Ok, this is just a quick glance into the future, but when NG is hosting a whole bunch of games from developers such as ourselves, NG could develop a game collection. By this I mean, authors who agree have their game added to a special subscriber game pack. People then subscribe to this pack, and get access to all the games, and can multiplay with people from any of them. Say you pay £15 and get 100 game credits or 40 hours of play (or whatever figures make sense). They can then play which ever games they like in this game pack, and it'll decrement their credits/time accordingly.
That might make more sense for the subscriber point of view. I can't see many people wanting to subscribe to a db made game, to be honest. Subscription is mainly for MMO and I doubt we'll ever see a good MMO game made in db. We might see some half arsed attempts, but I doubt they'll be good or indepth, cos it just takes far too much work. Maybe if it has a novel concept, it might work ... something really clever that doesnt need loads of work to make, but just has such a good concept it works for lots of peoples.
Anyway, I think subscription is mainly for MMO because they are indepth and have huge replay value. My racing game I'm making, for example, I dont think people would subscribe to. I know I wouldn't. I think it'll be really cool and playable, but not something anyone would be willing to pay on a regular basis to play.
Also, a problem I see with subscription is, someone subscribes for a month and then wants to play the game, but there isn't enough people playing for them to have any decent games. Then they waste their money.
But, if you imagine people subscribed and went to a dynamic website/lobby which allowed them access to a bunch of games ... then things are different. They can download the games from the lobby, and see who's playing what. Then when they choose to play a game, depending on how long they play it for, their credits are deducted. The author of the game then gets a cut for their game being played.
As an author, the current system idea is appealing. As a player, I doubt I'd subscribe to any of them. Having said that, I don't really play online games at the moment, so I'm not really one to judge. However, I don't know of any other service that allows you to pay a subscription fee and play a whole bunch of exclusive games for one subscription (i.e. games you can't play anywhere else). In fact, in someway, it'd seem too good to be true. I can't imagine paying $15 and getting access to say, 15 quality looking games.
I can only see this benefiting everybody. To be honest, I doubt many games would get many subscriptions, when people can go off and subscribe to MMORPGs and the like, and play similar games of a higher calibre without any subscription at all (e.g. setting up your own BF1942 game etc.).
If your game is genuinely good, then you'll get most of the plays, and most of the cash. Either way, as an author, you're not paying anything, and if your game is crap, it'll still be in the pool, so it will at least get a few plays, rather than never being subscribed to. Also, if a customer subscribes to a game and it turns out to be utter crap, they really aren't going to be happy. With this system, they can go play another game, on the same subscription, and give their credits to someone else.
I guess summing up here, getting a subscription on the proposed system is like getting into an arcade machine, putting a load of money in it, and playing it till you run out of credits. The other idea is like walking into a whole arcade with a bunch of tokens in your pocket.
I don't know what you think about this Matthew. It's not actually that different to the current system. If anything, it could just work in parellel the same system. When an author signs up, they can choose to add their game to the "global game pool" or whatever you want to call it. They could carry on with their own subscription service to their game, as talked about above. However, you could also run the global game pool package, and give people access to all the games that the authors have put forward, on one subscription.
General process would be:
-Authors add their game
-They choose if it will be a subscribe game, a global pool game, or both.
-Player can subscribe to games and/or subscribe to the global pool.
-The global pool subscription cost gives a number of play credits, or gaming time.
-Authors get a percentage of the cash based on how much their game is played.
Cost example (simple numbers for easy maths):
-Subscriber pays $100 for 100hours of play.
-Play time is worked out as 15 minute slots, so when someone plays a game, it defaults to a minimum of 15 minutes.
-For each 15 minutes, we're looking at 25c of subscription cash.
-The author of the game played gets 20c, and NG takes 5c.
Benefits of this system would be:
-Much more exposure to your game. There's a chance of many more people playing it.
-Exposure for games that are less likely to be subscribed to on their own.
-Much more attractive package for the subscriber. I mean, in someways, if the games look good (from screenshots/descriptions etc), subscribing to 20 games for $15 will seem too good to be true.
-You could offer discounts, so the more you pay, the more credits per $ you get.
-In general, revenue should be increased hugely, I would imagine.
-The service would be unique.
Possible disadvantages:
-Good games may take most of the money.
-Direct subscriptions to specific games may go down, or die completely.
Ok, I'm aware this is a huge sudden rant, and sounds like a complete change from what I said above, but in essense it's the same system. People just pay differently. I just think this would be 100 times more attractive to prospectively players, as the db games are never going to live up to other pay per play games. And at the end of the day, it's the players spending the cash, so the better it is for them, the more money into the system.
