Well, I thought of this idea when contemplating how BYOND could make money off of memberships/subscriptions.
This is less of a gameplay mechanic idea, and more of a general concept.
Essentially, the game itself would allow people to subscribe to it for a small price. (Say $5?) After enough money is raised from subscriptions (or, after there are enough subscribers), the subscribers could then play a game, and the winner would be gifted a BYOND membership. Or alternatively, instead of a game, it could be a simple raffle, but that's not as fun, I think.
Of course, members wouldn't be allowed to participate, unless they had a certain number of days left, I suppose. (That's a useful feature!)
The subscription length would have to be the same as the gifted membership. That way, when the membership runs out, the subscription would already have ran out so that the pool of money from subscriptions never runs dry.
Also, the owner of the hub could rake in a small profit as well.
It would also need a way to automatically gift the winner a BYOND membership without the need for human intervention. (Is there currently a way to do this in DM?)
If something like this was successful, BYOND would make a lot of money from that, wouldn't they?
Does anyone think this is feasible or a good idea?
If you get enough people on board then a lesser value will bring more users and in turn more money.
Obviously you should have a limit in the sense that if you don't make the *how ever much it is for what you are offering* isn't met by the payments of other users then the game will not continue and users will be credited or refunded.
Then you have the problem of fake payments..