game trading zone not free anymore!
Knight37
> well hi all...
>
> Well, i got *this* in my mailbox this morning....an anouncement from
> the game
> trading zone....[http://gametz.com], that from now on, thier 'free
> subscriptions' will no longer be free; cost $20 a year to maintain a
> listing with them!
>
> soon, very soon, probably *ALL* the internet sites will charge a fee,
> and the minimuin wage will be $10 an hour and a loaf of bread will
> cost #6.00!!
I have been a casual user of UGTZ (now GameTZ) since the first year it
started. I used to do quite a few trades when it first started but the past
couple of years I have just been doing an odd trade every month or so.
I for one do not get $20 a year use out of the site, if I did I'd have
donated to it, but as it is, I barely use the site at all. I'd be surprised
if a site like that can actually make it on a subscription-only basis but
it will be interesting to see what happens. The reason I have doubts is
because there's going to be no way for the casual-gamer to get involved,
since no casual gamer is going to pony up $20 a year, or even $5 for a 2
month "trial" on the off chance they want to sell or buy or trade a game.
Without that constant influx of new gamers, I feel that the site will
eventually cave in as more and more long term subscribers realize there's
no one new to trade with anymore and leave.
I think a site like UGTZ has a purpose in this world but I'm pretty sure
that a site like this isn't possible to be commercialized. We'll see I
guess. I think it's sad that all of the best hobbyist sites are turning
pro, but then, I guess they have bills to pay also. I personally will not
pay for internet access on top of subscription fees for anything but the
most intensive bandwith usage reasons. Take Gamespot for example. I really
enjoy their video reviews and game footage and stuff like that. To me, that
bandwith usage is worth a few bucks.
Now then look at UGTZ... I mean, the bandwith is NIL unless you count the
ads. What exactly are the costs for running this site? Somehow I think $20
a year from thousands of subscribers is NOT going toward paying the
bandwith bill... so then what is it for? For profit, right? Well thanks but
I can trade games without a middle man.
Looking forward to a resurgence of csipg.marketplace I guess.
--
Knight37
Bob: What are you doing with the gun, Dr. Marvin?
Leo: Death Therapy, Bob. It's a guaranteed cure.
-- "What About Bob?" (1991)
Robert Norton
news:Xns93048F60D...@130.133.1.4:
> I have been a casual user of UGTZ (now GameTZ) since the first year it
> started. I used to do quite a few trades when it first started but the
> past couple of years I have just been doing an odd trade every month
> or so.
I guess the $20 fee will keep people that only have one game to sell away.
Something lower per post of available or wanted game (like $1 maybe) would
be friendlier to the low volume trader. $20/year is cheap if you are
trading a couple of games a month, though.
Mad
"Knight37" <knig...@email.com> wrote in message
news:Xns93048F60D...@130.133.1.4...
> frees...@yahoo.com (freestone wilson) once tried to test me with:
Hi.
Well I have to say I totally disagree. I have been a member for around 4
years (and a subscriber since voluntary subscribing was first introduced)
and I will definitely be continuing under the new "subscriber only"
arrangement.
There is a wealth of "game" information available at Gametz APART from the
excellent trading facility .... and there is a good "rating system" in
operation at the site (which is very successful in weeding out any less than
honest people) .... AND .... the moderators there always answer queries
promptly and are prepared to help in any way they possibly can.
Cheers.
Mad.
Knight37
I do not disagree with what you are saying, I'm saying that it's not worth
the $20 per year price for this service for someone who only trades a
handful of games per year. So the low-volume traders are basically going to
get screwed. He needs to find a way to let the low-volume traders help
contribute as well as a $20 sub price for the high-volume traders.
--
Knight37
when i was a child i asked God for a bike
then i realized God doesn't work that way
so i stole the bike and asked for forgiveness
-- anonymous usenet heathen
Cassie
the control. To offer an infrequent trader membership at, say, $5 plus 50ยข
per trade means finding an 'eBay' way of tracking sales as well as hiding
user information to defeat any offsite trading. I suppose they could have a
lower annual fee with a cap on the number of trades allowed.
There just doesn't seem to be any equitable way to do this without using up
all the profits to create protective and tracking programs.
Jenny100
>
> I do not disagree with what you are saying, I'm saying that it's not worth
> the $20 per year price for this service for someone who only trades a
> handful of games per year. So the low-volume traders are basically going to
> get screwed. He needs to find a way to let the low-volume traders help
> contribute as well as a $20 sub price for the high-volume traders.
>
It is if those few games you trade for are rare ones.
AiRNESS
not search the reasons why GTZ do it.Unfortunately that's the way it's going
to be from now...
Akis and his AiRNESS
-----------------------------------------------------------------
St.George Patron of the night who hunts the shadow of the night
upon my blood I call thy now, purify us, to I have avow
to set my feet upon the road, thy sword I take up for mine own...
Knight37
He's doing this as his job. Put in the features the site needs to survive
before he goes full subbie or he'll lose a lot of ground in gathering
people is my opinion. None of this would be too hard to implement. The fact
is, he's running off and trying to go subscription whithout thinking about
the large percentage of TZ users who are merely casual users.
--
Knight37
"He dies. She dies. Everybody dies." -- Heavy Metal
Knight37
Which won't be possible when there's only a couple of thousand people using
the site anymore versus the 9000+ using it now. Keeping the casual traders
as well as keeping it easily accessible for NEW traders is what makes it
possible to trade for rare items. Throw away that and it becomes too closed
of a community. IMHO.
--
Knight37
My problem for my entire life has been my overwhelming modesty and humility
about my own ability level.
-- Cleve Blakemore, csipg.rpg
Robert Norton
news:b057iu$m29a4$1...@ID-105051.news.dfncis.de:
How about $5 to register, and $0.50 for each "wanted" or "for sale" that
you put up? Not hard to control, and very fair.
Lally
Hey boys!!! The GTZ counts 9500 users!!! And only 600 are subscribers.
Do you know how HUGE a database with 9500 entries can be????????
I can understand the cost.
I'm sad, too, because I know the number of users will decrease dramatically
and we'll have less trade possibilities...
Cheers!
--
Lally
http://www.zaripova.com
Amina Zaripova Fanpage
http://susannamarchesi.tripod.com
Susanna Marchesi Official Site
Mad
"Robert Norton" <r...@execpc.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9305EACD3AE...@216.168.3.44...
Hi Robert.
That might be awkward for people outside of the UK - having to send $0.50
now and then ??
How would they send it ??
Cheers.
Mad.
>
Murray Peterson
news:imUV9.14976$ZE.3...@twister2.libero.it:
> Hey boys!!! The GTZ counts 9500 users!!! And only 600 are subscribers.
> Do you know how HUGE a database with 9500 entries can be????????
Certainly -- that's a very, very small database. Assuming each user
averages 10 listed games, the required data can likely be stored in under
1000 bytes per user (100 bytes of info per game). This comes out to a 10
megabyte database -- trivially small by database standards.
> I can understand the cost.
They can easily cut their data storage and bandwidth costs dramatically --
just drop the user forums. I notice that just the "Hot Topics" list
contains almost 15,000 messages -- enough data to swamp their game database
requirements.
> I'm sad, too, because I know the number of users will decrease
> dramatically and we'll have less trade possibilities...
Well, it's their decision, so I guess they have to live with the results.
--
Murray Peterson
Email: murray_...@shaw.ca (remove underscore)
URL: http://members.shaw.ca/murraypeterson/
Xocyll
the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:
I don't use the site in question, so I have no agenda.
Wouldn't the obvious thing to do be to have a special "infrequent
trader" membership as Cassie states, but it doesn't need special ebay
tracking since it doesn't necessarily concern the site if the game is
sold/traded.
You don't get your money back from a newspaper classified ad if the item
you advertised didn't sell, you're paying to advertise.
Just set the basic membership (brass if they do the gold, silver thing)
at $5 a year + ($.50 | $1.00) per posted game (to a max of whatever the
"gold" level unlimited membership costs.
That's assuming he has, as you put it "put in the features the site
needs to survive before he goes full subbie" instead of the usual "we're
going pay access now, but stick around for all these cool upcoming
features".
Maybe I'm just cynical, but most of the gone-pay sites seem to be doing
a money grab and only add the promised "special features" AFTER they see
if they still have a big enough membership to "justify" the work it will
take to implement them.
They don't seem to make the connection that the lack of those promised
features cost them a lot of potential members.
People will put up with a lot of petty, annoying things on a free site
that they won't put up with on a pay site.
A lot of Site ops don't seem to understand this (or they think their
site is perfect already [selective blindness?]).
You want to go pay access, ask your users what they want the site to be
in exchange for their money, then do it, or you won't have the users
very long.
You know, it seems like there's one hell of a parallel between these web
sites now and BBSs 5-10 years ago, only no one seems to have learned
anything from what happened with the BBSs then that went pay access.
Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr
MaryJ
> You know, it seems like there's one hell of a parallel between these web
> sites now and BBSs 5-10 years ago, only no one seems to have learned
> anything from what happened with the BBSs then that went pay access.
When I read the above, it reminded me. When I first got a computer 12 years
ago, there was literally hundreds of BBS's here (Toronto). Most were free
or some had a very low fee, and a couple were big businesses with thousands
of paying customers. After the Internet became popular - about 6 years ago
or whatever, most free BBS's dropped out of sight.
A few that had previously charged $25.00 a year,converted completely to
having Internet access with a monthly fee.. I belonged to one such BBS,
which went bankrupt.It happened quite a lot to former BBS boards that just
didn't have the capital to keep their business going.
As to gametz, I agree with Murray. If they dropped their data storage and
forums for example, or other areas not really vital to the site, they would
have a lot more space.
MaryJ
MaryJ
news:b097v6$m8v$1...@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk...
That is true Mad. For people like yourself and there are many people on
gametz who are located outside of the US, it sounds like it would be very
inconvenient.
MaryJ
Mad
> news:Xns9305EACD3AE...@216.168.3.44...
> > "Cassie" <w95w...@hotmail.com> wrote in
> > news:b057iu$m29a4$1...@ID-105051.news.dfncis.de:
> >
>
>
>
> now and then ??
> How would they send it ??
Hi again.
Sorree !! I meant to say "outside of the USA !!
Cheers.
Mad.
>
Jenny100
Having to figure costs out per game would be a mare's nest to
figure out. Suppose you decide to add a game, then decide you
want to keep it but replace it with this other game? Do your
costs go up? Suppose you trade a lot and some months you have
50 games listed and other months you have 10? Who's going to
calculate what your fee is going to be? Yecch!
And some people have 75 games to trade or more. Others have 2.
Which trader would be more valuable to the site? The trader
with the 75 games would be contributing more because other
GameTZ traders would have more game choices from him and his
presence would be an asset. Yet he would be being
penalized for it if you charged per game listed.
Robert Norton
news:Xns93066004...@24.71.223.159:
> Certainly -- that's a very, very small database. Assuming each user
> averages 10 listed games, the required data can likely be stored in
> under 1000 bytes per user (100 bytes of info per game). This comes
> out to a 10 megabyte database -- trivially small by database
> standards.
At the current $1/GB rate, a 10MB data storage costs a penny. Heck, I
would be happy pay for all their storage needs myself, a buck ought to do
it.
Robert Norton
@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk:
> That might be awkward for people outside of the UK - having to send $0.50
> now and then ??
> How would they send it ??
PayPal? Credit card? Letter?
Or they could just keep a tab against the first $5 until it ran out, then
you have to pay another $5?
PayPal would be the option I would prefer if I were doing it.
Robert Norton
> Having to figure costs out per game would be a mare's nest to
> figure out. Suppose you decide to add a game, then decide you
> want to keep it but replace it with this other game? Do your
> costs go up? Suppose you trade a lot and some months you have
> 50 games listed and other months you have 10? Who's going to
> calculate what your fee is going to be? Yecch!
I'm not making myself clear. You pay $0.50 to list either a "I want to
buy" or a "I want to sell" on a game. Taking the listing down is free.
If you decide to add a game, then decide you want to keep it but replace it
with this other game, you'd pay $0.50 + $0.00 + $0.50 = $1 total. I didn't
even need a calculator, woohoo!
No calculation is needed by month or anything like that. $5 to join (maybe
annual fee) and then $0.50 to list a "want it", or "got it" for a game. If
you trade a lot and some month you list 50 games, you'd have to pay $25
that month, another month you list 10 and pay $5. How easy can it get?
Robert Norton
(Sorry, there was more to your post...)
> And some people have 75 games to trade or more. Others have 2.
> Which trader would be more valuable to the site? The trader
> with the 75 games would be contributing more because other
> GameTZ traders would have more game choices from him and his
> presence would be an asset. Yet he would be being
> penalized for it if you charged per game listed.
Which person is getting the greater benefit from the site? GameTZ needs
more money (so they say) and they provide a service. Charge for the
service, and viola, the problem is solved.
Jenny100
Not after the people with the largest game lists decide to quit because
they have to pay extra. Then you are left with only people with maybe 5
games or so listing games. After that there are so few games left for
the subscribers to choose from that they decide to quit too.
Jenny100
Now multiply that by 75 or so for the people with the really big game
lists. Who wants to keep track of all that?
And what if you misspelled a game and wanted to correct your mistake?
Would that be another 50ยข tacked on? How would you keep track of all the
changes in the listings?
Cassie
could pay something like $5 per year with absolutely no difference in
service; current members will pay the same $20 annual fee and enjoy the
higher level benefits. Whatever they do I hope they don't botch it and cause
a mass exodus.
Robert Norton
> Now multiply that by 75 or so for the people with the really big game
> lists. Who wants to keep track of all that?
It's not a who, it's a what. You write a program that posts the listing
and automatically debits the user's account in the process. (Or maybe
completes the post after PalPal gets the cash.) It is really really
simple, you just use a language with access to normal database tools.
Delphi gives you free use of Interbase, more than powerful enough, or you
could use MySQL, it's free open source.
> And what if you misspelled a game and wanted to correct your mistake?
> Would that be another 50ยข tacked on? How would you keep track of all
> the changes in the listings?
The automatic system would charge you nothing to remove the old listing,
(as normal,) and would bill you another $0.50 if you want to post a
correction. Super simple, you as a user just made a $0.50 mistake, you
will live through it. Again, GameTZ staff keep track of nothing, your
little database program does it.
That being said, if I were running GameTZ, and I didn't know how to
program, and couldn't find anybody to write the program for me, I could do
it with a ring binder (one page per user, alphbetical) and a #2 pencil.
Add strokes when they pay, cross them out when you post the listing. Cut,
copy, paste, make a pencil mark, on to the next listing next listing. I
used to do much the same thing for UHS in the old days, now Jason has it
almost entirely automated. Even if it takes a 30 seconds per post, thats
under 1 hour a night to handle a hundred, and bring in $50 per night, $1500
per month. (Still I would start learning Python or something on the
double, and automate the process.)
Robert Norton
> Not after the people with the largest game lists decide to quit because
> they have to pay extra. Then you are left with only people with maybe 5
> games or so listing games. After that there are so few games left for
> the subscribers to choose from that they decide to quit too.
The basic assumption was that GameTZ was going to quit altogether if they
didn't get some cash together. I personally think requiring $20 as the
base is high if you want to only sell a couple of games, or post that you
want to get a couple of games. I agree that scaring away buyers hurts
sellers and viceversa, but if they need money than they have to charge
something, or get a good lottery ticket. I was proposing a scheme that I
though would be more equitable, keep as much of their current user base as
possible, and still get them some income. I didn't think that just having
them running it for free was an option.
If they will run it for free, then I'm onboard! Its fair, and the
bookkeepping is the simplest possible. No tax forms either.
Jenny100
> Jenny100 <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in news:3E28A319...@nospam.com:
>
>
>>Now multiply that by 75 or so for the people with the really big game
>>lists. Who wants to keep track of all that?
>
>
> It's not a who, it's a what. You write a program that posts the listing
> and automatically debits the user's account in the process.
By "you" you mean Bill? Do you know if he can write programs?
> (Or maybe completes the post after PalPal gets the cash.)
I don't use Palpal (or PayPal either) for GameTZ.
> It is really really
> simple, you just use a language with access to normal database tools.
> Delphi gives you free use of Interbase, more than powerful enough, or you
> could use MySQL, it's free open source.
No matter what you wrote, you'd get people complaining about it being
too complicated or about being charged too much.
>>And what if you misspelled a game and wanted to correct your mistake?
>>Would that be another 50ยข tacked on? How would you keep track of all
>>the changes in the listings?
>
>
> The automatic system would charge you nothing to remove the old listing,
> (as normal,) and would bill you another $0.50 if you want to post a
> correction.
So you remove the old listing when you arrange to trade a game, but then
your trading partner changes their mind. So you have to add the game
back and get charged for it. GameTZ traders are just too informal for
this sort of charge by the game business.
> Super simple, you as a user just made a $0.50 mistake, you
> will live through it.
Not without insisting I get my money back. And frankly I'd rather just
pay $20 a year and forget it (even though I might trade 5 games or less
that year) than have to deal with the per game mess and trying to keep
track of whether the program is cheating me. If I had a lot of games to
trade and keept track of I'd certainly go elsewhere. Even with the
meager 4 or 5 I have currently listed I wouldn't want anything to do
with a per game charge at GameTZ. Many gamesites have forums for trading
games so I'm certainly not limited to GameTZ.
> Again, GameTZ staff keep track of nothing, your
> little database program does it.
> That being said, if I were running GameTZ, and I didn't know how to
> program, and couldn't find anybody to write the program for me, I could do
> it with a ring binder (one page per user, alphbetical) and a #2 pencil.
> Add strokes when they pay, cross them out when you post the listing. Cut,
> copy, paste, make a pencil mark, on to the next listing next listing. I
> used to do much the same thing for UHS in the old days, now Jason has it
> almost entirely automated. Even if it takes a 30 seconds per post, thats
> under 1 hour a night to handle a hundred, and bring in $50 per night, $1500
> per month. (Still I would start learning Python or something on the
> double, and automate the process.)
I can't see Bill checking all the trade listings by hand. He seems to
think that site is too much work as it is.
Robert Norton
> Robert Norton wrote:
>> It's not a who, it's a what. You write a program that posts the
>> listing and automatically debits the user's account in the process.
>
> By "you" you mean Bill? Do you know if he can write programs?
I don't know if he can or not. I don't know Bill. I bet that one of
these is true:
1. He can write it, or learn how to write it
2. He can ask a friend to write it
3. He can ask a GameTZ user to write it free.
4. He can ask a GameTZ user to write it for GamerTZ credit.
>> (Or maybe completes the post after PalPal gets the cash.)
> I don't use Palpal (or PayPal either) for GameTZ.
PayPal is an easy way to get around currency exchange without having to
pay for international money orders, international postage, and so forth.
You can get a credit card merchant account, but it is difficult to do and
I personally don't like handing my CC numbers out to small sites. They
may be perfectly honest, but they might keep my number unencrypted on the
computer, and they might get hacked. It has happend before.
>> It is really really
>> simple, you just use a language with access to normal database tools.
>> Delphi gives you free use of Interbase, more than powerful enough,
>> or you could use MySQL, it's free open source.
> No matter what you wrote, you'd get people complaining about it being
> too complicated or about being charged too much.
I imagine a button that says "add listing" then you type in the text of
your listing, whether it is buy or sell, and press "pay" to deduct $0.50
from your account and enter your listing on the site.
>> The automatic system would charge you nothing to remove the old
>> listing, (as normal,) and would bill you another $0.50 if you want to
>> post a correction.
> So you remove the old listing when you arrange to trade a game, but
> then your trading partner changes their mind. So you have to add the
> game back and get charged for it. GameTZ traders are just too informal
> for this sort of charge by the game business.
If somebody tells me that they are buying a game of mine, so I should
take it off the listings, and then change their mind, they are the ones
that would owe me the $0.50, not GameTZ.
>> Super simple, you as a user just made a $0.50 mistake, you
>> will live through it.
> Not without insisting I get my money back.
I'm sure GameTZ would credit you back the money to your account if you
actually wanted to make a fuss over the $0.50 to fix your mistake. I
don't picture you as being like this in real life.
> And frankly I'd rather just
> pay $20 a year and forget it (even though I might trade 5 games or
> less that year) than have to deal with the per game mess and trying to
> keep track of whether the program is cheating me.
Pay the $20 then, get 40 credits, and you can make 40 listings in my
scheme. That's enough for 7 corrections to each of your 5 listings. I
know you are a lot more careful than that.
> If I had a lot of
> games to trade and keept track of I'd certainly go elsewhere. Even
> with the meager 4 or 5 I have currently listed I wouldn't want
> anything to do with a per game charge at GameTZ. Many gamesites have
> forums for trading games so I'm certainly not limited to GameTZ.
If you put in the $20, you wouldn't have to worry about the per game
charge at all.
> I can't see Bill checking all the trade listings by hand. He seems to
> think that site is too much work as it is.
It was some work to generate UHS keys by hand, but I did write a program
to automate the generation of the letter. I just had to cut and paste
some info from the application, and hit the "generate letter" button and
send the response by email or mail. It isn't quite the same situation as
GamerTZ.
I'm not saying that GamerTZ shouldn't do exactly what they want to do (if
it is just this guy Bill, he should do whatever he wants.) But I wish
GamerTZ well, the site is really nice and serve a great function for a
lot of people. I think he would be best served by a policy with a low
entry barier.
Maybe we can compromise on our plans. What if the fee to be a user is
$20, but you get membership + 30 free listings ($0.50 each)for that fee.
After you finish using up that fuel, send in another $10 or more to buy
more fuel. What say you to that?
Jenny100
>
> I'm not saying that GamerTZ shouldn't do exactly what they want to do (if
> it is just this guy Bill, he should do whatever he wants.) But I wish
> GamerTZ well, the site is really nice and serve a great function for a
> lot of people. I think he would be best served by a policy with a low
> entry barier.
>
> Maybe we can compromise on our plans. What if the fee to be a user is
> $20, but you get membership + 30 free listings ($0.50 each)for that fee.
> After you finish using up that fuel, send in another $10 or more to buy
> more fuel. What say you to that?
What about a choice of payment options?
I'd rather stick to $20 a year and not worrying about how many games I
have listed or how often I enter new ones. $20 a year is like $1.67 a
month and I pay more than $1.67 for a can of soup.
Robert Norton
> What about a choice of payment options?
> I'd rather stick to $20 a year and not worrying about how many games I
> have listed or how often I enter new ones. $20 a year is like $1.67 a
> month and I pay more than $1.67 for a can of soup.
Yah, but... what if you post up a couple hundred game listings. Shouldn't
you pay more than I do, with my measely 5 per year?
Cinbad
I have 40+ games on the shelf, either have been played or waiting to be
played. If I can't trade them, and don't want the hassle of selling them on
EBay, what can I do with them? $20 for a year of having a site that will
match my wanted/available list, AND give me access to feedback about the
traders, is a good investment for me. I just hope enough people agree to
try it, to make it worthwhile to stay.
You DO realize that $20 is the price of an (inexpensive) new game, right?
If I can get that game for an old one, plus $5 postage, I'm making out like
a bandit. I agree that it isn't useful for someone who hasn't much to
trade. A lot of the pissy posts on the Gametz forums have been from people
who had very few trades, while the positive ones have been from those, like
me, who use it extensively (using that term loosely, since I have fewer than
20 trades in 3 1/2 years myself.)
I'm also assuming that some enterprising person is going to set up a new
site that does basically the same thing, pretty shortly. Look how many
"napster" clones popped up when napster went under.
I don't feel that the fellow who runs the site should do so for free.
Regardless of bandwidth, it seems a pretty time-consuming operation if it's
done properly, and IMO it is.
YMMV
Cindy
Jenny100
No. Because a large listing offers more variety for other traders to
choose from. The traders with a large selection of games are more of a
benefit to the site than those with only 5 games. Are you going to
favor traders with only a few games or are you going to favor traders
who are going to attract others to the site with their large collections?
Robert Norton
> No. Because a large listing offers more variety for other traders to
> choose from. The traders with a large selection of games are more of a
> benefit to the site than those with only 5 games.
So you view the traders as performing a service to the site by listing. If
that is right, then access should be free. I guess that was your position
from the start, at least it is logically consistent.
> Are you going to
> favor traders with only a few games or are you going to favor traders
> who are going to attract others to the site with their large collections?
I'd like not to favor anybody. I'd like to be fair. Look at it this
way... Which is better for GameTZ, 100 gamers each selling 1 game, or 2
gamers selling 50 each? Both groups list 100 games. If you think that
they are the same benefit to the site, as I do, then how can you justify
charging one group $40, and the other group $2000? My scheme would charge
the big listers $10 + $50 = $60 and the group with 100 members $500 for
membership + $50 for listing = $550.
This way, the "equal" groups are only off by a factor of 10, not a factor
of 50.
You may be right in fact, though, since there is a certain nuisance factor
to making a payment, and a lot of people might be inclided to pay $20 just
as readily as $5. If that is the case, and GameTZ can survive with just
flat payments, and the $20 is not enough to discourage people, then it is a
fine solution.
Jenny100
> Jenny100 <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in news:3E2B7E3...@nospam.com:
>
>
>>No. Because a large listing offers more variety for other traders to
>>choose from. The traders with a large selection of games are more of a
>>benefit to the site than those with only 5 games.
>
>
> So you view the traders as performing a service to the site by listing. If
> that is right, then access should be free. I guess that was your position
> from the start, at least it is logically consistent.
Access to viewing should certainly be free. Showing nonsubscribers what
you have to offer is a form of advertising.
>>Are you going to
>>favor traders with only a few games or are you going to favor traders
>>who are going to attract others to the site with their large collections?
>
>
> I'd like not to favor anybody. I'd like to be fair. Look at it this
> way... Which is better for GameTZ, 100 gamers each selling 1 game, or 2
> gamers selling 50 each? Both groups list 100 games. If you think that
> they are the same benefit to the site, as I do, then how can you justify
> charging one group $40, and the other group $2000?
I don't think they are the same benefit to the site. Isn't it more
costly to maintain 50 or 100 separate accounts than it is to maintain 2?
> My scheme would charge
> the big listers $10 + $50 = $60 and the group with 100 members $500 for
> membership + $50 for listing = $550.
>
> This way, the "equal" groups are only off by a factor of 10, not a factor
> of 50.
>
> You may be right in fact, though, since there is a certain nuisance factor
> to making a payment, and a lot of people might be inclided to pay $20 just
> as readily as $5. If that is the case, and GameTZ can survive with just
> flat payments, and the $20 is not enough to discourage people, then it is a
> fine solution.
If the site can't be free, I'd rather see either flat payments or an
option for a flat payment. I think the KISS principle applies here with
regards to billing.
Robert Norton
> Robert Norton wrote:
>> So you view the traders as performing a service to the site by
>> listing. If that is right, then access should be free. I guess that
>> was your position from the start, at least it is logically
>> consistent.
> Access to viewing should certainly be free. Showing nonsubscribers
> what you have to offer is a form of advertising.
We agree, viewing either "wanted" or "for sale" listings should be free.
>> I'd like not to favor anybody. I'd like to be fair. Look at it this
>> way... Which is better for GameTZ, 100 gamers each selling 1 game,
>> or 2 gamers selling 50 each? Both groups list 100 games. If you
>> think that they are the same benefit to the site, as I do, then how
>> can you justify charging one group $40, and the other group $2000?
> I don't think they are the same benefit to the site. Isn't it more
> costly to maintain 50 or 100 separate accounts than it is to maintain
> 2?
No. If automated, what could cost more? It is 100 listings either way,
and the database absolutely does not care what the links are. If it is
manually maintained, then you have a good point. I think it should be
automated, in any case.
> If the site can't be free, I'd rather see either flat payments or an
> option for a flat payment. I think the KISS principle applies here
> with regards to billing.
The KISS principle, much like the "no tolerance" principle, is pleasant
sounding but often wrong. Mencken once said that "for every complex
problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." Are flat
fees right for GamerTZ? Maybe they are, especially if the fees are all
handled manually.
Bill Marrs
I don't normally read this newsgroup or use USENET, but through series
of coincidences, I found this thread, read it and now feel that I should
reply to address some of the points raised here.
I am Bill Marrs, the creator/owner of gametz.com (formerly UGTZ - which
has its roots in USENET).
I want to say that this decision to go subscriber-only has been a hard
and a long time coming. The site started out as a free thing I did on
the side, but over time it demanded more and more of my time. 3 years
ago, it came to a point where I had to choose between my regular job and
running the site. I chose the site. It has been a rough road ever
since. Originally, it looked like the site could provide enough income
for me to keep operating it from the ads, but then ad-revenues dropped
to
1/10 what they had been. It was devastating. After that, many of the
users of the site were offering to help fund it and this idea eventually
evolved into a voluntary subscriptions service.
Even then, I was struggling, making between $11K and $15K a year while
working 60 hours a week on it. My costs for hosting (which had been
free through a generous friend) jumped when the site's usage went beyond
what that friend could offer. Hosting last year was $10K, and it looks
like it will be more next year. GameTZ server requirements are high due
to the database-heavy system.
More and more it seemed the only way to look at it if I was to survive
was as a business. It had a been a slow and sometimes painful evolution
from its roots, but I think also, inevitable. I know that some
people think I'm greedy or something. I find this highly offensive
after all the work I've done to provide the site for free for so long,
for little or no pay.
My hope is that people will see the value in a trading site; that the
subscription costs are easily made up from the savings one can make by
trading; that the tools and services a centralize site offers like
(reputation indicators, matching tools, and community features among
others) are worth it and allow people to make more trades safer and all
the while make friends.
I think trading is a great idea that has some distinctly different
elements from auctions and used marketplace services. With trading,
there is an aspect of community. We haggle and develop trust
relationships with each other. Often it comes down to something that
isn't even about money for people. They are just looking for a good
home for their old beloved games or just want to show a friend a game
they had liked.
I have considered per-trade fees, but I felt that it didn't fit with
this community aspect that I think is essential. A subscription fits
the model in which traders become part of a community of traders,
building relationships/trust. Per-trade fees would change the site to
be more like ebay, which I feel has little or no community feel to it
(which fits fine for auctions).
From some of the feedback I've gotten, I've made some refinements on the
subscriber-only model. Non-subscribers will still be able to list their
games/items and check for matches as well as complete pending trades and
post to a special Non_Subscriber forum. Contact info will be hidden
from them, though. Subscribers will be able to find their listings and
propose trades with them. My hope is this will at least partially
address the casual user's needs.
Since the announcement, there has been a 40% surge in subscription. The
site is up to around 750 subscribers now. I hope that through February
this number grows to over 2,000 and up from there after that. With
better resources, the site will be able to continue to provide great
service to its users and add more features over time.
Some specific responses I wanted to make:
Carole Clark said:
> he came back with a snotty and uppity remark.
I think this was a misunderstanding. This was my reply:
"CClark - it sounds like you've missed out on a lot of what the site had
to offer. It's a shame."
...I meant this honestly and with no malice or attitude. It really
bothered me to see this because I and the moderators of the site put a
lot of effort into responding to users promptly and with courtesy.
Knight37 wrote:
> Now then look at UGTZ... I mean, the bandwith is NIL unless you count
the ads.
GameTZ runs off a 384K link via a co-location service. It uses about
40GB/month, this is compressed (it's 140GB/mo before compression). The
ads use no bandwidth from GameTZ, they are hosted by an ad service
(BurstMedia).
Knight37 wrote:
a year from thousands of subscribers is NOT going toward paying the
bandwith bill... so then what is it for? For profit, right?
It's true, the profit is essentially my salary for doing the work to
provide the service. With 2,000 subscribers, the site would net around
$25K as profit, my salary. As it grows beyond that I will likely need
to hire people to help me run it. This is just how business works. I
think it can be easy to breeze over all the work that is done behind the
scenes to keep a site like this operating, but I assure you I'm working
hard. I'm just trying to run an honest business here.
--
Bill Marrs
Game Trading Zone
http://gametz.com
Robert Norton
@corp.supernews.com:
> I
> think it can be easy to breeze over all the work that is done behind the
> scenes to keep a site like this operating, but I assure you I'm working
> hard. I'm just trying to run an honest business here.
Thanks for all the work you have put in, Bill. Your site is a great asset
to the adventure game community, and I hope you can find a way to run it
that will allow you to continue.
Cassie
From: "Bill Marrs" <bi...@KenyonHill.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games
.strategic,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure
<snip>
> They are just looking for a good
> home for their old beloved games or just want to show a friend a game
> they had liked.
is exactly how I feel about my games. And you're correct, it is nice to get
to know the next owner even if only just a little bit ::::::::::
<snip>
> Per-trade fees would change the site to
> be more like ebay, which I feel has little or no community feel to it
<snip>
> I'm just trying to run an honest business here.
are the standard ones that arise when you have to start paying for something
that used to be free.
Bill, I've been a member of gtz since its inception and a subscriber for
almost a year. But it took time for my usage to justify the fee so there was
about a year since your first decision to charge and my signing up. No
regrets :)
You seem to have the transition well thought out and balanced. And since
many first time visitors to your site come there through a reference from
this group, it's good to know they will still be able to navigate gtz
without having to subscribe. Good luck and thanks for all your hard work :)
::::::::::
<snip>
Richard Hutnik
Why not set up some bonus features for people selling, so they can set
up shops and sell items on there? Sellers could rent space from you
and advertise their sales on there. This ends up being another
revenue stream, and could offset costs. If this proves to be a large
enough revenue stream, you could then lower the cost of being a
member. By making game trading free then, you drive people to your
website, who then shop with the merchants, and this creates a
community with merchants covering the costs.
Just an idea here. As of now, you are charging people to be members
of your community. This may work though.
- Richard Hutnik
Bill Marrs <bi...@KenyonHill.com> wrote in message news:<v2vsoop...@corp.supernews.com>...
Carole Clark
>
> Some specific responses I wanted to make:
>
> Carole Clark said:
>
>>he came back with a snotty and uppity remark.
>>
>
> I think this was a misunderstanding. This was my reply:
>
> "CClark - it sounds like you've missed out on a lot of what the site had
> to offer. It's a shame."
>
> ...I meant this honestly and with no malice or attitude. It really
> bothered me to see this because I and the moderators of the site put a
> lot of effort into responding to users promptly and with courtesy.
>
>
Reading your reply out of the context of the entire forum, I don't think
it sounds at all "snotty and uppity" (as I did put it). When I read it
here, it's no big deal, just your response, which is fine. The day I
posted in your feedback forum, I was reading the many, many posts
regarding tz going sub only. There were quite a few people (kids,
maybe?...I don't know) who responded to others who were stating their
reasons for not subscribing who were not very friendly. I'm not the
only person who thinks this, cause there were some other posts regarding
that. After reading a lot of those types of replies under the various
subject headings, and then reading your reply, I guess I just took it
the wrong way.
Sorry.
Knight37
> I don't normally read this newsgroup or use USENET, but through series
> of coincidences, I found this thread, read it and now feel that I should
> reply to address some of the points raised here.
[ snippity ]
> Knight37 wrote:
> a year from thousands of subscribers is NOT going toward paying the
> bandwith bill... so then what is it for? For profit, right?
>
> It's true, the profit is essentially my salary for doing the work to
> provide the service. With 2,000 subscribers, the site would net around
> $25K as profit, my salary. As it grows beyond that I will likely need
> to hire people to help me run it. This is just how business works. I
> think it can be easy to breeze over all the work that is done behind the
> scenes to keep a site like this operating, but I assure you I'm working
> hard. I'm just trying to run an honest business here.
Okay well over the last couple of weeks since you made the announcement of
going sub-only I've made a concentrated effort to do a few trades and make
use of all of the features available on the site to see if I thought it was
worth paying for. Well, I still don't know if it is or not, but I've now
decided that I'm willing to try it out and see how it turns out.
The following features play a big part in my decision to stay mainly
because I see it as a means of keeping newcomers going into GameTZ:
> From some of the feedback I've gotten, I've made some refinements on the
> subscriber-only model. Non-subscribers will still be able to list their
> games/items and check for matches as well as complete pending trades and
> post to a special Non_Subscriber forum. Contact info will be hidden
> from them, though. Subscribers will be able to find their listings and
> propose trades with them. My hope is this will at least partially
> address the casual user's needs.
But the biggest reason I'm staying is because I managed to get 4 trades
done in 2 weeks which is really more than I've done in quite a while on
GameTZ and so I feel like I can get some use out of the site.
--
Knight37
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
-- Agent Smith, "The Matrix"