No reason WL couldn't price itself differently in different markets. Fizz should check with Amazon payments if they can process payments originating from certain countries at different rates without making those rates available to buyers in other countries. Seeing as it's Amazon, you'd think they could.

$30 is a very reasonable price point in the US/CAN/UK, but it should scale based on relative buying power in other countries.

Incidentally --the $300/mo. hosting fee is only one small fixed cost for Fizz. There's also his labor and everyone who has worked with him behind the scene's labor. Cost of forming an LLC, taxes, computer equipment and software, advertising, PR, marketing, administration, professional fees, travel, etc. Amazon's vig off the top. Hopefully lawyer/accountant to review all this activity. etc. etc.

I hope the site ramps up to $5K to $10K per month very quickly. 160-320 new members a month strikes me as doable. Frankly WL would do better with a lower monthly payment model and a "free" trial whereby you pay and can cancel within a week. Fizz has it kind of backwards in that he assumes knowledge and interest in the premium version will occur based on the trial sufficient to get people tofork over the $30. MUCH easier to get them to fork it over if its refundable (because the buyer could cancel if they hate it) or get them to pay a lower amount on a monthly subscription model, cancellable at any time effective at the end of the month (i.e. no prorata refunds).

It's also much easier to promote an ostensibly free product than a limited version with a fee to play the real thing.

There's also the cost of scaling Wl to accomidate significant increases in traffic should it grow. We tolerate slow downs and outages becuase it's beta and free. But with revenue comes responsilities too. Paying players might demand more or complain (or leave). Every new player could potentially bring in many more -- leagues should be a high priority feature.

along with better social networking functionality (a open game chatroom taht is a link to offsite freewhere is where this should be leading).

Another good idea for devoted players like metaltubbie might be to offer a number of free memberships for rendering services to WL:

Sign up 5 people and you're in for free.
Make it a prize for winning a ladder competition
Or a weekly tournament (set to experience levels (1-100 games, less than 3 months on WL)
Build a map that gets incorporated into the game (or if there a lot of these a monthly best map competition)
Moderate the chat room
Get 30 new nonpaying members to open accounts in one month and complete a game.

Now that WL has a valuable item to offer (i.e. a membership), it shoudl use it to promote itself and gvie the real ambassadors of the game like Metaltubbie a chance to get a premium membership just by advocating the site to others.

Hi, I have an idea for those who might be unable to afford the fee's.
See, I'll have the $30, but as someone said with the conversion rate it would suck for some.
So, why don't we see how things go, and those of the people who cannot afford it, why don't we have a pot, and those who have maybe an extra $5 put some in every now and then, and those who put money in, can vote to have peoples membership paid for.
I'd do it, and those who help pay for other people could say have something by their info, to say they are a warlight contributor, not just a paid member.

I know I have been a douche, but I do enjoy warlight, and would like to see it progress, with everyone involved.

And it means moneys going into it, which is important. I like Dukes last comment also.

Basically the worst case scenerio is losing players who really like WL and would otherwise get all their friends to play it. WL has survived and prospered on word of mouth exclusively. Losing that element woudl really be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

I'm not crazy about the charity aspect (has a lot of potential to turn people off), but a twist on Illmerica's idea would be to permit players to buy memberships as gifts for somebody else (priced on a monthly or lifetime basis). I coudl see an anonymous gift or sponsor idea as well, but that should reallly only come in to play if WL isn't turning a profit. It shouldn't be necessary to turn to donations if the site is doing well.

Yes, but I aint gunna pay a ful $30 to see metaltubble join, I have the money to join myself but not loads, lol.
If their were people brought to my attention who had played alot, loved the site, played good games but didn't have the money, I'd chip in with a few others to give that guy membership and yet still be contributing so some people don't feel like they've paid and yet others can get in for free. Things still need to be paid for, if everyone could still be a full member without contributing people would choose those routes primarily to paying.

"along with better social networking functionality (an open game chatroom that is NOT a link to offsite freewhere is where this should be leading)."

There should've been a NOT in there.

Right. The price point on a gift month of premium woudl be much lower - say $5.

And fizzle might aswell forget about asking people to pay if loads joined by not paying.

$30 is a great price too.

Grundie, don't forget no multiplayer custom scenario creation for free accounts.

I personally like the idea of trial membership for new accounts.. maybe give them a week of membership similar to how current players are.. ie, keeping them our of the ladder so they can't adversely affect ratings, but still letting them get a taste for how the game could be...

and the idea's Duke came up with for giving away membership, would work alot better with a month-to-month pay theory.. it would encourage people to participate/make maps/etc. for more then just the pure reason of having them made, and wouldn't require people to make a massive payment early on for features they may or may not use...

Big Picture. WL succeeds or fails based on generating new members (all the more so with a one-time payment model). So anything that generates new members is a good idea. Offering a "free" membership if you sign up 5 people is not a gift, nor do I think it devalues the membership. I would never try to do that personally, but a high school player probably would. The FBG guys came over en masse -- that sort of thing should be encouraged and result in some form of compensation for the organizer(s). Free memberships have a near zero basis cost for Fizz (just the incremental bandwidth usage), but a % of fees or discounts are dollars not coming in. I was trying to steer WL toward maximizing revenue with what is essentially free advertsiing, free conversions and free evangelizing.

To put it another way, it doesn't cost WL anything to host tournaments of new players with a free lifetime membership as the prize. If it results in a 10% conversion rate it's a great idea.

WL's challenge is not to convince any of you guys that WL is worth playing and paying for. its challenge is to convince someone who just logged in for the first time that they should want to play and pay. Frankly, it isn't very focused on converting that market. The "tutorial" early levels are great. I replayed them today for the first time since I joined. Social hooks are key. If people can't find a game they'll leave and not come back. So getting people to join and play their friends is key.

Maybe each paid for membership comes with the right to email a temporary premium membership to five friends for one month each (expiring 30 days from the date you join). So instead of one new member you just got 6. And a higher probability they'll like the game and convert into paying members themselves.

Fizz is a numbers oriented guy. Try different promotions and measure there sucess against the norm (how many new members and paying new members join versus base line of no promotions). BTW -- 1-3% is considered a good return on a paid promotion (this has no cost to you). If you could get a delta of 10% you should make the promotions permanent.

Maybe there could be some way to contribute content in lieu of money, like for instance the huge megamap the OP was talking about - if that was the real deal and worked right and whatnot, seems like that's something that could easily be said to be a $30 value-add to the WL property. If there was some systematic way of enabling people to contribute content and to vett that content for being up to snuff, it could be a way for those unable to afford the monetary cost to earn themselves a full membership in any event.

I realize I've been braindumping on this thread, but somewhere in there I suggested voting for best new map on a weekly or monthly basis (depending on number of maps) with a membership as the prize.

another idea, in the future when/if we have month to month memberships, do a buddy program similar to eve online... give target member an trial membership, and if that member signs up, the sponser gets a free month of membership.

i saw you mentioned a free month much earlier for getting 30 free accounts to sign up Duke.. Idk how successful that idea as it stands would be.. it would encourage new growth, but 30 members is alot to shoot for, and would most likely result in people makign multi's to get their main temporary memberships..

The Polish unit of currency is the zloty (PLN). 1 PLN was equivalent to US$0.31

The cost of living is low in Poland, but incomes are also very low with average annual salaries only around 25% of those in other EU countries. The cost of living varies considerably between the cities and the rural areas, with Warsaw being by far the most expensive location.

Typical costs include:
1 litre of milk 2.6 PLN/US$0.80
Loaf of bread 2 PLN/US$0.62
1.5 litres of mineral water 1.5 PLN/.46
1 litre petrol 4 PLN/US$1.86
Small bottle of beer 2.80 PLN/US$0.86
Cafe meal 10-20 PLN/US$3.10-6.20
Restaurant meal 25-50 PLN/$7.75-$15
Monthly rental 100 sq m apartment 1500 PLN/$465

Per capita income in Poland is about 22580PLN/$7000

A fair price for Warlight would be about to adjust for our per capita income and covert to PLN. The US is about $39,000. So multiply by .18 or US$5.4 which is 17.42PLN.

Do the polish players think 19.99 PLN is about the right price point?

(Man I must be bored)

I agree Perrin -- 3-5 is probably a good number to earn a free one.