Subscription vs. One-time cost

Hey All,

What is everyone's opinion on charging a subscription fee for an online multiplayer game vs. a one-time fee.

I am trying to decide on the pricing model for my upcomming title Gem Heroes.

My idea so far was to have free accounts that are in-game ad supported as well as certain limitations such as level cap, limited class choice, no access to tournaments, only one hero per account, etc. The premium account would come in two flavors: a single and family account. The single account can only have 1 login at a time and thus one active hero at a time. The family account can have 3 logins and thus 3 active heroes at a time.

I was thinking of a monthly subscription model that could be purchased in blocks of 3/6/12 months at a price of $14.99/$23.99/$34.99 for single and $24.99/$39.99/$59.99 for family.

I could also do a flat $3.99/month fee for single and or $7.99/month for family.

The idea is that there would be a scheduled rollout of new minor features every 3-6 months and at least 1 new major release/feature addition every 8-12 months.

Another model would be the free account + single and family one time purchase for a price of $34.99/single and $59.99/family. The minor additions would be pooled into the major release as add-on packs at a price of probably $19.99/add-on.

Another model would be a very limited demo account (no free play) and lower the price of the game itself, but I think that, at least in the begining, it could suffer from lack of players.

The problem I see with the one-time pricing vs subscription model is new features/rollouts would cause me to probably run multiple versions of the client, or at least it would be tricky to deal with multiple versions of the client connecting to the server (ie: people who have the add-on pack and people who do not).

I need to find a psychology study on buying/spending habits for one-time vs subscription purchases online.

What is everyone's opinion?

I prefer one-time costs.

If somebody pays a one-time fee now, then a year from now you're not getting any customers, how will you continue to support the service that people have already paid for?

A one time cost is prohibitive beyond belief - this is not 'Guild Wars' - this is an indie puzzle game.

$34.99 - $59.99 - these figures are prohibitive beyond belief.

Add-on packs at a price of probably $19.99/add-on.

All of this is irrelevent - there is no relevence.

What is relevent is whether anyone would play your game for free, let alone pay for ongoing play.

You need a product - you cannot price an idea - it is all irrelevent.

Unless you are going to have a strong flow of new content, I would not expect people to be paying a subscription. If your game is basically a gem swapping deal, even with added features, then I doubt that I would pay for it continuesly.

What is the single-player aspect of this game?

Is this game online multiplayer only?

Personally I generally prefer the one-time fee vs. subscription models. (Which is why I'm not buying the Sam & Max releases once they come out, but wait for the season to have ended and buy the final DVD)

But if you really are considering this, I think gfk made an excellent point above:



Tread carefully...

Opinions are irrelevent if none of us are actually going to pay to play his game - whether it is a one-time fee or subscription based.



Is anybody here (any of you) going to purchase a 12 month subscription to an online indie puzzle game?

How good is his game? Nobody has seen it. Nobody can predict this - this game could be a several months to a year from completion. It might be a load of rubbish (it also might be very good).

Why would you want to pay for his online multiplayer puzzle game?

This cannot be priced as there is no game - it is purely an idea. Nobody here can predict his correct path - his path will be decided by sales. He has to shift the product to even get a glimmer of a hope of people playing it longer than a week or so - he has to keep those players playing, or keep attracting new players to keep his product alive. Or he can cheat and just dupe them into playing AI, which they think is another person.

I could say I'd pay X amount of money to watch a game of cricket. However, I don't like cricket so I wouldn't actually go and watch it. Due to the fact that I wouldn't actually pay to watch a game of cricket, the price I say I would pay to watch it is irrelevent.

Be that as it may, he still has to have some plans for the pricing model before he writes it, because it will (should) affect how he writes it. Granted most hobbiests write the game first and then marketing and promotion is a faint afterthought, but it's probably not the best way to go if your primary motivation is making money.

Games never hold my interest long enought to make a subscription viable for the dev/publisher.

Closest I got to playing a game further was the two official expansion packs for Oblivion I bought. I finished knights of the nine, but still havent been to the shivering isles.

Why?

Thank you everyone for your responses thus far.

While I can program, I am not a programmer. I am a business owner with a strong background in marketing. I am quite confident that I will be able to market my creation. It is my belief that most of these games are created by individuals in their spare time, and very few have an overall budget/marketing budget of over $10K.



This was my concern with the one-time fee issue -- which is why the additional content would have to be provided by purchased add-ins -- if this pricing model was chosen.



You are quite wrong here. I need these figures for the business and marketing plan. You should know how you plan to price, market, sell, and promote your creation before a line of code is written.



The only time "single player" would come into play would be if no one was online to play, or you just wanted to practice. This is, for the most part, a 100% multiplayer game.



The opinion has nothing to do with my game, but the pricing model and which works best. I do not need people to pay to play, as long as they are playing. I have been extremely successful in the online advertising market already with the network of 100+ websites I own. This is just one more place I can offer my clients to advertise -- and to a market comprised mostly of educated married women who make over USD 75K/yr -- whom are most likely to make purchases online.



So how does paying a $3-$4/month for a subscription vs $29 or so as a one time fee not better for you, as a customer? Tired of the game, cancel the sub and you could be out less than that of a one time purchase.

I am not here to argue my game concept, it might be great, it might bomb royaly (however Puzzle Quest did real well and this takes it way further than they did). I am here to simply get opinions on the subscription based pricing model for games in general -- but I guess, based on the responses, this question is best asked on a different type of forum.

You have already hired programmers who have commenced coding - you are hiring artists. You are now asking us what option we would take to purchase your product. You have already started it.

And before I did this I had a business plan already drawn up. In fact, I had the business plan drawn up months before I even decided what I was doing, and then edited the plan as needed.

http://www.jbclark.org/Enigmatic%20Games.pdf

I know your type, you are simply trying to find fault with something I have said. I am sure that if you dig enough you might find something, but what you just said was completely off base.

Go ahead and try to troll some more, but it has little to no effect on me.

In honesty, I don't see the point of us telling you whether we would pay a one off fee or a subscription to a game that doesn't exist. The final product will dictate exactly what we would do. More importantly, what your customers will do.

I could change my mind based on the final product - so could every single person - your marketing strategy is prone to change based on the final product. We only have your word that this game is going to be much better than an established product.

I'm not predicting your game is rubbish or will fail, just that we cannot predict how we would (if at all) purchase it.

GFK: Why?

I just meant that you made a very good point there, and that EnigmaticGames needs to seriously consider it before picking one-time vs. subscription mode.

You keep saying "we"/"I". I was not asking what you, or anyone else on this forum, would pay for the game or how you, or anyone else on this forum, would want to pay for it. I was asking, in general, what method works best for multiplayer games made by independent game companies. I might not have made that clear enough in the opening post.

Like I said, probably wrong forum for this. As I stated before, what would be best is a good psychology study on this.

Ah, no - it wasn't totally clear as you put in so much pricing options and information.

It is not an easy question to answer.

People see one-off payments as safer - ie Guild Wars. However, if the bulk of people pay a one-off payment and remain as long-term players, then you have no income from them.

No problem, I can easily see where one could misread it.

I do, honestly, value everyone's opinion and I will depend heavily on input from this community as a whole during the development proccess.

People will only subscribe to something they either like or they want.

I'd go down the one-off payment route to suck them in. However, the one-off payment would be time-based - based on their hours of play. If they exceed their time-limit, then they must pay to unlock more time/hours/days/weeks, whatever.

I'd just make them pay to continue playing.

This for me is a nice solution - it is sort of pay-as-you-go, but subscription based. You are not charging a subscription for a period they might never use as they are actually paying for an extension which they require - they want this subscription to carry on playing.

Very interesting idea Puki, I do not know if I have seen a game that is time-based as far as the subscription goes. I might actually consider something like this -- pay for what you use, nothing more.

People will feel safe with pay-as-you-go.

They have the safety of playing within, and up to, their allotted time and they have the option to purchase more time - who can complain about that? No paying up front for a subscription you might never use. No forcing people to play beyond their allotted time.

If your game is as good as you think it will be, they will keep paying to extend their time.

Subscription.

I think you could get away with a subscription model if the game is heavily community based. You'd probably want an initially free component to build up that community first, though.

Here's a successful multiplayer game to use as a model for your efforts.
http://maplestory.nexon.net/

Compare your game to theirs (apples to apples comparison) and adjust your pricing accordingly.

Thanks for the input everyone.

I actually think I might actually go with Puki's idea and use a time-based approach. I can tie the time to the main account. It then does not matter if an account is shared or not as it would just count double or triple time against that account. I would probably do away with the "free" account all together and instead give a free trial period of x number of hours. I would price the hours fairly.. say $0.15/hr to $0.10/hr.

This method will also allow me, in future games, to bill hours to the same account allowing players to play multiple games with the same block of hours.

id rather pay per hour played not pcm for ANY online game
i dont know the billing options for any of them as my mobile modem is pants poor to do anything save browsing, but id hate to pay for something i dont use (much)

for example i pay £12 pcm to have an unlimited card for the cineworld franchise as many films as i like for £12 compared to over £5 per movie
thing is this year ive only seen one film due to other things (longer working hours, a night class i was always late for and a few concerts) so this one film has cost me £36 which is alot tbh
but the previous year i could see 3 films in a week assuming their was anything on worth watching (i think splashing out on DVD's was the tipping point in this ;) )

I swear I am some kind of scientist.

You can have some kind of tournament that players must pay a small fee to join, but has a prize (but less than the total fees of course!)

I loved the way Magic Online works: You buy match points. These points are spent when you dual an enemy.
Each duel on the other hand gives you another ingame card package which will increase your card deck and potentially add new powerfull cards.

I think this is how the turnbased strategy game done with Blitz works as well. You pay for XY matches and get a guaranteed playtime of YZ hours.

You're wrong. Anyone who's doing this professionally (ie. your competitors) are going to have budgets well in advance of $10K. If you're going up against people like three rings, you need to reevaluate your perceptions or get shredded! There are hundreds and hundreds of indie MMOG's (granted, most are Korean) out there, that have budgets several orders of magnitude above $10K. Even games that aren't really games (A Tale In The Desert for instance) has plenty more spare cash lying around than $10K, not to mention they're already in the black.

By far most of the Korean/Chinese MMO's are either pay-per-time or pay-for-content. Usually using micropayments.

Well at least you've figured out that you aren't a sausage/slug.

Why would anyone subscribe to play a casual puzzle game? I've no problem with puzzle games. There are some very addictive ones out there. In fact, there are many, many addictive ones out there that are either free or charge a modest one off fee to pay.

The only thing that I agree with in your initial post is that the service will suffer from a lack of players - but I would add that it will suffer from this in the short, near, and long term. Sorry, EnigmaticGames, but your business plan has "expensive failure" written all over it.

I would call this more than just a casual puzzle game. Are the other puzzle games fully multiplayer, do they encourage competition in gameplay, do they offer prizes and torunaments with cash rewards? Do they have a dynamic storyline that not only encourages competitive play, but also changes based on the outcome of player actions? Do they have a system that allows them to create their own in-game items to share and or sell to other players, etc...

While the base of this is a "match-3" game, it is a whole lot more than that. I have the sales figures from Puzzle Quest and even the PSP port with known gameplay bugs and issues (which I, personally, would call crap) still sold over a half million copies and it was not even fully multiplayer.

There is always a chance for failure -- a modest chance -- but it is a chance that I have to take.

I have 4 other contingency plans should my initial plan fail.

I am no stranger to failed business ventures. I had over 15 failed ventures before MDP Enterprises, LLC -- which has made me over $250,000 in 3 years with an initial $8.00 domain investment and 200+/- hours of coding.

I appreciate your concerns/comments and I actually want to hear more of them.

Mmm, this game all seems very complex. I'd assume it will take a long time to play-test it prior to releasing it? Especially considering it involves payment, winnings and being able to sell things - plus anything else you add in.

Personally, I think your options seem limited - you'll have to hand it over to us. We are the only people that anyone will trust to inspect it.

So, when it is completed, we'll have a mass beta with fake money. I will nominate certain people to inspect the code - under international law.

I mean, we wouldn't want a Blitz game to rob a bunch of pensioners because there was a glitch or two in the code.

If I deem things to be as they should, I might put the seal of approval on it.

Yep, the plan seems good. You just need to finish the code.

Yeah, I planned at least a month or two (or as long as needed) for beta testing. I already have about 200-400 people that want to play it from some of the forums I own. I have 60 confirmed testers ready currently.

The tournament system (with cash prizes involved) will be coded in, but not activated at first. I will certainly test it with fake credits entered into the database though.

We will test the tournaments that have in-game prizes. Also when I said create/sell items I meant for in-game gold not for real cash. The only way to win real cash is via the tournaments.

There will be constant tournaments open to demo/new players in which they can win more game hours for free (ie: good players might be able to constantly win hours having no need to pay to play).

Other tournaments will give away in-game gold, in-game equipment, free hours, etc..

I am working with my lawyer now, but it looks like we can offer paid tournaments with a buy-in (we are talking $1 to $5 max) keeping a percentage (10%) and ensuring the rest goes into the tournament prize pool.

I also decided to give away free equipment in-game gold and maybe randomly paid tournament credits when players buy more game hours (more hours purchased = better the prize).

I have tons of marketing ideas.. right now I need to focus on the code itself. I am happy with the progress made thus far, in that we have fully completed a bug free, extremly fast, match-3 game in under a week. We are now working on the skill/spell system.

Isn't one of the key strengths of match-3 type games their simplicity? You can understand and play them in seconds without having to make a significant investment of time, effort or thought; they're casual games for casual gamers, in other words.

The risk would seem to be that adding layer upon layer of extra functionality and complexity might dilute the appeal, effectively undermining the fundamental strengths and aformementioned appeal of match-3 type puzzle games. It sounds like you're trying to market a match-3 game to World of Warcraft players, which is either an act of genius or folly. I think that it's the latter, but I hope that it's the former.

You bring up a good point Luke. I had previously given this some thought and after much thinking decided that the game should be simple enough for the average casual gamer to pick up. By this, I mean that a player can go through the tutorial that plays the first time they launch the game and get the entire concept. They can repeat this tutorial at any time for further instruction.

I am considering an Intermediate and Advanced tutorial, but might just do it as text via the website instead of a scripted in-game tutorial.

I do, however, admit that this might not appeal to a moderate portion of the casual gaming demographic. I feel that I will make up for these lost potential customers by appealing to your more serious gamer.

I am taking a risk here, but I am not treading into new territory.

Interesting, but I'm not sure that a match-3 game will appeal enough to serious gamers (if by this you mean "hardcore" gamers) for you to build up a decent subscription base. Serious gamers are a difficult and cynical lot to please, and they'll see right through the gold and spells to the simple match-3 type puzzle game that hides behind them.

By the way, you mention prizes and cash rewards in an earlier post. How are you going to afford to do this? Don't say that subscriptions will pay for these things - because initially there will be few subscriptions and no guarantee of expanding your subscription base. This seems like an extreemly expensive proposal. Are you quite sure that you've thought if through?

Luke,

I am pretty sure I stated "in-game" prizes which means nothing out of pocket for me. The only thing of value would be subscription hours that are given away.

The cash prizes in tournaments would come from the tournament buy-in fee itself ie: a tournament costing 1 tournament credit ($1.00) with say a modest 50 people in the tournament would yield a 45 tournament credit prize pool and 5 tournament credits to us for hosting it.

Tournament credits may be converted into real cash and sent via paypal or check to the player.

If you are planning to do subscription payment, then I think you should do something like this.

Make some limited, basic form of play be free. That way, there are always people to play with. Maybe not let freebies advance their character beyond a low level or something. And have a beginner area they cannot leave. But, allow people who do play to play with the freebies to an extent, that way there is always someone to play against for the people who are paying.

Then have more advancement for people who pay.

I myself am very weary about subscription stuff. So I tend to just stay away from it when I see that I will be billed monthly. But, if you have a free play portion, then you may be able to get people hooked. And entice them with that whole "I could get better if I just payed $8 a month" thing.

Now mind you, not just a trial that lets them play for 5 hours then cuts them off. But a "play as much as you want, but you can't advance beyond this point".

For one of my projects (online rpg) I charge one time costs for several different features, even while constantly updating and giving constant support.

People seem to really prefer one-time costs, even though they rocket initially compared to a subscription (at least in my case). Many tend to find it even addicting to purchase mini additions because, like 'gaining levels', it is permanent and a nice transition towards some strange psychological fulfillment.

It depends what style of game it is, and what exactly people are getting for the buck. If you are not an indie developer, then single time costs for an mmo is probobly not going to work. If your game is FPS, single player, etc, single-time costs should work well. I would never, ever pay a subscription for anything that wasn't multiplayer.

@ Trials. Good for single player games, horrible for online. If you allow people to play, even completely limited, you are actually advertising the game, and giving it more popularity just by keeping them around. If you let them play for a few days then boot them out the door because they don't have a means or wits of paying for a game they like, they probobly aren't going to have such positive feedback about your game publicly.

In fps, these trial'ers would probobly be considered 'newbs' in the community, and people love killing 'newbs'. In rpgs, they tend create their own market by doing dirty chores that subscribers don't enjoy.

Just my opinion, not true for everyone.

Interesting comments Retimer.

I was trying to avoid the whole limited play aspect, but it would be fairly easy to limit them to a maximum of level 5 and cap how many hours they can play each month.. or I don't have to cap the level and just say you start with 4 demo hours (tournaments can win you more free hours) and you get say 1 hour each week, which you can save up or use each week.

This does not totally boot them off and can keep them playing, albeit at a very slow rate.

I think I now have a pretty good pricing model for the game. Now comes the really hard part -- getting players.

I would really like to know how the individual that did Eschalon Book I got himeslf interviews with IGN and other gaming websites. I think this is the kind of exposure I am going to need (although not until I have something I can show) -- which is still a good 2 months off.

Limited time is a mistake. Don't limit free player's time.

If I am trying a game and I am limited to an hour and I don't get hooked in that first hour, I am not going to come back tomorrow to try again with a second hour. Especially if there is a learning curve. I really think that is a bad idea.

I still say let freebies play as much as they want, just limit what they can do and how far they can progress. You will keep them coming back and eventually, if they do keep coming back, they will want to proceed in the game and pay up. But if you cut them off, you will lose them forever.

I'm not sure how he got IGN, but I have been interviewed, just by a writer from the magazine who randomly came across the game and my support. I think interviews come automatically based on popularity. I don't think Sony or Blizzard go to companies begging for interviews ;-)

Advertising: go onto popular gaming sites, and advertise with them. Throw an attractive banner on for 50-200$ a month. If your game is great, you'll make a lot more in return.


Sites, such as:

http://www.mpogd.com/

http://mmorpg.com/
Getting onto this site can be either handsome or ugly. If your game truly has commercial quality, and can make a great impact, this would be a great site to have your game posted on ($$$). Otherwise, low ratings on here will make a negative impact. Take a look at the gamelist to see what I mean with their ratings.
On other sites, I think screenshots, and how you describe the game make a larger impact than public/private ratings.


I like your idea on limiting players the amount of hours they can play as well. I remember Infantry, by sony, would allow users to play all day every day, but they would get kicked once an hour (although they could rejoin), and lose all their progress if not subscribed, and could not make it on the leaderboards. This helped make the game for subscribers more enjoyable, since the subscriber rate was low, there were still TONS of people to play with. Unfortunately that may have been the major cause of not having many subscribers.

TaskMaster,

The problem I see with limiting how far they can advance, is that they can still have enough fun at a low level that they may not wish to purchase a subscription. Sure you get better equipment, get better skills and spells, increase your statistics, as well as some other perks by leveling -- but I also ensured that by level 5 a player has enough to be competent when playing against players of +/- 5-8 levels.

The whole issue is the initial playerbase, if I get a decent enough initial playerbase then I do not have to worry with unlimited free play and can easily do my time based restrictions. I would do enough research to figure out how much time is needed to enjoy the game and not fel rushed, but at the same time not provide too much play.

I could offer unlimited hours for the first 1-3 months of the game in an attept to attract players -- however that is three months of $0 in revenue, which even just $200-$400 over those few months would provide enough for another advertisement or two on some sites.

I do have a small marketing budget (around $4K USD), but it is not enough to really get in there and compete hard. I am seeking funding for this and it is looking good, but I am not going to count on it.

It is a lot to think about and this aspect is just as important as the game development itself. I have received a lot of good ideas and feedback from this thread. I will probably revisit all of this further in the development cycle.

What I really need to do is figure out how early I can start marketing and hyping the game and the best methods to use.

I have already started by creating facebook/myspace accounts and posting developer blogs, posting here and on some other game dev forums, but I honestly can not say too much until I have something to show.

I am working with about 3-4 months (another month before I can have something to show) with which to generate enough interest/hype to have a moderate launch. I am not expecting grand results, but a few hundred people playing in the free open beta is a goal I think I can achieve.

This has always been something I wanted to do. I believe I have a solid idea and can create a fun enough game. It is quite scary as I have always had investors in my other projects and so far this is all solo -- I hate using my own personal money -- it is a new kind of stress I have not had to deal with before.

once again, thank you everyone for your comments -- this really is a great community.

Eh?

You want funding for this?

The tournament system needs some explaining - as it appears to be the single thing that pays players actual cash. So, it surely is the only reason someone would pay (regardless of method) to play.

How do the tournaments work? Is at least one player guaranteed to win cash? How many players in a tournament?

I guess it really depends ont he game and how it works.

But does someone playing the free trial for 30 days of EQ2 keep playing and having fun? No, it gets old because you have seen all the content in the first couple days, you max out your level and gear and can't really advance anymore.

If your game is a match3 clone, and it has RPG elements, why would someone continue to play your game without being able to advance, when they could play any 1 of a thousand other match3 games, many of which are free. They will either want to be able to advance and pay, or get bored. If they come back for a little free play every once in a while, it just means you have their interest enough, that they may decide to pay at some point. I don't see how it could hurt. In fact, if you really wanted to, you could start throwing advertising at the freeloaders. :)

Many websites and games work off of that strategy. Show ads to non payers, and no ads with better content for people who pay. Simple enough.

Having a free play mode will assure that here are always people to play with at the lower levels.

Lets try an example.

Your game has been out a while, most of your veteran players have progressed way past the beginning stages. If you get a few new players to come and play for free, there isn't anybody to play with because the veterans have progressed past this level and others who don't want to pay have used up their free time. So, the game isn't going to be as fun for the newbies who are just wanting to see how the game works before they start shelling out cash.

If bandwidth is going to be a concern, then do something that limits the bandwidth a free player can use. Make their game slower, hold them in a chat room longer with more time before allowing them to play, etc.

The big thing is, if the community looks larger to new players, then there is a bigger chance that they will want to join and play. Having lots of people playing for a newbie to see is a big help.

Heck, you could even look at the most successful MMORPG of all time: World of Warcraft. If you start a new character, you end up in a mostly empty area. Very few people playing. This doesn't bother a veteran of the game who is starting a new character, because they would rather it be that way. But, I can imagine what it would be like for a new player trying out the 10 day trial of the game. It seems like nobody else is playing, there is nobody to help them, and it doesn't take long until they get discouraged.

Just my 2 cents: I don't pay for game subscriptions, and never would. I also don't have an Xbox Live subscription, by the way.

I only accept one time payments and think that something like Battle.net for Warcraft III is great service, but I would not pay for it.

I also do not accept advertisements.

Charge me more, but give me life-time access to online services. Instead of charging for a subscription, produce and charge for add-ons. (As Valve Software does; you know, Episode I, II and soon III, you get the idea.)

What you can also do is sell square meters of your virtual online world to players. That is an idea that I actually like. I also think the Linden Dollar is a good idea. The combination of both is a great substitute for subscription based models.

My idea is this.. when players purchase hours I add in an extra $1 charge (they will be aware of it) (25 hours = $4.15 so I would make it $5.15) and they get $1.00 in tournament credits. They also have the option to purchase tournament credits at any time.

The tournaments work just like a poker heads-up tournament would. Based on a formula a certain percentage of players would be payed (at least 2 players are always paid), with the number paid increasing with the number of people who joined the tournament.

I will also allow in-game gold to purchase tournament credits -- but first I must figure out the rate at which one could acquire in-game gold and decide on a good value for this.

You are going to charge per hour? Now that is nuts... It will never work.

I'm not so sure that's a good idea (imo obviously). People generally don't like being told how to spend their money and the above seems to force them into buying tournament credits (correct me if I'm wrong)

Edit: Im also intrigued about how this game will work out in a MMO format!

Raz,

I would never force someone into an option. They would have the option to not purchase the tournament credit. This just saves them from two different transaction if they wanted tournament credits.

I have a poll posted on a few other forums.. right now it looks like a subscription is winning by 72.73% vs a pay as you go (0%) and one-time fee (27.27%). However the sample size is only 214 people currently.

I am honestly tired of thinking about it. As much as I hate it, I will have to remain undecided as to the pricing right now.

are you polling developers or gamers there? Im surprised more aren't up for one time fees

Raz you also have to realise how many people are used to subscriptions. Oddly enough I prefer subscriptions over one-time payments because I was never a long-term gamer. I've disgustingly probobly checked out hundreds of rpgs, and small subscriptions were a lot cheaper than a large single payment. And even with dedicated people, they feel if they keep forking money over every month, updates are expected, as where single-time payments, just like software, you only get what you pay for and cannot expect more. Single-time payments are more for games like what Steam offers....FPS, or single player.

With more info on your project Enigmatic, I think you should really use Credits (Pay for WHAT you play). What you are trying to setup sounds a lot like Poker.com. Subscriptions, OR one-time fees would not work in poker.com's case, nor do I think it would in yours.

Aside from every gambling site in the world using credits, Project Entropia, and SecondLife use these as well.

Raz:
This poll was carried out on end-users not developers.

Retimer:
The problem now with pay for WHAT you play is that, at least in the polls, no one is going for it. The only part that takes "real" money to play would be credit based tournaments -- which are optional -- you can always just play in-game gold tournaments. It just adds a new aspect to the game -- and if/when I break even on the project a portion of all revenue will go into monthly paid tournaments as extra incentive to play them.

The last game i paid subscription for was http://www.weewar.com

The pricing was very good. I think with the nature of the game (or what it sounds like) you should offer a service to purchase your game in this type of model.

free - trial account where you can only play other trial accounts. The features are limited. But you can play as much as you want.

with teh pay for account you get extra gameplay, extra items, you can create games with more people. You can join tournies, etc

1 month - $7.99
3 months - $14.99
6 months - £24.99
(or something like this)

I know for a fact if i liked the game of this genre, i would want to pay a subscription but not be tied to a monthly contract. I can pretty much garuntee that I would look at 1 month, but then see the price of 3 months and go for that because your basically getting a month for free. Most chances I would stop playing after 1 - 2 months, and not worry about loosing $14.99 because I had lots of enjoyment.

With the draw of extra features and updates, as long as you heavily promoted these new up and coming features in game, It would keep me playing, and if i got bored keep me checking back to see what has been added and if it has fixed anythign I didnt like with the game.

Which leads onto another point. Give the users a direct line to the developer. Create a discussion forum where you can offer members the ability to voice what they want to see happen with the game, things that are bad with the game and things that would make it better. Make a big deal of this so people feel like they are plaing a part of the games creation and development.

A person:
"Hey I don't like the fact that when you collect this item and use it in-game, you have to <insert problem here>"..

developer: "hey thats a good idea, i'll impliment it"

Post it on the news, post it on the forums. Post it in-game on a tickertape/newscast.

Said person feels special. Said person recommends game to others

Community feels special, community feels like they have invested their time and money into something that isnt going to die or rip them off.

Hope those ideas help

Thank you for the info skn3.

I am trying to build the game around a social environment with open access to the staff / developers and the idea is that the community drives the future of the game.

Once we have something tangable to show, I will open up the forums even pre-release and start taking ideas/comments from people who choose to post.

Your idea of demo vs demo is not bad if we restrict them to only playing with other demo players and no way to gain gold, level, participate in tournaments, purchase equipment, etc -- also easy to restrict by not allowing them to gain xp/gold -- it prevents access to other parts of the game easily and without any additional code.

The trouble is, I haven't seen many indy games that are popular enough to make much of a profit from subscription charges. Maybe I'm an old cynic, but if you charge a one off fee then at least you can be sure of earning a fair amount from each player. The online market is extremely competitive - your game and online services are going to have to be really good for you to be successful. How much confidence do you have in the quality and appeal of your product? Will people really want to keep paying to continue playing it?

By the way, any chance of seeing a screenshot of your game? I'm genuinly curious about it.

JustLuke -- I can not answer that question at this time. I certainly hope it is that good, but really that is best judged by its success. If one pricing model fails I can always change the model and start over :).

I do not have a screenshot that anyone would find interesting. Right now we are working on the code itself and using temp graphics. I should have something to show in about a month, with a playable single player demo in about 1 1/2 months (using decent, but not final rendering of graphics).

Another thing to consider: Depending on what jurisdiction you live/operate in, there may be a plethora of rules and restrictions if you offer any kind of prize money, especially if it isn't a one-time special but an on-going business model. In some area's its on par with gambling, and not everyone can just open a casino when they feel like it without jumping through a bunch of licensing hoops first.

xlsior;

fortunantly for me, my father is a lawyer and after some research we figured out what we can and can not do. The grand tournaments (tournament's requring tournament credits) will probably only run once a month.

You are right though, we have to tread carefully and ensure we stay as inside the lines as possible.

Yes, Yes, No - because that would constitute gambling, and cut off (for starters) everyone with an American creditcard.

Actually I think you'll find software is a high risk industry, and games software particularly so.

No they just bribe, I mean advertise with them.

In which country?