Topic

5 dollars a month for virtual eyes?

so i've figured out a smashing looking subscription free wardrobe and don't care about teleportation tokens.

do you think paying 5 dollars a month solely to keep the current eyes on my avatar is worth it? i wouldn't have picked them if i'd known they'd be so expensive.

basically, i would like for someone to convince me to pay 5 dollars a month for a single subscription based item.

or at least provide me something to say other than "the eyes on the avatar" when someone asks me what i get out of my glitch subscription.

Posted 19 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • You look really handsome with them stri ? Did that work ?
    Posted 19 months ago by Divine~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • ~ aw shucks ~ :*]

    there are some other free eyes in there that look very similar after being resized though and equally expressive.

    i'd like to pay for my gaming experience and to provide a prosperous lifestyle for the artists who work on this game, but when i get down to justifying the purchase i can't get beyond "5 dollars a month for virtual eyes".

    it just doesn't pass the "laugh out loud test" from anyone who doesn't play glitch .. and possibly not even with all of the players here either.
    Posted 19 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Don't feel bad, I spend more on virtual clothes than real ones...lol 
    Posted 19 months ago by Divine~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If you don't think you would like any of the items being offered for credits or subscription only I would suggest you wait a bit. It seems to me that there are a lot of new things coming and perhaps as we get closer to going live there will be something that really excites you. From what Stoot said, it sounds as if you have at least a month before we go live to make a decision.
    Posted 19 months ago by Gizmospooky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • As Gizmospooky stated, and as I am hoping, there should hopefully be more to justify a subscription.  Though currently if you look in the sub page there are bonuses if you pay more per month.  Granted under the $5 plan you would only get access to eyes and options, though I am not sure yet what the options are.  Now for the higher tiers, the credits you would get each month would provide you easier access to future clothing, though you sound as particular with your items as I am, and if that's the case it's likely that you only found a few you'd ever use.  On the other hand, they will hopefully sustain their level of creation and get a lot of options out there.

    I do hope they add some more actual content into the game, exploring and improving my own character is fun and all, but that only goes so far.  Since it is my first day though, I have plenty left to do so I state the above with a youthful ignorance....
    Posted 19 months ago by Gahd Subscriber! | Permalink
  • maybe i'm just not meant to be a subscriber.

    i always thought that i would be, given how much i play and participate, but the responses so far seem to agree that there is little value in a subscription for me, given my satisfaction with the non-subscriber clothing.

    as suggested, i suppose when my time runs out i'll just swap eyes and wait for the subscription to hopefully become a better value for me.

    : /

    thanks for the free game, i guess.

    p.s. would it kill the devs to just put some obnoxious advertising on the website? i'd pay to remove that.
    Posted 19 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It's not worth it for just the eyes. But what about the voting feature? Wouldn't you like to have a say in which features will be implemented?
    Posted 19 months ago by FrankenPaula Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm in the same boat as you, I want to support the game, since I play some much and I enjoy it. But the only benefit I see from a subscription is I would get to keep my cephalopod hat. $5/month seems pretty steep to wear a jiggly octopus on my head.

    For the votes and teleportation tokens to be worth anything, I would need to know what they actually are, and currently we know very little about them.

    I have a feeling you'll be getting new eyes at the same time I'll be finding something else to put on my head.
    Posted 19 months ago by Zaphod Subscriber! | Permalink
  • FrankenPaula, one vote wouldn't make a significant difference. nor would 5, really.

    a minor difference, sure, but 5 bucks a month worth of difference?
    Posted 19 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Striatic-If the money is an object in your life and you cannot afford it for whatever reason then I would not worry about it at this time. If you are wanting to spend the money and just looking for verification that it is a good thing to spend money on, then I would go ahead. I just subscribed today and although I probably won't buy too many outfits, I look at the whole thing as an investment in some fun "me time". $5 bucks a month is a pretty good deal for me in that respect. There are a lot of other "fixes" that would cost more financially and otherwise.
    Posted 19 months ago by Holly Waterfall Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i can afford it, but the reason i can afford it is because i don't make a habit of spending 5 dollars a month on things i don't need ; ]

    i mean, for that money i could either buy 60 one dollar apps for my iphone, or 30 at the beta rate... or i could have slightly better eyes on my glitch avatar.

    that's a pretty easy decision for me, and i wish it wasn't so.

    it isn't even that i'm unwilling to pay money for virtual clothing. i am, and certainly for "permanent" items, but i can't justify continually spending 5 dollars a month for a particular choice of eyes.

    the 5 dollars investment for me time, sure, i follow that, but other than the eyes i am getting 100% of my "me time" without paying anything at all. it is simply unjustifiable to drop that much money for so little reward. maybe if tiny speck was a charity or something or a bootstrapped startup that would fail quickly unless players rallied around it.
    Posted 19 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Striatic .. check this argument out: In RL do you have a preferred look ? Does that look comes without continued investment (barber, clothes, shoes, food, sports, etc), or do you have to continually spend something to maintain it ? :). Same here, if you want to have a certain look you need to maintain it monthly :). 
    Posted 19 months ago by Bibiri Subscriber! | Permalink
  • bibiri, that's the best rationalization so far.

    unfortunately in real life i always cut my own hair and have been wearing the same pair of shoes for 7 years now, coz that's what polish is for. so not a great rationalization for me.

    i would be paying more to maintain the appearance of a virtual character, and even then only the eyes, than i spend monthly maintaining my own appearance.

    i guess i do buy soap, but i buy that in bulk and it still works out to less than i'd be spending on the eyes.
    Posted 19 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • You don't look like someone from the target audience of this game then :). If you really want to rationalize this better try to build 2-3 appearances all depending on some subscription items. 

    That way you can do a better job at rationalizing this. 
    Posted 19 months ago by Bibiri Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i have built 3 outfits but there is a cost in using more than one, since i am less recognizable at a glance.
    Posted 19 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Stri, I don't see a whole lot that I'll get from the subscription either, but I'm likely going to buy it.  I'm looking at it like a tip jar for the artists that make the game.  Some people can't pay anything at all, and I get that, but I can afford it and this is a project I believe in.

    There will be months I can't afford it, and I'd rather not have obnoxious ads -- beyond ruining the aesthetic of the site in general, I find advertising a wholly distasteful way to make money.

    I vastly prefer this kind of model, where people who find the game itself worthwhile can pay a relatively inexpensive little thank-you into the system.  It's like the 'suggested donation' box at the museum.  I get to look at the art for free and ignore it, but if I appreciate them enough to want to help keep the lights on and the company healthy, I'll pitch a little bit in.
    Posted 19 months ago by knitmeapony Subscriber! | Permalink
  • the problem with that for me is that Tiny Speck has millions of dollars in investment and can "keep the lights on" for a good three years if they need to.

    there are bootstrapped startups that i would certainly drop money into a tip jar for, and have in the past, but giving money to a well funded commercial exercise "just because" is something i've never done before.

    certainly the artists working on glitch will be paid for by the invested capital, unless they are doing the entirety of their work for stock options. i'm not worried about kukubee starving and living in a garret.

    museums with suggested donations are typically not for profit entities. i have difficulty seeing the equivalency. this isn't to say that i'm anti-capitalist. indeed in the spirit of capitalism i sort of expect direct value for money, which is part of the problem here.
    Posted 19 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • That investment doesn't come free, though.  That's not like a grant or a donation.  They can't run through that money and only *then* look for more.  It's an investment that expects a return, and in order to make good on that return they have to start looking for revenue sources *now*.  If the investors don't see a return, the lights could go out even if they're more in the black than in the red.

    I know a recording artist I love who got her album pressed to CDs thanks to a Kickstarter fund.  It covered everything, right down to shipping copies of the album to her investors.  But when it came out to the public, I happily paid for a copy of that CD, because I know that though THIS CDs costs were covered, tomorrow's tour or next bit of music isn't.  That's what the investment does -- it covers costs.  If I want her to be able to make another album, and then another, I have to pay for things like concert tickets and albums so she has enough money to get by between kickstarters and fundraising campaigns.

    You *are* getting direct value for the money.  You get the game, and you're an investor in all the future work that they do.  It is exciting that this group is well-funded, I definitley agree.  But if we want to continue to play a game built by a well funded group, we need to get out our wallets and prepare to be part of that funding.

    This isn't to say those that can't, or don't see the game itself as worth so much as a dime are bad people or anything -- we just disagree.  I don't see this as a *free* game, I see it as a *pay what you can* game.
    Posted 19 months ago by knitmeapony Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i understand the nature of investment. i don't think a company with over 5 million in venture capital is like a musician using kickstarter. Tiny Speck simply cannot be kept afloat based on "donations".

    i'm also not an investor in the future work TS does. i am a customer paying for the product they are charging for *now*. customers don't usually give money to well funded companies if they don't have to.

    i find it odd that we keep coming back to the idea of these subscriptions as donations into tip jars. perhaps a PBS or NPR style pledge drive would clarify the nature of the subscriptions, with the "subscriber eyes" being the equivalent of an NPR tote bag or coffee mug to adorn one's desk : ]
    Posted 19 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • additionally, assuming our pre-launch credit purchases get wiped i'm going to be buying some of the "non-subscriber only" clothes again, this time with real money. that's fine with me and will go toward supporting the game, so it isn't out of a sense of guilt that i want to spend money on a subscription - just that you'd think that someone who plays at glitch as much as i do would see value in a subscription, but i don't.

    i'm more surprised than anything, and some of the other commenters here seem to share my sentiments on some level.

    at this point i'm mostly repeating myself so in case anyone else brings up something significantly new i'll just hope this topic comes to a close.
    Posted 19 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I find it odd that people automatically assume that tip jars are 'donations'.  They're tips, and payment for service in kind.  I don't *have* to tip a waitress -- the restaurant pays them.  But if they've done great things, I leave a nice tip.  (This leaves aside the obnoxious tipping culture in the US, by the by, where people are paid less than a living wage with the *expectation* of a tip -- think of it as high end dining or outside of the US, where a tip really is just extraordinary payment for extraordinary service).
    Posted 19 months ago by knitmeapony Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think they could make a lot of money selling clothes that make you look thinner. Maybe all the clothes should cost money, then stri will have to subscribe or just run around in his cape. 

    P.S. The clothes people buy now will NOT be wiped in the reset.
    Posted 19 months ago by Divine~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Who wants to be thinner?  I have never, ever understood that.
    Posted 19 months ago by knitmeapony Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm emotionally invested in the game and I am backing it up with cash. When I am at work I am as logical as the day is long. But this isn't work and I value quality personal time. But I am the person who will also spend a couple bucks on a coffee shop coffee rather than drink the free swill at the office. I only have one lifetime (that I know of) so I want to enjoy the heck out of it. And yes, for you specifically I would see it as a persona maintenance fee at this point.
    Posted 19 months ago by Mistress*of*Fishies Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well, I quit smoking 'cause I was tired of the health robbing monkey on my back.
    I quit monthly account draining game clubs 'cause, really, how many cookie cutter find it games can a person own?
    I save on buying gas by running errands with my daughters and we go dutch for lunch.
    Goodwill is the greatest store ever invented.
    It's going on summertime and the living is real easy for the kitty crew. They insist on leaving me the choicest cuts on my front door step. Bless the generosity of their furry little predatory hearts.

    I have a very good time creating different daily styles with my avatar. But I can remember spending months creating paper clothing for my paper dollies when I was very young. My 50 cent weekly allowance was well spent on extra construction paper, crayola's and glue.
    $5 (or more) per month seems a good investment for indulging in a bit of constructive fun.
    At the expense of being branded a sexist, might paying for digital cosmetics be more of a *girl* thing than a *guy* thing?

    Pondering.....
    Posted 19 months ago by Poney Tails Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "At the expense of being branded a sexist, might paying for digital cosmetics be more of a *girl* thing than a *guy* thing?"

    ok, this is new.

    i don't think it is a girl vs. guy thing, but it certainly is an appearance conscious versus non-appearance conscious thing.

    thing is, i am appearance conscious. i will be using actual money to buy my non-subscription-locked black hoodie and black pants when the game resets after beta. so simply paying for digital cosmetics isn't the issue.

    i'm just not so appearance conscious that i am willing to pay 5 dollars a month for a facial style that i never intend to change or play with. or paying 5 dollars a month for the ability to pay more money on top for things that vanish if i stop paying the 5 dollars.

    plus at the lowest sub level, you're pretty much only paying for the ability to pay for things, which seems .. well i won't say "sleazy", but i will say "complicated".

    regarding that great dollies question .. spending months creating paper clothing for your paper dollies isn't really what you do in glitch. what you do in glitch is far less creative. you pay to grab some paper dollie clothes off the rack. you aren't doing anything as awesome as as designing your own paper doll clothing for 50 cents.

    not that creating virtual ensembles isn't fun. it undoubtedly is. just that it isn't the most creative exercise compared to the example given and that in my specific case despite being appearance conscious i would merely be paying for something that would never change from month to month - negating almost all of the ongoing fun-ness that would validate the subscription purchase.
    Posted 19 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I really believe you are over-thinking this.
    Posted 19 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I feel the same way about subscriptions. I'd love to pay to support the game, but I don't want the devs to think that I'd pay for what's currently on offer. 

    To be honest, I think you can overprocess all of this especially when the game is changing so rapidly and moving in different directions all the time. I think it's just a case of wait and see... and having discussions like this so that it's clear to the devs that minor visual alterations aren't necessarily what would prompt some of us to subscribe.
    Posted 19 months ago by wurzel Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 wurzel
    Posted 19 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just a quick note to say: one thing that we're pretty solidly against is allowing people to pay for a major gameplay advantage over non paying users. So if you have the impression that what we're giving to subscribers is not of substantive value, that may be why.

    And maybe you agree with us that allowing people to pay to get a major game advantage is a bad idea. If so, consider your subscription, should you choose to subscribe, support for our endeavor to keep the playing field level for subscribers and non subscribers alike. A worthy goal I think!

    We're of the opinion that if we make a fun game that people enjoy playing, enough of them will subscribe, or buy credits, or buy merchandise (and I can't wait for merchandise, myself) to make it a profitable venture. The game itself is the value that people will pay for, even if we're not twisting arms by making the game sort of suck if they don't pay.
    Posted 19 months ago by eric Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "plus at the lowest sub level, you're pretty much only paying for the ability to pay for things" — given that the title of the thread is "5 dollars a month for virtual eyes?", I hope people realize that the lowest subscription level unlocks all the same subscriber-only options as all the other subscription levels (like, say … eyes, but also hair, noses, skin & hair colors, mouths and clothes).

    "assuming our pre-launch credit purchases get wiped" — they won't be wiped.

    "p.s. would it kill the devs to just put some obnoxious advertising on the website" — it would kill me, a little bit.
    Posted 19 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Totally agree, Eric — I think once you start going down the pay-for-play route, you're making life crappy for non-subscribers. Personally I think there are other things that don't affect gameplay directly that I'd find more enticing than dressing up my avatar.

    such as:

    Naming rights (I get the chance to declare a new location as "Wurzel's Passage")
    Home improvements
    Swag (T-shirts, a little keychain of my glitch avatar etc)
    Multiple accounts
    Better sharing options with other subscribers
    Badges/uniforms that subscription-level friends can share with each other

    I am interested, though, in how buying extra voting rights fits in to what you mentioned. After all, if the voting pool is small, this could be construed as a major game advantage (which doesn't seem in spirit of what you said there). Meanwhile, if the voting pool is large, then it is simply not very enticing. Seemed odd to me when I saw it was part of the package.
    Posted 19 months ago by wurzel Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Please make sure you add international shipping when you start merchandise. I got my sub this morning, not so much for the extras available now, but because i love the game. I'm hoping for house decorating to start soon. Hoping even more that the game is open fully in 7.5 weeks as i need it to get me through the night feeds!
    Posted 19 months ago by Sherbert Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "I hope people realize that the lowest subscription level unlocks all the same subscriber-only options as all the other subscription levels (like, say … eyes, but also hair, noses, skin & hair colors, mouths and clothes)."

    well yes, but for me it is only the eyes, for zaphod it is only the octopus. in theory the subscription opens the doorway to a whole host of customization options that a player may tweak over time - but in practice it seems to only fit a small number of facial features/clothing and in my case only a single facial feature which i will not want to change over time.

    also, a vast majority of the subscriber only items require a follow up purchase. looking at the coats page only *two* jackets are free for subscribers. so with very few exceptions, the tin subscription is about paying for the right to pay for things.

    "assuming our pre-launch credit purchases get wiped" — they won't be wiped.

    i was under the impression they would be removed and any spent credits refunded so people could re-buy things if they had spent actual money on credits, but not if they'd merely been granted free credits. too bad that isn't the case because i was looking at that as an opportunity to pay for something.

    "And maybe you agree with us that allowing people to pay to get a major game advantage is a bad idea. If so, consider your subscription, should you choose to subscribe, support for our endeavor to keep the playing field level for subscribers and non subscribers alike. A worthy goal I think!"
    i do agree that paying for major game advantage would be a bad idea.

    that said, surely there are other non-game advantage things a subscription could grant in order to increase the value granted. all the things wurzel mentioned are good ideas, plus i am sure there are more "non advantageous" things other than credits for clothing and non-majorly advantageous teleportation.

    still, eric, that is the most persuasive argument thus far. not at all obvious, but persuasive nonetheless : ]

    it also points the way to a concrete suggestion, which is that i believe glitch should offer more in return for even the most basic subscription, and that those things should be non major game advantage granting. wurzel's list has some interesting potential ideas - swag would probably only be appropriate for the very highest subscription levels tho, since it seems to be the only idea with an obvious financial cost to tiny speck.

    not all of us are into changing our appearances on a monthly basis or saving time via teleporting. give us a reason to subscribe and i think you'll find us more willing to open our wallets on a continual basis.
    Posted 19 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • As of right now, I want to support the game but I do not want to pay for something I will not use. The current subscription perks are not enough to make me want to subscribe right now, but I definitely want to subscribe because I want to support this terrific game! So I am very glad this thread exists and that we are "overthinking" the topic. ;)

    I agree with striatic's sentiment as expressed here: "not all of us are into changing our appearances on a monthly basis or saving time via teleporting. give us a reason to subscribe and i think you'll find us more willing to open our wallets on a continual basis."

    My suggestion is to define aspects of Glitch that do not directly impact the evenness of gameplay, and offer paid tweaks to those. Some of wurzel's ideas for features I would pay a monthly subscription fee for qualify, like naming rights and the ability to create badges/uniforms to be shared among a group of friends.
    Posted 19 months ago by Cygnoir Subscriber! | Permalink
  • When I think about all of the money I have spent on virtual items in games I get more than a virtual headache.  At least I have screen shots to remember them.
    Posted 19 months ago by Brib Annie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Striatic,

    Your heart icon now gives you away. What was the reason you gave yourself for subscribing?

    [Edit] I appear to also have a heart icon, so those must be displayed for people with the alpha/beta test subscriptions, as well as the people who plunked down money.
    Posted 19 months ago by Zaphod Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Zaphod

    At this time, the heart is not an indication that someone has paid for a subscription.
    Posted 19 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i am only a subscriber until June 2nd.
    Posted 19 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I subscribed at the copper level, to get a few credits for clothes, etc. But I really am not sure it is worth it for a subscription for only 150 credits, since basic gameplay is the same if you are playing free. Voting isn't that important to me, or teleporting (I don't think).

    In Wizard 101 that I play a lot, I subscribed so I could go beyond the few streets that free players could go.(subscription is sometimes $60. a yr. during special) I thought it fair to subscribe to get to play the whole game. I considered the free play just a sample game. In Faunasphere, the game that closed, I subscribed so I could have more pets (30?) to hatch and more bux (4000 a month bux currancy), than the 3 pets you got if you didn't subscribe. You get what you pay for. It is nice that the devs want to be kind to the free players, but they need to make it worth it somehow (in the playing) to subscribe. Just my opinion. :)

    Maybe to own a house you should have to be a subscriber? I don't know. lol
    Posted 19 months ago by Sierra Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I was wondering how I would feel when we eventually got to pay-for-it release stage...

    It sounds like there will be a free option?  Given that the lowest subscription rate is too steep for me, I will probably remain at the free level (whatever that is).

    Though I'm possibly not the prime audience - I'm not hugely into gaming (I do it when I come across it, I don't set out to play) and I just about only ever use free versions of software/websites, mainly because after currency exchange rates, what is 'loose change' prices in the US becomes 'I'll have to stop and think about that first' down here.

    If there was something like a USD$10/year option I might consider that, though I would still be expecting some sort of benefit from that (not just a donation).

    Maybe I'm being cheap, but I'm just saying it how it is.  I love this game, but I can just as easily walk away from it too (I see it as an optional add-on to my life).
    Posted 19 months ago by MeetHead Subscriber! | Permalink