Aurora's Blessing cost = subscription
Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 7:17 am
You will quickly be thinking: him again. Well, yes, I am back with more debate, but It is a good one! I now have 3 co-workers that play as well. They all 100% agree with my general position that the store prices are at about 10x too high. We are all engineers and working for a large software company. Of the 4 of us, I am the only one that has paid anything. The only reason I paid is because I feel I have played enough now that I should contribute a bit, and also wanted to get a good jump start on 76 (which has nice world stats).
Was it worth it? Maybe. Would I buy more? Likely not. Would I if it was reasonably priced? Absolutely. How much would I spend? A few bucks a month. Can I afford more? Absolutely, but it is a matter of principle. Plus my wife would kick my butt if I dumped that kind of money into a “silly iPhone game” (her words).
The new addition to the topic is that of the Aurora’s Blessing. The conclusion I have reached after finally understanding exactly what this is (one of my co-workers got this for his “freebie”) that this is absolutely an essential component of the game once you progress to a large number of cities. What is its cost? Over $10 per month, per world. This effectively is a subscription based service that not many are paying. The word that we collectively have used for that is “ridiculous”. How many are paying for this regularly? A few hundred? Less? The people who do have a huge advantage. The people like me that think it is “ridiculous” will eventually just stop playing out of frustration. You are certainly losing a lot of customers this way. I had about 40 cities on 45. It was pretty fun up until the management of the empire became too hard, and I am not going to fork out $10 a month to make it easier. However, I hold out the hope that somehow you will see the value in the economic principle of lower cost = more buyers, and reduce your prices to that which many will be willing to pay.
I have seen moderators making comments like “that makes us sad”. Well, I think this should make you sad that you are most certainly breaking your notion of creating a wonderful world full of insomniacs that are addicted to world domination. World domination is a obviously a pocket-book breaking dream in Valor. In world 45, I am in a high ranked guild. Most of my guild-mates have dropped off the world, and of course the reason is that it is just too much to manage, and they are not willing to pay for making it easier. It is simply one big disappointment. Of course there are other reasons as well. Lack of guild coordination ability, too hard to have a big guild war as it is just impossible to make progress, etc (I guess that is Aurora’s blessing again, isn’t it?).
Solutions to getting Aurora’s Blessing into the hands of the masses:
1. Reduce the price. A fair price would be about $2 and fit into a model where most dedicated players could, and would pay for this service. This includes myself and my 3 coworkers. I am not sure this is the best way, but it would work.
2. Move to a “free version of Valor”, and a “full version of valor”. The full version may either have a monthly subscription fee of a couple bucks a month, or a one-time fee that enables features. This would certainly include Aurora’s blessing, and should include other things such as increasing the queue size from 2 to 3 or other perks. How about priority server connectivity? I think this method will prove the best for profit in that it is much more likely to capture revenue from players who don’t stick it out very long.
Again, you live in the world of the $1 app. People don’t blink much at paying a buck for something they enjoy. Live by it and reap the benefits. If you can get 20k people to pay say $3 a month, $60k a month isn’t too bad. The biggest benefit? Happy customers that don’t leave! It would seem hard to run a business if customers leave out of frustration and disappointment.
Was it worth it? Maybe. Would I buy more? Likely not. Would I if it was reasonably priced? Absolutely. How much would I spend? A few bucks a month. Can I afford more? Absolutely, but it is a matter of principle. Plus my wife would kick my butt if I dumped that kind of money into a “silly iPhone game” (her words).
The new addition to the topic is that of the Aurora’s Blessing. The conclusion I have reached after finally understanding exactly what this is (one of my co-workers got this for his “freebie”) that this is absolutely an essential component of the game once you progress to a large number of cities. What is its cost? Over $10 per month, per world. This effectively is a subscription based service that not many are paying. The word that we collectively have used for that is “ridiculous”. How many are paying for this regularly? A few hundred? Less? The people who do have a huge advantage. The people like me that think it is “ridiculous” will eventually just stop playing out of frustration. You are certainly losing a lot of customers this way. I had about 40 cities on 45. It was pretty fun up until the management of the empire became too hard, and I am not going to fork out $10 a month to make it easier. However, I hold out the hope that somehow you will see the value in the economic principle of lower cost = more buyers, and reduce your prices to that which many will be willing to pay.
I have seen moderators making comments like “that makes us sad”. Well, I think this should make you sad that you are most certainly breaking your notion of creating a wonderful world full of insomniacs that are addicted to world domination. World domination is a obviously a pocket-book breaking dream in Valor. In world 45, I am in a high ranked guild. Most of my guild-mates have dropped off the world, and of course the reason is that it is just too much to manage, and they are not willing to pay for making it easier. It is simply one big disappointment. Of course there are other reasons as well. Lack of guild coordination ability, too hard to have a big guild war as it is just impossible to make progress, etc (I guess that is Aurora’s blessing again, isn’t it?).
Solutions to getting Aurora’s Blessing into the hands of the masses:
1. Reduce the price. A fair price would be about $2 and fit into a model where most dedicated players could, and would pay for this service. This includes myself and my 3 coworkers. I am not sure this is the best way, but it would work.
2. Move to a “free version of Valor”, and a “full version of valor”. The full version may either have a monthly subscription fee of a couple bucks a month, or a one-time fee that enables features. This would certainly include Aurora’s blessing, and should include other things such as increasing the queue size from 2 to 3 or other perks. How about priority server connectivity? I think this method will prove the best for profit in that it is much more likely to capture revenue from players who don’t stick it out very long.
Again, you live in the world of the $1 app. People don’t blink much at paying a buck for something they enjoy. Live by it and reap the benefits. If you can get 20k people to pay say $3 a month, $60k a month isn’t too bad. The biggest benefit? Happy customers that don’t leave! It would seem hard to run a business if customers leave out of frustration and disappointment.