Making Lite licenses Free or very cheap

[Trenloe]

How would giving Lite licenses away for free affect each license type?
1) Full Licenses - these all get bumped up to Ultimate licenses essentially. Should the price point go up and what would be a fair price? Will the higher GM cost, but the lower group cost grow or shrink the number of GMs coming to FG?

What we see with each FG Con is that there is a relatively small number of FG GMs available to run games for others - even with the full-to-ultimate upgrade for the convention, which is essentially what you are suggesting here. Would new GMs come to FG if the cost for the "full everything players don't need to pay" license being more than the full is now? There would certainly be no excuse for players not coming over and playing and the usual comments on other forums of "I don't play it because it costs money" would now be a moot point. But, would there be enough GMs coming over to FG and paying more than the current full license to be able to GM for players not paying a cent. I'm sure there'd be a few sign up and it would certainly aid a few people who have posted on these forums about struggling to get players because they don't own an ultimate license and players aren't willing to pay for a lite license. It would also aid gaming groups a little - but it might also block some gaming groups where GMs rotate; it might now end up that a group of 6 players who all want to GM have to buy a much more expensive "all in one" license compared to buying 6 full licenses (with bulk purchase discounts).

As usual, you're never going to get a perfect solution and never going to please everyone. A way of attracting new players is a very desirable goal, but if new GMs are alienated then it may be a catch-22 situation.

[Mellock]

I have an ultimate license, and I've gotten my gaming buxx worth out of it at least twofold. I wouldn't mind a different revenue model. All I really care about is:
1. Is it sustainable enough for FG to get the love and attention it gets now?
2. Will the community stay friendly?

Do player licenses have to be free to become more attractive, btw? Is there a psychological "point" at which someone says "I'll try this anyway" like $9.99? All I want is for those free players to become friendly, reliable parts of the community, while keeping the FG ship afloat. Would this be a good time to mention the "gift store" idea again? So players can get their DMs a copy of something?

Besides the actual licenses, everything in the store is pretty much geared towards DMs anyway, innit?

[Mellock]

Oh, and will the next complaint be "How is it possible this is not free for DM's, the lifeblood of gaming?"

[Weltengeist]

Oh, and will the next complaint be "How is it possible this is not free for DM's, the lifeblood of gaming?"

I'm pretty sure it will. Even if player licenses were free and GM licenses (aka the new ultimate) cost 5$, there will be some that complain.

But concerning the OP, as Storm P. said: It's hard to make predictions, especially of the future.

Personally, I will of course feel a bit stupid for spending 115$ on an upgrade to ultimate license in September when the update becomes free half a year later. But in the end, I can afford it; I wouldn't be pissed and would certainly see the greater good in this. Can't promise the same holds for everyone, though.

I'm wondering, however, how you would manage the shift financially. If 115$ were what you had to charge for an ultimate license to get by, how can you now get by when giving it away for significantly less and removing the Lite licenses altogether? Economically, this sounds like a bet on a lot of new buyers - what if those don't come?

Having said that, I personally feel that the current Lite and Full license prices are okay, just the Ultimate (and Ultimate upgrade) price is inappropriate, since it only pays out if you have a group of GM and 5 players, none of which has a Lite or GM license. So at the moment, Ultimate license is only attractive to GMs who play several online campaigns with many different players. Thus, I'm wondering whether a strategy might be to keep Lite and Full prices as they are, but decreasing Ultimate (and Ultimate upgrade) price to a reasonable level. You may even want to do this only for a limited time. Combining this with as much advertising in social media as possible, this would give you an indication of how many people are actually interested.

But it's hard to make predictions without numbers. How about doing a poll in forums where online players meet, asking them what prices would motivate them to buy, if any? If you want, I can post such a poll in the German online player forums and relay the results to this threat. The question is just: What questions do you want me to ask?

[Valarian]

As another Ultimate license holder, I can too say that I don't mind if Full licenses get bumped to Ultimate functionality and the Lite licenses disappear. I've got my money's worth from the gaming I've done over the years, even with the number of licenses I've purchased over the years. A credit's page for Ultimate supporters, or a forum title would be nice.

You may wish to bump up the price of new Full licenses a little, say to $50. This is still the price of a larger hardback game book or console game (at least the Sterling equivalent in the UK is). Part of me doesn't like the lack of buy-in by players but, if that's what is needed to compete with other VTTs, then it's got to be done. <rant mode>The younger generation (grumpy old man isn't down to age but state of mind) seems to want everything at no cost and no effort. The world doesn't work like that. What's even more surprising are the number of endeavours / companies that pander to the attitude. </rant mode>

Will full to full/ultimate connections still work if the alias server is down? This isn't going down a fully server-dependent route is it?

[Valarian]

Would players take the $5 a month subscription route I wonder? This could be a way to separate the Full from Ultimate. Full licenses accept the "Lite" subscription priced license but Ultimate licenses can run for the free Unregistered license. People seem to be trained in to paying low, regular, amounts through phones and things now - instead of a larger up-front cost. Probably as companies like the regular income stream and it ends up costing the customer more in the long run.

[damned]

ultimate license holder: i want you to do what is best for the company. ive got my value from the product and i knew what i was paying for when i got it. things are often cheaper later on. thats ok with me.
free lite licenses: i just dont see how this helps your revenue stream. i see how it helps bring people thru the door but they still gotta find a game somewhere. free and short attention spans seem to also be quite common. if its free many people dont value it - certainly no real loyalty to it. look there's another new free product over there! and there... and there...
ruleset builder: its no small task. if it was it would have been done before. ill happily contribute to it. i dont think you ought to go giving it away.
steam: so many possibilities - it seems steam does support subscrition models. perhaps you can you have a "new" license model on steam? maybe 2 new models? player license for $1-3/month. price it at whatever you want but make it cheap and get numbers thru the door. maybe you gotta work with existing GM base and try and get a few extra games running for the month when you launch to keep things happening. the other license could be a $5-10/month ultimate license. if someone wants to try FG and not just a one on one demo version but wants to do some real prep and run 2 or 3 sessions with their players to experience its goodness and they can do that for $7.99 they can just do it.
id be concentrating on steam imho because you want to increase the user base and you need to grow the revenue base. subscription model is the best way to do that i think. if you let steam handle all the billing details etc and they just drop you a monthly cheque you can concentrate on product and perhaps events (like fg-cons or tournaments or something). people can still buy their licenses outright from you or they can buy the subscription from steam. you can tweak the pricing as you see fit. especially the steam stuff - have discount weekends around rpg events etc.
you could also do stuff like give one month free with their first month purchase on the steam GM/Ultimate license to really give new GMs and their groups the time they need to get hooked while you still get your $5 or whatever is left after steam take their bite.
moving everyone to subscription: wouldnt overly bother me but i think that many longer time license holders have expressed strong opposition to this. might be more hassle than its worth. chase the new users on steam and let them incrementally increase your monthly revenue.

[Blacky]

The debate about Fantasy Grounds versus other VTTs often comes down to price.
<snip>

First it's good that you address this, and think about it.

Second, I would guess there's two aspects to this. Gaming and Business.

The Business side wants to maximize income, meaning a mix of number of sales, unit prices, size of the client base, etc. It's hard to advise on these, because we have no metrics. But you could get those. Do your clients tend to move around a lot, or do they tend to stick to the same gaming group (or groups) for example.

One thing I would say, is to market it based on usage. Steam sells computer games, and most computer games are both expensive and played out very fast. Pay $40, play 30 hours, then move on to the next game. I would advise to find some hard data or nice studies proving this point, and then showing the usage of FG. My educated guess is that even for someone not playing a lot, when it comes down to price per hour of play, FG is incredibly cheaper than most computer games (which isn't difficult, most computer games are sold at outrageous prices).

As for the Gaming side, I need to strongly voice what seems to be here a minority opinion (other online rpg communities have a different take on this): the GM needs to stop paying for everything! He buys the rulebook, the sourcebooks, the campaign books, he currently pays the most expensive FG license, and he invest much more time in each gaming sessions than the players. And I say this as a gamer who can be a GM but largely prefers to be a player.

Another point to make, is motivation. I sometimes hear that people don't want to pay for a software, or this software. I encountered several people using or trying to use pirated version of FG. In almost every case, it's pure bullshit. Large, hot, smelly, lingering bullshit. At every virtual table I play (as a GM or as a player, doesn't matter) I personally don't want a player who bitch about this. If he doesn't have the motivation to pay $24 (which is not nothing, but these days it's closing fast on one theater ticket, it's also the price of a sourcebook, or the price of a discounted videogame, it's also cheaper than three dead trees books, and so on) he most certainly doesn't have the motivation to be there each week, not to be late, not watching Youtube while we play, and so on. I find the price a good way to weed out the lazy and some of the morons.

But, those people bitching about price do exist. So one thing to consider, is that the size of the user base impact everyone. A bigger user base means more people using rulesets (without ruleset, FG is very very basic and isn't worth its price) meaning a bigger ask for these meaning more people motivated to make and maintain ruleset.

One thing though, it's the demo version. Beside the fact that the FG website if bullshit, one needs to dig deep into the forum to find exactly how it works, it's not very useful in its current state. It works for a GM wanting to try it out, see if he moves his campaign and gaming table unto FG. But my guess would be that's a minority of your client base, most sales would be by players being asked to buy FG by their GM. And when a player enter a new campaign, a new gaming table with people he doesn't know, the first few gaming sessions aren't very much to test FG but to test the gaming table itself (is the GM good? Are the other players asses? And so on). So a slightly more relax policy on demo usage, maybe even something controlled by the FG server (I'm against all things hosted by experience and principle, but for a free demo that's fine), might be nice.

Third and last aspect of this. Since you're talking about the FG Business, you might think about the third party remuneration. How much you pay people who make things that sells. I worked in the gaming industry, I know the prices of rpg licenses, and it seems that you pay creators pretty much nothing. I think in those deals, between SmiteWorks, a Gaming Publisher and an Author, from whatever is left after the Gaming Publisher get its cut the author should get over half at least. Might encourage people to create more things (ruleset, graphics packs, whatever) and maintain them.

[Valarian]

How much you pay people who make things that sells. I worked in the gaming industry, I know the prices of rpg licenses, and it seems that you pay creators pretty much nothing. I think in those deals, between SmiteWorks, a Gaming Publisher and an Author, from whatever is left after the Gaming Publisher get its cut the author should get over half at least. Might encourage people to create more things (ruleset, graphics packs, whatever) and maintain them.

In the defence of Smiteworks: the standard deal is 15% for the Ruleset Developer, which I don't consider "pretty much nothing". The administrative and licensing costs come out of the rest. If it's original work, then the percentage is higher IIRC.

[Honken]

I am a Full license holder, and I don't mind if you do make Full license the new Ultimate! This has nothing to do with me not being an Ultimate license holder. I have considered upgrading to the Ultimate, but my friends has lite licenses (and one has bought his own Full) I actually don't need it.

I have not been all that active in this community, other then checking in on the forums from time to time, and posting even less frequent. I have just now applied to my first FG II game, and I am looking forward too it.

Maybe you guys should just make the demo version a little more open. Maybe letting the one that has the Dionor adventure loaded letting them accept 2 - 4 connections. Making it so that so that there will be a limit on how many items they can do, maps/pictures they can load... and so on.

Anyway, I just figured I would share my thoughts on the matter.

/H