suggested price for a monthly fee was $3. Over a span of a year, if someone paid only for monthly memberships, that's a total of $36 they'd be paying per year. You'd be earning more per year, since your yearly membership is $24. But, I think you could easily raise the price to $5 for a monthly, and people will still buy it since it's the cheapest option. In that case, a monthly spender will be paying you $60 per year. That's more than double what someone would pay normally. Just reasoning through it, a lot of people would pay $5, simply because they would easily be willing to part with $5. Spending $15 or $24 takes more of a commitment and investment. Especially, if the user wasn't planning on making a year-long investment. In many cases, you'd lose a buyer if you didn't have a cheaper, short-term option. Of course, you'll always get the clever people who will do the Math and realize that they are wasting their money if they pay month-to-month. But, a lot of people won't realize, and/or won't care, because $3 or $5 per month just doesn't seem like a lot. You'll also have those people who are afraid they won't be able to commit to an entire year, so they will pay month-to-month, even if it costs more. (Psychology.) Another issue brought up here is the fact that your memberships will now mostly appeal to developers, which is closing yourself off to your biggest market: non-developers, that is, players. A big way you can make money off of users of your site (dev or non-dev) is by selling aesthetic things. You have already sold this before: the avatar and the customizable site/blog, plus the ability to remove ads. Something you can do to appeal to the non-developers is by making a casual membership which costs less, but enables them to get the aesthetic features. If they wanted the developer features, such as being able to make a hub, they'd have to upgrade to full membership (pro membership -- it's been done to death) with another small fee. This might complicate your guys' work (handling different kinds of membership), but you would make more money this way. (By gaining more customers.) TL;DR: Having (expensive in the long-run) short-term fees will net you more money due to the way Psychology is. And, to get money from regular players, you can make a cheaper casual membership. With keen business sense, you won't have to continue eating Top Ramen for dinner. You don't have to feel like you are simply taking money from people like an evil corporation. In the end, even if you are taking more money from one person, it benefits BYOND, which will benefit everyone. | |
I wouldn't recommend anything under 6-month memberships. I think anybody that wants one is going to buy one.
If month-to-month is provided, you lose the "contract" of longer memberships. You might get more people buying memberships, but you'll make less money because you have to convince them to buy it again in a month rather than a year. If somebody plans on having a membership for a year, they're not going to go with monthly, as it's obviously more expensive and anybody who passed elementary math could see that. With monthly memberships, most people will purchase a month, do what they need to do to hubs that month, then not renew until they need the benefits again, which would most likely be at least a few months later. Not to mention there would be a ton more small transactions that can get charged back. However, I do like the idea of two different membership types. One more for developers and one more for gamers. The developers one being more expensive and including the gamer benefits also. The gamer membership could let them have the cosmetic stuff memberships give now, the extra benefits in some games, the ability to hide ads, and whatever else you can think of. The developer membership would allow the creation/editing of hubs, the ability to get the code for a Flash client for the game to embed around the web, and whatever else comes up. With all that said, I'd like to bring up the "charge wallet" thing. Money to be made there. | |
Aaiko wrote:
I wouldn't recommend anything under 6-month memberships. I think anybody that wants one is going to buy one. Well, that assumes everyone is willing to pay that much. It comes down to whether people will pay or not. Some people might see the larger price and never buy ever. Some people might see the low price and figure, "why not?" You'll get more money from people who come to BYOND shortly and then leave. Because, they far outnumber anyone else. If somebody plans on having a membership for a year, they're not going to go with monthly, as it's obviously more expensive and anybody who passed elementary math could see that. That's true. It's just that most people won't plan that far ahead. Plus, not including that payment option just because you think people won't use it is wrong. There are people who will use it! You have to realize the largest user-base on BYOND right now is a bunch of teenagers. If they can get away with paying $5 instead of $24, they probably will. (And they won't plan very far ahead.) | |
@Complex Robot: I don't much appreciate your jabbings about teenagers being like that.
Most teenagers are like that. ;) | |
Oasiscircle wrote:
@Complex Robot: I don't much appreciate your jabbings about teenagers being like that. Okay, sorry. I'm mostly talking about people who this would apply to... Not trying to make stereotypes or anything. (Or am I?) | |
Complex Robot wrote:
You'll get more money from people who come to BYOND shortly and then leave. Because, they far outnumber anyone else. More people will purchase at least a month, yes. Be it to try it out or just because they have $5 to spare, but the odds of them purchasing another month drastically decrease as more months pass. Not to mention the people who would otherwise purchase the year would only purchase a month whenever they need to change a hub or whatever. So while nobody can know for sure which method would make more money (although I personally believe the longer memberships would), 6-months and more is a safe bet. You have to realize the largest user-base on BYOND right now is a bunch of teenagers. If they can get away with paying $5 instead of $24, they probably will. (And they won't plan very far ahead.) You're completely right. Why pay $24 when you can pay $5 only the months you need the benefits. That's less money for BYOND, though. The entire thing is completely debatable, which is why I think 6-months is a good middle ground. | |
Aaiko wrote:
You're completely right. Why pay $24 when you can pay $5 only the months you need the benefits. That's less money for BYOND, though. Really? If they only paid for 5 months out of the year, that's already $25. More than if they did it the other way. | |
Complex Robot wrote:
Really? If they only paid for 5 months out of the year, that's already $25. More than if they did it the other way. You'd have to be a moron to pay $25 for 5 months when you get a year for $24. I'd only need to purchase a membership twice a year to do what I needed to do with hubs. If I didn't want to willingly support BYOND, they'd make $10 instead of $24 a year from me (even though $5 a month is outrageous and I don't think they'd charge that much for a month if they did add it). | |
I think the main thing is coming up with a fair feature set that a decent percentage of users will pay for, or even partially pay for. For example, if we had a system where fans of a game could kick in a few "tokens" (or dollars) to keep the game "alive" on the hub (forums, live reporting, and so forth), maybe they could effectively cover the membership costs. One thing I had in mind a while ago was making it so that anyone who buys a membership gets a few of these tokens that they could then contribute to their favorite games for this kind of thing. Then they'd be listed on the game hub as supporters or what-not.
I feel like we have enough users where we can make this work, if we can make the experience affordable and straightforward. The key is not to balance between free and paid-for functionality-- if there are no hubs at all, then the whole system is useless. | |
Aaiko wrote:
You'd have to be a moron to pay $25 for 5 months when you get a year for $24. Well, you've met a teenager before, right? Heh, just kidding. ;) Most of this works off the assumption that they wouldn't realize they were paying more. I'd only need to purchase a membership twice a year to do what I needed to do with hubs. If I didn't want to willingly support BYOND, they'd make $10 instead of $24 a year from me Well, that's you, in particular. I think if most people were fervently working on a game, they would touch their hub more than twice a year. (even though $5 a month is outrageous and I don't think they'd charge that much for a month if they did add it). Well, $5 was just for the sake of argument. Changing all of these numbers to make the most money is part of the challenge of the business. It also doesn't have to be an exact whole number. For example, it's common practice to be right beneath a whole number to make a price seem cheaper. (i.e., $4.99 instead of $5.) And it can be 3 months, 6 months, 1 month, or even 1 week, whatever. The point of it is to take advantage of the weakness of the human mind, its inability to plan ahead and inherent need for instant gratification. | |
@Tom: Whatever you can do to make memberships more worth buying is awesome.
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Tom wrote:
I think the main thing is coming up with a fair feature set that a decent percentage of users will pay for, or even partially pay for. For example, if we had a system where fans of a game could kick in a few "tokens" (or dollars) to keep the game "alive" on the hub (forums, live reporting, and so forth), maybe they could effectively cover the membership costs. One thing I had in mind a while ago was making it so that anyone who buys a membership gets a few of these tokens that they could then contribute to their favorite games for this kind of thing. Then they'd be listed on the game hub as supporters or what-not. I'd like the token idea if it was purchasable BYOND currency and maybe members get some "bonus tokens" they could spend in games (and then the developers could use that money to renew the hub or also not eat Top Ramen). I'm not so sure about the begging for a membership to keep the hub alive thing, though. | |
I completely support BYOND memberships being necessary for hub creation, however, there are definitely concerns.
Firstly, Oasiscircle wrote: Good luck finding a semi-popular website with a community that would allow your game to be prominently displayed in multiple areas on a site for only $2 a month. As far as I can tell, there are popular sites that don't require you to pay. Armor Games and Kongregate both don't seem to charge for promotion. I'm not sure about Kongregate, but Armor Games even sponsors (see link) a few quality flash game and pays a few thousand dollars. If we had even one of these for a few hundred dollars, I'm sure there would be numerous submissions. More quality games leads to more players leads to more revenue. Secondly, the majority of the BYOND community are not developers. Given it's name, I think that the original idea behind BYOND was focused on being a developer community. It seems that you justified recent decisions because you still focus on being a development site. Currently, there really aren't enough quality active games to really consider BYOND being a developer site. Obviously the tools are there, but they aren't being properly utilized. It's been proven it can be done, and people can make money, but there needs to be more than one or two polished games. I think new developers won't stay if they don't quickly see they can make money. Since BYOND depends more on players for income, I don't think raising the membership prices will bring in extra revenue. Fewer player-only members will end up buying them. Blogs were the only useful player-only incentive. Now, if you're not a developer you won't have a reason to buy one. People don't tend to donate money for the sake of donating money. People will pay for something if they deem it's worth paying for it. As for other incentives, the pager may be getting an overhaul, but the typical ways of instant communication are still more efficient. I'm not sure if it's feasible, but if the pager could hook into a messenger client, that could be an incentive. I also agree with Complex Robot. Multiple options should exist for purchase. I've also taken numerous Psychology classes and it's far more advantageous for a seller to offer a product at a cheaper starting price for a small period of time. It's easier to justify spending 9 dollars every 3 months, instead of 24 dollars for a year. It's easy to trick the human consciousness. My last suggestion, it's also been mentioned numerous times throughout the years: It won't hurt to find someone who actually specializes in business. There are people who study these trends and online markets. Someone unbiased, with no preconceived notions who tells you exactly what to change to generate money. | |
@Kalzar: That's due to the fact that Armor Games and Kongregate both run ads. Tom is against running ads on the site, and so being able to pay games to be on the site is out the window.
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Kalzar wrote:
As far as I can tell, there are popular sites that don't require you to pay. Armor Games and Kongregate both don't seem to charge ... Not only do they not charge you, they pay you to put your game up on their site. Which is why they have so many games, and thus, so many players. Once the Flash client is up on BYOND, we'll be paying for the hub and helping BYOND make money through ads and memberships and a cut of subs (soon to be an even bigger cut), while doing all the developing, hosting the games (paying for 99% of the costs), and do all the promoting outside of BYOND. Other services like BYOND (game engine aside) are so successful because they help the developers make money, while taking a cut. They probably don't make more money than all the developers put together (maybe they do, I don't know), but they do make more money than a lot of the developers and all they have to do is run a website. Now I understand that BYOND also has a game engine to support, but, there has to be a line to how much BYOND takes from the developers, or the developers are going to get scared off (including me). I've sort of went off topic here. I'd just like to point out that I am in favor of the website changes and membership changes, but, I am not in favor of a bigger sub cut. I don't like the fact that the developers will be putting 99% of the cost into a Flash game on the hub and get nothing back (unless they have subs, in which they have even more work to do to convince people to purchase them and price them high enough to actually make money after all the cuts and fees). | |
For micro transactions like a subscription at $3 a month. The new system works really well.
Current system $3-($3 * 10%)-$1 = $1.70 gross $3.00 net $1.70 New system $3-($3 * 30%)=$2.10 gross $3.00 net $2.10 With macro transactions the new system would have a shallow slope of lost profit. But that would just encourage micro purchases in games instead of macro. | |
KetchupKid wrote:
Current system $3-($3 * 10%)-$1 = $1.70 Current system $15-($15 * 10%)-$1 = $12.50 New system $15-($15 * 30%) = 10.50 Current system $50-($50 * 10%)-$1 = $44 New system $50-($50 * 30%) = $35 I would never do monthly subs for any of my games. And $3 a month for a sub that only costs $15 a year would be crazy. I don't know of any current BYOND game that is worth $36 a year. I think the current system works well. It makes sure at least $1 is made and takes 10% extra. Which probably averages out to about 20% already (for the average smaller transactions), but doesn't take massive cuts from larger transactions. You have to remember that when you take your money out of BYOND, PayPal takes another 4% or something. Then if you make over $600 a year, the government wants a decent percentage as well. 30% quickly turns into 50% overall taken from you. You're also left with majority of the costs. | |
Is it really that much? I mean, we could do shorter amounts like a 6-month for $15 or something. Perhaps we can come up with a way where players can kick-in smaller amounts to keep a hub "alive".
In a traditional commerce scheme, the supplier sells something of value. This being the Internet, we did not go that route and gave away our commodity of value while selling something that is largely a fringe benefit. Now we are attempting to sell something that is still not essential, but at least somewhat valuable (for some of the reasons you mentioned). We provide the tools for someone to make a game for free, and all we are really asking is a small amount to help advertise it (along with a plethora of other convenient features).
I would love to give everything away for free but this project simply needs to make money to survive. I really don't think we're asking so much here.