Subscriptions vs ads

[midnight]

(1) Subscriptions: To use a subscription model I need to reseach it first. Because of the required amount of reseach points (RP) it's not something you can affort in the early game. That makes no sense. Imagine a video streaming platform like Netflix, unable to use a subscription model because it's not reseached yet?!

(2) Ads can be used very early because they're cheap to unlock but it's also more complicated because I need a sales executive. This is also annoying for me, because I have to micro management the most of the contracts, even if my sales executive is an expert. Every time he gets an offer from a competitor I've rejected 10 times before, he is asking: "Hey boss, I have another offer with a cute CPM of $0.8. Do you want to accept it this time?" → "No, reject it again, just like yesterday and the 10 times before that! We can't negotiate this above $3 anyway." → "OK, see you tomorrow." → "Sigh, 1000 RP to go and then I can replace you with a subscription model."

(3) Balancing: Right now text ads have a satisfaction of 30% and banner ads 15%. In comparism a subscription model is way less effective. Right now I have 5 features at max level and I decided to bind only 1 of them to a subscription at a price of $5 per month. My users can use all other features for free, ad free. This subscription causes a satisfaction of 15%, just like banner ads. What is the lesson here: use ads and you make tons of money? [banner ads infesting my entire product and I make a lot of money] vs [users have to pay for 1 out of 5 features, but the product is ad free and I make significant less profit]. These 2 options results in the same safisfaction of 15%. From my perspective that not a good balance.

[jhovgaard]

Hey,

Thanks for sharing your experience.

1. I'm looking into this.

2. I'm bringing a big update to the SE very soon. Tbh it's not working as intended right now. New version will be much less annoying.

3. Interesting point. Basically you would like the subscription model's income to be buffed?

Best,
Jonas

[midnight]

Originally posted by jhovgaard:

Basically you would like the subscription model's income to be buffed?

Jonas

The income itself is good. I think the satisfaction drawback should be rebalanced. And maybe it should be accessible more easily (RP). Honestly, I would prefer to pay a few bucks a month over an ad-invested service. I found the initial satisfaction of -30% for ads more realistic (speaking for myself). The only problem was: right now ads are the only way to make profit in the early game. So at that point the -30% drawback was a problem. Now the 30% will help with that. But I still need a sales executive when I need developers and designers even more and the numbers of my desks are limited. Simply put: the ad-free factor should be rewarded by the users in form of satisfaction.

[jhovgaard]

Originally posted by gamer:

The income itself is good. I think the satisfaction drawback should be rebalanced. And maybe it should be accessible more easily (RP). Honestly, I would prefer to pay a few bucks a month over an ad-invested service. I found the initial satisfaction of -30% for ads more realistic (speaking for myself). The only problem was: right now ads are the only way to make profit in the early game. So at that point the -30% drawback was a problem. Now the 30% will help with that. But I still need a sales executive when I need developers and designers even more and the numbers of my desks are limited. Simply put: the ad-free factor should be rewarded by the users in form of satisfaction.

Ahh okay, got it.

I had to nerf ads satisfaction decrease, as a substantial amount of players found the game unplayable, unfortunately.

If we choose to increase subscription satisfaction and also make it available earlier game, wouldn't that make subscription superior to ads? You would have low satisfaction decrease, good income and 0 workload or expenses to Sales Executives?

[midnight]

Originally posted by jhovgaard:

If we choose to increase subscription satisfaction and also make it available earlier game, wouldn't that make subscription superior to ads? You would have low satisfaction decrease, good income and 0 workload or expenses to Sales Executives?

Not at all. I think it is possible to balance both of them so the player can decide which drawback is acceptable at a given time.

Ads:
- low satisfaction
+ high profit

Subscription:
+ high satisfaction
- low profit

The satisfaction from subscriptions should be computet in a way so that the profit you can make with that never outweights ads. That could mean that the satisfaction is good for small fees but it also decreases exponentially with higher fees or if the number of involved products gets higher.

What is better? $2/month for ALL features or $10/month for just 1 out of 6 features?

If I decide to select just 1 of my features for a subscription model, ALL of my users have to pay for it (status quo). Right now all the users are equal. Lets say I put my video feature behind a paywall, because storing and processing video data is one of the most expensive things to do here. Not all of the users will need that. How many users are going to use that feature and how many of them are willing to pay for it?

At this point I want to ask the previous question again, but differently. What is better? $2/month for ALL features paid by all users or $10/month for just 1 out of 6 feature paid by just a few users?

[midnight]

I want to point out: this is my perspective. Maybe I'm wrong. It would be interesing what other players think about that.