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werothegreat

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Payment models
« on: June 14, 2015, 10:42:28 pm »
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A few people have expressed the opinion that Goko's, and now MF's, payment model just doesn't really work for Dominion.  What do you think it should be?
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #1 on: June 14, 2015, 10:49:24 pm »
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Well, for a version that actually works, if we could get that without changing anything then why do so? If the issue is that at the end of the day the reason the program has some shortcomings is that there just isn't enough revenue then a subscription service would probably work better.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #2 on: June 14, 2015, 10:57:35 pm »
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Do you mean "which model would you prefer", or "which model would better serve MF"? Those are very different questions.
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werothegreat

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Re: Payment models
« Reply #3 on: June 14, 2015, 11:06:39 pm »
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Do you mean "which model would you prefer", or "which model would better serve MF"? Those are very different questions.

Bear in mind that a model that doesn't suit MF very well is going to be a model that runs all hope of a working Dominion Online into the ground, in all likelihood.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #4 on: June 14, 2015, 11:18:38 pm »
+3

Geez, more private polls!

Anyway, I prefer a model where you pay once for each expansion and you pay monthly. The caveat there is that the monthly cost should be cheap. I'm talking $1 per month. The expansions should also be no costlier than they were under Goko.
« Last Edit: June 14, 2015, 11:21:00 pm by LastFootnote »
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werothegreat

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Re: Payment models
« Reply #5 on: June 14, 2015, 11:42:33 pm »
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Geez, more private polls!

Anyway, I prefer a model where you pay once for each expansion and you pay monthly. The caveat there is that the monthly cost should be cheap. I'm talking $1 per month. The expansions should also be no costlier than they were under Goko.

How is this private?  There is literally a button that says "view results".  Unless you mean a poll that lets you see who voted for what, in which case, that's not something I'm ever going to do, ever.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #6 on: June 14, 2015, 11:58:08 pm »
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MF wants to attract more casual players and I don't see a subscription-based model being friendly to that.
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Triumph44

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Re: Payment models
« Reply #7 on: June 15, 2015, 12:15:37 am »
+3

MF wants to attract more casual players and I don't see a subscription-based model being friendly to that.

Sure it is.  What if you have to pay after playing 100 games per 6 months, or something like that?   Leaves plenty of room for weekend players to get in a game with friends (or strangers, or bots), but if you're going to play a lot, you're going to have to cough up some $.  The model MF has been running under only makes sense if you think Dominion is a fad and people will get bored and the game will die off.  I don't think it's a fad - I think it's a half-step below the Great Games (Chess, Poker, Go, etc.) in terms of perceived simplicity but actual complexity, with enough variation to make gameplay enjoyable even after several thousand games.  I won't always be as passionate about the game as I am now, and I've had some lulls in my passion since finding it in early 2013, but it's a game I anticipate playing for the rest of my life.  I don't expect I'll get much resistance to that idea around here.  They should be making a site that is both welcoming to the new gamer while recognizing that this game has a loyal fanbase willing to pay for a site that honors the game.     
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jaketheyak

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Re: Payment models
« Reply #8 on: June 15, 2015, 12:24:53 am »
+5

I think the problem with any kind of subscription model is that it's very hard to avoid an expectation of new content.
The issue is that there comes a point at which you have paid more than you would have paid if there was instead a single up-front cost.

Okay, if they charge only $1/month you don't reach that point for about 4 years (based on current prices).
However, if the current model isn't sustainable, charging nothing up front and only $1/month is not going to save it.

So, instead I'm paying, say, $3 a month to play Dominion online.
In a little over a year I have paid more than I would have paid if I had just bought all the cards up front.
Except I don't get anything more for my money because Donald X. isn't spending his day coming up with new cards.

At what point do you think I become angry that I have to make a recurring payment just to keep playing a game that has no new content on any foreseeable horizon?
Is it after I have paid $50?
$100?
When do I decide that my money is better spent on new games or on a subscription game that actually brings out new content on a regular basis?

Honestly, the best way to improve revenue is to get the game working and then get it up on Steam for $20.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #9 on: June 15, 2015, 12:53:48 am »
+2

I think the problem with any kind of subscription model is that it's very hard to avoid an expectation of new content.
The issue is that there comes a point at which you have paid more than you would have paid if there was instead a single up-front cost.

Okay, if they charge only $1/month you don't reach that point for about 4 years (based on current prices).
However, if the current model isn't sustainable, charging nothing up front and only $1/month is not going to save it.

So, instead I'm paying, say, $3 a month to play Dominion online.
In a little over a year I have paid more than I would have paid if I had just bought all the cards up front.
Except I don't get anything more for my money because Donald X. isn't spending his day coming up with new cards.

At what point do you think I become angry that I have to make a recurring payment just to keep playing a game that has no new content on any foreseeable horizon?
Is it after I have paid $50?
$100?
When do I decide that my money is better spent on new games or on a subscription game that actually brings out new content on a regular basis?

Honestly, the best way to improve revenue is to get the game working and then get it up on Steam for $20.

You get the ability to play the game online.  If you don't play it, then go ahead and cancel, because again, under my theoretical model, you're still permitted to play X number of games over Y period of time without paying.  I'm also not saying they should abandon the present model of paying for expansions, as I think this is also a fine idea (I think I really enjoyed ramping up the sets slowly, purchasing only the ones I or friends had purchased IRL, until we got them all - the notion of paying a lump sum and getting 8-9 expansions out of the gate just seems nuts to me).  Regardless, they should just leave the prices for those as is (or make it lower) and add this in as well.  Doubling the prices for the game seems like a bad idea, but who knows, lots of things I think are bad ideas work.

I have to confess I don't really know much about the economics of online games or things of this nature, but it just doesn't seem to make sense that the only time you pay is when you pay for the sets and then that's it, for the rest of your life, even though they're running servers and sussing out bugs and whatnot.  Your post implies, given the model you've laid out, that this is like any other game, you play it for a while, and then you stop, probably, and you move on to something else.  I just don't think of this game that way.

(I must note that this may just be Stockholm Syndrome based on the unbearably awful Goko site, that I pray that my captors fare well)
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #10 on: June 15, 2015, 01:59:28 am »
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under my theoretical model, you're still permitted to play X number of games over Y period of time without paying

I didn't really examine your model that closely, but if you only pay once you reach a certain capped number of games most casual gamers will simply stop playing when they reach that cap.
There is something quite off-putting about a model that was free yesterday, free today, then oops... you're over an arbitrary cap and now we want you to pay.
Even though it can be quite generous and you are getting a lot for nothing, it really feels like you're being tricked or swindled into paying for something that, until that point, you were used to getting for free.

Quote
I have to confess I don't really know much about the economics of online games or things of this nature, but it just doesn't seem to make sense that the only time you pay is when you pay for the sets and then that's it, for the rest of your life, even though they're running servers and sussing out bugs and whatnot.  Your post implies, given the model you've laid out, that this is like any other game, you play it for a while, and then you stop, probably, and you move on to something else.  I just don't think of this game that way.

Well, the issue is that whilst it isn't like buying a single-player game, it's not anything like buying an MMO either.

Have a look at the list of all the multiplayer games available on Steam.
Apart from any MMOs, how many require you to pay a monthly subscription?
What do you think would happen to the player base if Blizzard announced that you have to start paying a monthly subscription to continue playing Star Craft 2 online?

People have been willing to pay monthly subscriptions for games like WoW largely because there is an understanding that server costs are high, but also because new content is released on an ongoing basis.
Server costs for an online card game should be relatively low (especially once they sort out using local storage for game artifacts) and, like I said, new content is going to be pretty damn scarce for Dominion.
And, ultimately, fewer and fewer people are willing to pay monthly fees for even games like WoW as, for better or worse, more and more of these games move to a F2P model.

Quote
Doubling the prices for the game seems like a bad idea, but who knows, lots of things I think are bad ideas work.

The current lowest price for all the expansions is $45.
So, putting it on Steam for $20 is not doubling the price.

My point is that if they can get the game out to a larger audience via Steam, they can charge a fraction of what they currently charge and still make a lot more money.
But the game needs to work first.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #11 on: June 15, 2015, 03:23:18 am »
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Like jaketheyak says, a subscription model simply wouldn't generate much revenue at prices people say they would pay. Imagine if a subscription really did cost $1 per month. Then a player would need to subscribe for 90 months (7 and a half years!) to equal the price of buying all expansions (if they indeed cost $90 total now).

If the Dominion Online client quality weren't crap, I think Goko could have got away with charging a lot more than they did. There's a lot of content among all the expansions. $200+ would not be crazy for everything. Compare to Hearthstone, which costs more than that if you want everything, and although that game has more cards (566 collectible cards vs Dominion's 236 kingdom cards), a lot of them are uninteresting, so subjectively Dominion may actually have more content. Hearthstone definitely has higher production values though, which makes it feel like it should cost more, but my uninformed guess is that the bling (voice acting, good animations, etc.) actually doesn't add all that much onto the game production cost.

Kinda interesting to imagine a parallel universe where Dominion got a Hearthstone-level computer treatment, with the higher price that goes along with that. Maybe there's still an opportunity there for someone to do a computer-native deckbuilder at that price point.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #12 on: June 15, 2015, 06:18:34 am »
+2

Like jaketheyak says, a subscription model simply wouldn't generate much revenue at prices people say they would pay. Imagine if a subscription really did cost $1 per month. Then a player would need to subscribe for 90 months (7 and a half years!) to equal the price of buying all expansions (if they indeed cost $90 total now).

Actually, I don't this statement is true. $1 seems like less than $90 to most people and if they get 10X people to subscribe rather than buy expansions then they have actually made more money than just selling the sets for $90. A subscription service would work if you can get a good amount of people to sign up. $90 is a huge deterrent for a lot of people. Your average PS4 game costs $60 and that has better graphics, and well everything pretty much.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #13 on: June 15, 2015, 06:34:40 am »
+2

I think the current payment model would be fine IF they had a fully completed product before asking for money. After all, what they have is exactly the same as IRL Dominion, which works fine. The difference is that IRL Dominion was feature complete and bug free before it went on sale. Here the problem is that people are paying for something that they hope will improve over time. And that doesn't work because then they've already got your money, so no incentive to improve. So I say use the current model, but make it free (call it beta, beta should be free anyway!) until the program is actually fully complete, so people aren't paying now for something they hope to have someday.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #14 on: June 15, 2015, 07:16:22 am »
+3

I think they should most certainly keep the base game completely free. People tend to lose interest in stuff as soon as they have to pay for it, even if it's just $1/month or something. Instead, they could have ads at least for the base-only players, but possibly for everyone else as well — not during the game because that would be annoying, but people wouldn't mind them too much in the lobby and while the game is loading. I mean, we would complain for sure, but it wouldn't stop anyone from playing. And the game does seem to have a lot of non-paying players, so that would be a pretty good way of profiting from them.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2015, 07:17:33 am by Awaclus »
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #15 on: June 15, 2015, 07:18:21 am »
+1

Why not both? $10 a month to play all the expansions, or $90 to buy all the expansions. Let people try out the "full" game without having to fork over so much money, *and* let people own the game without a recurring monthly fee. Who loses here?
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #16 on: June 15, 2015, 07:58:32 am »
+4

Also, I think they could start having tournaments with entry fees and rewards for the best performing players. For example, it costs 20 Gokoins (because I forgot what the new currency was called) to enter a 8-player tournament, winner gets 100 Gokoins and second place gets 50 Gokoins or something like that — so that some Gokoins are removed from the system with every tournament and the rewards are appealing enough for the winners. There should be some incentive for people who already have all of the expansions to enter these tournaments as well; maybe just more stuff (i.e. stuff that looks cool but doesn't actually do anything) being purchasable with Gokoins, or maybe they could come up with something else if that doesn't seem to be enough.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #17 on: June 15, 2015, 08:27:59 am »
+2

Why not both? $10 a month to play all the expansions, or $90 to buy all the expansions. Let people try out the "full" game without having to fork over so much money, *and* let people own the game without a recurring monthly fee. Who loses here?

I love Dominion, but I will not pay $10 per month to play it online. I'll just play it IRL when I get the chance. $10 is what you might pay for access to a whole slew of games, and even then I'd balk.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #18 on: June 15, 2015, 09:04:56 am »
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under my theoretical model, you're still permitted to play X number of games over Y period of time without paying

I didn't really examine your model that closely, but if you only pay once you reach a certain capped number of games most casual gamers will simply stop playing when they reach that cap.
There is something quite off-putting about a model that was free yesterday, free today, then oops... you're over an arbitrary cap and now we want you to pay.

This is the model that Candy Crush and similar games use.  CC alone rakes in something like a million bucks a day.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #19 on: June 15, 2015, 02:39:42 pm »
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Addressing 2 points made above: 

A:  I think the ideal model is where you have to buy the expansions (for the prices they were at before the Beta or possibly lower than that) and also have to pay a nominal yearly fee once you reach a certain games played threshold.  This keeps the active players funding the site.

B:  I imagine Blizzard already has servers devoted to their MMOs and can just use that infrastructure for StarCraft, so there's less cost associated with running servers for SC because they already have to run them for other stuff.  StarCraft is like Dominion in that it's a game that has taken on a very competitive life of its own, and to take that away for a cash grab would be sort of silly.  The thing is that Blizzard makes other games that they can promote this way through StarCraft.  I don't think MakingFun does.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #20 on: June 15, 2015, 04:04:52 pm »
+2

Do you mean "which model would you prefer", or "which model would better serve MF"? Those are very different questions.

Bear in mind that a model that doesn't suit MF very well is going to be a model that runs all hope of a working Dominion Online into the ground, in all likelihood.
Based on the available data, it's not a stretch to think all hope is already lost, as it regards MF anyway.
I hold out hope that a contract will expire, or something else will occur to trigger a mechanism that gives Jay a chance to license it to somebody else, and we are able to convince Doug that he should change his mind.  His system works.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #21 on: June 15, 2015, 05:52:56 pm »
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I think they should most certainly keep the base game completely free. People tend to lose interest in stuff as soon as they have to pay for it, even if it's just $1/month or something. Instead, they could have ads at least for the base-only players, but possibly for everyone else as well — not during the game because that would be annoying, but people wouldn't mind them too much in the lobby and while the game is loading. I mean, we would complain for sure, but it wouldn't stop anyone from playing. And the game does seem to have a lot of non-paying players, so that would be a pretty good way of profiting from them.

Yeah you need a way to tap into the player base that doesn't pay anything.  I own all the sets (physical and online) but it should be pretty easy to get a game with someone who owns all the sets if you yourself don't.  Maybe add a feature that you can only be matched with players owning the same sets you do or something...so if you don't buy in, you're literally just playing base only games.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #22 on: June 15, 2015, 06:10:00 pm »
0

I think they should most certainly keep the base game completely free. People tend to lose interest in stuff as soon as they have to pay for it, even if it's just $1/month or something. Instead, they could have ads at least for the base-only players, but possibly for everyone else as well — not during the game because that would be annoying, but people wouldn't mind them too much in the lobby and while the game is loading. I mean, we would complain for sure, but it wouldn't stop anyone from playing. And the game does seem to have a lot of non-paying players, so that would be a pretty good way of profiting from them.

Yeah you need a way to tap into the player base that doesn't pay anything.  I own all the sets (physical and online) but it should be pretty easy to get a game with someone who owns all the sets if you yourself don't.  Maybe add a feature that you can only be matched with players owning the same sets you do or something...so if you don't buy in, you're literally just playing base only games.

I think Goko was right to allow people to match up with players who don't own all the sets, because A:  this is how real life works, you don't have to own a copy of Dominion: Intrigue to play it with your friend, he or she could own it and B:  if you don't own all the sets online, you are probably going to be at a large disadvantage against people who do.  One of the few things I like about the Beta is the presence of matchups based on sets owned.  I know people would name their room like Seaside + Base or whatever back on Goko, but I think it helps the game long-term to be able to play with people who are both near your skill level in terms of rating and in terms of cards known.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #23 on: June 15, 2015, 07:18:28 pm »
+2

I think they should most certainly keep the base game completely free. People tend to lose interest in stuff as soon as they have to pay for it, even if it's just $1/month or something. Instead, they could have ads at least for the base-only players, but possibly for everyone else as well — not during the game because that would be annoying, but people wouldn't mind them too much in the lobby and while the game is loading. I mean, we would complain for sure, but it wouldn't stop anyone from playing. And the game does seem to have a lot of non-paying players, so that would be a pretty good way of profiting from them.

Yeah you need a way to tap into the player base that doesn't pay anything.  I own all the sets (physical and online) but it should be pretty easy to get a game with someone who owns all the sets if you yourself don't.  Maybe add a feature that you can only be matched with players owning the same sets you do or something...so if you don't buy in, you're literally just playing base only games.
One of the business purposes of having non-paying players is to provide somebody for the paying players to play against, so I don't think this would be wise.
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Re: Payment models
« Reply #24 on: June 15, 2015, 07:25:58 pm »
+9

A:  I think the ideal model is where you have to buy the expansions (for the prices they were at before the Beta or possibly lower than that) and also have to pay a nominal yearly fee once you reach a certain games played threshold.  This keeps the active players funding the site.

You have to pay for the game, pay for the expansions and pay an ongoing subscription.

Man, I feel like I'm flogging a dead horse here, but you're describing the payment model of WoW.
A payment model that WoW itself is increasingly shifting away from as more players reject it.

You seriously think this payment model would work for an online card game?
I am seriously struggling to find words to describe just how effective this model would be at driving away potential players.

Quote
B:  I imagine Blizzard already has servers devoted to their MMOs and can just use that infrastructure for StarCraft, so there's less cost associated with running servers for SC because they already have to run them for other stuff.  StarCraft is like Dominion in that it's a game that has taken on a very competitive life of its own, and to take that away for a cash grab would be sort of silly.  The thing is that Blizzard makes other games that they can promote this way through StarCraft.  I don't think MakingFun does.

Okay, I need to stop using megolithic companies like Blizzard as a comparison.

Seriously, look through this list of multiplayer games on Steam.
There's a huge number of multiplayer games from developers big, small and tiny.
How many of them require a monthly or yearly subscription to play multiplayer?
Aside from maybe a handful in the MMO category, the answer is basically none of them.

This is the space in which Dominion is competing.

You have to put aside your own love of Dominion.
Obviously most people on this forum would be willing to pay a monthly fee to play a game they all love.
But we're a captive audience.

If MF actually want to make money, I say again, the way to do it is to fix the game, slash the price and sell a million copies on Steam.
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