Pente.org's business model
Posted:
Jun 5, 2015, 6:44 AM
Fellow Pentegonians,
This website has been supported by ads and one-time donations, which in turn took away ads. I intend to change that in the following weeks or months, depending on my pace.
The major upcoming change is that the donor-experience (ads-free and donor extras) is not going to be lifelong anymore, but it will last you a year. If a year expires after your donation/subscription, then your account will revert to a regular one and ads will show up again. I haven't decided yet if the donor features stay or not, they wouldn't be erased, but rather suspended.
I intend to limit the number of games a free account can play simultaneously. This applies to Turn-Based games, not to the live room. A free account will also not have access to the database.
There may be different subscription tiers, and an option to have an ad-free experience on mobile devices (currently that's iOS only). I haven't decided yet if push notifications is something that only subscribers should enjoy or not.
When the change happens, people who have donated less than a year before then will continue to have an ads-free experience until their year expires.
These are preliminary ideas, and open for debate. If you have any input on the matter, don't be shy and let yourself be heard.
Posts:
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Re: Pente.org's business model
Posted:
Jun 11, 2015, 6:52 AM
way to go wolf! i think it only fair to charge an annual fee and i will gladly pay it. i spent five dollars to join and have played here for years.tho i have made subsequent donations, i think an annual fee totally appropriate i spend more on a ps3 game, lol
Posts:
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Re: Pente.org's business model
Posted:
Jun 11, 2015, 8:44 AM
I hope that peoples profile pictures and quotes would remain visible to us, even long after they have retired, or passed away, etc. Is my main initial concern.
~Z
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Re: Pente.org's business model
Posted:
Jun 11, 2015, 8:53 AM
Hi Rainwolf,
I totally think that's a great idea. Dweebo was way too soft on these people
I actually ran a donation drive for this site a couple of years back and managed to get nearly $1000 donated between 9 or 10 people. One person donated $500. I did this because Dweebo had said that he was thinking of taking the whole site offline. Maybe another donation drive might be useful to kick things off?
Another thing is recruitment. There used to be heaps of people in here regularly playing turn-based, but now it is like a ghost town. If you get numbers up, you get revenue up. I think linking in with social media would be a good move. If you set a fee for membership in the form of a minimum donation (not sure if you can do that on a .org domain), then you can offer a discount if they introduce a new paying person to the site.
Re: Pente.org's business model
Posted:
Jun 11, 2015, 9:18 AM
Free accounts would not be able to change that information (picture, note, ...), and it wouldn't get lost when accounts revert to a free one.
No need for a donation drive, thank you for the offer. I am fine-tuning my ideas.
Free accounts will be able to play a limited number of games simultaneously, this will affect them when they try to accept an invitation or trying to post a new one, with the exception of open invitations. They cannot accept open invitations beyond the limit, but they will be able to post them and go over the limit that way.
The discount in return for a referral is something I would like to implement in the future, but won't make it initially.
I'll start with 4 tiers. - one month full access without ads to try it out, - 1 year of unlimited games, no ads, database access, - 1 year of unlimited games, no ads, no database access, - 1 year of unlimited games and database access but with ads.
In the future, use of the AI will be tied to database access.
The free accounts will be able to play 5 games simultaneously, and only able post and accept a new invitation once the sum of their active games, non-active games and already sent invitation drops below 5 (An invitation for a rated game counts double). But they will still be able to send out unlimited open invitations, but not accept them. Not taking open invitations into account, this implies that the limit for free accounts is actually 6. (Accept an invitation when you have 4 ongoing games).
I am not limiting live play at this time.
Allison, did you mean live play instead of turn-based?
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Re: Pente.org's business model
Posted:
Jun 11, 2015, 9:42 AM
Those are some pretty good ideas...I would go even further and consider changes like the inaccessability of the database for free accounts, as long overdue.
With an annual donation as the only condition to get the status of "Full-Membership" and to keep it, Pente.org still would keep its open-for-everyone & non-profit-but lotsa-Pente character!
I'm also fine or can at least arrange myself pretty fine with more "restrictive" membership / payment-systems like at bk... Most of the time a free membership is sufficient, sometimes I do need to upgrade for a few month if I want to participate in an interesting tournament or more than one at the same time...seems fair to me.. Earning a free 1-year-vip-membership by winning the pente championchips at a German gaming site also appeared nice to me last year...
Maybe having a look at other gaming sites can generally be a good advise... It's not about simply adapting concepts but getting ideas and inspirations...no one has to reinvent the wheel.. :P
So for example I like it if a site offers different possibilities to create user profils (to fill them with informations, pics and so on..). Even if I usually don't use those things very much myself, lots of players do! (ask Mark Zuckerberg!) ...but even without transforming into a pure (commercial) social network service taking account of some social aspects can be an enrichment for nerdy gaming sites too..
Building teams (or the opportunity to) is another feature that can lead to fun and dynamic developements...
Anyway, I like this place here, so I care about it too...and development through thoughtful changes might improve even the coolest places!
Re: Pente.org's business model
Posted:
Jun 13, 2015, 3:14 PM
Thank you all for the suggestions and encouragement.
Keep the suggestions coming, except I'd suggest to wait until I roll it out. I'm gunning to get everything ready in a week or less since the iOS app is already adapted and waiting for approval from Apple (which should come in a week).
@lupulo: - the database is already locked down to donors since a few days ago - more profile information is planned, but not a high priority right now
@allisontate - the live play numbers plummeted but there are still bursts of activity. Not sure what contributing factors are, but I'm not ruling out that more people invest in mobile devices rather than computers, and spend more time with them too.
Posts:
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Re: Pente.org's business model
Posted:
Jun 14, 2015, 2:41 AM
just one question... will the annual fee be based on enrollment date or or a set date like december 30th? i only ask cuz i need to know when to send my check
Re: Pente.org's business model
Posted:
Jun 20, 2015, 6:27 AM
There will be no need for that. Once I roll out the changes (or once your subscription expires), your account will revert to a free account (which means you will see ads again, turn-based will be limited, and database access restricted). But nothing will be lost, only restricted. Once you subscribe again, all your subscriber benefits will be accessible again. Colors/avatars/notes will not be deleted, just inaccessible.
