Discount Open Games

[swiftus27]

Sami,

Speaking from a business standpoint, it makes sense. 
From a player standpoint, it makes sense.

Lower the cost of open games and maybe you will see the population go back up.

Many of us have been sitting for over a month without a game waiting.  I would love to play a game but 10 tokens for 29 days is stupid.

[Filippo]

Yes, it would make sense.

If maybe, after 50% of the game has passed, you pay 5 credits instead of 10. I think that this would higher the number of players and even if they pay half to join, there would be many more players, resulting in more profit for AWS.

Like the price management. If you lower the prices maybe more people start to fly with you so even if the prices are lower, you make more profit because more people flew with you.

[Sami]

The basic game price is already so low that this is really not possible. Mainly as if user makes a purchase of let's say 5 Credits at a time thru PayPal the amount of fees that we need to pay from that are huge compared to a larger purchase (ie. from that small purchase they take over 30% commission, as it's a percentage and a fixed sum) - and that's simply not good for us. Naturally if users bought larger packs at once it would be no problem but usually the purchase is for the single game credits at once.

I've given some thought to a "pay as you play" model where a monthly fee would be charged from your AWS Credits account but there are some issues with that too. This would also perhaps enable longer game worlds (depending how large they grow .. I mean if a game runs for 50 years, will it exceed the design limits for number of routes and planes, and so on - putting the server on its knees).

[swiftus27]

Sami I said this before about long games.

Drop the number of airports by limiting the number of airports. 

You then will have fewer flights and need fewer players. 

The airlines can then have much more competition over the many fewer routes that are available to them. 

As of now, there are just so many airports that so many different airlines can profit due to the inability to have hubs. 

This will free up the server load incredibly. 

[T8KE0FF]

Maybe if we bought 'Game Bundles' were we buy say, 50 credits and then game's will only cost say 8 credits each?

[Kontio]

Maybe if we bought 'Game Bundles' were we buy say, 50 credits and then game's will only cost say 8 credits each?

If you buy 50 credits in a bundle that is already cheaper than, say, buying 5 x 10 credits. So basically that is already implemented.

As for the topic of this thread, as sami said the game is already very inexpensive. Many online games will cost in the region of 10 euros per month whereas this game is 4 euros for a game that lasts several months. Not that many months if you happen to join late in the game but still it's not that expensive.

[slannoy]

50 Credit (18 €) it's less than a PlayStation game (and not an expensive one) and you can play for months with 50 Credits... How long did you played with your last PS, Nintendo or XBOX games

[FatMikel]

Sami, what are the fees like on credits bought just with a card and not through PayPal?

[swiftus27]

I have nothing but respect for Sami, but I think that answer was a tad of a cop out.

From a business perspective this is simple.

Here is how I would do it:
1.  Make games 5 points after they reach the 65% completion mark.
2.  Make all points non refundable.  (You don't get any back if you quit).

Even if Paypal takes 30%, 70% of something is better than 100% of nothing.  The goal here, ultimately, is to make money for him.   

[Sigma]

On the surface, I would be inclined to think it is a good idea also swiftus, but only Sami knows just how many people register now as the game winds down, so only he would have a good barometer for whether the net result would be better or worse for him.  If he doesn't think it would significantly improve, then that's not much of a cop-out at all.  And it would have to significantly improve for there to be a net benefit to him.

Because, you see, he's not getting "100% of nothing" now.  Surely there are at least some people that are registering to play now even as a game winds down.  I've in fact noticed that JA1 hits its low point in airlines more than a week ago and has been climbing by a small amount since then.  So there's surely at least some measure of turnover going on.

He's also not making "70%" under your situation either -- he's making 70% of 50% if he cuts his rates in half.  -- so he really selling the game for, roughly, 3 credits when he used to sell it for, roughly, 9 credits (gotta take some, lesser, fees off the 10c buy too).  Now the question is, would at least 3 to 4 TIMES the people register for a game after the 65% mark if it was half the price?

When I think about it in those terms I'm not so sure.  The price of a game now is so, frankly, insanely cheap that I don't think there's a fairly substantial number of people sitting around for 2, 3, 4 weeks mulling spending USD$3.  Undoubtedly there's some, but I find it hard to believe that Sami would get 4 times the people registering in the latter months if it was half-price.

[jamboy2378]

In Jamaican dollars the game is costing $1,246.20 per go. But it's still the cheapest, most addictive, and best game online. The only way it could possibly be better is if there were some other things (better alliance features, longer games, more games, less people per game, crashes, etc...) added.

All-in-all Sami and the other developers have created a wonderful game.

[Sami]

In Jamaican dollars the game is costing $1,246.20 per go.

500 J $ .. http://www.google.fi/search?hl=fi&q=4+eur+to+jamaican+dollars&btnG=Google-haku&meta=&aq=f&oq=4+eur+to+jamaican+dolla

[swiftus27]

^^^ hahahahahaha