I think everyone should remember how rarely we get to discuss these things with Stefan, and how sarcasm usually doesn't do much except make things confusing and heat up the discussion. It's best to think critically and utilize this opportunity we have to make a point.
Let me throw some information around to orient the discussion:
- Graal is for-profit. They want to make money.
- Graal is private and by law doesn't need to reveal to us how much money they are making.
- It costs money to run Graal. It isn't a small amount of money judging by the number of servers required, mentioned by Stefan.
Of course, on the other hand, it's also worth mentioning that the PC community has felt 'gypped' for a long time and there is trust lacking that when Graal charges for something, it isn't just trying to bludgeon all the money out of its customers.
Something that has always contributed to this sense of being gypped is that players often are charged for doing things which help Graal out. Such as:
- Players getting charged for rights to develop.
- Players getting charged for servers.
- Players not getting any money back for running Classic servers.
(I'm not saying any of these are necessarily right or wrong, but that they exist.)
So charging for player uploads, whether it's good or not, definitely doesn't
look or
feel good considering Graal's track record.
Many probably think:
"Who's to say that they aren't just trying to do the same dance that makes us pay to do work for them?"
Whether it's micro- or mega- transactions, the sense of being gypped won't go away if these sorts of charges exist.
The way to fix this problem is to:
- Be more transparent, and let the players know exactly how much it costs for bandwidth and storage of shields, so they don't feel robbed when they pay for one, but instead that they are holding their own weight.
- Start giving back. It makes sense that people need to pay for a server when they start out: because it's making Graal lose money. But once it goes Classic-tab, the server should not only be free (as it is), but the staff should get paid, with actual money. Developing is hard work, and no one likes being robbed for doing work. Pay a percentage of sales back to the developers (possibly based on server population).
I don't think this feeling of being gypped is a hard one to fix, it just requires some time to figure out the numbers. If that time is invested, expect a good response from the playerbase. I think this investment from Eurocenter is a reasonable thing for all the players to ask for.