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I think we should lobby our respective governments to create a fund for BB supporter, a safety-net program for those that can't afford it. Rich countries could also provide funding for poorer countries, something like BB-Aid. Haven't heard anything out of Michael Moore recently, we could get BB funding and marketing at the same time!

Heh..yeah i was just kidding. I'm all for the BB's doing something to level the playing field on the cost of supporter.

i don't support the idea of categorizing countries but i have another suggestion..
the price of the Supporter package can be dynamic according to a formula..
the higher the percentage of people having Supporter in a country, the lower the price of the Supporter package will be in that country..

in this case, assume that Haiti joined the game and they have 5 active users with one of them being a USA citizen on vacation..
if this guy buys Supporter, %20 of the users in that country will have been supporting the game so three-months Supporter price will decrease to (let's say) $8..

personally this make the supporter package even more expensiv, in country where just a few people could afford it. the next thing is, that you maybe wait for other people making supporter before buying it. Maybe the other way round could make sense, that the first supportership in Haiti is pretty cheap, and it get more expensiv when some people have it - but also there i don't see much sense in it.

I´m all for Moutinos proposal, just with the following modification:

if you sign up your supportership on a tuesday, you get 10% special discount, unless it´s a third of the month, when you get only 15%, or on saturdays with full moon, then you get 20% plus one dollar for each cup round you survived in the season before last. Unless of course your starting name has a C in it, or it is your birthday, in which case you don´t get any discount at all.

To sum it up: what exactly is the idea behind your proposal? I don´t see ANY advantage of making the system any more complicated than necessary, nor that it makes any sense that the price you have to pay is changing all of the time (which it would be in your system, because sign ups and supportership sign ups especially in small markets would trigger BIG fluctuation in the prices over short periods of time).

Why are you against a discount system based on the "poverty" of a country at all, if you agree that a discount system itself could be useful? What´s the weak side of the "zones" model? And what´s the advantage of using up server stuff by inventing new, completely unasked for calculation of suppoertersship value?

How about a simple league system?

You have like ... 6 different prize categories. If percental supportership drops below a certain rate over a certain time, it might go one prize league lower (but not through the bottom, so every country has a "hard cap" in both directions), while it rises one level if it surpasses a certain level over a longer period of time. Prizes would regulate themselves given time like that.

Last edited by LA-seelenjaeger at 5/31/2011 1:11:05 PM

I totally agree with you about the rich people & poor people stuff, but you have to take our clients into the equation.

BB is not exactly the high profile coolest thing in town game, it´s usually played by either basketball freaks or students and nerds. We had the same issue back then when I played Blood Bowl online. We had either cool kids doing it with kind of an arcade approach (ahh - a game ... i have to play it - i have to become the best...) and spent some of their money on it, or with students who kinda loved the game (mathematics / physics students from all over the world mainly).

There were -some- (but actually few) guys around with a solid money background, and some of them actually made the whole thing running by giving some money into the system, but that was back in the "very" old times before the very heavy mmorpgs and stuff.

I do think the BBs are very well aware about the "lower price, rise income" strategy, as it´s actually a vital part of the game in the in-game ticket prices. You can argue that there´s a level you shouldnt go below when talking about fair value.

But actually there´s some "rich" countries (but not with a huge BB history) who are a non-factor in the BB universe, while there are others where basketball is important, but the amount of supporters is still quite low.

I think you can target both issues by doing a league or layer model, which includes both the size of the country (in terms of active team) and the general income of the country.

And here we do agree. I think once the share of supporters passes a certain percentage of users overall in the country, it´s a sign that supportership value is... now what? Too high or too low?

And that´s where I disagree. I don´t think price should be LOWER if you have more people buying supportership. I think if you have like 10% Supporters in a country (not neccesarily a valid number, just a random one), that´s a good number for online gaming. Now if there´s a country having 30% Supporters, that suggests to me, that Supportership is "too cheap" there, and you can probably raise the price a little. If you only have 2%, Supportership clearly is "too expensive", so lower the price. Of course this concept - to some degree - might piss off some supporters, because the are not willing to pay price X while they have purchased before for price X-2, but actually that´s how a market should work.

I just don´t think the market should work globally, but maybe in zones. Like (Northern America / Central America / South America / Africa / Arab Countries / Central Europe including Spain, Portugal and Italy / Skandinavia / Eastern Europe / South Eastern Europe / China / Central Asia / Japan, Korea and the Phillipines / Australia and NZ) and then look at the market how it develops from time to time. Maybe even with IP - Specific offers. So youre not confronted with the Supporter Price of different Zones.

Last edited by LA-seelenjaeger at 5/31/2011 6:03:53 PM

the other point is; BBs will never do that because they will surely lose money witout increasing the price in "richer" countries..

look on it, like the bleachers prices in low devision. if you put 'em on 20 you would have an empty arena, and gain less money then when you sell it for 10 bucks and get the people into the arena who want to watch the game.

Many companys work with that system, and no they don't finance it with high prices in the rich countrys and sell it just out of humanity in poor countrys. But they know if they don't sell it they don't get money through it.

in the system i proposed, rich people (maybe unintentionally) help poor people in their country by buying Supporter first..
if you are a wealthy person, it doesn't matter if you are from USA or China, $12 for three-months Supporter is no

even poor people in wealthy country could buy supporter, where in poor country only the rich people don't care about money and even the workers would notivce the missing money. here an Ukrainian makes the example that his dad earn 5000 Dollars a year and raised a familie with it. Now imagine, him in an country like the US with the same amount of money and the difference 60 bucks could make then.

And like seelenjäger says, with your system the rich countrys would pay less for supporterships, because even the poor people could afford it and so most people who wants it just buy it.

Ok, heres where this is going... I'm unemployed, can I have supporter for free seeing as I don't earn any money?

There should be no difference between what people pay for supporter, if someone in a 'poorer' country has to pay less for exactly the same things as I get, Theres no way I will pay it (and im certain that will be the case for a lot of other people). Why should I be worse off because of where I'm from?

Like whats been said before, this is a game, a free game at that... Gaming is a luxury, as are most other things in life, if you cannot afford said luxury, then you save up til you can.. It is my decision to spend $40 a year on supporter, if I couldnt afford it, I wouldnt buy it.. Simple.

Do car dealers and estate agents charge less money for people who are less wealthy? No, those people have to work harder and save harder for the things they want, or they dont get it...

I'm not trying to offend anyone, nor cause any disrespect. But that is life..

Last edited by Mr Angell at 5/31/2011 9:10:21 PM