Shattered Pricing Plea (From Officials)

[Monotonous]

So let me get this straight...

You honestly think that Shattered has the capability to revitalize GemStone and jump the population back to 2000 people daily?

You're not just being coy with your true desire then.. you're just fucking stupid.

Shattered is the bone they're throwing us. It isn't so much about that as it is the pricing of Gemstone which has been a major detriment to its sustainability. It just isn't keeping up with the times.

Idealistically... Yes, I think it could revitalize Gemstone. If well-executed and marketed it could bring back a lot of people and attract new ones.

In practice.. It isn't going to happen. When was the last time you saw a banner ad for Gemstone? I don't think I've ever seen one and they cost practically nothing to get out there. Simutronics is apparently dead set on company-wide suicide. They must have some major internal culture issues that someone should write a book about sometime.

And it's grossly apparently from the responses to this thread that their fan base is also mired in the same short-sighted, losing philosophy...

So, I'm wasting my time.

[Monotonous]

New people? Do you really think new people want to play a PK/no help/little if any merchant/events? I think they'd be better off in prime at a trial pricepoint for the first year.

This is how Gemstone was on AOL when I first started playing, and it was incredibly fun. It was the wild west.. The iron-fisted policy enforcement of recent years has probably done quite a bit of harm, and isn't really a selling point.

As for the rest of your post, I agree in principal, but I'm trying to be optimistic. Simu would apparently rather be dead in a ditch than offer Prime at anything less than $15. My thought was that maybe they could be convinced to consider a different approach that has worked for many other games with the opening up of this new instance.

[Celephais]

Despite the initial loss, I think this is a perfect opportunity for them to stop the hemoraging, they should give all existing accounts free access to shattered at the current price point, and lower the price point of all non-shattered accounts by $5. Sure several people will then cancel the shattered addition and be saving $5 a month, but $9.95 is kind of a sweet spot for the basic account.

Again deaf ears, I don't see it happening.

[thefarmer]

... but I'm trying to be optimistic.

Here's your problem

[kookiegod]

This is how Gemstone was on AOL when I first started playing, and it was incredibly fun. It was the wild west.. The iron-fisted policy enforcement of recent years has probably done quite a bit of harm, and isn't really a selling point.

As for the rest of your post, I agree in principal, but I'm trying to be optimistic. Simu would apparently rather be dead in a ditch than offer Prime at anything less than $15. My thought was that maybe they could be convinced to consider a different approach that has worked for many other games with the opening up of this new instance.

I know where you are coming from, but my experience with management and what I know paints a different picture than you selling.

It wasn't wild west either, cause I was there in 1995. Would Bleeds survive in 2010 GS prime? No, but he didn't do anything without cause and the pay-per hour crowd was more forgiving then many of the whiny brats who play now and not want anything bad to happen to them, either from other players or mechanically.

POLICY isn't the worst thing, but its not the best either. A happy modicum would be best but Simu took the road that avoided people cancelling, so no negatives, from breakage to pvp.

Shattered will be an interesting experiment.

[AestheticLife]

For the last while, I was assuming basic -was- around $10/month. Kind of silly that it's more. Weird.

Anyway, it's definately an outdated price one way or another. Why not just grab Premium if you end up playing at all?

[Kuyuk]

I think they should offer Shattered Stand Alone accounts for $5 a month.

That way people can come back at $5 a month, not $21 to play shattered.

And also, people who have prime accounts would still have that account, and just have to have a stand alone account. And could then be in both at the same time.

[AestheticLife]

People would cancel their prime/premium subscription for a single Shattered account. Lots of people.

[Celephais]

I think they should offer Shattered Stand Alone accounts for $5 a month.

That way people can come back at $5 a month, not $21 to play shattered.

And also, people who have prime accounts would still have that account, and just have to have a stand alone account. And could then be in both at the same time.

People would cancel their prime/premium subscription for a single Shattered account. Lots of people.

Finally something intelligent from you. Yeah, you can't expect them to offer a standalone shattered for less than prime, they'd lose money on it, plain and simple. If it were the same price as prime that would make sense.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

Why not? If retarded shit like Farmville can bring in 80 million players and 17 million dollars a day, couldn't Gemstone bring in a few more if priced and marketed correctly?

Because the Gemstone marketing budget is exactly zero?