Most of us here have some sense of whats going on in the MMORPG marketplace and if some of you dont know there has been a recent move to make the game free, but put advertisments in the game, then you could pay to remove them.

Both Anarchy Online and Shadowbane both became free, and are using advertising to generate revenue beyond anything they did before. And now due to the success of that campaign *Ie server counts way up, and money up" Planetside is moving to do the same as of march 24th. I think the devs should consider doing the same thing with Vendetta-Online, when they want to make the marketing push.

Maybe im just being a crackhead here but I think this would really help VO to grow, of course it would take a few months to get server counts and subscriber counts high enough to get advertisers to pay large amounts of money for advertisments.

Plan:
Make Vendetta free once we reach 2.0 status
-Let user counts hit arouund 1000+ concurrent users and about 30000+ subscribers
-Allow Advertisments to be put in game, around stations, at the start up menu maybe.
-Allow players to play free with advertisments, and pay the regular monthly fee to remove them.
-Use site's such as MMORPG.com and IGN.com to market the game while it grows.

Upside:
-Player Counts increase
-Server Counts increase
-Very possible massive revenue boost
-Players more likely to stick around

Downside:
-Multipe Servers may be needed *server costs up*
-Inability to go back to subscriptions completely without loosing players.
-Revenue may take months to get to an acceptable state per month.

So, discuss whether or not this is a good Idea, and if, where should the advertisments be placed? Afterall this could help the game termendously, or it could do nothing at all besides keep us where we are now.

Shadowbane's site says they have a 15-day free trial (?). Anarchy Online allows free play, but only on the original game, all expansions require account upgrades (and, I imagine, that means a great deal of the game world is inaccessible). So.. it sounds more like an extended-trial type come-on to me.

On another note, if we stopped billing we would instantly go out of business. We don't really have a lot of financial breathing room for trying new models right now.

"On another note, if we stopped billing we would instantly go out of business. We don't really have a lot of financial breathing room for trying new models right now."

Sorry to hear that... do you have a 'donate' button?

While you may not be able to experiment like that, perhaps it is time to consider supplementary means of revenue.

For example: allowing more than the current max of characters per account, but at an additional charge beyond that number (I, for one, would pay extra each month for some more character slots, or perhaps the ability to send credits from one character to another, etc..)

That's not a bad idea. We have had a lot of ideas about improving revenue, and we're basically focusing all our energy on trying to make them happen. Specifically.. improving certain aspects of the game, and marketing the game more. Hopefully that'll pan out, and we'll be freed to add more features like this.

Thanks for replying Incarnate

Perhaps Donations would help.

Acclaim has risen from the ashes and is making a free MMO.

/me donates 2c to the devs

Personally, I think it would corrupt the whole nature of the game to do something like that. On the other hand, certain holographic adds, (that look SOMETHING like what you might find in 4432 AD) floating around stations. For instance, if Microsoft wanted to post an add in Sedina D14, (god forbid!) they would have to pay a lot, (because it's a popular station,) and give it a futuristic twist. Now, would this make the game file significantly larger, or could this potentially work? It would still maintain the integrety of the game and keep it from looking like you're groveling for money.

-Calder

Afterthought: Yeah, I wish we could donate. *sniff* :D

Bring back the Earthly Summers ads!!!

Yeah, put in adds, but format them to read entirely in waylonics ::evil grin::

vIsitor: That was actually discussed at one point. I think Ku Genin made a coca-cola sign in waylonics. It was instantly recognizable.

Of course, it's instantly recognizable in any language as far as I have seen--arabic, japanese, korean, hindi, etc.

unfortunately, i don't think too many companies would pay very much for adds in VO, especialy if they had to be written in GTS. it's just that VO isn't that well known, and companies don't want to pay for adds unless they can expect a fair amount of return on the cost (this doesn't apply to the corprate giants like microsoft but well they'r likely to be the most disruptive adds due to their recognisability).

Cunjo's idea however sounds wonderfull. you could probably even thake it a step farther and charge something like $0.50 per month for each character beyond the first.

And perhaps access to the test server could cost an extera dollar a moth.

also just out of curiosity which do you devs prefer, players who subscribe monthly (slightly more revenue, but less comitment to continue) or players who subscribe for longer durations (less revenue, but all up front with a tendancy to be commited for longer)?

The entire point of the test server is to, you know, test things. Getting player feedback and/or bug reports.

Making people PAY to be your beta testers (anyone feeling the urge to make snarky comments about the current status of the game can shut up right now) will make people even less likely to wander over to the test server to give things a go.

if they make the trial from 8 hours to 12 or more hours then i think that would bring a decent amount of new subscribers. I see weekly 5-15 people that cannot decide whether or not they want to subscribe and are teetering on the edge of subscribing. I think if they were given more time it would bring in a little bit more people. More people come in more word of mouth so eventually more people because of it.

Its easy and doesn't cost a thing :)

I personally would like to see a 14-day trial, alot of people get confused about the hour limit, and Vendetta does have a good learning cruve to new players.

SO incarnate what do you think? longer trials?

Perhaps donating to Vendetta monthly could get you some kinf of bonuses in terms of credits or maybe an exp bonus x2 or even x3 for large donations.

Kinda like donation packages.

XP bonuses are a no-no, as are money bonuses.

I'm suddenly reminded of BP when it was first redone. No longer were levels and money a product of hard work, they were the product of exploiting a hole in the group features of the new mission.

There is no reason that someone can't make enough money on their own, nor is there a reason that a person can't level up to combat 8 on their own, especially because the xp-associated exploit in BP is for all intents and purposes still there. Bonuses on things that people should have to work for are a bad idea in general.

well, i must say I would really not want to see ads ingame.
There are allready enough ads everywhere in RL and movies and TV and radio. I even think I would serioulsly consider leaving a game with ads in.
I think the fee should stay reasonable, as it is now. I know , its just my point of view, but trust me, I am not what one can call rich, I am just glad to participate to and enjoy a quality game.
Depending on ads gets any project to follow the wills of advertisers, thats how we have more and more poor quality productions in movies and tv programs, and less and less variety. Ads are the end of independency , content and business side.
I definetly disagree with that idea.

yea a 14 day trial account would be great. I think it would be a great way to get more people into the game.

Stamp of Approval :)

If you guys REALLY want to donate, just pop for another account. And then don't play it. Or play it. Up to you. It would be another $10 per month for Guild, and perhaps it would make you feel better.

Personally, I do NOT, EVER, EVER, want to see ads for real products ingame. Funny stuff like HoverBoy Mk IV, or ads like the ones we saw in RoboCop, or whatever, that would be great, and would allow for some creative latitude. But no real products. It's as annoying as going to a movie and seeing ads, or paying for a DVD and getting ads. Which is odd, seeing as I'm in the advertising biz...

What nioubi and LeberMac said. I'd also like to advice Chikira to lay off whatever he's been taking; his ideas get weirder and weirder over time...

On a similar note to the marketing thing, how about rewarding players for bringing in more paying customers?

Say someone brings in 3 more players, and 2 of them buy a subscription, if the new players mentioned the person who brought them by account name when they sign up, perhaps they could get in-game money (a few Million credits maybe?) to distribute to one or more of their characters?

I don't know... but there are a lot of possibilities for low-cost (or no-cost) marketing.