Quote:
Originally Posted by Bell
We bought our accounts and for the most part never paid for Graal again. Only those that played the gold servers ever bothered to pay. Some of us bought a few accounts so we could have alternate identities or bought one for a friend but still, never paid again. After a few years those accounts were handed down to others. Sometimes several others. Those people never paid either. Now people are buying said accounts for USD outside of Graal so they can have a classic account. Once again, Graal receives nothing for this transaction and in many MANY cases the owner is actually selling his account to several people but then claiming the account was stolen and getting it returned to him since he is the one able to prove ownership.
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S&S's decision to remove purchasing of lifetime Classic hasn't really solved the problem though, if anything it's made newer players even more desperate to obtain these accounts, and more profitable for that small minority of account sellers.
A less punishing solution to the problem would be to provide a price and format which is affordable and worth purchasing to a higher number of potential players.
I can think of 3 different ways they can go about this:
- Make lifetime Classic subscription purchasable again.
- Reduce the price of Gold.
- Bring back temporary Classic subscription at a lower price than Gold.
(There is a notable exception concerning the idea of "free to play", but it seems fairly clear to me there's a big misunderstanding as to what this term actually means)
Sadly I suspect a movement will be made to eradicate lifetime accounts completely, this would solve this particular problem, but with everything else staying as it is, would also heighten the severity of another one: lack of talented developers and reliable server staff. Considering this is still a player made game, there would definitely be an indirect financial impact over time.