Charge playtime instead of days?

[WanDaMan]

Well there should be an option, do you think anyone plays graal 24 hours a day o.O?, Well if they did that's just sad.. And if this come through (this idea) then they can calm down on graal and get a life

[Crono]

Originally posted by Mykel
Bad idea. People who play an average amount and up would be screwed.

How?

Say you play 5 hours a day. You wouldn't get "charged" 24 hours every day, just 5 hours.

[R0bin]

I assume that if this were ever made available, you would not be able to buy say 3 months of time. But with the current setup, you could stay on for 24 hours every day of that month, but since you could only probably buy 300 hours or so at once with your system, they people who are on average or above average amounts of time would get screwed AS WELL as unixmad and stefan.

[narkotic]

Let's look at the math, shall we?

Using the combination packages provided on the subscription page. A new player could spend 44 dollars and get the combined gold/vip for 12 months.

So $44.00 = 12 months.

Since we know that 12 months includes 365 days, let's divide the amount that we get by how many days we get to play.

$44.00/ 365 days = about 12 cents per day. (do the math yourself, it's a long decimal number, since we're dealing with money I rounded up).

So let's get the amount you spend per hour.

$.12 / 24 hours = 1 cent per hour. (rounded up of course)

So if we go with that subscription plan, you are basicly spending 1 cent per hour.

6 months of Gold + Classic = $.00625/hour
12 months of Gold + Classic = $.0041666666~/hour
12 Months of Gold + Classic + VIP = $.005/hour

Now you see what the actual costs are per hour from what you are currently paying. After you've thought on that, consider how much money that would need to be charged per hour to create a profit. You would not be paying $.005 $.006 or $.004 per hour under that type of pricing model. Probably not even 12 cents per hour either.

This isn't a cell phone plan guys, you're actually getting a pretty awesome deal.

[GoZelda]

Idiot! Now unixmad will highten the prizes...

[R0bin]

Volumatic sales bring down the cost of a product.

Say that stefan and unixmad's hosting cost is 200 euros a month, and 100 players each have a gold account costing them 45 to 40 euros a year. That is 4000 a year, whcih is around 300 euros a month for them, 100 euros profit.

Now lets say their hosting costs are ALOT more, say 1000 euros a month, and lets say there are 4000 users with gold or vip accounts. They need to have at least a classic account to have a vip, which means theres at the very least 40 euros per person, which is 160,000 a year, which is around 13,333 euros a month, minus stefan and unixmad's salaries, probably around 2 to 3 k a month, it still leaves them with around 7000 euros profit.

this is a very rough esitmate, and i doubt that they make that much money, but with the playerworld hosting monies added on top of that, stefan and unixmad are making ALOT of money, and a plan such as the one suggested would not kill their business.


[edit]

according to graal.us there are around 650 players logging on on average.

650 players with gold or vip coming to 44 dollars per person, 44 * 650 = 28600 a year.

28600 / 12 months = 2383 a month roughly. It may not be enough to power their tidy salaries, but it is quite enough to support a business.

[MarkB]

Hmm, this would be a good way for graal to go under. x-x

[Thallen]

Originally posted by James2k2
I'm pretty sure they want to actually make money.

It's possible to make money in a fair, reasonable way.

[ZeLpH_MyStiK]

Think of it this way...
1) Pay for days and prices stay the same
2) Pay for play time and prices rise
It would be the same either way

[xPuppetMasterx]

If this theory were ever to be executed Graal as we know it would be no more.

[Qwert616]

Not to mention, it brings up conflicts if/when they actually need to raise the price for a subscription. People would stockpile time, etc.

It is also rather taxing towards the players. Players will most likely wind up getting mad and wildly impatient.

[xManiamaNx]

My response to this idea:

LIEK TEH NU

[jake13jake]

Awful idea. Graal is already a bargain as it is. I'd question how well bugs are dealt with, but I'll still play anyways.

If you charged by time online, it would contradict what Graal (I hope) is trying to do. Graal is trying to get people to play more. The easiest way to grow popularity is to have a solid player base (preferably a solid and growing player base). If you started charging by playing time, then the players who play more often would stop playing as often because then they'd have to pay more. Players that don't play often would be better supported, but you wouldn't want to support players that don't play often because they're not part of the main player base. Promoting players to play more is the key. Most of Graal's advertising comes from the people who play a lot, and newbies are generally more likely to play when there are more people online (hence UN's popularity).

It's really complicated, but trust me when I say that it wouldn't be good for either the players or Cyberjouers.

[Ziro_Vitrudestec]

I have a good idea:
Let's get those people with classic subscriptions to stop leeching off for free. They play. They complain. They harass. They're nothing but trouble. At least make them pay a little bit since not ALL of them are so bad I guess :-/
By little bit I don't mean "Give me $1 and you can play my game FOREVER!!! RAAAAR!!!".... x.x I mean periodical payment like we do
And then fix current problems like GK....and G2k1

[WanDaMan]

Well it's a great idea but from the evidence what has been posted it's obvious that they will not go forth on this