Iron Elite Membership - Can we have higher "enterprise" level plans?

Tael

I can't find the post, but I remember Sarapis talking about this before. The fact that they didn't offer a ~$15/month (normal MMO subscription pricing) package was a deliberate decision that he said they were unlikely to change soon (though I guess that was a while ago).

Dochitha

From business point of view, when $24.99 works, and there are demand for more and less, it's in the business interest to unlock and tap those segments. @Sarapis We can have higher plans unlocked first, as in more expensive ones.

Klendathu

Dochitha said:

From business point of view, when $24.99 works, and there are demand for more and less, it's in the business interest to unlock and tap those segments. @Sarapis We can have higher plans unlocked first, as in more expensive ones.

There is probably demand for giant chocolate coated hamster balls too, but is there sufficient demand to bother with them? Just because one person has posited an idea, and a couple of others have said they think it's a good idea, doesn't mean Sarapis et al will suddenly turn around and implement it!

Austere

Sarapis might not want to tap all of the possible income brackets that play Achaea.  Maybe he is content with the non-turbo version of the 911.  Mo money, mo problems.  Amirite?


<seriously doubt Matt would drive a Porsche. He seems more like a Subaru guy, with all of his outdoor adventures>

Sarapis

@Austere 2009 Toyota Rav4, in fact, purchased used.

Austere

Sarapis said:

@Austere 2009 Toyota Rav4, in fact, purchased used.

Dang,  I was going to go with Honda next.  Toyota would have been third, though.  Wouldn't have guessed Rav4 at all. 

Silvarien

@Sarapis : I'd really like a $50 or $100 membership. Gaia Online does that, but that's really bad next to Achaea. If normal credit packages go up to well over 1k dollars, I don't think a $100 membership would be so far out away from sanity. If there was a great incentive to have a recurring charge, it would be good for the company because the person commits to spending no matter what. For the player it would be good because membership credits tend to be a better deal per credit than ordinary ones. Extra lessons are good too...

tl;dr I think this is a great idea and I really hope you and @Tecton consider doing some other, higher-cost tiers of Elite membership.

Yae

*stares bleakly at Gaia Online economy* 

Let's not go there, @Silvarien.

Dochitha

@Klendathu You will be surprised at how many people actually wants it. It all depends on how the bigger plans are structured, pricing/benefit wise. Iron Elite is a good reference point. 

I am also sure the cost of investment into building few more bigger plans are going to bring in positive ROI. Don't think it takes substantial amount of time to build more plans like this, given it's potential for more people to just sign up bigger. Like what @Silvarien said with credit packages upward of thousands, higher plans are sane to tap into more income segments.

Monthly subscription is much better than one-time huge purchases for business, in view of stability and predictability of cash flow and revenues, it just gives a business more confidence, it's different. I run few businesses and made them all subscription based, I tasted them myself.

Please...@tecton @Sarapis bigger plans plzzzz!

Antonius

It's not quite as simple as just putting together new monthly subscription plans. You also have to consider the potential effects on the game itself, particularly the economy.

They might be able to make something work with some thought, but getting more money isn't necessarily the best thing if you ruin your product in the process.

Dochitha

Antonius said:

It's not quite as simple as just putting together new monthly subscription plans. You also have to consider the potential effects on the game itself, particularly the economy.

They might be able to make something work with some thought, but getting more money isn't necessarily the best thing if you ruin your product in the process.

Nice thought, I am sure IRE has all this in mind. 

I am suggesting thing that could work for both players and IRE, they will obviously have more data than me in terms of pricing and preferences / resource consumption IG and OOG that can work to support bigger plans, that means...MORE MONEY! and of course, more fulfillment for players who subscribe.

Talysin

I find people are willing to un-artie themselves if you ask.

Jules

On the topic of 50% XP bonuses that came up, as always, things like that really do depend on what the player base screams for or against, and how united they are on either front.  The only reason it seems so absolutely static/set in stone really is player culture, and in particular, players who are vocal about such things.  Basically, if the players were united and vocal enough about wanting it (with perhaps a few diehard dissenters wanting to maintain status quo) admin is probably going to listen on something like that - or at least, they probably should.  I mean, other IRE games hand them out like candy, so it's not like it's unprecedented even within the company.  The whole argument against things like this is pretty much "by golly even though I like grinding and grinding is so much fun you should have to grind if I had to grind because grinding is an achievement and you should have to work as much as I did (but it was fun, so much fun)"! 

Klendathu

The counter argument always seems to be "it's too boring / it's too hard, I can't possibly put myself through the agonising pain and personal trauma, especially as there is XP loss (the horror!)".

Stones, glass houses, yadda.

Jules

Yeah, we've had that argument, repeatedly - and I bet we'll have it again, but not today.  The point is that things that seem set in stone usually aren't.  I mean, some things might take almost a full decade to change, as it did for probability based forging to go away, which happened pretty damned quickly when Sarapis finally realized that the reason no one was buying artifact weapons was because batshit forgers were consistently trumping even the L3s.  

To be fair he hadn't been around for several years and actually, admin really doesn't seem to have the manpower to personally verify the ground truth of things in a lot of cases, but it's still kind of funny and drives home that there can be a real disconnect between what admin understands and players know.  In that case, of course, a certain segment of players was VERY vocal for years about maintaining a status quo that was in their own personal interest, but the changes - which went IRE-wide, were a great change for the game as a whole, and really did seem almost inconceivable beforehand, exactly because people had been so successful in suppressing any hope of a change like that for so long.   

Aerek

Klendathu said:

The counter argument always seems to be "it's too boring / it's too hard, I can't possibly put myself through the agonising pain and personal trauma, especially as there is XP loss (the horror!)".

Stones, glass houses, yadda.

A lot of your posts operate on the idea that you personally enjoy hunting for hours on end, therefore everyone else should; or that you're artefacted to the hilt, therefore everyone else should catch up; or that bashing up the 2000cr for a Veil is "not that hard" for you, so you don't understand why others think that's unreasonable.

I don't know you or anything about you except for what you post, but what you post is often rife with narrow perspectives that showcase your preference toward personal biases with only the slightest attempts to understand anyone else's viewpoint, so I'm not sure I'd start talking about stones and glass houses. You're pretty transparent and you cast a fair number of stones, yourself.

As far as the OP actually goes, I have to assume that if IRE felt tiered membership fees were reasonable or profitable, they'd probably exist already. My half-educated guess would be that they don't want to discourage lump-sum credit purchases by undercutting themselves with larger discount membership offers.

Klendathu

I do enjoy hunting, and there are also others who enjoy it. I also appreciate that there are also those who don't enjoy it. I generally respond to the very vocal people who say hunting is boring to offer a counter-point.

Yes, Klendathu does have quite a lot of artefacts, many of which have been earned through credits bought with IG gold generated by hunting. Again, I'm offering the counter-point that you don't have to pay RL money to get artefacts.

Many years ago, before I had children of my own, I had plenty of disposable income, I bought a lot of credits early on, transed out all skills, etc.

There is one person who constantly and consistently complains about certain aspects of Achaea, comparing them infavourably with other games in the IRE stable. I won't name names, but I'm sure it's pretty evident who I'm talking about. That kind of thing winds me up. Just because this person doesn't like something, doesn't mean we all don't like it, just as, I know, there are things that I like that others don't like. If it's that annoying, go play the games that have the things you prefer, instead of putting down what others enjoy.

As for not understanding other people's perspectives, if you wish to think that about me, that's entirely your decision.

Trey

Lol, stable.

Dochitha

Aerek said:

As far as the OP actually goes, I have to assume that if IRE felt tiered membership fees were reasonable or profitable, they'd probably exist already. My half-educated guess would be that they don't want to discourage lump-sum credit purchases by undercutting themselves with larger discount membership offers.

Yep, that's a valid worry.

Just taking this chance to share my experience, I run a business that allows bulk purchases on significant discounts, as well as monthly memberships. They did not manage to cannibalize each other.

It's also surprising that people on larger monthly plans tend to purchase the bulks too when we have sales every 6 months.

I had the same worry before I started monthly plans thinking it may cannibalize the bulk sales, but it failed to do so. Sales grew manifolds since then.

Pricing and packaging aren't something businesses can test frequently, so I am sharing my experience here just in case that worry comes to mind.

Jules

Yeah, I totally agree Docitha.  It's not like admin has all kinds of time and manpower for that sort of stuff, so they really probably just have to make educated guesses after taking a gander at customer behavior.  I sort of assume they have some automated tracking tools, but still, usually a person has to have a look at that and see what they think it means to them.  I think your idea is at the very least having a look at, and seeing if parts of it might work for them.  

Dochitha

Let's have Gold Elite Plan, that gives these additionals:

• higher chance to crit
• +1 battlerage gain on attacks
• more creds monthly obviously (helps with multiclass)
• more lessons daily obviously (helps with multiclass)
• 5 nuts and 5 seftballs monthly?
• 1 mayan crown a month.

How??

Trevize

As much as I would like to see a $50 or $100 pack, I can see why they wouldn't.

The Elite credits are offered at a much lower price with tons of extras - and come with a discount for more purchased. There's already a benefit for extra spent, and topping that somehow would go a bit over the top.

Shadizar

 It is hard for most people to justify spending $50-100 bucks a month on "just a game". I think the small crowd of people that would go for a $100 dollar monthly membership are already throwing money at IRE every month. This would be making it cheaper for the big spender who already spends big. These guys would sit on superfan memberships and reap the benefits. There would be nothing to offset the loss of profit from discounted bulk credit orders, previously purchased by the same crowd who are now armed with this new membership (if credit bonus % went up). This would be giving them items, like crowns, that cost credits (ie. real money) furthering the loss. I say milk big spenders through impulse purchases! Why? Because they are gonna spend big anyways.

(p.s. this is just my half-hearted opinion, I don't know shit about business.)

Dochitha

I am in Elite membership for the other perks, not the bound credits really, it's too slow, hence my suggestion on bigger plan is to have more perks that does not affect combat balance.

The slowness in monthly credits does give a positive effect to make me spend: Every month I get that 100+ bound that I can't do anything with, out of a sudden I feel the urge to grab and arty, I am already 100 closer, and there's a promo, boom, I buy more credits. It does a good job removing obstacles. I also know without Elite I won't be buying as many credits as I have bought so far.

Making money from business does not come from NOT selling and NOT squeezing from the top 10 customers as hard as you can, rather, adding more content and value that makes the Top 10 customers spend more and get happier in the process.

Manach

Hey, how about they start selling blue pill Artefacts that you eat to instantly become dragon. And satchels that are full of every combat Artefact. Maybe a client that ships with an automated offensive script and curing system too.

maybe you can pay someone to play the game for you too.

Dochitha

Manach said:

Hey, how about they start selling blue pill Artefacts that you eat to instantly become dragon. And satchels that are full of every combat Artefact. Maybe a client that ships with an automated offensive script and curing system too.

maybe you can pay someone to play the game for you too.

Not funny. This is serious discussion.

Tahquil

Tagging @Sarapis here because I -think- someone on the forums either old or new he said something along these lines. He can correct what I get wrong.

The purpose of Elite memberships from a business standpoint is to generate more purchases of credit bundles which is were the money is made.

The Iron Elite Memberships don't make money for the games. They either break even or dip into negative in relation to profits.What they do do is help break transactions into small parts which is more palatable to a consumer as well as still giving the consumer the gratifying 'I saved up for this' feeling. 

Example: Person A and B both want an artefact that is 800cr

A buys an Iron elite membership and saves 500cr over 3/4months. They are more likely to go buy a 300cr transaction because 'it's only 300cr and I get a 10% bonus. It's such a tiny amount compared to the original 800cr and I've been saving it for months, I'm so awesome.' Once they have their item they feel good because the did technically save up for some of it. then they start a new artefact goal and rinse and repeat.

B with no iron elite may not buy a credit bundle at all because '800cr is far to to splash out in one hit'.

So having higher tier membership levels would negate these extra expenditures that the company relies on completely. Those top end customers who could be 'squeezed' with a higher membership are being 'squeezed' more efficiently and profitably with the current membership and the extra credit bundles they buy (because it is only these bundles which generate money).

Manach

How do you break even selling elite memberships? Surely $25 a month per person covers the overhead of PayPal/debit service...

Tahquil

The you have the wages of certain members of staff, servers.. blah blah blah. I'm sure there is a long list of behind the scene things that needs to be paid for one way or another.

Valkyn

Yes, but those figures are there regardless of iron elite. If you increased iron elite levels, you'd increase profits from it, whether you'd increase profits in general is arguable, but arguing 'iron elite runs at a loss' doesn't make sense, as the resources that are used to run iron elite specifically are generally fairly cheap. Did people spend more money on Achaea before Iron elite came around? That'd be an interesting thing to know.

I'm not arguing for higher levels of iron elite, don't have the numbers to really even make an educated guess on whether it'd be good for profits. I'm guessing since Sarapis and Tecton do, they would have made this a thing already if they though it would help.