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Ilwan
December 14th, 2004, 19:44
Since I´ve become a dad, I lack of time to GM my RPG group. I´ve never thought of the idea of playing with them online until I found your software. I was aware of other programs, but they didnt convince me at all -- Fantasy Ground indeed does. I personally wouldnt hesitate to invest money for the full licence, but for that I need my players to get at least the "lite licence" so we all can play. I contacted them about it, but not everyone seemed happy about the investments, since they are not fully convinced that online gaming is an alternative. In the discussion we came to talk about if it wasnt possible to get a bundle for a complete gaming group. We are currently 6 gamers in total. 2 of us would need the "Full licence" as we are acting GMs for the group and 4 of us would need the "lite licence". In total our expenses would be 150 Dollars for the online gaming idea, that we find too expensive. A 50% sale on buying 6 bundled products would definatly change our minds.
Now to my question: Are there any possibilities of a bargain for a bundle of your interesting product?

Xaltar
December 15th, 2004, 02:50
Would Fantasy Grounds consider adding say two lite client licenses in with a Full copy for another $10?

I know that it doesn't add much in additional profit, but if a GM can show there friends how it works using their 'trial' licenses, then the GM could get their friends to buy a lite license and get others to try once they 'free up' their trial licenses.

To the small groups of gamers, you most likely won't do additional sales, but you may gain a customer that you wouldn't have had in the first place.

I would also like to suggest a referral program. Since your selling through RPGnow, then maybe that doesn't work so well, but say if you were to add a section to the web site that people could register thier license number and indicate who referred them. Maybe monetary compensation for an aggresive GM who recruited new players; thereby increasing your sales would be too hard, but you could build levels of contributers. Perhaps offering those people who were really helping your cause with additional input into furture features and improvements and perhaps free access to updates or additional free licenses.

Regardless, best of luck but I hope to see some sort of discount program for multiple licenses. Unfortunately I don't see many groups buying in bulk all at once. I think that they will be purchased by individual members over time since there is varying degrees of buy-in from players regarding such a tool as this one with some joining only after everyone else is having a good time!

WolfStar76
December 17th, 2004, 16:53
Have you tried the demo version?

The demo allows for (I think) 2 client connections. It won't let you use your own modules, but it does show the full functionality of the software - from character sheets to dice rolling, to how the GM can share sheets.

Included in the demo is a mini-module and a handful of maps (a small country/region, a small city in that region, floormaps of the temple in that city, etc).

There's also drag-drop "chat" for the NPCs and all the other goodies.

I'd think that if your group has doubts about the feasability of this software working for them, having them connect (2 at a time) to the demo would help aleviate those worries.

Meerkat
January 2nd, 2005, 05:08
I think if this product is going to be successful, you're going to have to seriously consider making the client software free, or charge the GM for the number of unique accounts he's able to create. I don't know what shifting the burden of generating all the revenue to the DM package would do to the price, but it seems like a model that is more likely to succeed.

I play in a lot of RPGA games online with completely different groups of players from week to week. I don't think I'd feel comfortable making an announcement that I was going to run a game, but you have to buy a $20 piece of software if you're going to play one time with me. OpenRPG isn't as good a product as what you've got here, but it's free. Most online gamers are using AIM, another free product.

Again, I hope you consider taking me out of the awkward spot of asking my fellow players to pay $20 to join me in one of my games. I would rather do the paying up front.

Lizard Lips
January 2nd, 2005, 16:45
Sorry to play devil's advocate here, but its 20 bucks for the players. Most player's guides for new games are about that price. If you don't want to pay for software that allows you to connect to other players anywhere, just use your books and play with your local crop of gamers face to face.

The fact that this software allows me to play with people 2000 miles away is incredible. I can restart a group with some of my good friends who have moved away, or bring in new gamers who I may never be able to meet in real life. A one time fee of 20 bucks is well worth that.

Sure, it'd be nice to have a group discount, but if my cash goes to supporting a company that provides an excellent product, I don't have a problem. As for convincing others to purchase a liscense, do a test drive with the demo. If that doesn't convince them you'll have to decide wether the experience of playing via FG is worth losing some players.

richvalle
January 2nd, 2005, 18:25
I'll agree with Liz. You figure they should sell about 6 Lite's for every Full. It would be better for them to give the Full licence way and charge for the Lites.

How about this... have a 3rd license option... call it a Group Licence or something. The GM pays for the Full version and also buys a set of Group Licences for around $10 each. The Group License client software will only work when connected to that system. That way groups that are only planning on playing with each other have a cheaper way to play with a limited license. Also, the group would probably not have to buy a license for each person in a group but only one for how many people show up for the games. Our DM limits the game to 6 people no matter how many could make it.

Not sure how hard that would be to setup in the software. Obviosly Full and Lite licenses should still be able to connect for those that bought them.

Goblin-King
January 2nd, 2005, 19:39
I don't want to go into details at this time, since we don't have a final plan, but I wanted to say that we are looking into group bundle options. There are some non-trivial technical challenges to overcome on the distribution side of things, and until we have some clear solutions in that area, we can't decide on or announce any pricing issues.

Regarding current pricing, I think as can be seen by the posts in this thread alone, there are many different kinds of users. It is a fact that our license scheme has been planned so that players purchase their own license (and is also the very reason we implemented the Lite version). As for the future, we do have plans, of course, and might expand the selection at some time. I think it boils down to the very familiar question of a critical mass of users. Until we get there, however, we have to do our best to try and make the product worth the bucks and live with the realities that any business has to.