(06-21-2023, 05:49 PM)Poll: Pricing Model Wrote: [ -> ]$22 Monthly Fee - No limit to games played. This includes all game types
$19 Monthly Fee - 2 games This includes all game types
$30 All In 1 game - This includes all game types
Guys/Gals,
I am looking to simplify pricing and want to get feedback, so please respond and leave additional comments if you like.
My one concern is with unlimited games, is people signing up then dropping right away, open to thoughts on that as well.
Thanks in advance,
John
1. I'm not sure what the third option, the $30 one, actually means. As I read it, that option is the most expensive of the three options listed, yet it offers the least - 1 game, which means what, exactly? One game at a time?
2. My gut feeling is that none of the three options come across as particularly appealing. I grasp that you probably want to begin making back some of the money that you spent to buy Alamaze. Yet, that is quite a distinct thing from whether the options listed above are a viable way to achieve that to any notable degree.
3. From my perspective, all three options listed above are too high, if your aim is to grow the player base at an accelerated rate. After all, where newcomers to Alamaze are concerned, you're basically starting with a blank sheet. They will only really have the price, itself, to serve as the foundational basis for making their decision on whether to play or not.
4. In the current day and age, Alamaze's competition is not simply other games that may be similar to it, in some way, but pretty much anything that qualifies as entertainment - including streaming movies and television services. How many free games are there out there which are Internet-accessible, to include on sites such as Steam, and to also include free games of a great many different types available as free downloads for smartphones? All of those, combined, are but a mere drop in Alamaze's overall competition for players and entertainment budgets.
5. Even if you were to offer Alamaze for free, there is no actual guarantee that you will succeed in growing the player base at an accelerated rate. Currently, you have not yet significantly recaptured a sizable portion of the former Alamaze player base, and less than 40 unique forum users have logged into the forum, at all, in the past 21 days, since the 1st of June. If you can't succeed in regrowing a sizable portion of the player base that previously players and loved earlier versions of Alamaze, those who are already familiar with much of the game's offerings and interface, it begs the question be asked, how much harder will it likely be, to persuade those with absolutely no familiarity with the game's offerings or its interface?
6. The amount that you charge to play the game can easily constitute a
barrier to entry, as well as another
barrier to retention. How high do you want these two barriers to be? How many potential new players (and existing players, as well) are you willing to risk losing?
7. What do you think is the average player's monthly entertainment budget for
all of their entertainment pursuits? Remember, what you choose to charge to play Alamaze is only a single portion of their potential budget outlays. Furthermore, the word
recession is a word bandied about in many circles, of late. Recession, or even widespread talk about the potential for recession, tends to make people nervous. Recession and the potential for recession constitutes barriers to Alamaze's
potential for growth.
8. The
ability to offer unlimited game play is an advantage that can be exploited to grow the game's player base at an accelerated rate. A common lament by experience Alamaze players in recent years has been the shrinking pool of Alamaze players. The smaller the player base for the game, the lower the potential is to generate revenue of note. From my perspective,
growing the player base is the paramount consideration. If you don't have many players, then the timeframe for recovering what you paid for the game, much less to achieve a profit beyond your costs, becomes extended. In essence, you can't count your chickens (paying customers) before they hatch (materialize and stay).
9. Without a player base of notable size, you have little in the way to work with for the
generation of profit. The bigger the player base, the more potential for generation of profit. Additionally, a secondary consideration for a bigger player base is an
increase in competition. A third consideration that argues in favor of a bigger player base is that new games of Alamaze are more likely to start more frequently. Players who are still playing Alamaze, today, can explain to you what it feels like when they want new games to start, but there simply aren't enough players signed up for new games to start without sizable delays.
10. Your pricing model and your pricing methodology need to be attractive. The more attractive, the better. The less attractive, the worse. I would encourage you to think outside of the box.
11. As regards your concern about people signing up, and then dropping right away, you shouldn't allow yourself to operate under an assumption that you actually have, or can obtain, control over that. I am not aware of any game on the market where players don't choose when they will drop out of playing. The bigger your player base, the more easily you can likely fill gaps that occur from player dropouts. Also, players will drop games of Alamaze for a variety of different reasons. Each reason is a different and unique problem, separate from one another, although the end result of players dropping out of games invariably tends to end up "looking" the same. More important than players dropping out of games is what is your plan (or plans) for remedying those dropouts.
12. If you limit how many games that Alamaze players can play in at any one time, then you undermine your ability to fill gaps created by player dropouts.
13. The less limits you impose for whatever price you charge, the more value that inheres in the price that you charge.
14. My own recommendation is to offer unlimited play of Alamaze in unlimited number of games for free. Why? Because it's likely the fastest way to grow the player base, and also, if you can't succeed at growing the player base noticeably with that model, then it begs the question of how successful you will likely be at growing the player base for Alamaze by imposing costs to play the game, and limits on how many games of Alamaze that players can play in at any given time.
15. Crowdfunding can create possibilities for changing the cost/revenue dynamic. Naturally, sloppy, half-ass, and dull crowdfunding campaigns tend to do much worse than crowdfunding campaigns of real consequence. If all that you have in your bag of tricks is a dated and archaic pricing model, then you might want to consider more fully your potential for generation of profit, as well as the time frame for expected materialization of profit.