Lifetime Classic

[konidias]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

with custom frontends for playerworlds so they can bring in their own subscribers, with an official newbie-friendly world/hub, a global quest), or selling new products (expansion packs for maybe $5 a pop...just because the Neverwinter people decided this or that had to be on CD rather than downloaded as a patch doesn't make it any different, Graal could sell pre-download packages and unlock Optional dungeons. Ideally even give the developers a tiny slice of the profits, and/or a discount on the next server fee).

I agree that something needs to be done about all the free labor. I don't see how Graal stays alive as well as it does. The majority of Graal is made by the players and developing on Graal can only be taken as a hobby. (since you don't get paid for it) I'm lucky enough to be able to have a lot of free time to invest into working on Graal but I'm sure other people have to worry about school and jobs and all of that...

I just don't see how any playerworld can get completed or updated often when the people working on it have to practically put in 8 hours a day worth of work and get no pay. I'm sure if these people were compensated somehow, they might not have to have a day job and could dedicate their time to Graal.

But in order to pay these people enough, Graal would have to sacrifice portions of the account upgrade profits. But I don't see this as much of a downside in the long run. If developers are getting paid for having high quality playerworlds then they will work faster and longer and bring in more players. The sheer volume of people upgrading would turn a profit for Graal. I think the whole free labor thing is getting outdated.

My suggestion is to let quality playerworlds have the option of going gold, and then having a drop down list in the account upgrade page that let's people choose their main reason for upgrading. It could be "new subscriber" "to play Graal Kingdoms" "to play Zone" "to play Gold server X"... like that. If the person picks "Gold server X" then that server would get a portion of the profit.

At $40 an account, you could give even 25% to the playerworld which is just $10 per account. So you'd still be making $30 an account still. The money given to the playerworld would be given to the manager but any staff on the server could see the total profit for each month. This way the manager could decide how to divide up the money. If the playerworld manages to make like $300 in a month (30 people upgraded to play that server), then the manager could split up that money equally to all staff or could give out different portions of it or whatever. (if the staff are unhappy about the pay they could just leave that server, so it's not really unfair)

I think this could work in the long run (if the manager is of age to be able to accept money online or whatever). It would give playerworld managers and staff a valuable goal, and give them a real reason to work harder and attract more players.

Because as of right now, all of these hard working people don't get squat... aside from the joy of having people play on their server... but joy does not pay rent. Unixmad should know this most of all.