Weekend end passes or, Getting What you paid for

GozerTC

So I've been using the Star Trek Online Del taco promotional 10 day trial and while I'm not over the moon about the game, I have discovered an interesting payment option that I'd love to have. 

For those who are unfamiliar the Del Taco promotion for STO involves 5 different cups each providing a code for a whole 2 days of game play. (Hence the 10 day free trial they advertise.)  On the face of this it sounds kind of silly to only offer 2 days per code, but it does make one want to get the next cup as it were.   

But to me the promotion itself isn't the  biggest deal, the 2 day plan is.  See, essentially my code "pays" for 2 days of play that is not used until I turn it on.  Which made me wonder, "why can't I just pay for weekends?"  A "Weekend Pass" if you were would actually fit my playstyle quite nicely since I tend to only have enough time to devote to an MMO on the weekends anyway, why pay for the whole month?  



Obviously the mechanics for handling this kind of pay system are already there in Cryptic's pay system why not offer it regularly?  Heck I'd probably even pay a premium for the ability to actually use only what I want. Say $1.25 a day so $2.50 for a weekend pass.  $25 for 10 weekends (Or 20 days see how they make out on this?)  or some such.  

Or better yet, why not take it a step further and instead of just having months on and off why not give me the 30 days I pay for and let me use them when I use them?  Kind of like pre-paid cel phone minutes instead of contract minutes.  Or perhaps even compairable to those roll-over minutes even say I only used 20 days in my 30 for the month I can keep 10 for when I come back without paying again.  

Oh I know they LOVE getting the money for time unused, that is the whole point after all.  But to be honest I think I'd probably pay more for a game longer if I didn't feel like I was wasting or constantly cancelling my subscription to only play a few days in a month.  I'm sure these ideas arne't the newest out there but I found it interesting that the mechanisims are there already, why not offer them? 

Illius

I wouldn't mind having billing by the hour or something like a prepaid service.  I pay a bunch of money and play out the prepaid time.  More often then not I end up playing little during the weekdays and more during the weekends.. provided I find the time.  This way if I don't use the time it stays on my account to be used at my leisure.  They're already selling time cards with 60 day prepaid chunks, why not have many different sizes of these "chunks" to buy?

GozerTC

Originally posted by Illius


I wouldn't mind having billing by the hour or something like a prepaid service.  I pay a bunch of money and play out the prepaid time.  More often then not I end up playing little during the weekdays and more during the weekends.. provided I find the time.  This way if I don't use the time it stays on my account to be used at my leisure.  They're already selling time cards with 60 day prepaid chunks, why not have many different sizes of these "chunks" to buy?

 

Or even let us actually keep our chunks until we actually use them.  Again like a pre-paid cel phone.

 

just2duh

 Personally i've always felt p2p games to be a waste, the last one I played was WoW and that only lasted a month. Out of that month I had maybe got to play 6 times, so I just couldn't justify the cost vs usage.

  I think the idea of "getting what we pay for" is a good one for the player, but not so much for the company. Athough if paying for 30 days worth of hours and not losing them until they were used were reality these p2p's would be receiving my money, so that would be 1 more customer. But sadly this switch would also make them lose money from the others who already pay reguardless of how much they get a chance to play.

johnmatthais

 Going back to the days of AOL gaming, huh? Good ol Neverwinter Nights?

It'd be good for options, just please, let me keep my 30 day subs, lol.

Esther-Chan

I believe the Asia market already uses a system similar to this. They pay hourly I think, but don't quote me on that.. or do, if you have the proper answer =P.

GozerTC

Originally posted by johnmatthais


 Going back to the days of AOL gaming, huh? Good ol Neverwinter Nights?
It'd be good for options, just please, let me keep my 30 day subs, lol.

 

*Chuckles*



Not THAT far back my friend, and I agree the standard subs should remain.  In fact the Weekend Passes and such should in my opinion cost more because we're not regular sources of income.  But we are still paying customers.   

 

 

laokoko

Dont' think it'll happen.  If game company add that option, they most likely make less money.

In asia, we actually get pay by hour option.