[MUD-Dev] [News] NCSoft + Richard Garriott

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phillip Lenhardt
> Sent: Friday, June 01, 2001 11:37 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] [News] NCSoft + Richard Garriott
> 
> On Fri, Jun 01, 2001 at 06:04:11PM -0500, Jake Song wrote:
 
>>   - We upgraded/updated constantly like every 2-3 months which make
>>   the users wait the next update and not be bored.
 
> I'm curious, are you talking about free and automatic upgrades or
> were these upgrades that you had to go to the store and buy a new
> box for?  The reason I ask is that I assume the fact that when
> UO/EQ/etc release a boxed upgrade they lose some number of customer
> who don't want to pay a $40 lump-sum, or don't want the hassle of
> installing but get bored or jealous of the new content and just
> quit.

Er, well, they lose some miniscule, tiny, statistically invisible
number of customers. That is, I am sure some people do quit over this,
but it doesn't even register on the user accounts stats. Expansions
cause rapid, large growth of the user base. Having a box out there
means new acquisitions because of increased marketing and shelf
presence ("huh, never heard of this game before..."), returning
customers ("maybe this will make the game fun for me again") and
increased retention ("now I've got a reason to stay...").  And thus
far, the expansions have never been required, so there's no loss over
people who choose not to upgrade. They've also always been cheap to
existing users--much less thsan $40.

-Raph
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