[MUD-Dev] business models

[Matt Mihaly]

I sat down tonight (actually for the first time ever, believe it or
not), and tried to see if Achaea's 'retail' business model was making
more than the $10/month model. The difficulty involved is two-fold:

  1) When someone asks Verant how many customers Everquest has at any
  one time, the answer is pretty easy, at least if you exclude box
  sales. If you ask us, it's a lot harder. A lot of players do nothing
  but cost us money via admin time and bandwidth. On the other hand,
  some players spend thousands a year. But how do you say you have <x>
  customers in a way which can be meaningfully compared with a service
  contract business like the $10/month game?

  2) Most of the $10/month models allow multiple characters. We do
  too, but a second character costs just as much as the first
  one. This presents difficulties because the only method we can think
  of to estimate how many subscribers we'd have if we were monthly is
  to base it off of the rule of thumb that says that the players
  online represent 15% of your total player base (this estimation
  given by the $10/month people).

I don't want to give our usage figures, because that will allow
someone to deduct our revenue, but using the 15% rule off our average
# of players online, I come to the conclusion that our business model
currently makes us a bit over $30/customer, NOT counting the fact that
these calculations are based on characters not people, and that if we
based it on people, the number would be higher (as our big spenders
tend to spend big on multiple characters).

That's not chest-pounding (though I'm proud of it of course). It's
just meant to be informational.

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev