PA becoming a rip off?

[Mr_Blonde]

This post has come from me finding out that the next speed round of pa is going to be £5 for a months worth of play.
i thought £3 is a fair price for what is basicly a third of a normal round and is only played half the day. Is jolt trying to rip us off?
I know many people will have already arranged gals so will be under more pressure to play evern if it cost mor ethan they were expecting.

After 9 rounds in PA ive seen it go through some changes some good some bad. one trend which i dont like is the introduction of the P2P. Ofc noone likes to pay for somit if it was free. Its clear that Planetarion for it to opperate needs funding. We saw the introduction of adverts which came and went quickly. and tbh were bloody annoying. So p2p is somit it looks like we stuck with.
This does not mean tho that the loyalty of the PA players is that of one to be exploited for profits. As i see at the moment i see no efforts in the past rounds to try and introduce new players. The cost of playing the game has gone up each round. Shouldnt some effort to get new players in the game maybe sort a short term loss or investment. Not scare players away with ever increasing prices. With a larger number of players playing then the actual turnover will be the same for a lower price. All thats happening atm is that PA is being priced out of many players reach. Thats why we saw a large number of players leave at the end of r 4.

When jolt joined we all hoped that they would introduce a high quality service for some cost.{like they do for the CS servers i used to use} I know that genraly the service has been good but we have had exstended periods with the server down and no way of fixing it quickly. If we are expected to pay what is to alot of people alot of money i expect reliable service and if it fails some sort of worthwhile compensation [not extra res].
I know with the domination of the different power blocks this round has spoilt the round for many people. and i know if i had had a worce round i would say "i payed all this money for this?". I supose thats a risk you take when you pay the money but it does make the game alot more serious when peoples money is at risk.This does take away some of the fun of the game.

I hope that jolt will actualy show some commitment to the long term future of PA not just try and milk it as much as they can without it going bump. Thats not fair on the community or the PA crew who have put so much time into it over the years.

[Cochese]

It was my understanding that the price was set at it's current rate due to transactions of less than $5 basically being a waste of time (due to fees, etc) but I could be way off.

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Cochese
It was my understanding that the price was set at it's current rate due to transactions of less than $5 basically being a waste of time (due to fees, etc) but I could be way off.

That was always my understanding as well; but $5 is only about £3 whereas £5 is about $8--so it looks like a price increase to me. :/

[SpazMonster]

So now a weekend of interactive entertainment costs just as much as 2 hours of onscreen non-interactive entertainment (if it can be called that anymore). *gasp* the horror that has beset planetarion. It costs as much as a movie, oh no.

[isildurx]

i agree with yuo spazmonster

i have see no problem dishing out 50 NKR for 20ish hours of fun.

[Leshy]

Paying for a speedround is most definitely cheaper than going out.

[kilroy]

Bull****.

I dont care if it is 10 Euro. I just wane have fun everything is expencive this days. And yes they have to make a lilte proffit.

Thats fair.. All things this days what you are doing etc etc and cost monney is basted to make proffit. if you dont like it dont play.

[General Martok]

Originally posted by kilroy
Bull****.

I dont care if it is 10 Euro. I just wane have fun everything is expencive this days. And yes they have to make a lilte proffit.

Thats fair.. All things this days what you are doing etc etc and cost monney is basted to make proffit. if you dont like it dont play.

I agree with kilroy here. For the price of 4 beers you'll have 24 hours of fun, so what's the deal?

[HRS]

the first speedround was more expensive i think.. ok, you could play 3 rounds with some luck there, but most didn't

[mens]

Move out of that cardboard box and get a job!

3 pounds, 5 dollars, whatever....who cares?
It aint much!

[General Martok]

Well it's 45 minutes of work for me, i'll be bancrupt after this

[wakey]

Something you need to take into consideration is that a speed game in its nature is alot more expensive to run than a normal round.

While a normal Player may spend a total of a few hours actually clicking links in normal PA a speed PA player almost constantly needs to be activlt clicking links to send attacks and defence, buidl ships, start con/res ect. As well as extra bandwith the faster ticker and more interaction also results in more strain on the servers and such like.


And Finnally Speed PA is something which needs the number of players kept to the minimum to allow it to be able to handle the extra load. If you had to tick 4k planets you wouldnt be able to do it with the speed of ticks users would be expecting. This means that their limited space and as such Demand normally Outstrips Supply so by Having a higher price you put some people off thus reducing demand while maximising profit from those totally committed to playing. Its a perfect business stratergy and with this being a business which needs money to expand they cant really be faulted on it.

As for your comment on lack of new players in the past rounds this was something that FS just couldnt afford to do. The costs associated with free accounts (be them limited or not) was just eating into any revenue that they made. Since jolt bought PA offering ways to encourage n00bs to try the game is something that is probally more than possible BUT its not in Jolts intrests to do so. They have no desire to use old PA as a marketing tool for the New PA of r10. R9 PA just isnt a fair reflection of what r10 will be and would probally discourage new users more than attract them.

We only have this r9 for 4 simple reasons[list=1][*] To give them time to code the NEW pa[*] To give them an income stream to finace the production of the new pa[*] To keep us happy and entertained while waiting for the new pa[*]To test out the hardware , software ect[/list=1]

[Mr_Blonde]

well its a selfish view that it shoud only be for the people that can afford to pay it. I myself have np but i know people that do.
There is alot said about r10 so we will have to wait and see whats its like. My fear is that the only way pa will survive will be a reduction in cost or some sort of niche which it haves over the many pa clones which are out and free atm. So we will c how it goes.

[Leshy]

Originally posted by Mr_Blonde
well its a selfish view that it shoud only be for the people that can afford to pay it.

That's what companies do. They sell stuff. For money.

[Mit]

Originally posted by Mr_Blonde
well its a selfish view that it shoud only be for the people that can afford to pay it. I myself have np but i know people that do.
There is alot said about r10 so we will have to wait and see whats its like. My fear is that the only way pa will survive will be a reduction in cost or some sort of niche which it haves over the many pa clones which are out and free atm. So we will c how it goes.

reduce costs, ur paying £7 for 3 months game play, some games u can pay £10+ PER MONTH. I think the price is acceptable and wouldn't actually mind paying a bit more, for the amount of play u get for what u pay, value for money is good.

[G.K Zhukov]

Originally posted by wakey
We only have this r9 for 4 simple reasons[list=1][*] To keep us happy and entertained while waiting for the new pa[/list=1]

HEH

[wakey]

Originally posted by Mr_Blonde
well its a selfish view that it shoud only be for the people that can afford to pay it. I myself have np but i know people that do.
There is alot said about r10 so we will have to wait and see whats its like. My fear is that the only way pa will survive will be a reduction in cost or some sort of niche which it haves over the many pa clones which are out and free atm. So we will c how it goes.

Changes in the cost affect the numbers willing to play and thus cost is a good way to ensure you dont overstreach yourself.

If you were to double the cost for the p2p you would probally find the playerbase would drop by half and if you cut the price in half (like your sort of suggesting) you find double the amount of people wishing to play. Now the number of people playing is vital in Speed PA both for the customers and the Business.

As people have already pointed out theres a figure of around $5 where transactions below become pointless as the costs are greater than the income. The closer to this magic figure you are the less profit after transaction fees you have. The lower the profit after these you have per player the less you have to cover each players expensese that they rack up (bandwith fees ect) and you might even find it making a loss. A company which isnt maximising its profit obviously isnt going to last long which could result in the end for PA.

On the playing front the more players you have the more planets that have to be ticked through and the longer the complete tick takes. For example r4 took almost an hour (and at times over an hour) to tick through all the planets due to the large number of users. Thus the more planets around the greater chance of the decided tick speed not being achiveable. The only way to solve this problem is set a realistic price to attract the right number of customers OR your have to keep pushing the ticks back until they reach a point where it can be achiveable. That then reduces the amount of ticks that can be played and could possible move the Speed Game into the area of being a slow game (although obviously faster than normal pa still). You also then have stability issues due to the number of people and the frequency of their activity. The greater the players the greater the chance of the server falling over.

So hopefully you can see that setting the price isnt a simple case of "£5 sounds good" but is a a process of evaluating all the factors and setting a price that satisfies all these

[Sandsnake]

Originally posted by Mr_Blonde
well its a selfish view that it shoud only be for the people that can afford to pay it.

what's more selfish, the fact that they charge a very low fee or the fact that you want to get it at their expense?

[Mr_Blonde]

i think alot of people have missed the point of the thread im not saying that pa is 2 expencive im just saying is the incress in cost the reason that the numbers of players are declining each round? and if the cost continues to grow will it be the end of pa. Im just posing the question if the cost was reduced would it introduce new blood to the benifit of the community

[Hicks]

Originally posted by Mit
reduce costs, ur paying £7 for 3 months game play, some games u can pay £10+ PER MONTH. I think the price is acceptable and wouldn't actually mind paying a bit more, for the amount of play u get for what u pay, value for money is good.

Yes but those games have the advantage of actually being good games with real gameplay. Rather than a gloryfied database.

[Salomo]

Originally posted by General Martok
I agree with kilroy here. For the price of 4 beers you'll have 24 hours of fun, so what's the deal?

you don't get beer for that though

If the price for the speedrounds included 4 beers now that would be different...

[Heartshunter]

Originally posted by wakey
stuff about ticks.

I fail to see what this has got to do with setting a price. We want as many players as there can be in the game.
If the hardware/software restricts this to a certain amount of users for optimal functioning, how hard is it to just restrict the amount of signups? This kind of thing would make it only more attractive to sign up as soon as you can, and as side effect it makes it visible how many customers you will have in advance, and, if there would be so much interest, spinner & co could organise more speedweekends (or worldcups), and make even more money.

Setting a price has nothing to do with limiting the amount of customers. If they really practise this theory, they're even more stupid (unsurprisingly though) then I thought.

[Salomo]

Originally posted by Heartshunter
I fail to see what this has got to do with setting a price. We want as many players as there can be in the game.
If the hardware/software restricts this to a certain amount of users for optimal functioning, how hard is it to just restrict the amount of signups? This kind of thing would make it only more attractive to sign up as soon as you can, and as side effect it makes it visible how many customers you will have in advance, and, if there would be so much interest, spinner & co could organise more speedweekends (or worldcups), and make even more money.

Setting a price has nothing to do with limiting the amount of customers. If they really practise this theory, they're even more stupid (unsurprisingly though) then I thought.

It would be possible to limit the number of possible signups, but why should they solve the problem by decreasing the supply instead of decreasing the demand to a "healthy" amount by raising prices? Decreasing the supply economically only makes sense when this raises the price offered for it, but since we aren't auctioning off the free places for the speed round it is better for the profit to make supply and demand match by reducing the demand by raising the prices.

I'm no economist though so i could be wrong ;-)

[Lord_Thunderball]

NEVER compare speedround with a normal round...

If normal round increase with 10 Dollar, plz wonder why(would still be valid imho)

Still, i would be a lot more for a game like this..

For a speedround i got time, for normal PA not.. But that has nothing to do with the cost, they are both cheap!

[n4m3l355]

i think pa-crew really should think over what they do next round
caus if next round is going to be as gay as this round (which i really dont hope) they can shut pa down as massive players will quit

ive seen quite a few quit already and for myself i'm thinking about yet caus of how next round could be i'll stay yet after having 2 gay rounds i've had it with sudge

a new blaze in this game can only be brought with some new peeps and if they stay out it will stay to only the core pa players (which are to skilled twoards n00bies)

[Domin]

50 NOK is not alot for what 12 hours of fun!!

[CHINAMAN]

As long as its not going to be more then what it is, its fine with me. Oh, and Iam the new member of this form .

[Embroglio]

Originally posted by CHINAMAN
As long as its not going to be more then what it is, its fine with me. Oh, and Iam the new member of this form .

Thou shalt be herefore known as "Number 5,042"

[Yeh_of_Arcanum]

Thats 2 beers...I can drink 20 in that time...so speed-pa is cheap Now stop whining ppl and prepare to die Btw...somehow oddly i cant see anywhere what time it starts, so ill need to wait just, thought ive been only hour now checkin pa stuff...maybe next time put up info to more easier finding place

[noah02]

If it was you would you increase the price to earn a living?
Or would you just make it as cheap as possible so everyone else can have fun while you slog your bollox of making sure they do just so you can get a few pennys?

I dont like paying for PA so i dont, but least let them earn a living in what they know best. I am sure you would just do the same.

[Terminator2003]

STOP WHINING EVERYONE

THIS IS CHEAP ENTERTAINMENT!!!!

GO TO FRANCE AND BUY A BOTTLE OF HEINEKEN BEER ITS 7 EUROS!

FFS PA IS CHEAP!!

DONT WHINE! GET A JOB INSTEAD!

thx

[Mr_Blonde]

And, in a positive attempt of attracting fresh blood to the community, this short special round will be FREE of charge.

i think thats a very good idea short rounds to get new players intrested free of charge. shows that you guys are thinking about the future keep it up

[Saitam]

Originally posted by Terminator2003
STOP WHINING EVERYONE

THIS IS CHEAP ENTERTAINMENT!!!!

GO TO FRANCE AND BUY A BOTTLE OF HEINEKEN BEER ITS 7 EUROS!

FFS PA IS CHEAP!!

DONT WHINE! GET A JOB INSTEAD!

thx

Now that is just stupid, why would I buy a plane ticket, fly to france just to buy a beer that I can buy in my local store for 1 euro?

[chemical]

Originally posted by General Martok
I agree with kilroy here. For the price of 4 beers you'll have 24 hours of fun, so what's the deal?

With those 4 beers you actualy have a change of getting laid.