Game time suggestion

[TheBlender]

So, I don't know if this has been something already discussed or not, but I haven't seen it anywhere or on other MMOs for the most part. 

 

So this is more or less a suggestion/idea from people who have really inconsistent schedules or important things to do on the fly. Whether they may be firefighters, military, essential police somewhere there are few, and etc. 

 

The idea is simple. Have game-time actually mean game-time. Or maybe the better term is play-time for some people. What I mean by this is that you only use your game-time while actually playing the game. To me it seems like a simple idea that would help a lot of people out who suddenly have something to do, or just a big change to their schedule for the week /month. So they don't lose what they actually paid for. 

 

Maybe that person is a soldier who just finds out that he is getting deployed in a few days, right after he/she has purchased/redeemed a DAC. (yes I've personally been in this situation with game time before). Or maybe it's just some Joe who buys 30 days but only plays for a week of actual time due to emergency calls. Why should their "game clocks"  still be ticking if they aren't playing? I know it's not much of a technological stretch to keep track of the hours people play. I know that there are others who would like to support these essential personnel. I know that many knows that it's the big corporations that just want more people's money. 

 

What do you guys have to say? You guys think that it's absolutely impossible to pay monthly bills/expenses this way? To me it seems like a simple question of the amount of players, daily revenue, and average play time. I mean sure tons of people could suddenly stop playing and throw a basic matter of equations off, but couldn't that happen in any payment system? 

[Megaddd]

This, while a great suggestion, does not work if the skill training will tick in real-world time when you are offline.

[FD3242]

1 minute ago, Megaddd said:

This, while a great suggestion, does not work if the skill training will tick in real-world time when you are offline.

Not to mention this would massively decrease there revenue.

[TheBlender]

Why can't the skills tick real time while what you pay for tick when you actually play? 

 

How would this be unfair to the company if the players would of had access to that amount of time if they could have been  online 24/7? 

[Haunty]

I don't think it's necessary and very few people would find it useful. I mean it's only $10-$15 for unlimited time for 1 month. If real life happens and I can't play for half a month, I'll eat that cost. Just like I would with my Internet, Netflix, electricity etc. bills. And in those rare cases maybe you can just contact NQ support and ask if they can suspend the account and give you pro-rated refund, I think that would make more sense than complicating the whole pay model.

[TheBlender]

31 minutes ago, Haunty said:

I don't think it's necessary and very few people would find it useful. I mean it's only $10-$15 for unlimited time for 1 month. If real life happens and I can't play for half a month, I'll eat that cost. Just like I would with my Internet, Netflix, electricity etc. bills. And in those rare cases maybe you can just contact NQ support and ask if they can suspend the account and give you pro-rated refund, I think that would make more sense than complicating the whole pay model.

I'm sorry, but you pay for access to electricity and utilities or what you actually use? 

 

I think it's a very simple concept, that ensures that everyone gets 100% of what they pay for. It's not changing the pay model at all, it's just adding the function 

 

"+tick when online" 

[Shockeray]

While this system may work for some games, the devs have already said several times that it isn't how the payment plan is going to work in DU and there was a really large discussion just last week (I think) on the forums about a very similar alternate payment method. (You may find the arguments interesting, it wasn't really my thing., too much drama mixed in.)

[Haunty]

4 minutes ago, TheBlender said:

I'm sorry, but you pay for access to electricity and utilities or what you actually use?

Both, there's a minimum access charge.

[TheBlender]

12 minutes ago, Haunty said:

Both, there's a minimum access charge.

True, but I don't think the few dollars or so counts in the big picture. Of what we're speaking of. 

 

14 minutes ago, Shockeray said:

While this system may work for some games, the devs have already said several times that it isn't how the payment plan is going to work in DU and there was a really large discussion just last week (I think) on the forums about a very similar alternate payment method. (You may find the arguments interesting, it wasn't really my thing., too much drama mixed in.)

Ok, thanks for the heads up. I'll see if I can find that

[Haunty]

37 minutes ago, TheBlender said:

True, but I don't think the few dollars or so counts in the big picture. Of what we're speaking of.

You're just going around the point I made without mentioning my other 2 examples, which was that I have to pay by month, so yes it does count. And my minimum electricity charge is $40 (3-4 times a DU sub).

[Stoat]

42 minutes ago, TheBlender said:

True, but I don't think the few dollars or so counts in the big picture. Of what we're speaking of. 

 

Ok, thanks for the heads up. I'll see if I can find that

 

 

I think you can find that discussion here! Novaquark Monetization.

[TheBlender]

49 minutes ago, Haunty said:

You're just going around the point I made without mentioning my other 2 examples, which was that I have to pay by month, so yes it does count. And my minimum electricity charge is $40 (3-4 times a DU sub).

The other two weren't necessary, as they were still the targets of what I was speaking of. Providing examples of others that does A isn't an argument against or for doing A. 

 

The United States should execute people 

 

Why though? 

 

Because China and Saudi Arabia does... 

 

 I think that you should pay for what you use, I'm sorry if you feel that is... too unfair? And if you pay a 40 service fee for electric, I honestly hope that you can find a better provider. 

 

52 minutes ago, Stoat said:

 

 

I think you can find that discussion here! Novaquark Monetization.

 

Thanks stoat 

[Lethys]

Your constructs (bases, ships, ...) stay in the game 24/7. As your skills need to be stored and tracked 24/7. 

We had this discussion already in several posts over the years

[TheBlender]

33 minutes ago, Lethys said:

Your constructs (bases, ships, ...) stay in the game 24/7. As your skills need to be stored and tracked 24/7. 

We had this discussion already in several posts over the years

Ok, so your things in the game  are still using service at some level, even if it's server space. 

 

I can accept this response, it's a reasonable argument. 

[yamisniper]

1 hour ago, TheBlender said:

Ok, so your things in the game  are still using service at some level, even if it's server space. 

 

I can accept this response, it's a reasonable argument. 

plus a your skills skill up weather your offline or online as long as you have a sub going

[Megaddd]

The simple answer to this question, is that servers need to be paid for regardless of  whether they're processing lots of player data, or not.

[LurkNautili]

Maybe they can investigate alternate payment systems in the future once they have statistics on how much people play on average, and offer an alternative to those who play less than said average at a price that's somewhat higher than the average hourly rate the people paying a monthly fee effectively pay per hour of game time...

 

I could have worded that a bit more clearly.

 

Anyway, I doubt they'll try anything like that until a while after launch, once they've reached a comfortable level of financial security and can afford to experiment with that sort of thing. There should be an hourly rate that would wind up creating more profit for them by being worth while to a niche market who only play a few hours per month or whatever and wouldn't have otherwise bought the game.

 

Perhaps this conversation should be had again once the game has launched, although it's reasonable to sow seeds for such thoughts to gestate until a time when they're a bit more relevant.

[Anaximander]

@TheBlender

 

Hey OP, go tell your landlord "I want rent to mean rent, so I want to pay only for the hours I am at home, also, I want to pay only the utilities bill I am using".

Go ahead, do it, they will probably laugh at your face.

And then, even if the landlord agreed to your "fair" proposal, they'd have to provide bonuses to the people who pay FULL rent (being there or not), like "since you pay ful lrent, here, have unlimited water usage per day". 

This is where people would say "omg landlord, it's unfair, you give unlimited water access to people who pay full rent!!11 OMG, this rent system is broken and a scam!!111 Whatif I want to take a long bath? Will I have to drink the bath water to quench my thirst?!?!!".

Now replace "unlimited water usage" with skill training total time (full month for full subscriptions) and "utility bills" with server maintenance costs, and people whining about the unlimited skill training with people who like free stuff, when subscriptions are just 33 cents a day. 33 cents... a DAY. And that's not on bulk subscription.

Did this allegory make you feel awkward? Good, it was meant to do that.

 

Cheers.

[LurkNautili]

That's a false analogy, though, since the landlord can't rent the apartment to anyone else during the time the tenant is away, whereas NQ's business model is entirely different (the goods that are being exchanged are intangible and hard to quantify -- what you're paying for isn't just your "share" of the server costs, you pay more than what it costs them to host your avatar and communicate with your PC over the internet, since you're paying for your access to the game which is an abstraction of the work they put into the developing it, etc.).

 

Ultimately it's more about whether it's a reasonable business decision for NQ or not. I.e. whether they can increase their profits by providing an alternate payment plan, and it's basically a mathematical optimization problem. Like I said, this is something they can only really consider once they have data to work with.

[mrjacobean]

2 minutes ago, LurkNautili said:

Ultimately it's more about whether it's a reasonable business decision for NQ or not.

Short answer: It isn't.

 

Long answer: The simpler the payment plan, the less people will be like 'OMG, this is too complicated to understand, I leave'. The aim isn't more players, it is consistent players. The pressure that you are burning game time whilst offline makes you want to play more so you aren't wasting it.

[Magz]

@TheBlender

Whilst it seems like a good idea and dont get me wrong it would be great for those exact sorts of scenarios that you mentioned up top. I have to agree with the majority here, it would be a lot more practical for people to just ask NQ for some sort of refund or a credit that carries on to the next month or when ever you wanted to use said 'credit'.

Servers still cost a monthly/annual subscription fee and someone has to pay for that.

Maybe one day when/if NQ make their own Server farm, then costs may decrease or they may be able to implement a similar system to what your suggesting.

Until then i just dont see it being practical

[LurkNautili]

The aim is more revenue, since NQ is a business.

 

If having an alternate payment plan captures a wider audience of customers who otherwise would have not purchased the game, it's worth it for them to do it. This is assuming that they're pricing it based on statistics on average hours per month or something like that, such that if people on the right left side of the bell-curve for whom it would be more affordable were to move to the alternate plan, it would increase the revenue for NQ rather than reduce it.

 

As for the argument that having two plans would be too "confusing" for people and that would have a significant impact on player count, I think you're vastly over-estimating that. People aren't that dumb, and even the ones who are have spent their entire life making financial decisions like that. Determining whether paying per hour or paying per month is cheaper for them isn't the herculean task you make it out to be.

[Anaximander]

@LurkNautili

 

The DAC system is their more revenue. There will always be people who want to buy from Gold Farmers, NQ might as well do what it can to be the one to benefit from such thing AND the people who play the game as well, instead of a dude in Finland who runs 15 bot accounts on his private server and just farms money in-game and sells it, with NJQ seeing no income and having to hammer down on said bot farmers.

The DAC system solves the revenue issue. If EVE has 300K subscribers and is healthy with the PLEX system. NQ can do so uch more with the range of playstyles it has - unlike EVE. 

The OP's idea of a "Fair" sub system is the same old regurgitated topic which eventually ,only benefits gold farmers if it's implemented, cause DACs have no meaning afterwards.

 

Feel free to argue over dry ink, NQ won't such a stupid business move.

[LurkNautili]

I'm not even sure where to start parsing that series of malformed sentences, non sequiturs and straw men disguised as a forum post.

 

You seem to be implying that a pay-as-you-go type model would somehow result in gold farmers providing access to the game for free to people or something... I'm not quite sure. You're confusing two distinct topics here by bringing up in-game currency. The only people who can produce DACs are NQ, therefore they get revenue for them being produced. The gold farmers, regardless of how they pay for their access to the game, still have to pay for their access. The quanta that they farm can be exchanged for e.g. RL currency (illegal), or DACs in game, but once again, that will only affect the DAC to quanta exchange rate, the price of DAC (in €/£/$) and the revenue NQ gets from them won't be affected by any of that.

[NanoDot]

Services like Netflix use the flat-rate per month (subscription) model. You don't pay for what you watch, you pay for the ability to watch.

 

It works because the total volume of subscriber revenue is sufficient to cover costs and generate a profit. Some heavy users will get a bargain, while others that only watch 1 movie a month will get less value. But the sub is cheap enough to be attractive for the average user, because there's cross-subsidization taking place.

 

"Pay-per-view" services are generally far more expensive on a per-hour basis than those that charge a flat monthly fee.

 

"Pay-per-view" also increases the administration costs for the company. Detailed logs have to be kept for each customer, and the inevitable disputes over usage has to be handled by additional CS rep's.