Sub offers

[Halfdead]

Just because.

I bet his attitude would be quite different if his pay-check went suddenly missing and they had no time-table on its return. :P

[Caudilloo]

I bet 10 gold on Halloween. If not then double or nothing for Christmas. As long as I'm member I think at least one of those holidays has always had a sub offer.

Tomiums cloudy bowl could have told him that too btw.

[Brazza]

The only "cloudy bowl" Tomium is look at is made out of porcelain.

Re-sub offers should be in the works all the time, but they are not and neither is my re-sub. Good Game.

[tapwater]

As some others have said, a sub offer that coincides with the start of the Halloween content would be awesome.

[Valicard]

I doubt they'll have a Halloween one. To be brutally honest, the fault of the lack of content and general malaise of the game comes from you the player and the infamous 1 year up-front payment sub. You guys don't seem to understand basic business or more accurately basic human nature. If you give them everything that they want up front then they have absolutely no incentive for them to do anything with the game.

In other words, there is no rigor and there is no discipline. Money=discipline, it cuts through, clarifies, and enhances the essence of progress and effort. Without the carrot (or stick..aka can't pay the electricity bill for that month) these guys will do *just* the right amount to stay afloat. The blame is entirely on your (the player's) shoulders.

[Anubium]

Oh, really?

I buy Funcom points during the year while under my 'annual sub'. If I pay for a full years subscription, then I am more likely to stay with the game and comment in game and on the forums. Buying a one month sub means that I can drop out at any time with no 'penalty'.

Blaming the player base for causing the game to fail because we want annual subscriptions doesn't work for me. They already offer an annual sub with discounts anyway, the longer you sub the bigger the discount. I like bells and whistles: I buy the sub offers with special mounts vs social gear. Which is why mine ran out before the anniversary. While waiting for the special anniversary offer. Which was offered a month and a half BEFORE the anniversary.

So now I'm waiting once again. But its not my fault that Funcom isn't as popular as WOW or as active just because I'd rather pay for a year up front than to get a monthly subscription. Funcom probably makes as much money from the item shop anyway as subscriptions. And if you don't play the game you can't buy things from the store.

[Valicard]

If I pay for a full years subscription, then I am more likely to stay with the game and comment in game and on the forums. Buying a one month sub means that I can drop out at any time with no 'penalty'.

Exactly! With that kind of Damocle's sword hanging over their heads you bet we'll be getting Age of Conan issue number 5,6,7,and 8 + Cetriss right quick.

[Khaletohep]

Key words: every once in a while

I estimate that nearly 98% of the offical non-dev FC responses are either rude or consists mostly of puns

I prefer professional PR drone over wise ass cracking jokes at people's issues

Though a friend of the open, even the rude word if neccessary, I agree with Slith here. It's just bad marketing to give insulting or mocking answers. Who here can claim (s)he's got a job where that is accepted (and the company is not failing)?

[Rathothis]

I doubt they'll have a Halloween one. To be brutally honest, the fault of the lack of content and general malaise of the game comes from you the player and the infamous 1 year up-front payment sub. You guys don't seem to understand basic business or more accurately basic human nature. If you give them everything that they want up front then they have absolutely no incentive for them to do anything with the game.

In other words, there is no rigor and there is no discipline. Money=discipline, it cuts through, clarifies, and enhances the essence of progress and effort. Without the carrot (or stick..aka can't pay the electricity bill for that month) these guys will do *just* the right amount to stay afloat. The blame is entirely on your (the player's) shoulders.

Not sure you are making sense. FC is offering rather long-term sub offers because they want to cover the fixed costs of their live team. The live team then produces content for TSW, which still has a somewhat larger playerbase which FC hopes to sell stuff to. This has been the model ever since TSW went btp.

Now you are correct in saying that this leads to FC not doing anything with AoC content-wise. But in terms of sub offers (which are in point here), it should give them an evident incentive to keep people subbed - in particular as sub offers come at virtually no cost to FC (give people some ring with an old skin and new stats, some pots and other crap and you're set). So the fact that we're not seeing any new sub offers has nothing to do with the long-known fact that FC is milking AoC subbers - rather, it shows that they are not even doing that properly.

Ceterum censeo - their TSW-focused model is failing:

Interesting... they do recognise that AoC is rather stable, while TSW evidently is not.

I've made a habit of collecting their quarterly figures just to show myself what happened to the money I paid for AoC. As you can see below, it's a sad sad tale:

Q2/14: USD 3,190k [TSW Tokyo update]
Q1/14: USD 3,836k
Q4/13: USD 4,270k
Q3/13: USD 5,336k
Q2/13: USD 5,465k
Q1/13: USD 6,338k
Q4/12: USD 7,786k
Q3/12: USD 10,963k [TSW launched]
Q2/12: USD 2,557k

Notes:
* Q2/14: TSW's Tokyo update was launched on June 4th, i.e. rather close to end of the quarter. Still I wouldn't expect a massive number of sales in Q3, as TSW like AoC mostly caters to a small but die-hard fanbase - and most of these fans are likely to purchase very soon after release.
* Q2/12 revenues are likely to include some presales of TSW - so it is not fair to attribute them to AoC in their entirety.

[Nusquam]

I'll chat with marketing about a new sub offer and leave the financial speculation to you!