Right. The price point on a gift month of premium woudl be much lower - say $5.

And fizzle might aswell forget about asking people to pay if loads joined by not paying.

$30 is a great price too.

Grundie, don't forget no multiplayer custom scenario creation for free accounts.

I personally like the idea of trial membership for new accounts.. maybe give them a week of membership similar to how current players are.. ie, keeping them our of the ladder so they can't adversely affect ratings, but still letting them get a taste for how the game could be...

and the idea's Duke came up with for giving away membership, would work alot better with a month-to-month pay theory.. it would encourage people to participate/make maps/etc. for more then just the pure reason of having them made, and wouldn't require people to make a massive payment early on for features they may or may not use...

Big Picture. WL succeeds or fails based on generating new members (all the more so with a one-time payment model). So anything that generates new members is a good idea. Offering a "free" membership if you sign up 5 people is not a gift, nor do I think it devalues the membership. I would never try to do that personally, but a high school player probably would. The FBG guys came over en masse -- that sort of thing should be encouraged and result in some form of compensation for the organizer(s). Free memberships have a near zero basis cost for Fizz (just the incremental bandwidth usage), but a % of fees or discounts are dollars not coming in. I was trying to steer WL toward maximizing revenue with what is essentially free advertsiing, free conversions and free evangelizing.

To put it another way, it doesn't cost WL anything to host tournaments of new players with a free lifetime membership as the prize. If it results in a 10% conversion rate it's a great idea.

WL's challenge is not to convince any of you guys that WL is worth playing and paying for. its challenge is to convince someone who just logged in for the first time that they should want to play and pay. Frankly, it isn't very focused on converting that market. The "tutorial" early levels are great. I replayed them today for the first time since I joined. Social hooks are key. If people can't find a game they'll leave and not come back. So getting people to join and play their friends is key.

Maybe each paid for membership comes with the right to email a temporary premium membership to five friends for one month each (expiring 30 days from the date you join). So instead of one new member you just got 6. And a higher probability they'll like the game and convert into paying members themselves.

Fizz is a numbers oriented guy. Try different promotions and measure there sucess against the norm (how many new members and paying new members join versus base line of no promotions). BTW -- 1-3% is considered a good return on a paid promotion (this has no cost to you). If you could get a delta of 10% you should make the promotions permanent.

Maybe there could be some way to contribute content in lieu of money, like for instance the huge megamap the OP was talking about - if that was the real deal and worked right and whatnot, seems like that's something that could easily be said to be a $30 value-add to the WL property. If there was some systematic way of enabling people to contribute content and to vett that content for being up to snuff, it could be a way for those unable to afford the monetary cost to earn themselves a full membership in any event.

I realize I've been braindumping on this thread, but somewhere in there I suggested voting for best new map on a weekly or monthly basis (depending on number of maps) with a membership as the prize.

another idea, in the future when/if we have month to month memberships, do a buddy program similar to eve online... give target member an trial membership, and if that member signs up, the sponser gets a free month of membership.

i saw you mentioned a free month much earlier for getting 30 free accounts to sign up Duke.. Idk how successful that idea as it stands would be.. it would encourage new growth, but 30 members is alot to shoot for, and would most likely result in people makign multi's to get their main temporary memberships..

The Polish unit of currency is the zloty (PLN). 1 PLN was equivalent to US$0.31

The cost of living is low in Poland, but incomes are also very low with average annual salaries only around 25% of those in other EU countries. The cost of living varies considerably between the cities and the rural areas, with Warsaw being by far the most expensive location.

Typical costs include:
1 litre of milk 2.6 PLN/US$0.80
Loaf of bread 2 PLN/US$0.62
1.5 litres of mineral water 1.5 PLN/.46
1 litre petrol 4 PLN/US$1.86
Small bottle of beer 2.80 PLN/US$0.86
Cafe meal 10-20 PLN/US$3.10-6.20
Restaurant meal 25-50 PLN/$7.75-$15
Monthly rental 100 sq m apartment 1500 PLN/$465

Per capita income in Poland is about 22580PLN/$7000

A fair price for Warlight would be about to adjust for our per capita income and covert to PLN. The US is about $39,000. So multiply by .18 or US$5.4 which is 17.42PLN.

Do the polish players think 19.99 PLN is about the right price point?

(Man I must be bored)

I agree Perrin -- 3-5 is probably a good number to earn a free one.

"That amount is only a weeks worth of coffee..."

And for those of us that cut coffee out of their budget months ago? I get what you were trying to say "it's only $30! certainly you can scrounge up $30" but the reality is that some people just can't (especially in this economy... I'm at the age where families are growing and pretty much everyone I know has cut way back. I'm not sure if it's the sticker shock of kids or the economy in general.).

As much as I enjoy warlight, I, too, will probably be gone soon. I enjoy playing quick 3v3 games and, well, that's 6 players and above the 5 player free limit so I doubt as many 3v3s will be created. It won't be an intentional leaving, but just a side effect. The game won't be as enjoyable for me. And that's ok.

I didn't plan to make any sort of goodbye statement. I fully respect Fizzer's decision and think the price point is fair (though I do think it'd be nice to have other alternatives). Unfortunately, $30 for a game is just not something that I can justify right now. Perhaps when things improve and money loosens up I will be back. Or maybe I'll (re)discover another time suck. Either way, it's been an enjoyable few months & I wish Fizzer much success :)

The only reason I'm saying anything at all is that I really hate that damn coffee example. I hear it all the time. Not everyone buys overpriced poorly made coffee. And many of us that once did (though my poison was a local coffee shop a touch more expensive but oodles better than Starbucks) got that monkey off of our backs many moons ago.

yeah I know that the coffee example was bad (I drink free coffee at work), but what I was going for is that it's a one time 30 dollar payment and that you could potentially pay for it by saving your loose change for 2-3 months. But I guess people are just in different financial areas than others and this is one cost people can avoid. For me, it costs half as much as an xbox game and i've been playing this game for over 2 years so I think it's worth it because I'd like to see this game grow more and more.

I do think it would be cool to have monthly tournaments of Non-Members battling it out for a free life membership. I also like the trial runs of a certain time limit but some problems I see is that people will abuse that system and just create new accounts in which they get another free trial and end up never paying.

Fizzer could implement some form of tournament or ladder for free players that whoever was the winner/leader after 1/2/3 months would win a free membership

I think the point that Ruthless is making is that there is almost always a way to afford to pay $30 for something if it is truly a high priority. Maybe instead of spending money on slightly better food, you can buy something that is a little cheaper. Instead of going to see a movie, you can put that money into a Warlight fund, etc.

I know that's not the case for everyone. There are people who are already cutting costs at every little juncture that still can't afford to pay for Warlight, and that is definitely understandable. I've been at that place enough times, but I think for the majority of people they can manage to pay for it if is something they truly value.

Polish guy here.

Duke, your calculations are mostly correct, and I think 20 zloty for a lifetime membership would be even a bit too low; it wont be worth it for Randy, will it?

There's no way I'll pay $30 to Warlight (around ~90zl), unfortunately; it would be much more convenient if it would be split to monthly/quarterly membership, even if in the long run it would be more expensive. (I'm also sixteen. My finances are not exactly huge ;) )

"For me, it costs half as much as an xbox game and i've been playing this game for over 2 years so I think it's worth it because I'd like to see this game grow more and more."

To a point, I agree. As I said, I think the price point is fair. But the comparison to an xbox game is slightly faulty. My entire household can play the console games that we buy. The warlight subscription is personal. It's easier to justify an expense (where I am in my life) if more than one of us can use it.

It's also easier to justify (or, more honestly, to hide) if it's broken up into smaller payments. $30 in one chunk gets noticed. $1, $3, or $5 here & there does not which is why micropayments are so successful/popular.

Yes. Which is why most pay sites use that model. Obviously if you compare with packaged software you come out with a different answer, but that's not a good comparison for most people ($4 or $5 a month sounds a lot better (and would be much more lucrative for WL). To the reduced price for Poland, there's no chance the incremental cost per new user is more than $5 (there's zero advertising budget). $5 per user from Poland is a hell of a lot better than zero revenue from Poland. You have to price at a point where WL grows or it won't work. If the right number is really 30 zloty all the better.

Considering players (especially new players) want to play with their friends. A mechanism to get small groups to join together is crucial. I assume that Fizz has a limited view of what the demographics of the WL community are, but that should directly feed price points, promotions and advertsising, alternative pricing models, etc. BTW -- ask people to share that infomation on their profile if you don't already and keep it confidential unless they elect to make it public.

If WL is predomently high school and college kids, relying solely or mostly on $30 fees paid by credit card is probably not the best way to go (too high an initial conversion cost will turn away the bulk of new players). How significant is the foreign community (that you can tell from the server log of course)? They have much the same problem.

It would be REALLY good to launch with a low monthly payment option.

Plus you don't want to make a teenager ask a parent to fork over $30 -- instead ask them to fork over four or five dollars.

On the cost of lving idea: Can't people make proxy servers to make it seem as if they're in a different country? Just think that would be a big flaw.

Honestly, I want it to be released as 30 now. That way I won't have to worry about subcriptions. Although It is 100% necessary in the long term for Warlight, it's something that will always bug me deep down.