Subscription......

[Embattle]

Originally posted by bodhi

I doubt online gaming will ever really take off in the UK. The UK has always been particularly sceptical about online gaming (Hence the delays in bringing the PS2 network adapter over here, why Xbox Live! is launching at least 6 months later here than everywhere else and one of the reasons why DC died so spectacularly on it arse),

IMO...nope sorry I'll follow the Sar line.

 

[Will]

Does this mean Bohdi is moving to UK2?

 

[stu]

The great thing about anything that bodhi says is that it instantly lends credibility to the opposite of whatever he's arguing about. BW should feel privileged that he's slated them - it's like a seal of approval from Allah himself

 

[bodhi]

Originally posted by DBs


So does that mean you will never own a tv as you have to cough up more money to get the most out of it like electricity and license.

So does that mean you will never own a car as you have to cough up more money to get the most out of it like petrol, mot, car tax, maintenenance.

So does that mean you will never own a house as you have to cough up more money to get the most out of it like bills, more tax, maintenenance, more bills etc.

Fair enough if you buy a game to play at home on your pc which you have to cough up more money on to get the most out of it.

Online gaming is bloody expensive and why are we not allowed to charge for the privilege? Who is gonna pay our wages, the bandwidth costs, the server costs, the colo costs?

You do NOT have to subscribe, if you don't you cannot use our services bit like all the services most phone companies offer on the basic packages they provide.

We offer a basic package just like them. Sorry but people like you will go thru life sponging things for free just cos.

If you don't like the direction BW has taken, move on, we are not forcing it upon you. You can vote with your feet

I don't put PC Games in the same category as houses, cars and TV's. Mainly as it's quite hard to do without a car or a house. The TV is a slightly different example bu let me put this to you. The licence fee pays for the programs which is fine, as it's good to have something to do with your TV now you've bought it. But say, for instance the BBC wanted to charge an extra 5 pound a month to let you have the sound aswell. Consider that and you see my perspective on all forms of P2P.

Sorry but people like you will go thru life sponging things for free just cos

Jumping to conclusions like that won't help sell your service to me. Which when it comes down to it, is the case - even in spite of my views on P2P I am still a potential consumer. Which you appear to be doing your best to get me to take my business elsewhere. I have no idea how you intend to make money with a disregard for your consumers like that.

 

[Deebs]

Originally posted by bodhi


I don't put PC Games in the same category as houses, cars and TV's. Mainly as it's quite hard to do without a car or a house. The TV is a slightly different example bu let me put this to you. The licence fee pays for the programs which is fine, as it's good to have something to do with your TV now you've bought it. But say, for instance the BBC wanted to charge an extra 5 pound a month to let you have the sound aswell. Consider that and you see my perspective on all forms of P2P.



Jumping to conclusions like that won't help sell your service to me. Which when it comes down to it, is the case - even in spite of my views on P2P I am still a potential consumer. Which you appear to be doing your best to get me to take my business elsewhere. I have no idea how you intend to make money with a disregard for your consumers like that.

Lets take the licence fee one further:

Base package = 112 quid a year for colour
if you want extra channels you PAY for them

BarrysWorld:

Base package = free
If you want extra "channels/services" you PAY for them at 12/24 quid a year.

As for treating you as a potential customer with little disregard, sorry but your wrong. I am voicing my opinion as a founder of BW and the heartache I have suffered to get it to this stage. Seeing comments like yours just raise my back a bit.

TBH, I couldn't care less if you subscribe or not. Your very against it from the outset as its a principle to you, so no matter what I say will make little difference either way.

 

[Durzel]

This thread is comedy really.

Back not so long ago I used to pay £600+/qtr phone bills, back when unmetered Internet was unheard of, and broadband was a techie word banded about by radical thinkers at Telewest and NTL. That's £200 a month, to play on BarrysWorld (and others).

I managed to afford it back then through blood, sweat and tears as Im sure did many other people in the same boat (what other choice did they have?).

As cliché as this sounds the problem is "kids today". They get their new fangled broadband at £30 a month and think its access-all-areas pass for the entire Internet. I mean, £30 should be enough to pay for everything and everyone, right?

At the end of the day rational discussions are entirely pointless since no one will ever convince the freeloading masses that - like in the "real World" where we all pay for TV licenses, petrol, insurance, etc - you typically have to pay for a service that is provisioned to you.

 

[Dimebag]

You're all quite gay

x_X

Dime

 

[stu]

Originally posted by bodhi
even in spite of my views on P2P I am still a potential consumer.

And here's me thinking you're just being an argumentative cunt for the sake of it

 

[old.fatty-]

moo!

 

[Dimebag]

Great point luther well done.

 

[old.fatty-]

thanks i do try my best.

twit

 

[Durzel]

Originally posted by bodhi
I don't put PC Games in the same category as houses, cars and TV's. Mainly as it's quite hard to do without a car or a house. The TV is a slightly different example bu let me put this to you. The licence fee pays for the programs which is fine, as it's good to have something to do with your TV now you've bought it. But say, for instance the BBC wanted to charge an extra 5 pound a month to let you have the sound aswell. Consider that and you see my perspective on all forms of P2P.

I'm hardly a BW fanboy but even I can see the sheer idiocy of that statement.

Living without a house and/or car is irrelevant really, if you can't afford to run either you do without - plain and simple. If you can't afford to run a car, you don't have one. If you can't pay for the various ancilliary services that come with a house - gas, electricity, water, etc (even if, for example, you don't have to pay for the house itself), you don't have one.

Your license fee analogy is also invalid. Since the license fee is an ongoing cost, its a subscription - not a one-off payment. A closer analogy would be "I've just paid £500 for a TV, why should I have to pay someone else to watch programmes on it?". Whether the BBC charged £110, £10, or 10p for the programmes is irrelevant - its a subscription cost that you have to pay, or you don't get the service - plain and simple.

I cannot even begin to fathom how you can expect by virtue of having bought a game (the money from which don't go anywhere near GSPs) that you should have free, unabridged access to services that cost other people money. I cannot understand your logic at all.

 

[Bazerka]

Originally posted by Durzel
I've had a thought (shock horror)

Wouldn't it be a good idea to open up the publics to the general non-paying public for a set period of time on given days, then booting them off at the end of this "free period". Think of it this way, its a tried and trusted means of getting people on board, plus it would limit the times that the servers are desolate.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isnt that EXACTLY what we've done over the last 4 years?

 

[Durzel]

I mean something different and you know it.

Adult channels allegedly have a system where you get a free preview for a few minutes before the proper stuff (which invariably means more of the same softcore shit, allegedly) so you can get a feel (huhu) for whats on offer.

If/when BW starts making enough money to offer "better than other GSP" services - not saying that this isn't the case at the moment - then showcasing them by offering a free hour every night or something would seem to be the best way of getting new users on board.

Would you pay money to watch a film that has no previews?

 

[*Exor*]

Dime is right. You're ALL gay.

 

[bodhi]

Originally posted by stu
The great thing about anything that bodhi says is that it instantly lends credibility to the opposite of whatever he's arguing about. BW should feel privileged that he's slated them - it's like a seal of approval from Allah himself

You know for someone with such a high IQ, you can be a right fucking retard sometimes.


Anyway, DBs I fail to see where I criticised BW. My qualms (and yes, they are on principle) were with the P2P model as a whole. Like I said, I would never play an MMORPG as 12 quid a month just to play the game that you've already splashed 30 quid on is a piss-take. I appreciate all BW has done in the past 6 or so years, and also appreciate you are probably being put in this position by the GAME management (the people I'd get to pay for the servers etc. I'm sure they can afford it with the obscene prices they charge for stuff in their store.), but doesn't change the fact that imo, P2P is wrong.

 

[stu]

:'(

 

[Durzel]

You're missing the point though and ducking the issue..

How is it any different than being expected to pay for:

• petrol, insurance, road tax for cars
• gas, electricity, water, mortgage, council tax for houses
• TV license for TVs
• etc.. etc..

They're all ongoing costs for services provisioned to you. By your way of thinking you should be able to buy a house or car and everything associated with it should be free - upkeep of roads be damned. Questioning the cost is one thing, questioning the fundamental premise that a service provisioned to you - whether it be BW or MMORPGs - should be chargeable at all is lunacy.

The basic premise, which you appear to be missing, is that by playing an online game you are using at the very least bandwidth and electricity that must be paid for. Explain who exactly should pay for the bandwidth/electricity/hosting space of the server on which you play?

 

[Mellow-]

So bodhi what you're saying is, p2p is wrong and you wont pay for it. Fine. Don't. The end.

 

[old.fatty-]

Do you like what you have done now!
he's crying shame on you!

 

[Hashmonster]

nah i think what bodhi is trying to say in his own wierd and glorious way is - it's been free and thats the way some people will only go for online gaming.

i think.

ill just go back to beating up my graphics card

 

[legendario]

Originally posted by bodhi


I would never play an MMORPG as 12 quid a month just to play the game that you've already splashed 30 quid on is a piss-take.

who said anything about 12 quid a month?

 

[prime1]

O btw bhodi, im not sure if this is still the case, but your license fee argument might well be more fucked than it already is- not too long ago (2 years) when i was a student, u could pay for a black n white TV license fee, and that was at a reduced cost, so u can look at it like this, by paying for the colour (standard) fee you are effectively buying an upgrade you dont *need*.

So with the black n white fee, and a black n white tele u can get the same end product, but by paying a little more, you get something better.

Altho by now theyve probably withdrawn the b&w fee.

 

[Lester]

The point for me is this:

If I see a game in progress and amongst the list of players there are several people i "know" then I would rather join that game than one full of complete strangers - particularly ones called dot or unnamed or player ffs.

If it costs me the equivalent of around tuppence an hour (FFS!!!) to have that choice, well, it's not really much of a hard choice is it?

 

[bodhi]

Ah I see the backlash against anyone who dares to think independently for a change has begun.

Anyway some of you seem to be having trouble figuring out the licence fee analogy. I shall provide these two examples so some of the more metally challenged among you can figure it out.

You buy a TV. You want something to watch on it, so you pay the licence fee. You decide you want more channels, so you order Sky. After you've paid all this, you find out the BBC want to charge you extra for sound. You get a tad annoyed.

You buy a PC. You want some games to play on it, so you buy a couple (standard 5 channels). You get bored of these games so you decide to buy more. You then find out that you have to pay extra to play them online. You get a tad annoyed.


Looking at this, you can see that the TV is a bit of hardware, similar to a PC (and if you're going to be completely pointless and pedantic, a house and a car), whereas games and TV Channels are software. Therein you find the reasoning behind the TV licence argument.

For once, i have to say Mellow is the only one who's got the whole point of my original post. P2P is wrong imo, and I won't pay it.

 

[GDW]

Originally posted by bodhi
Ah I see the backlash against anyone who dares to think independently for a change has begun.

I shall provide these two examples so some of the more metally challenged among you can figure it out.

Oh I like metal I do

/awaits abuse

 

[bodhi]

Yes. It has struck me that not enough of you people listen to MegaDeth. Hence "Metally Challenged".

 

[Sar]

TV is paid for by advertisers on the network stations, and subsidised by the government and paid for by your TV licence.

Adverts on the web don't work, as they have something like a 0.3% click-through rate. So for every 300 people that see a banner, only ONE person out of that three hundred will actually click on it.

Web advertisers afaik only pay for referrals or click-throughs, whereas TV advertisers pay to have their ads shown, as they believe an ad, whether paid conscious attention or not by viewers, will keep brand awareness high. Therefore they're happy.

As for the BBC network of stations (TV and radio) it's been subsidised by the government through your licence for years. It's often been mooted that if the beeb were to become an ad showing network that the TV licence would be null and void.

Your money that you're paying is going directly to fund the service providing it - the BBC. You pay the retailers for the product (be it a TV or a PC game - the PC doesn't enter the analogy as it's a pre-requisite to playing the game anyway, with TV there's no such pre-req) and you take it home. If you want to use the product locally (with TV this would be for videos/dvds/console usage, for games it'd be single-player games) then you can do so with no further outlay.

If however you want to access the network (be it TV or online gaming) then you have to pay for that access, as you personally are encurring a cost on the service provider so they can provide you with said service. If you don't pay then you don't get access to that service. Simple.

A better analogy would be an ISP.

You have a PC, so you go and buy a modem/broadband etc. Buying that piece of hardware does not then entitle you to use services provided by an ISP for free. What remuneration does the ISP see from your purchase of a modem?

Simple, none. So why should they be expected to offer you access to use their network?

Common sense tells you they shouldn't, and they don't. So you have to pay them money in order for them to provide you with a service.

Just because something has been funded by a 3rd party for a while doesn't entitle you to have free access indefinitely.

Online gaming hasn't always been free.

Just like Durzel, I remember having, and having to pay quarterly phone bills in the hundreds (usually averaged about £500 pr qrtr). I was around in the early WP days, when they were the only service to offer you online gaming in the UK.

Then BW came in, funded by 3rd parties (as DB's has explained), and so WP became a less attractive option - people saw it offered for "free" at BW, so why pay more to play on WP right?

So WP went like any other GSP, and they suffered massively for it. Look where it is today, it's still around, but barely. Look at their forums for instance - they're dead.

It's a fact of life - the "free" party is over, and GSPs will all now have to start recouping their costs. It only so happens that BW is the first to start this - it wouldn't have happened any other way. BW is the UKs leading GSP, so it would always have been the first one to make any sort of a move like this. Once they moved the rest will follow, I assure you. BY will be fully p2p within the year, and Jolt won't be far behind, despite what they're currently saying - they will go p2p eventually too.

As for any other GSPs - there aren't any worth talking about tbh.

As I said, WP is dead, to call it a shadow of its former self would unfortunately be a vast understatement. They have a small staff there now, and a vastly smaller community then they had just over a year ago.

UK2? hah!

Who else is there worthy of note?

No-one tbh.

Face facts: GSPs are a business, always have been. It's just now that they're realising that they have to start charging again.

 

[Hashmonster]

interesting post Sar, just makes me wonder whether this might be a cycle that may continue?

i.e.

popular online gaming site goes P2P..

others gaming sites follow suit..

along comes a company similar to what BW did and offers services for free again?

would the collapse that happened to WP happen here? or at other P2P services?

 

[bodhi]

Nice post Sar. Shame you missed my point completely. 10 out of 10 for effort tho!