Why $5 a month

[Inuendo]

I'm willing to bet this gets brought up a lot but I really do enjoy that game and I can't fathom who thought 5 bucks a month was a reasonable number to charge someone for a flash game. No I'm a game designer and programmer myself and trust me I understand the need to make money on a project, especially a large one like this. But 60 dollars a year for a service of one flash game is rather absurd. I pay 50 bucks a year for Xbox Live and get how many games to play online, to mention Xbox live arcade games that have hundreds of flash games and what not, and remember, all for ten bucks less a year!

So how am I supposed to justify spending more money a year for playing one game, and one that is rather static albeit there have been updates in the past. Why not allow me to pay say 30-40 bucks for a lifetime subscription? Then maybe I could consider paying for it, but as it stands I seriously think you guys alienate more users than you should with such a steep cost. 5 bucks a month is a lot if you consider paying that for any extended amount of time.

I'm not trying to sound aggressive but I enjoy your game and would like to enjoy it more, but simply can't understand or justify paying 60 dollars a year for a single game.

[Cuathon]

go to www.digisonline.com.
you cant actually gold right now since the system is down, but its 20$ lifetime minus a few benefits of this site.

[Jeffery]

I'm willing to bet this gets brought up a lot but I really do enjoy that game and I can't fathom who thought 5 bucks a month was a reasonable number to charge someone for a flash game. No I'm a game designer and programmer myself and trust me I understand the need to make money on a project, especially a large one like this. But 60 dollars a year for a service of one flash game is rather absurd. I pay 50 bucks a year for Xbox Live and get how many games to play online, to mention Xbox live arcade games that have hundreds of flash games and what not, and remember, all for ten bucks less a year!

So how am I supposed to justify spending more money a year for playing one game, and one that is rather static albeit there have been updates in the past. Why not allow me to pay say 30-40 bucks for a lifetime subscription? Then maybe I could consider paying for it, but as it stands I seriously think you guys alienate more users than you should with such a steep cost. 5 bucks a month is a lot if you consider paying that for any extended amount of time.

I'm not trying to sound aggressive but I enjoy your game and would like to enjoy it more, but simply can't understand or justify paying 60 dollars a year for a single game.
The reason is simple....

The servers cost money to maintain. Do you think the game host simply says "sure, pay me $500 now and I'll host you forever!"

Webhosting, game server hosting, and more specirfically in this case Flash Hosting cost money. For larger games the Bandwidth costs extra money.

I have been part of several game sites for years. And they often offer "lifetime" accoutns when they start out. Then they slowly phase those out for "yearly" accounts at a discount to the monthly payments.

Quite simply, you lose more money in the long hall with one-time payments. And the long run is what a business such as this looked at when deciding the cost.

BTW, do some research on other game sites. $5 is on the lower end. Some do offer $3.99 (a whole buck less), but many choose $5 and up for starting prices.

[Inuendo]

Like I said, I'm aware of server costs and development costs. But the question is, "What's more profitable? 100 people at 5 bucks a year or 500 at 3 bucks a year?" if they get 200-300k new grey accounts a month, even giving half of those are multi accounts, don't you think it's more reasonable for them to attempt to get more users into the game then less? Not to mention I did look around the internet that are 3-4 bucks a month, still steep, but still not unreasonable.

[spzattk]

The reason is simple....

The servers cost money to maintain. Do you think the game host simply says "sure, pay me $500 now and I'll host you forever!"

Webhosting, game server hosting, and more specirfically in this case Flash Hosting cost money. For larger games the Bandwidth costs extra money.

I have been part of several game sites for years. And they often offer "lifetime" accoutns when they start out. Then they slowly phase those out for "yearly" accounts at a discount to the monthly payments.

Quite simply, you lose more money in the long hall with one-time payments. And the long run is what a business such as this looked at when deciding the cost.

BTW, do some research on other game sites. $5 is on the lower end. Some do offer $3.99 (a whole buck less), but many choose $5 and up for starting prices.

That's just what your zionist slave owners want you to believe you stupid pussy bitch.

[Woodland]

I'm willing to bet this gets brought up a lot but I really do enjoy that game and I can't fathom who thought 5 bucks a month was a reasonable number to charge someone for a flash game. No I'm a game designer and programmer myself and trust me I understand the need to make money on a project, especially a large one like this. But 60 dollars a year for a service of one flash game is rather absurd. I pay 50 bucks a year for Xbox Live and get how many games to play online, to mention Xbox live arcade games that have hundreds of flash games and what not, and remember, all for ten bucks less a year!

Dude, shut the hell up. If you're going to bring XBL into this atleast KNOW what the hell you're talking about. Fair enough, $50 for a whole year of Live for Xbox/360. But, think about you've got to pay for the games to play online, so that's almost over a $100 already from paying for Live and one game alone. So, this is cheaper it's just not as spaced out as paying all at once like Live is. Think about it.

And you've got too pay for Microsoft points too buy Arcade games, and consediring Arcade games are 800 points each, that's OVER yes OVER $10 bucks for just one.

Douche.

[Inuendo]

OVER 10 bucks up front lifetime fee for one game that is larger in scope than this game? Oh my I do need to think more!

But seriously, thanks for being reasonable about it all. it's about 12 bucks, i know what I'm talking about. the other costs are in fact hardware, which I would have to spend for a PC. Coincidentally I have both...and the PC cost me 500 bucks, more than the xbox 360 and a game or two. So, as I was trying to say, hardware costs aside, it's cheaper for xbox live. Plus, I get get arcade games for life for 12 bucks a game with a silver account. Wow, still a much better buy.

[Woodland]

Yeah, I do have both a PC and a 360. Consediring my Apple Mac was £1,000 I couldn't care.

Lovely. Either way, I don't care. If you've not got gold, then neither should you care, but if you've got the money and you can/want to pay for it, do it. If not, don't complain.

[KBHoleN1]

But he was pointing out you CAN'T put hardware costs aside. Think of the money you spend on the 360, the games, plus all the trouble you have to go through with Microsoft if your system breaks (which apprently happens a lot with the 360's cooling problems). This game is convenient, I can sit down at any internet connection and be in a game inside of a minute.

And why is it that so many people feel the need to bitch about the price? If so many people are paying it a) it can't be that bad, b) your singular complaint will not cause the administration to do anything. If you don;t like the price, don't pay. TAO makes money because their price is fair to thousands of players. Deal with it.

And P.S. - I have a lifetime gold on Rev, so I could stop payment on my one active account, and continue playing gold for free.

[Inuendo]

again...not complaining, just pointing some things out I think are a bit silly with the pricing system. and you can put costs aside, like I said, and he concurred, we both spent more on a PC which is a necessary piece of hardware for this game.

[KBHoleN1]

But I didn't. I don't own a computer in fact, and still have access to one every day. There are hundreds on campus, one at my desk at work, 2 computers courtesy of my roommates, and all of them support flash. Computer access is a lot more common than say, 360 access. Convenience is the key.

[Jeffery]

Like I said, I'm aware of server costs and development costs. But the question is, "What's more profitable? 100 people at 5 bucks a year or 500 at 3 bucks a year?" if they get 200-300k new grey accounts a month, even giving half of those are multi accounts, don't you think it's more reasonable for them to attempt to get more users into the game then less? Not to mention I did look around the internet that are 3-4 bucks a month, still steep, but still not unreasonable.
What is more profitable???

3000 accounts at $5 a month. Which TAO has and has had for 2 years.

[Inuendo]

or 5000 at 4 bucks, no matter how you put the numbers the point remains

[AlabamaBoy]

That's just what your zionist slave owners want you to believe you stupid pussy bitch.

I want to kill you with a dull butter knife.

[dirka dirka]

You might be a game designer, but you don't know basic economics. Lucky for me, I know both. At $5 a month, they get X players. At $2 a month, they get 3X players. Looks like at $2 a month they make more money? Wrong, they pay out 3X to maintain the servers, and end up in a deficit. There are more things here to consider than basic opportunity cost.

[Jeffery]

or 5000 at 4 bucks, no matter how you put the numbers the point remains
Yes, and your point is that it would be better to make 4000 accounts at $20 once (total made of 80,000) compares to 4000 at $5 a month for 1 year (total of 240,000)

Gee, your way makes MUCH more sense. I mean, TAO must be going bankrupt with a business plan where they continually generates money, as opposed to just making it one time.

[uniquinous]

It only cost $50 a year for your xbox live flash games? How much was teh b0x? A few hundred? Yeah.

Now here's the thing - in order to satisfy your whole "cheaper goods = more customers" idea, you need to have some proof that cheaper goods will actually bring in more customers. Which it probably won't. You're talking about larger scale economics. You change the price of gum from 50 cents to 75 cents, and no one cares. However, if you change the price of - I dunno - cable TV premium packets from $50/month to $75/month, people will care - a lot - and you will lose customers. Do you really think $3 compared to $5 is gonna get more 12 year olds crying to mommy and daddy for an account here? You're gonna get the same percentage of kids and the same parental reaction. Cuz no matter how you slice it, both $3 and $5 are a fraction of an hours work at minimum wage. Both are seen as small compared to the $600+ you just sunk into getting your xbox, the extra controller, the subscription to live, and the games.

[Jeffery]

If you want to bring X-Box into this, then let us also discuss the development cost of the games themselves. And of the system itself.

How many MILLIONS of dollars are spent on the system and game development?

How much money was spent on TAO?

[Inuendo]

no, server costs are not directly proportional to users, or even to bandwidth.

[Realist]

It has nothing to do with hardware costs. Companies that have market power (like TAO) do not price based on cost, except in the sense that they'll go out of business if they can't at least cover them. TAO charges $5/month because it gets enough business at that much that it can afford to charge that much (I am guessing it makes pretty huge profit on that cost). If you don't like it, don't buy it, there are hundreds of kids who will though, because TAO is just that great a game.

Or just buy for one month and take advantage of perma rev.

And dirka, you're wrong too; more 3x gold does not mean 3x server maintnence cost because the vast majority of player traffic is grey.

[Cuathon]

OVER 10 bucks up front lifetime fee for one game that is larger in scope than this game? Oh my I do need to think more!

But seriously, thanks for being reasonable about it all. it's about 12 bucks, i know what I'm talking about. the other costs are in fact hardware, which I would have to spend for a PC. Coincidentally I have both...and the PC cost me 500 bucks, more than the xbox 360 and a game or two. So, as I was trying to say, hardware costs aside, it's cheaper for xbox live. Plus, I get get arcade games for life for 12 bucks a game with a silver account. Wow, still a much better buy.

you are a complete and total idiot. see computers, they do other stuff? you know? most people dont buy a computer only to game, which is what an X-Box is for. besides that you can get permanent rev accounts for 5 dollars and perma double golds on legends for 20. of course, since not everyone is a cheap leazy ass like you, rev is not as actvie as the other servers. however legends is. you have plenty of ceahp options to play tao. which you should have checked for before starting sucha stupid thread.

[dirka dirka]

And dirka, you're wrong too; more 3x gold does not mean 3x server maintnence cost because the vast majority of player traffic is grey.

Grey accounts are trials. If you have more golds, you have more trials. More people willing to find out what the game is about. Truthfully, you don't know how even a penny change would change the game over time.

[Learz]

One thing I'm curious about is why hasn't TAO started running flash banner ads?
It should boost the game, as well as letting more people know about TAO.

Oh, and as to stay on topic: the admins here have pretty much gotten TAO to be "self-supporting."
They don't intend to do anything to upset the equilibrium.

[dirka dirka]

Interesting question. It would boost their profit, no doubts. I'm wondering if it would put the game into the spotlight more, and therefore bring more noobs, which we don't have the ability to deal with. (No offense to the mods, you're doing your jobs, but it isn't like you're paid.)

[uniquinous]

meh tiz true.

[Jeffery]

Banner ads = spending money.

Sure, these ads would increase business. Which also means an increased workload for upgrading accounts, maintaining accounts, answering tickets.....

TAO, as it is at right now, has 3 almost full servers. I don;t mean physically full 100% of the time, but on average they are at a point where they can carry the average load, with a few peak rushes.

If the game advertised itself actively this would end up putting additional load on the servers, and sooner or later would require adding additional servers.

Sounds nice, right?? HOWEVER, with Seed the only person allowed to do any coding, this would include creating a new server and setting it up for use.

Now, even back in the DR days when Seed was active on the game, getting him to do ANYTHING you wanted him to do when you wanted him to do it was impossible. It was always what he wanted whenever he wanted to do it. (random middle ofthe night wipes were FUN!)


So yes, banner ads would increase the number of people playing. But at this time TAO simply couldn;t afford to expand with the current infrastructure in place.