Lifetime Subscriptions?

[ShaqAttaq]

Anyone remember when members was introduced they offered 12 months for like 40 dollars instead of 60? (I may be wrong about the exact price)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMO for a permanent or very extended membership to even be worthwhile at all it would either have to be a ridiculous discount price and/or a lot of other incentives such as priority support and other doohickeys either available on rs itself or on the website.

[Kimberly]

There would be people who would buy this if they were just starting to play.

 

 

 

Jagex wouldn't hurt from doing this, I think. And it might give them more up-front money to start hiring more Content Developement and Quality Assistance team members...maybe.

[CBC]

Lifetime subscriptions? Does that mean RS will exist lifetime long? I don't think Jagex wants to make that kind of commitment.

[Laura]

What is you saved Andrew Gower's life? What if you saved Andrew and Paul Gower's lives? What if you saved their lives blindfolded? What if you became a genie and granted all their wishes? What if you paid 6000 dollars?

 

 

 

I don't think they'd do that. What if you paid for it, then never played again? That would benefit Jagex. What if you paid for it, then played for years and years? That would benefit you, at the cost of quite a bit of money for Jagex. It's best if you are charged as you play, nothing in advance.

 

 

 

Games such as Guild Wars charge a one time fee and provide huge amounts of updates along with continued development and maintenance, and it's way more profitable than Runescape. Clearly there is logic to such a subscription model or else the top players in the industry wouldn't be doing it. There is definitely a flaw in thinking that a player playing for many years would lose Jagex money, although as I'm not a businessman (yet), I can't explain it to you fully. But if the upfront cost was about 3 years worth of membership, then Jagex would only start "losing money" 3 years after the payment. In that time they could've easily doubled that initial payment's value through investments, making up for future membership costs of that member and more.

 

But if they can't get new members at a same rate, then they begin to plummet. In the long run, the $5 is way more profitable.

[Will H]

Lifetime subscriptions? Does that mean RS will exist lifetime long? I don't think Jagex wants to make that kind of commitment.

 

Of the account? That's not too much of a commitment, the average player who would buy it would last for about 4 years, I'd say. Runescape will last a lot longer than 4 years into the future.

 

 

 

I think it's a good idea, but it will be very difficult to balance the price. One wrong move and suddenly everybody's got discount lifetime membership and Jagex's potential profits go down the drain. It's probably too dangerous for them to try.

[Randox]

I preffer the pay-by-month method for liability reasons.

 

If Jagex shuts the game down, or starts doing a really bad job maintaining the game, I am free to quit at the end of the month knoing I never have to pay them again.

 

Also, should something ever happen to my account, again I only lose the money that goes to the end of the month. If Jagex were to offer lifetime memberships now, after more than 5 years of paying for them by the month (or 6 way back when maybe, don't know if that happened though), people would start to wonder why?

 

Obviously, the current system is working just fine, and since we can assume that a company as succesful as Jagex probably knows the wisom in 'If it aint broke(n), don't fix it'. Now, a reason alot of people would come to is that Jagex is going to discontinue the game in the near future. There is already a piece in the agreement so that they don't owe you anything after you paid, otherwise they would only be able to ban people at the end of the month, and only if they didn't mail the money in.

 

 

 

They could probably make more money if they had doen this some time ago, but there curerent poll shows significant numbers of players have been playing from 2-5 years. This means, to be more profitable for retained members, they would need to be issueing a lifetime mebership at probably the cost of 4 years, and at that price they won't get many takers, most people won't pay over $240 for a browser game subscription. They might mowever make money on the people who quit, but we will never know for sure.

[obidiah]

From what I've heard, Runescape is a game with more long term gameplay than many games. - thats part of the reason it's now the most succesful western market Mmog that was released before 2004

 

 

 

I can imagine in some of those games which offer lifetime subscriptions, their players wouldn't be that likely to stick around for 3 years, so the lifetime subsccription becomes a good deal for the company.

[obidiah]

Lifetime subscriptions? Does that mean RS will exist lifetime long? I don't think Jagex wants to make that kind of commitment.

 

 

 

Most lifetime subscriptions actually mean the lifetime of the product.

[JoeDaStudd]

It would generate a lot of cash for Jagex, a lot.

 

Say they charge 3 years worth of subscription ($5 x 36=180) that's $180. Say the interest rate is 5% over the 3 years they get ~$208 in total. Which would mean without you play for more then 3 years and 5 1/2 months, they'll be making more money then they normally would have.

 

The percentage of player who quit, are banned, switch accounts, etc, is very high (Tip.it users are generally the part of the small percentage which stick with one account). I would guess that most of the people buying a life time subscription would not be playing 3 years down the lime (hell if more the 50% played 2 years after I would be surprised)

[meili]

the only people with permanent subscriptions are the ones who ratted out katnieks for making an auto bot and SixFeetUnder for duplicating items.

 

 

 

I doubt they play though.

 

The one who ratted out SixFeetUnder was banned too wasn't he?

 

 

 

Jagex noticed and made an announcement that whoever TELLS them how to reproduce the bug, will get lifetime membership, because they needed a fix fast, before more damage could be done, even though the economy was already ruined. After the announcement, a person who knew how to dupe, told them how to do it and got banned straight away.

 

 

 

That is how I remember it.

 

 

 

Lifetime subscriptions could be offered to one or two people for special things but as a regular offering, probably not. It could be done, I guess.

 

 

 

Jagex does have all the member stats so if, for example, most people pay for 2 years, they could offer lifetime subscriptions for $200 (3 years plus change at $5/mo P2P).

 

 

 

Kinda like a buffet/eat-all-you can restaurant. Yes, there will be a certain percentage of people who will eat a lot and therefore the restaurant would lose money on those particular people *but* the manager knows where to set the price such that they don't lose money based on the average person.

[mario_sunny]

Probably not. It's unlikely that anyone would purchase it unless they were positive they wouldn't quit for a long time, losing Jagex money. Plus RS has a way of keeping people attached much longer then they plan to...

 

 

 

LOL

 

 

 

Not one person has fully quit runescape, I can garantee you that. Something draws you back. Even with people who have been absent for years will eventually get that runescape itch in the back of their head.

[Knitewulf]

Probably not. It's unlikely that anyone would purchase it unless they were positive they wouldn't quit for a long time, losing Jagex money. Plus RS has a way of keeping people attached much longer then they plan to...

 

 

 

LOL

 

 

 

Not one person has fully quit runescape, I can garantee you that. Something draws you back. Even with people who have been absent for years will eventually get that runescape itch in the back of their head.

Your kidding right? You can honestly say not one person has quit runescape? Its a game man. People quit for many different reasons and im sure there are 5,000+ people who have quit and never come back. I guarentee it.