While the big uproar about BYOND membership is pretty much over, the transition wasn’t perfect, and there are still a few issues that need to be resolved.
I think that one critical mistake was made in the membership transition: taking away the pager from non-members. It’s one thing to say “BYOND as you know it will always be free” and then add some extra features later on which come at a price. However, taking away a feature that has been free of charge for the entirety of BYOND’s existence was a bad move. At first I didn’t realized that this had happened, and I was constantly defending the integration of BYOND membership to miffed users. Yet after learning about the pager issue, I am much more sympathetic to their position.
Let me be very clear: I fully support Dan, Tom and everyone else who has put time and effort into developing and/or maintaining BYOND being compensated for their hard work. They’ve done a great job, and they deserve it. I imagine that membership will barely offset the costs of the system, much less turn a profit for those who run it.
However, the idea to take away the pager from non-members was ill conceived. For most players the pager has been an important and useful feature. Not only does it offer a simple way for BYONDers to communicate- it allows them to join games and invite others to join the game that they’re in. Because of the way that BYOND is set up, being able to communicate with players in different games is integral to the experience.
Now I honestly don’t know if the pager features truly suck up a lot of bandwith/server time or whatever else… but my guess is that they don’t. I think that the pager decision was made in order to make BYOND membership look just that much more attractive to potential buyers.
In my opinion, taking away the pager is just like taking away the ability to hear the sound, host using the dream daemon, or even have your game show up in the hub at all. Any one of those features is just as important to BYOND as the pager.
The BYOND membership system should have been offered as a bonus to people who wanted extra features and functionality. Instead, the system has crippled the non-paying user and made membership a requirement for continued use of basic features.
I think that serious consideration should be given to returning some or all of the basic pager functions to non-members.
ID:2637
 Jul 29 2005, 12:42 pm
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I disagree, I believe that the cost and bandwidth of the pager system was probably great. I was constantly getting entire paragraphs from people I don't know, telling me to join some game.
I am sure they where "Send to all" messages, and where being sent to 10-100 people at a time, and I am not that well known, image some if you where one of the people the annoying, kiddish, pager spammers knew well (I am surprised this was not a problem for you). On top of that, it stopped people from using 30 keys to pager spam people they did not like. They pager ban one person, they use another key and keep doing it. I think that paying for pager use was a good idea, and the cost is not that high. $15 USD. What is that? Half a tank of gas? A weeks soda money? Lunch for 2-3 days? See, that is almost nothing. I was a kid once too, and I know that $15 is not that hard to get. I got a $5-10 dollar allowance, a week, much less than many kids. I also got $10 a week for school lunch, when it was only 8$ for lunch, so that was extra there too. So all I would have had to do is cut down on the extra fries at lunch for a few weeks, and I would have had the money. Also, I could normally find a lawn to mow for $15-20 if I needed some cash pronto. So there is no excuse. None at all. Someone was complaining because that was 30 Australian dollars. Well, normally, currency is the same, even if numbers are different. Just imagine how many yen that is. A very large number, but does that mean that a Japanies man is not going to be able to afford it? No. | |
"Beyond improving BYOND itself, we're simply not focussed on adding yet more benefit for non-members. It's a losing proposition."
I guess that I just don't see it as "adding benefits" for non-members... it would just be returning what was taken away from them. I totally agree with you when it comes to supporting the BYOND system. However, it seems like you're almost viewing non-members with a hint of disdain for free-loading. I disagree with that philosophy (if that is actually what you think). Non-members should be just as valuable as Members. The last thing that we want to do is create that sort of divide within the community. | |
I'm not worried about the cost of the system. Anyone who is motivated can scrap together $15, regardless of age.
But as we all know, when it comes to stuff online people see the word "cost" and do an about-face. From strictly a business perspective, I'd think that keeping non-members happy and not complaining about stuff like losing their pager would be much more valuable in the long run. I've offered gift memberships to several people who have flat out refused... simply on the principle of the the pager issue. Whether they're right or wrong, taking away a feature that's been free forever has ticked a lot of people off. | |
I don't think people who ar enew to the system will care. They never had it in the first place.
And for the "taking away" issue, I can see of course how that pisses people off, but I don't think it angering a few people that wouldn't spend a dime on BYOND anyways is grounds to have the rules changed. Those kind of thigns everyone just has to get used to it. The other people? They will leave, and they will be replaced. They weren't much of a loss. | |
The reason I have maintained the position of BYOND being free "always and forever" is that I don't want to discourage developers, who ultimately make the system what it is. As a developer, I certainly wouldn't want to write a program for a system that had an exclusive (or pay-per) user-base. So you have my utmost assurance that this will never happen. Even if BYOND goes under, we'll figure out a way to ensure that new users can continue to use the programs developed in DM
The pager is not, and never has been, a part of this guarantee. From a practical standpoint, it is tied into a central server run, maintained, and paid for by us. While it does accrue some server overhead and issues (such as rampant spamming), those were not central to the decision of pulling it. Rather, like you inferred, we needed extra incentives for users to subscribe. While I would prefer to introduce pay-per features rather than pulling them, it's just not practical given our timeline. Considering that 99% of the system is (and always will be) free, I don't believe this to be outrageous. Most importantly, I believe that the pay-per pager is responsible for a healthy percentage of our subscriptions, income that is absolutely necessary for this project to survive. I hope this clears things up. | |
I agree, and I think the pager isn't very important to BYOND. It definately helps community, but it really has little to do with the BYOND package. It's just nice for the frquent players to have.
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"I hope this clears things up."
Thanks for the reply Tom. Taking the timeline issue into consideration makes me view the situation in a different light. I think that my main concern over this whole issue is making sure that non-members don't feel like second class citizens. As you said, pulling features rather than introducing them is far from preferable. I still think that the pager should have been left alone. However, if you think that having the pager be members only is that beneficial, then more power to you - I'd love to see you guys turn a profit. | |
However, it seems like you're almost viewing non-members with a hint of disdain for free-loading. Nope, only the ones who freeload and then complain that they can't freeload quite as much as they could before. As Hedgemistress put it, the pager was never free. It was just costing someone else. To say that Tom should continue to shoulder the cost of the system because he always did before is silly. There's a saying in economics, "Unsustainable trends are generally not sustained." And while the cost of the pager was not a major motivator in the switch, as Tom says it was a non-core aspect of BYOND that people were willing and motivated to pay for. If we hadn't made the change, it's quite likely we wouldn't even have gotten enough memberships for to pay for bandwidth/hardware costs. So charging for the pager is a critical part of continuing BYOND. You can argue that the pager is in fact a core part of BYOND as you have, but then it's hard to explain why we have about the same number of players today as we did before the change. Those so offended by the change as to be driven off: I'm sorry, but good riddance. They will quickly be replaced by people who never got to freeload off the pager, so who see the current system as the great deal it is. The people willing to leave over it were never going to contribute to BYOND's success, and the incoming people are more likely (I believe) to become members and help out. So, welcome, incoming people! Have fun and if you enjoy the system, consider becoming a member and helping ensure its continued success! | |
Economics is not the strong point of most people's minds, let alone most children. A lot of the argument against charging for pager access seems to boil down to, "But we really want the pager. Can't you charge money for something we don't want and can live without?"
I think calling the problem with adding new features and charging for them a timeline issue is being optimistic. BYOND is so complete to begin with, it's really hard for me to think of anything that could be added to it that would grab the sort of demand the pager has, no matter how much time was available. I mean, these blogs are nifty, but considering how hard it isn't to find a good, free blogging tool on the internet, they pretty much have to be the icing. Something else has to be the meat of the deal. Mmmmm. Iced meat. | |
"You can argue that the pager is in fact a core part of BYOND as you have, but then it's hard to explain why we have about the same number of players today as we did before the change."
I don't expect people to stop using BYOND because of the lack of the pager. However, by losing the pager, non-members have taken more of a hit than I think you realize. No offense, but I don't see you as someone who spends too much time actually playing BYOND games... and so I think that you are slightly out of touch with the players who make use of the pager regularly. I just don't think that all of the new players that you're talking about will fully realize just how intuitive and useful the pager is unless they've used it. On the hand, people who have been around for awhile and have opted out of membership are now left with a fairly annoying hole in the system. Whether they're freeloading teenagers who don't understand economics or not... those are the people who make up our community, and also the people whom we're trying to sell this system to. I think that it's important to keep them happy. But hey- maybe I'm wrong, and because things aren't going to change, I hope that I am. | |
"BYOND is so complete to begin with, it's really hard for me to think of anything that could be added to it that would grab the sort of demand the pager has, no matter how much time was available."
Very true... it is definitely hard to think of something else that could be used as a selling point. One benefit I think that members should have is the ability to have automated subscriptions for their games using the paypal system (pretty much the same system used to pay for BYOND membership). That would definitely sell some memberships. | |
The pager was nothing more to me then a tool to join games and be spammed by pissed off people I had banned. Nothing more, nothing less.
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and also the people whom we're trying to sell this system to This is an important point...one focus we have is bringing in a class of player who will contribute to the system more...people we actually can sell the system to. One of my favorite sites is BoardGameGeek, a board game site that has no trouble getting lots of donations from their loyal users. Why? I believe because players of German board games, at least in the US, are by and large older and more affluent. BoardGameGeek doesn't make enough to support staff, but there are other sites that do, because they have a readership or playerbase that is willing to help support the system. Teenagers will always be an important part of BYOND, and it's great that tens of thousands of them use the system now. But almost none of them contribute. If we can pull in just a few hundred adults, we're likely to get a much more self-sustaining system. This is one reason I personally am focussing on games that I believe will appeal to such people. Fortunately for me, that means making games for people like me, so it's no hardship...:) That's a long-term effort, though. In the shorter term, we'll continue to look for ways to make more of our existing playerbase interested in membership. | |
I don't really have a problem with losing the pager, only because of the fact I didn't really use it that much in the first place.
The only thing that kind of ticked me off is when I went to join a game and it said "Accepting BYOND members". Now, the first thing that came to my mind was...wtf. The second thing was something my grandma used to say, "Honey attracts more flies than vinegar". I plan on becoming a member, and have ever since memberships came out. But this just nudged me in a way I don't like to be nudged. | |
Quote from Scoobert - "$15 USD. What is that? Half a tank of gas? A weeks soda money? Lunch for 2-3 days? See, that is almost nothing. I was a kid once too, and I know that $15 is not that hard to get. I got a $5-10 dollar allowance, a week, much less than many kids. I also got $10 a week for school lunch, when it was only 8$ for lunch, so that was extra there too. So all I would have had to do is cut down on the extra fries at lunch for a few weeks, and I would have had the money."
You was lucky! I get no allowance. I actually used to get some from my dad, but that stopped a long while ago(my parents are divorced, currently my father can't legally see me). 5-10 dollars a week would be a dream for me. =P And I get lunch free because my mom doesn't make much money. And about mowing lawns, I've never really understood that. At least around here it seems people mow their own lawns. Or something. >_> Luckily, every now and then I do get some money from my dad(usually from report cards or a holiday), or some from another relative for the same reason. He's kinda not right in the head... seems to have mood swings. Sometimes he's a bastard, sometimes he's a not-so-bad bastard. So I store that up to use on things I really need, like a BYOND membership. =P Goes to show that even people that have semi-poor families can get BYOND memberships. Well, enough of me speaking of my life, I'm getting a bit too off topic. >_> | |
You have never recieved an "STA" page before, have you Silk? =P
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"Honey attracts more flies than vinegar"
I never understood that. Why would you WANT to have flies? | |
It doesn't appear to have negatively impacted the use of BYOND, so I think the odds of this policy changing are approximately zero.
Membership is helping cover the costs of the system, but it has not yet done a whit more than that. After the initial rush of members, things are now slow.
So our efforts are going into more ways to encourage people to become members, not giving more things to people who already get a great system for free and aren't helping pay for it.
I personally have voluntarily paid money to three websites (two of which were related to podcasts I listen to all the time) just this week to help them cover costs. And what did I get for that? 2 out of the 3 times, nothing but personal satisfaction.
People who help pay for BYOND get a very nice batch of features along with their payment, and people who don't pay for BYOND get a great system that doesn't happen to have some pager features.
Beyond improving BYOND itself, we're simply not focussed on adding yet more benefit for non-members. It's a losing proposition.