Varying Premium Limits

[chapcrap]

SUBMITTED

[agentcom]

SUBMITTED

Might want to take "rejected" out of the title in that case

[Dukasaur]

SUBMITTED

Why on earth would this be submitted? Looks like everyone agrees this is just a loophole for spongers:

This is a very good idea and only has benefits for everyone. Even if there was the option for $3 for a month as well. Would allow people to get premium for a school break of holiday period, or to join a tournament or larger war.

and absolutely no one would buy a months premium and load up on games so they don't have to purchase more membership for another 3 months.

Indeed. This is precisely what would happen.

Or, as numerous people have pointed out:

The current payment options work fine. Yearly membership is cheaper than a night out. Cheaper than going to the cinema if you can't afford that then your simply being a cheapskate or just simply not interested which is fine.

[DoomYoshi]

wtf?

[Metsfanmax]

OP updated, and title fixed.

[betiko]

SUBMITTED

Why on earth would this be submitted? Looks like everyone agrees this is just a loophole for spongers:

This is a very good idea and only has benefits for everyone. Even if there was the option for $3 for a month as well. Would allow people to get premium for a school break of holiday period, or to join a tournament or larger war.

and absolutely no one would buy a months premium and load up on games so they don't have to purchase more membership for another 3 months.

Indeed. This is precisely what would happen.

Or, as numerous people have pointed out:

The current payment options work fine. Yearly membership is cheaper than a night out. Cheaper than going to the cinema if you can't afford that then your simply being a cheapskate or just simply not interested which is fine.

Some people, mostly newcommers don t want this type of commitment with a site they are not sure to like on the long term. For 1 or 3 month package you could limit the amount of games, like 20 simultaneously...

[Dukasaur]

OP updated, and title fixed.

I feel like I've fallen into the twilight zone.

Everyone of significance has explained why this is a terrible idea, and it's still submitted?

Let me make one last attempt to be the voice of reason. There are already many players on the "13 month plan" who load up on games at the end of their premium and wait a few weeks or a month before renewing. If 3-month prem is allowed, all those people, and more, will be on the "4-month plan". People renewing 12 month memberships every 13 months = an 8% loss of revenue. People renewing 3 month memberships every 4 months = a 33% loss of revenue.

Bottom line, though, is I don't really care about that so much. It's BigWham's business; if he wants to allow the revenue loss as a goodwill gesture or whatever, so be it. Here's what bothers me though, is as a tournament organiser. Already players on the 13 month plan are a considerable headache to me in running tournaments. They let their premium expire, and won't renew until the next round of invites. Then they cut it too close. Now the next round of invites is out, and still they haven't renewed. Now I have the unpalatable choice of dropping them from the tournament and wasting even more time finding a replacement, or waiting 3 days whlle they make a payment on their Visa or whatever they have to do to make room for their membership fee.

Not a month goes by that I don't have a situation like this in one tournament or another. Enabling 4-month plans in place of 13-month plans will lead to 1 or 2 situations like that becoming dozens. It will be an absolute nightmare for tournament organisers. Already we are taking a shit-kicking from other problems on the site; this might very well be the last straw.

[Shannon Apple]

Specifics/Details:

• Not sure if this has been mentioned previously, but I couldnt find it anywhere in the form, even after searching. I think it would be awesome if CC offered monthly and/or quarterly membership, for say, $5 a month or $10 a quarter, a quarter being either 90 days or 3 months.

How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:

• This would benefit the site by generating more revenue for the site, and allowing customers the full benefit of membership for a shorter period of time. This would be a great option for someone who has enjoyed freemium, but is still "on the fence" about signing up for a full year. Or it would be a great option for someone in my situation. My membership has ended, and I am in the middle of some premium only tourneys. I want to continue my membership, but cannot afford to until I get my tax return in a month or two. I don't want to lose my spot in the tourney, I'm doing fairly well. I would love the option of buying a month or 2 to get me through until I can afford to buy a full year's membership.
  
• I realize some may try to abuse this, buy a month, and at the end of the month join a lot of games so that they have a month's worth of games to play, and buy another month when those games end, thereby only having to pay for every other month. That is why I suggest the price at $5 a month, those trying to beat the system would still end up paying a total of $30 a year, still a gain for the site. And I doubt the every other month trick would work well anyway, most games dont last that long.

This I can agree with as the most sensible suggestion, and rules out any loss of revenue to the site. Most people who are going to buy premium will probably pay the 25 dollars, but for people who are stuck for cash at any given time, having the option to pay 5 dollars for a month seems fair. The 5 dollars being quite expensive when you add it all up would prevent people from cheating the system by only paying every second month having started a crapload of games. Why do that if it's more expensive in the long run?

It would also give new members a "try before you buy" if they only have to pay $5 for the first 30 days. (and if they pay for full premium before their 30 days is up, maybe they only have to pay 20?) I can't see how this wouldn't benefit the site.

[Metsfanmax]

Let me make one last attempt to be the voice of reason. There are already many players on the "13 month plan" who load up on games at the end of their premium and wait a few weeks or a month before renewing. If 3-month prem is allowed, all those people, and more, will be on the "4-month plan". People renewing 12 month memberships every 13 months = an 8% loss of revenue. People renewing 3 month memberships every 4 months = a 33% loss of revenue.

Think about what you really mean by a "loss of revenue," and you'll see why "everyone of significance" is not doing valid analysis. A loss of revenue compared to what? If we never offered a premium subscription, then we'd never "lose" any revenue because of the freeloading problem -- but we'd certainly never gain any. That is, you're neglecting to analyze the opportunity cost of not offering the shorter premium subscriptions. What is that opportunity cost? There are two obvious ones. The simpler one is that you would make a six month premium membership proportionally more expensive, to account for the revenue that would be lost if people did two six month memberships in a 13 month period. Neglecting the fixed transaction costs, that would mean you just charge $13.50 instead of $12.50 for six months. And since many people won't take advantage of what you're describing, then we may even make more money that way. But the other one, that you don't seem to be giving any attention to, is that more people will go premium. Some people are just not ready to commit to premium for 12 months, for example because they are new to the site and want to try out the benefits of premium for a little while. (Shannon's post, which I got fastposted on, is making the same point -- if your subscription options are $5/month or $25/year, that's an obvious win.) Those people might have just left the site and never come back if their only option was to committing to CC for a full year. So your claim that this is an obvious revenue loss is completely incorrect.

Bottom line, though, is I don't really care about that so much. It's BigWham's business; if he wants to allow the revenue loss as a goodwill gesture or whatever, so be it. Here's what bothers me though, is as a tournament organiser. Already players on the 13 month plan are a considerable headache to me in running tournaments. They let their premium expire, and won't renew until the next round of invites. Then they cut it too close. Now the next round of invites is out, and still they haven't renewed. Now I have the unpalatable choice of dropping them from the tournament and wasting even more time finding a replacement, or waiting 3 days whlle they make a payment on their Visa or whatever they have to do to make room for their membership fee.

Again, one would obviously make it so that it is always more financially sensible to subscribe for longer periods than for shorter ones. That's why I've added a 24 month option -- I bet a lot of people would sign up for 24 months, especially if it is cheaper than signing up for two 12 month periods (and it obviously would be). There may be some new signups to your tournaments from people who start a 3 month premium subscription for the first time, and I'm not sure how to deal with it, but saying "you can only commit to premium for one year or more" because it makes the job of TOs harder is a non-starter. You have to understand that. Let's work together to find a different solution to this problem. I can think of a number of ideas, like allowing tournament games to go over the 4 game limit if the tournament started while you were premium. (That might be awful, but my point is let's talk about these before we discard them.)

[JamesKer1]

a la IMPLEMENTED

[Army of GOD]

how is $25 less than going to the cinema?

[IcePack]

how is $25 less than going to the cinema?

Two people (two tickets) and one popcorn and drink to share on a date is $40