Aces High $19.95 Special Offer

[hazed-]

After reading most! of this thread my thoughts are these:
as a long time customer (beta) i have supported HTC all along the way and i feel they have provided me with a product unmatched by any other ive played.
$29.95 a month is expensive in my veiw considering full games dont cost much more and some provide free servers etc.
But I was willing to pay this amount because a)WB was more expensive but not as good
b)there was nothing else that came close  
c)its a great game!
well reason a no longer applies..reason b may no longer apply when WW2 online appears
and reason c still holds.
im happy with this marketing move but only if it benefits me the customer,and a loyal one at that.If in future HTC does reduce the price then all is well but if the price remains the same and others are still paying $19.95 im sorry but this will be too much!.Im sorry but i wont pay $30 when others are paying $20 indefinately.
As far as im concerned it is a brave move but one i welcome with some trepidation.I only hope it works.
the clock is ticking for me on this one....


hazed

[This message has been edited by hazed- (edited 10-25-2000).]

[Fatty]

 

Several people have said they don't mind continuing to pay $30, even when other people are paying less. This surprises me. When you watch a football match you expect to pay the same as those in the same part of the ground as you, and would surely be very unhappy if the bloke sat next to you was paying $10 less. If HTC was struggling, then I might agree with paying more to keep the game going - but the company doesn't seem to be going that way.

There is quite a difference between being willing to pay $30 and wanting to pay more than you have to.  I have two options, I can pay $30 and keep playing, or I can stop playing.  The enjoyment is easily worth $30 to me, so I opt for that, no need to read anything more into it.

I daresay that at any given good football game, you will indeed find as many different prices paid in a given row as there are seats.  Again, it boils down to each person's decision on whether they're prepared to pay a given amount for a ticket, or not, and not get a ticket.  If the scalpers overestimate demand, those coming in last minute tend to get tickets even cheaper than face value.

Heck, I'd like to play for free, but for now the price is $29.95, so that's what I'm paying.

[Pongo]

My friend just joined for 180 dollars canadian a year.
I pay 540 dollars canadian per year For 360 dollars I  could do one of.

Buy a DVD player.
Buy 2 cases of beer a month.
Take out my wife to dinner 3-4 times
Buy my kids each a bike
Buy 9 model kits.
All while enjoying the same game.

People are leaving all kinds of neat sayings out of their threads.
How about..
There is one born every minute.
and
The customer is allways right.

People apperently want a bored here where eveyone worships HTCs every move. The more accuratly you point out problems and the more eleqoutly(sp) you present them the nastier the replys get. Badger, How dare you reveal this to the public! You must be an egg head or something.

Peace all. Spend your money where you like. Complain to the proprieter as you like. Last time I checked it was not a hanging or a character asassination offence.

[hitech]

Funny thing , all this wouldn't be necessary if one of you brilliant business types who know's so much about the online industry could answer for me (the one who know absolutely nothing about the online flight sim business) one simple question.

What percentage increase in customers can HTC expect at.

19.95
15.95
9.95

No guessing at the answer ,opinions are not worth anything in this,I need evidence and facts base on what AH is today and our way of doing continued advancement.

You also need to acquire this information in the least expensive means possible.

To answer the 2 key point's of this discussion.

1. Not making the offer as unlimited would cause a worse back lash against us.
Putting it out as a special for a few months would be viewed as a customer drive by both the community and the person receiving the offer.
The complaints would be "Hey I want my account credit since I didn't get the limited months"

This would also taint the results of the survey because the recipient of the e-mail would view it as a gimmick to get more customers or other wise think that it's just a ploy to get me hooked.

2. Informing players before we did it would have even a worse back lash. People would then be saying ill quit if you make an unfair offer like that. Thing is once someone makes a threat like that they are even more likely to Carrie it out, and are making the threat to try to influence your thinking. When you go against there threat, it's even more of a slap in the face to them.

3. This is not a knee jerk reaction from us, pyro and I have discussed pricing long before any of you heard of AH and have been building and discussing a plan on how to do this survey since mid summer.

Our initial concerns were that the existing player base would flame us for it,just like we get flamed by some of the few no matter what we do. But quite frankly ill take a few flames for an accurate answer to the rate question.

If I had the time I would go back and pull all the pricing threads on this board and list them here. There are lots of opinions in those threads but none of them mean anything or can be quantified with even the slightest bit of accuracy.


Where we will go in the future.

As of today we have not decided what our price point will be in the future. It might change it might not. That's the question this survey should answer for us.

And to the people who have responded to the survey I say thank you very much. Your discount is the price I pay for the information that I desire.

To our current loyal customer base, I do hope you understand why we conducted this survey.
But in the end it's still the same question, do you think AH is worth the price you pay as always all of us at HTC strive to make this so.

P.S. I love the spell checker.


HiTech

[Gman]

Hehe, the spell checker doesn't catch "carrie (carry)" or "there (their)". LOL!

I find this whole situation similar to buying a car, then finding out it is going on sale two weeks after the purchase.  Anoying, yes, but that's life in the big city.

I noticed AH banners up on a site or two (con-batsim.com for one)....good on you guys, if you want more customers, go to where most of them hang out.  (Csim gets over 30 million hits a month).  I hope a whole new batch of players shows up, it'll benefit us all.

[hblair]

Wow, nice reply HT. Made sense to me.

 

[AKDejaVu]

Thanks for the post HT.

AKDejaVu

[ezdoc]

Hazed said it all for me.

------------------
ezdoc
48th Fighter Group "Checkertails"

[NUTTZ]

HT, thanks for the responce.

A few things:
I wish i had the eliquence that Badger has and the Spell checker HT has.

Vadr, I don't know why, but your responce offended me. I am a business man, and I have a limited education, so my words don't "flow" like Badgers. But I do run a successful business.  I admire your sticking up for a friend, but choose your words "alittle" better.

I admire the staff at HTC for sticking theirs necks out on this offer, fully understanding it is a double edge swing. As a small Business owner (11 fulltime employees) I understand trying to gain NEW customers without losing the old ones. Do I have different prices for different clients?  YOU BETCHA! will I offer new customers lower prices to gain them as a client? YOU BETCHA!!!! Can i say You betcha 3 times? YOU BETCHA!!!

I have to admire HTC's constant visibility in the Game and on the BBS. I know of very few companies that care how the customer feels and ask their oppinions like HTC.

NUTTZ
David Flora
Graphix One

[Sigma]

I was one of those lucky(?) people who happened to get the $19.95/month offer.

I, for one, am still not going to take it; however I still filled out the survey with the hope that my experiences might help those who do pay for Aces High.

As someone who spends hours upon hours on the phone everyday conducting telephone surveys for various businesses, I can certainly understand why HTC did what they did, and agree with how they did it.  

How would you people react if HTC came up one day and said they were going to do a "test" and lower the price for everyone for 3 months to $19.95, only to raise it back to $29.95 when they found they didn't get the reaction they hoped?
They'd lose 100x as many people as they might lose via this method.

I just find it ironic that these hypocrits are walking around talking about how "loyal" they've been to HTC, meaning they deserve a lower rate too, only to drop it like a rotting carcass when HTC does something that can only be called good business.

Way to show your "loyalty"

[Westy]

 Let's be honest. Look at the pole asking the community thier wishes for future latewar aircraft in another forumn. Count the individuals answering.
 Now count the folks who have viewed the 'special' price plans in this topic and a coupel of others in a negative way. I gather they are a very small minority of people.
 More people have supported HTC or said they had no problem with what they were (are) doing and even larger group don't even care to comment.
 I think the potty word filter had more of a shake, rattle and roll effect on the folks here.

  -Westy

[This message has been edited by Westy (edited 10-25-2000).]

[dudedog]

I quote Hitech:
"Our initial concerns were that the existing player base would flame us for it,just like we get flamed by some of the few no matter what we do. But quite frankly ill take a few flames for an accurate answer to the rate question."
I read this as "we know this is gonna piss people off but we don't care". Nice attitude guy, you just lost all respect I had for you. And secondly your test results are gonna be completely flawed because this only applies to a select few. Can I tell my friends "hey it's only 19.95 now, come and join"? No I can't, so you'll never see the accurate numbers you would get if you made your price changes across the board. You guys are acting more like a big corp. than a small company now, It's really too bad  

[vadr]

Nuttz said:

 

Vadr, I don't know why, but your responce offended me. I am a business man, and I have a limited education, so my words don't "flow" like Badgers. But I do run a successful business. I admire your sticking up for a friend, but choose your words "alittle" better.

My apologies, it was not the intent of my message to offend, only to educate.

Still, having re-read my post, if I were to re-write it, I would use terms and language more harsh, not less. I too run my own business and my livelihood depends on my decisions. Badger is my superior at such issues, and I would pay good money to obtain his advice. I am fortunate enough to count him among my friends, but I do not allow that fact to cloud my judgment any more than he does.

I've read Dale's post and am a tad suprised at the tone. This information was obviously vital to HTC's future business plans, but the method of obtaining it was ill-conceived, or at least ill-executed. Say what you will about the way that this has been handled...it could have been handled much better, or at least with less disruption of the community.

I'm sorry, because I too am a fan of HTC, but I just do not buy Hitech's reasoning as outlined above. I think the whole issue was badly handled, and I think there will be long-term repercussions on the health of HTC's business model that can be directly attributed to this misstep. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.

IMHO, the very best thing that HTC could do tomorrow would be to issue a retraction or amendment of the terms of the agreement as set forth to the recipients of the E-mail offer. If HTC does not do that, this will be the single biggest issue to confront this business between now and the time it is sold or taken over.

Sorry if you don't agree with me and I understand. Believe me when I say that I'm sorry to see this happening, but this was a miscalculation, and it needs to be addressed as quickly as possible.




------------------
Vadr
Kommandeur, III/JG 2 'Richthofen'
CM, S3 Team/Parser
    vadr@jg2.org    
Combat Flightsim Business Forum      

[Hamish]

My $.02

     Bravo HTC, in exploring new options in pricing. I started flying early this year in WB's ACA. It was hard then, to justify to my wife, why i should spend 10 bucks a month to play a game. I had a good friend who got me hooked on the game(Thanks BigMax <S!> ), and taught me the basics of what I know now.( now if I could just apply it, I might actually be decent at this thing) I learned about AH not long after I started flying WB's, and I decided to take them up on the 2 week free trial. I figured, what the hell, I ain't got nothing to lose. Challenging is a mild way of putting it. The FM of 1.02/1.03 was difficult to get used to. I was hooked from day 1 when I flew a goon helping capture a field for the 99th raging rooks. My 2 week free trial came to an end, and it took me almost 2 months to convince my wife to let me fly for 29.95 a month. Why did I go through all that effort? Because I thought then, and still think now that it's worth it for the enjoyment, relaxation, and stress relief I get from flying. Do I think it's still worth it now? Hell yes. I am not bothered in the least by this 9.95/14.95/19.95 pricing deal. If it helps generate a wider customer base so that HTC can continue putting out this product that I so thoroughly enjoy? Bring it on, Will I be disappointed if I don't see a price reduction in the near future? no, not really, I still think it's worth the 29.95 I pay now. When I was flying in WB, I had no idea what I was missing. I love flying fighters, when I get tired of them, I can hop in a tank, and go try to slug it out at an airfield with planes/other tanks. When I get tired of that, I can take a bomber up and really blow things up.(that's stress relief  ) Now, I am just looking forward to what the navy will bring to this sim, damn all the pricing issues, I singed my deal a while back, for 29.95 a month and I'll honor it, HTC hasn't broken the faith with me yet, and I don't expect them to either. All of you that are choosing to quit over this, well, it's been a pleasure flying with, and dying with you online for this long, and I hope you'll be back to do it all over again in the future. I'll be here, banging away in whatever plane/truck/tank/boat/ship I want to, paying my 29.95 a month, until HTC lowers it or not, because I want HTC to be a solvent company 13 years from now when I retire from the military, and have more spare time on my hands to enjoy their product.  


<S!> Hamish!

[Pongo]

I guess the whiners amongst us probably feel that it was our money that you gave away. You know sorta like "When you shop lift you steal from everyone"


how about something like this......
Announcment.
Over the next month we at HTC are going to try to finalize our pricing structure. From the beginging we knew that at some point we would have to fine tune our pricing to maximize your experiance while at the same time maximizing our subscription and re- subscription rates.
In order to do this we will poll a proven but untaped market group. The players that over the last 8 months have tried our game, joined our comunity and then left after their trial period. By approaching the players that played alot we hope to target a group that have the patience to learn the game, the hardware to play it but probably left due to the cost.
For a sample from that group we will be offering a set number of full  accounts at prices that are  bellow the current rate.
These former players will have the choice of joining and keeping the account at that price until they cancel it. This is not a lost lead it is a genuine offer that we will honor.
The prices are substancial less then current and we realize that there will be some justified hard feelings. Our current subscibers will be helping us to fund this study and some of these people will have accounts for the duration that are signifigantly cheaper then you have.
If we could think of any less potentialy antagonistic way to get this info we would.
Why permintent accounts and not 3 month or 6 month low rate accounts. We want pilots like most of yourselves that want to stay with the game. A 3 month term would not identify them.
Keep in mind that this will likley lead to a reduced subscription rate for all ounce we have compiled the info we recieve. We are not asking any of them to join at a higher price!

In recognition of your support in this we will be raffeling off 1 free month for a player every week until we make our decision.

While we realize that some will feel slighted by this. We would point out that many accounts in out game are not full retail accounts. The trainers are compensated for thier sercices with free accounts. Some industry types get free accounts to help them evaluate our product. Access to the game is a currency we have available to use in developing our business, we have used it befor, and will again.
But we know this has a different feela and we know that many of you have made hard financial decisions to join us here. We hope that all of you will continue to particpate and enjoy the game while we  conduct this study.

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I dont know if that would have helped..but it helped me to write it. i feel better now...