I've had so many games going on that I'm starting to intentionally cut back. I haven't looked for a game in the lobby in months. The ladder sort of fills any need to generate a quick 1x1 (or 5 quick 1x1s).

I am a strong advocate for institutionalizing more stuff designed to attract new players and convert them to members. If WL is going to act like a business that's it's only real goal. So long as there's a lifetime membership, keeping existing members happy is a "nice to have" rather than an essential goal. After all they only pay once.

I've suggested many things that focus on brigning in new players and converting them into members:

1. Weekly non-member tournaments with a membership prize (128 open seats).
2. Free memberships by Referrals. Rewarding players who successfully bring in new members with a referral free membership, such that if you get 5 people to join you get a transferrable free lifetime membership for you or a friend to use (there was a minute risk that this would cause people who were joining anyway to add their friend as a referring person to get them a free membership -- now that the initial rush is over I think that's remote).
3. New Invite a Friend Giving each member the opportunity to enter email addresses to all their friends that would automatically email a form invitation (customizeable by the new member with a link and passcode good for a free two week trial membership). This is probably the most important thing WL coudl do. Make it a permanent change to your "invite a friend" section! Obviously this connects with #2, by asking the referred friend to enter who referred them.
4. Monthly memberships ($2.99-3.99?)
5. Group discounts (if you have a group that wants to join together, you should give a price break - say 24.99 each for groups of 10 or more - not combinable with a referral free membership)
6. Resellers - Let any website that refers people to Wl receive 10% of membership fees paid by people they refer. To make it easy, the players would have to enter a unique code to cause the referring site to get the money. Design catchy ads and/or a jump page to help these resellers get conversions (this could be combined with group discounts if the site has the traffic to make 10+ new members likely).
7. A new splash page for non-members that highlights the sales proposition for becoming a member. Members woould hopefully not see it and therefore not have to click past it.

I haven't read the thread, just the first post.

I would say its better than before, there aren't people on all the time creating games, but if I create a game it doesn't take long for people to join. Lately I've seen loads of created games. Last time I checked 7-8 games were up.

bump

bump bump (hey Fizz -- any of these ideas sound feasible?)

I think he soaks in the idea's, let's them stew around for a bit in his head til they come to fruitition in a manner which he accepts, then updates warlight accordingly

Ah -- the creative process.

Uservoice helps, too.

These aren't really game enhancements/user voice ideas.

I appreciate the suggestions, Duke! I'm refraining from commenting on it too much here though, since some of these items are already under development and I want the official announcement to come from the blog.

Yay, when? :-)

gotcha. That reply was very satisfactory. Let the suspense build...