I just want to submit some feedback about the subscription pricing to the game developers/publishers and the community.
Disclaimer: First of all, let me state that I think MAN is one heluva good game. It does my heart good to see inde game developers do well.
I subscribed to and played MAN for about 5 months. I really enjoyed the game. The problem is that the price of US$6.95 per month works out to almost $10.00 canadian every month. I know that there are 3 and 6 month price breaks, but even still they are a bit much. Even at the 6 month rate it works out to almost CDN$100.00 per year.
My problem is that CDN$100.00-120.00 per year is WAY too much to play any game in my opinion. If you went down to your local software store and they tried to sell you any game for $120.00 I would definitely not do it.
Now, I am not just here to bitch and complain. I cancelled my subscription a few months back but still think about the game once in a while. I would like to give some ideas for a better pricing structure in my opinion. I am in the software industry so am also somewhat in touch with software pricing. Here is what I propose:
When someone decides to purchase MAN, make the price like US$50.00 which gets you a registered version as well as 1 year on the community. Then after the year, offer subscribers another year for US$40.00.
From a game buyer standpoint I would like this. In my head I say "US$50.00 is a pretty good price for a game that I can play for a year, hey what the hell - here is my credit card". When the subscription renewal comes up after the year I can re-evaluate my options and go for another year (which most folks would do as long as they still play the game).
From the standpoint of the game developers this also makes sense. It maximizes the amount of money they make when the gamer is excited about the game and has their credit card ready to go. In my case, I sort of started losing interest in paying money every month a few months in and cancelled. Had I purchased a full year subscription for a resonable price at the get-go I would sitll be playing the game. I think in the long run the game developers would keep more players (read: customers) in the game and maximize their long-term revenues.
In the end I think that it is hard for me to justify the amount of money it costs to play this game over the course of a year when I can play XBox Live much cheaper and play lots of different game swith that subscription - not just one. This is the opinion of someone who enjoyed the game but in not a "hard-core" player of it. I would still be playing today if the pricing structure was reconsidered.
I would be curious to hear from the developers about whether they are considering different pricing strategies for the future of this game or the new version that is coming out in a few months.
Other users - this is not meant to be flame bait. If you are getting ready to respond with "If you don't like it , don't pay man" or "Go to hell, loser", please don't bother. If you agree or disagree with me and have a constructive argument one way or the other I would love to discuss it with you.
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