Change to Upgrades

[SpeedySurfer]

Maybe the three month, but I don't think one month should get it. It's just too cheap, and the objective is to get people that are already upgraded from time to time to commit to a longer, steadier upgrade.

It's still hugely unfair.

A 1 monther pays 250% of what a 12 monther pays per month, they should get the same features.

[Winchester]

Yes, but aren't those the people that only upgrade sporadically? I think that in the longterm AE makes more money per person off those that upgrade for six months or a year over those that upgrade one month at a time, so the fact that they're spending more per month doesn't mean much, and is ultimately their choice.

[-Link-]

Its a business, either buy bulk or pay allot for one, why do you think you can buy a case of 12 cans of soda for 5 or 1 for a buck?

personally tho, i dont think there should be a disparity between upgrades. they should all provide database access

[Spamhead]

Maybe the three month, but I don't think one month should get it. It's just too cheap, and the objective is to get people that are already upgraded from time to time to commit to a longer, steadier upgrade.

It's still hugely unfair.

A 1 monther pays 250% of what a 12 monther pays per month, they should get the same features.

It's important to encourage people to buy in bulk.

[SpeedySurfer]

Maybe the three month, but I don't think one month should get it. It's just too cheap, and the objective is to get people that are already upgraded from time to time to commit to a longer, steadier upgrade.

It's still hugely unfair.

A 1 monther pays 250% of what a 12 monther pays per month, they should get the same features.

It's important to encourage people to buy in bulk.

Then the upgrade needs to provide more use late game.

Also, if you want to encourage people in buying longer upgrades, remove the 1 month.

[Narth Vader]

Also, if you want to encourage people in buying longer upgrades, remove the 1 month.

The major question then becomes "What effect will this do?"
As it stands you have X players donating for the $1 month upgrades and Y players donating for 12 months. If you get rid of the 1 month upgrade, what percentage of X players will become Y players? In most markets, people really don't buy in bulk (when it's cheaper to do so) because often money isn't the issue, or they can't be bothered to. So it would truly help this thread to find what percentage of X buy either sporadically or buy only because they can't afford a year long upgrade. Whatever remains of X after that is the greatest possible amount of people who will join Y.

Personally, I don't see removing the 1 month as beneficial, because that will alienate AE's customers and ultimately cut down their income.

Adding an extra benefit besides saving money will more likely increase the demand for 1 year upgrades, but I'm not sure how I feel about offering special privileges to the year long upgraded.

What about the idea (and I didn't backtrack through the entire thread or the DB thread to investigate this) of adding a separate fee to access the DB? Free and 1 month upgraded users can buy access for $X, and 12 month upgrades gain access to the DB for free?

[Winchester]

Also, if you want to encourage people in buying longer upgrades, remove the 1 month.

The major question then becomes "What effect will this do?"
As it stands you have X players donating for the $1 month upgrades and Y players donating for 12 months. If you get rid of the 1 month upgrade, what percentage of X players will become Y players? In most markets, people really don't buy in bulk (when it's cheaper to do so) because often money isn't the issue, or they can't be bothered to. So it would truly help this thread to find what percentage of X buy either sporadically or buy only because they can't afford a year long upgrade. Whatever remains of X after that is the greatest possible amount of people who will join Y.

Personally, I don't see removing the 1 month as beneficial, because that will alienate AE's customers and ultimately cut down their income.

People use one month upgrades as gifts, prizes for contests, to help friends, etc - I obviously don't have the actual data, nor do I expect Xaman to release it, but I'm quite confident that removing one month upgrades would absolutely hurt AE. However, the main point for me is that by only giving limited functionality to one month upgrades, you encourage people to buy longer upgrades. Although it's cheaper in the long run for the player, it's a more reliable form of income for AE, as a chicken in the pot is worth two in the hand, or however that saying goes.

Adding an extra benefit besides saving money will more likely increase the demand for 1 year upgrades, but I'm not sure how I feel about offering special privileges to the year long upgraded.

There aren't special privileges to the year-long upgrade. My current formulation is unlimited functionality to the 6mo and 12mo upgrades, and I'm willing to extend that to the 3mo upgrade, as well. You don't have to commit for an entire year to get that benefit - only longer than one month.

What about the idea (and I didn't backtrack through the entire thread or the DB thread to investigate this) of adding a separate fee to access the DB? Free and 1 month upgraded users can buy access for $X, and 12 month upgrades gain access to the DB for free?

You can already buy a la carte unlimited DB access in 6mo and 12mo blocks in my original idea; I'd be willing to add 3mo blocks to that, but not 1mo.

[JokeySmurf]

3 or more servers seems a more reasonable aspect then 5 or more servers.

i bet there are way more players that only have 3-4 server accounts, then players who have 4-5.

total players around 44 thousand.

players with only 1-2 server accounts: 10 thousand most likely.

3-4 server accounts: 15-20k

4-5 server accounts: 5-10k

6+: around 5k.

could one of the mods/admin please give an actually amount to this? ikari i know you can do it.

[Spamhead]

3 or more servers seems a more reasonable aspect then 5 or more servers.

i bet there are way more players that only have 3-4 server accounts, then players who have 4-5.

total players around 44 thousand.

players with only 1-2 server accounts: 10 thousand most likely.

3-4 server accounts: 15-20k

4-5 server accounts: 5-10k

6+: around 5k.

could one of the mods/admin please give an actually amount to this? ikari i know you can do it.

I doubt you'd be able to get any particularly accurate data without a survey. People often use multiple IPs and email addresses for different accounts, so it's difficult to work out how many accounts belong to each person.

[Ikari]

Lets also remember there is possible abuse of multiple players claiming to be the same person and using a shared email to get a good discount.

[JokeySmurf]

ok, i can see that but i willing to say its close to those numbers still.

i asked 50 ppl who i know play, and i didnt ask them there ingame names or which accounts they play just how many servers they play and then made a educated estimation.

1-2 servers: 11
3-4: 22
5-6: 13
7+: 4

of course this means my estimation is not 100% proof, which is why i asked if definite numbers could be shared, as i was sure that ikari or xaman or wizard would have such numbers.

but if my estimation is correct, would it not seem more plausible and reasonable that it should still be 3 servers and up instead of 5 for the start of the discount?

or even better if you are willing start it off with 3 servers and for accounts that go on to have 4 servers get a little better discount then ones with 3, and ones with 5 have a little better discounts then ones with 4 and so on?

i believe if you did that you would be inviting more players to play at least that one more server then they normally play, because the discount would be like an incentive to try playing AE just that little bit more, which in turn would be a bonus to AE's coffers.

thats my thought on this. i generally like rib's op overall. i think its a great idea.

[Hellion]

Lets also remember there is possible abuse of multiple players claiming to be the same person and using a shared email to get a good discount.

I think thats going a bit far though. Sadly I dont doubt at least 1 group will do it still but at the same time it does add security problems that if said group gets angry at each other at all it could lead to many of them losing their accounts via someone destroying it. All one would have to do is request password and it would be sent to that same email that I am guessing a few of them may have access to.

So I dont think it would be very widely used tbh but I dont doubt someone will think to do it

[Winchester]

Question, Ikari:

Do you know if the plans for linked accounts will involve a single password for the entire system? Seeing as how it will link server accounts and one's forum account into a single entity, this seems reasonable, and would suggest that it is significantly harder to cheat your way into a discount. Likewise, you could require that all of the accounts use the same range of IP addresses to qualify; if you have one account logging in from California every day and another from New York, something is suspicious.

[Ikari]

The security implications are being considered about passwords and the global account. We've not decided yet ^^

[striker]

I think it should apply to all upgrades. Sure the 6-12 month upgrades bring in more money for AE (per player), but they have access to the database for 6-12 months, so since month upgrades cost more on average a bigger profit would actually be made from encouraging budget-type people to buy atleast the month upgrade.

Only other way I would agree to this is if..
AE got their own gaming cards in stores (2 ways to get that)
Surveys. As much as a rip off they almost always are, I would happily slave away if I had no other options