I've been thinking about this quite a bit over the last few days. Silly things about how to keep Glitch up and running. Amazingly something just occurred to me. What about making the game "for pay only"?
Ideas I don't especially like:
- Begging for more VC. (This obviously only covers short term.)
- Running a KickStarter campaign. (This really isn't different than VC.)
- Constant micro-transactions. (I just find games like that near offensive.)
Ideas related to for pay play:
- World of Warcraft runs quite nicely on about $13/month/subscriber, what would it cost to keep Glitch running if only paying subscribers could play?
- As an existing Molly subscriber to Glitch I like this model very much since it's not really different than it already has been for me.
- Supplemental purchases in World of Warcraft have also attracted money from me include purchasable pets and mounts. These purchases carry a fairly large one time charge and don't change the game play in any meaningful way.
- Since everyone would be paying player, eliminate subscriber locked items.
- Stick with credits and tokens and stuff as desperate extra purchases, but don't expect them to happen often at all.
- When this occurs, make it a full reset. It pains me to say that as a level 50 player, but really I think having to do all the quests again, seeing all the places again, build up my wealth again, learn skills again, get upgrades again, all that stuff will make the game interesting all over again too.
So what do you think? How much per month would this game require if everyone playing was paying too?