Aces High $19.95 Special Offer

[straffo]

 

Originally posted by Gadfly:
Actually, if you read your TOS, Hitech can cancel your account with or without reason at any time.

You are completly right gadfly :
 

5.  Suspension of Privileges - HiTech Creations reserves the right to suspend access to Aces High™ for the member immediately, without notice, upon rejection of any credit card charges, non-payment, dishonor or chargeback by Subscriber's bank of authorized charges or any other indication of credit problems, or for any reason whatsoever at HiTech Creations sole discretion without recourse from member.

effrayant non  

[-towd_]

bad things man ; bad things

[JimBear]

1) Will I stay paying @ $29.95 per month?
   Bet your bippy, and loving every minute.

2) Would I like to pay $19.95
   Yes (or $14.95 that a squadm8 was offered)

3) My Wifes comment on this...
   SUCKER

and as my business manager (ie. keeper of the cash) it is going to cost me alot more in the long run, with honeydos and dinners out explaining just why i think its worth it  

[Wanker]

You're right, Badger. It's all a matter of how important AH is to each of us. Personally, I think you're being a bit of a tightwad to cancel your account now, only to open it back up when it's cheaper. But that's your decision. Do you by chance do day trading in the stock market?  

AH is not the meaning of life to me, but it is the one small bit of enjoyment I get for myself, when I get a break from work and from my role as a new father. And you don't have to feel sorry for those of us without business experience. Most of us are not chumps or suckers. Think of us as investors in our favortie hobby.

Anyway, I'm going to miss flying with and against you. I hope you come back soon.  



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

[Westy]

 Towd, you're like Eyor I swear.

 Badger <S> hope to see you soon.  The few times  we bumped into each other online as adversary or friend it was nice  

  -Westy


p.s. What banana said too. To a "T."   This is my hobby, a serious hobby. Not as hardcore as the infmous  Monday night footbal fan might be but pretty close to it.  I don't spend my life here, I just have alot of passion for this WWII Aircombat stuff (Aces High) as well as for interacting with the community around here. Here is where I plonk down my virtual beer stien and chomp on beer nuts with like minded indivduals.

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

[miko2d]

 Anything that HTC does is paid by the money that comes from the customers. Nevertheless, once you sign your bill, it's their money.

 If they extended a $10 discount offer to 100 people and 50 accepted, they "lost" $500/months or $6,000/year or $20,000 total considering average account life. So some people are upset about it.

 What if HTC decides to hire a marketing company to do a study for $20,000 to achieve the same results?
 What if they give themselves a salary raise of $20,000?
 What if they donate $20,000 to charity or political cause?
 What if they buy a backup server for $20,000?
  What if they redecorate their office for $20,000?
 What if they spend $20,000 to arrange an AH convention that is no use to most of us and seem to distract them from implementing new features?

 None of those expences would cause a squeek.

 What they spend their money on is their own business and their investors. They know how to run the company and they staked their fortunes on it. They decide what expences are most cost-effective. As a customer, you can control whether you give them the money, but not what they can or cannot do with it.

miko

[Kieren]

No it isn't my life- far from it.

But I cannot agree with the attitude that anyone has been slighted.

Stay, leave, do whatever. My feeling is that most who would leave over this non-issue were on the way out the door anyway. And if you think I am some HTC fanatic, well, maybe to some extent I am, now. Before I was an iEN fanatic, and still in some ways support that product.

You see, I think it is just possible that a business has to do things once in a while to survive. To some of the customer base it will be the wrong decision, or in this case the wrong method of applying the concept. Whuttevah. To make this a personal issue is a step beyond reality.

"Hey, HT, let's really piss these guys off!"
"How, Pyro?"
"Let's test the waters for a lower rate!"
"How's that gonna make them mad?"
"We'll offer it to a few people first."
"Who?"
"The people who have tried and left AH."
"Why them?"
"Because we want to see if a lower price will bring them back for good, and in greater numbers."
"How will that make everyone mad? Seems to me if that plan works we could lower the price for everyone?"
"Ah, but here's the beauty of the plan; offering this plan to the people who are hooked serves no purpose whatsoever. We have to target the undecideds. It is the only way to broaden the base enough to lower the price for all."
"That still sounds reasonable to me..."
"Ah! but our sensitive pilots will make a loyalty issue out of it..."
"I see..."
"...and will start talking about how unfair it is..."
"Yes! YES!"
"...and will quit!"
"Beautiful! I love it! We'll be out in the streets in no time!"

What anyone thinks HTC has to gain from alienating even one customer is beyond me. How these people who have been in this business for several years should be testimony enough that they have a handle on it.

I don't own a business, I teach. It is public relations every single minute of every hour of every day. Reality- anything you do is a calculated risk when you deal with people. You are always going to make someone mad when you change things, especially when you don't apply the change across the board. Sometimes sweeping change is possible, sometimes it is not, and sometimes it is possible only after testing the waters a bit.

No plots. No grand scheme to alienate customers. A simple experiment.

Continue your hand wringing.  

[Eagler]

Badger

Skip McDonald's once a month and stay with AH

Heck, it's only money  

Eagler

[NHFoxtro]

Either way it goes is better than the $250.00 a month I was spending in Fighter Ops on AOL.    

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NHFoxtro
-XO-NightHawks
   
NightHawks "WE BAD"



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

[Wanker]

No SH@!*t! How quickly we forget that $29.95/month is a pittance compared to our $150+ Warbirds bills of just a year ago!

Ah, life is funny.

[Gadfly]

Actually, I was refering to this clause, which has nothing to do with your credit card:

6.  Either you or HiTech Creations may terminate your HiTech Creations membership at any time, with or without cause.

[indian]

Anyone that flys in any airliner just look around do you think you paid the same amount for the same flight as the others I doubt it. Airlines charge different rates for different reasons. Until WB went one rate some were payine 1.99 others 1.50 depending on the package they buy. Marketing is just that, we all benifit form it in the end. Those that dont pay 29,95 probably wont pay 19.95 either.

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Tommy (INDIAN) Toon
Indians Home page were links to help pages can be found.
Indian's Homepage

[Ghosth]

 

Originally posted by -ammo-:

WOW! seems priorities arent straight, if money is that tight then I wouldnt be playing AH!

Right now I am unable to work for medical reasons. (Long story would rather not go there)

My wife works and makes almost enough to pay the bills. We owe 35,000$ on her school loan.

I have zero income comeing in for me to play yet I have always managed to find the 30$ a month. So a few, a "Select" few who were NOT flying got the option to join at a lower price. How does that hurt me???

I know from the reading i've done that HTC needs about 3 to 4 times the player base it now has to get in the black & stay there.

So they are exploreing ways of accomplishing that. THATS GOOD NEWS!

IF it works the price will eventually drop for all of us. If it doesn't it won't.

Should it have been a limited time offer? Perhaps, but that was HiTech's decision to make.

I've seen it posted above & I'll say it again. Want the price YOU pay to go down, get 6 friends to join Aces High!



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Maj Ghosth
XO 332nd Flying Mongrels
AH Trainer Corp

[-lynx-]

Jeepers people: two tier structure my bellybutton - limited number of people have got offered (not necessarily taken!) a discounted pricing plan and peopel are leaving because of that?? Get a life or something!

 

As much as I love this game, $50 would be tough for me (unless I quit smoking).

That's what I did 4 years ago when it came to finding funds to finance WB account - for the amount paid I got more fun out of WB and so smoking went.

 

Please spare a thought for the guys that dont live in the U.S.A......

Im from Australia, and our dollar conversion is 53.54 cents to every Yankee dollar. So if its $29.95 its $60 odd dollars later for me.

Molders, let me get one thing straight - it's not US dollars you're talking about, right? I mean the "$60 odd" ones? Cuz RAM in this case is sooo much worse off with his pesetas or, rather, thousands of them.

Whatever it's costing us in our local currencies is irrelevant, it's US$29.95/month whether we like it or not. (It's more than my mom's pension btw - over in Russia the exchange rate/inflation and stuff like that put the whole thing out of reach for many potential customers).

As for free accounts - god bless them! If people creating those fantastic terrains get a free account - I'm all for it. It keeps the 6 guys at HTC focused on more planes, trains and automobiles and it can't be a bad thing.

 

As much as I love the product, the HTC gang and many of you strange characters I hunker down and fly with regularly, when I get home tonight with access to the game software admin function I will quietly close my account and move on to other endeavors for the next while. I simply can't endorse a practice that isolates me as a revenue stream from others who pay less for exactly the same service, especially when a greater revenue opportunity is available from the existing customer base, including players like me. Quite frankly, I don't care if it's only one other player, it's still unacceptable.

Bummer bagder - you don't go on holidays (last minute bookings discount), fly any airlines (God forbid free upgrades!!!), take a train (tarvel after 9am at cheaper rates) or condone any of those obviously frivolous "10% off everything to pensioners every Thursday" things at your local supermarket, do you now? Or is it just HTC you have a gripe about?

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lynx
13 Sqn RAF

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

[jedi]

Still consider myself a potential customer, so I guess I'm allowed to comment here...

If you offered me a SIX-MONTH trial at $19.95, after which I could continue at the regular price, I would've jumped on it.

Unlimited months at $19.95?  Sure!  Heck, once word of this gets out, you'll probably have a lot of guys trying to get the $19.95 rate that doesn't "officially" exist.

But if I was already a customer, I wouldn't regard this as an honest business practice.  If you came in here BEFORE you did it, and said, "We're going to offer a LIMITED number of trial memberships at $19.95 to see if that brings enough folks in to lower it across the board," I'd bet you would've seen almost unanimous support.  Instead, you've created bad blood unnecessarily within your own EXISTING customer base.  

This is one of those times you admit you've made a mistake, fix what you can, and move on.  What's going to happen when the 75% of players who DON'T read this board find out they're paying 50% more than guys who do a free trial and then walk?  How many customers are going to quit, do a free trial, and then not sign up, in the hopes they'll get the new rate?

If you had done this "above board," as a limited-time trial, it would make sense.  Heck, by the time the four-month or six-month trial period ended, you might have decided to lower the price for everyone, and you'd be heros    As is, as more and more guys get this new rate, you'll have more and more grumbling from the "old" customers.  What kind of numbers are involved here?  I can't imagine you'd get a "representative sample" from 50 or 100 guys.

I think you guys put this idea into action before it was finished "cooking."

I wouldn't mind getting that $19.95 rate tho...  

P.S. there is also some discussion that $19.95 is not the ONLY "trial rate" being offered here, and that some folks may be being offered even LOWER rates.  If that's the case, I think you'd better either squash the rumor now or come clean.


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