Do games ever come out of Premium?

[SiRan90]

Then again, if no one does their part, no one will benefit either.

Agreed. But no one is creating the tables currently. And some users can't.

Remove the Premium status for now, and see if letting everyone do their part benefits everyone. If it doesn't, reenable it.

There are people playing it, not a lot but not noone. But how does taking it off premium help the publisher? I can't find a new copy of the game anywhere so it must be out of print. How does the publisher gain any money if more people play it on bga for free?

[Gislef]

Then again, if no one does their part, no one will benefit either.

Agreed. But no one is creating the tables currently. And some users can't.

Remove the Premium status for now, and see if letting everyone do their part benefits everyone. If it doesn't, reenable it.

There are people playing it, not a lot but not noone. But how does taking it off premium help the publisher? I can't find a new copy of the game anywhere so it must be out of print. How does the publisher gain any money if more people play it on bga for free?

Taking anything off Premium helps the publisher by increasing interest. Then BGA takes it back to Premium. As I said.

The idea of offering samples or discounts to increase sales has long been a part of marketing. Or as the saying goes, "The first one is free."

I am not saying this should to be done for every Premium game. Just the low-end ones.

[SiRan90]

Agreed. But no one is creating the tables currently. And some users can't.

Remove the Premium status for now, and see if letting everyone do their part benefits everyone. If it doesn't, reenable it.

There are people playing it, not a lot but not noone. But how does taking it off premium help the publisher? I can't find a new copy of the game anywhere so it must be out of print. How does the publisher gain any money if more people play it on bga for free?

Taking anything off Premium helps the publisher by increasing interest. Then BGA takes it back to Premium. As I said.

The idea of offering samples or discounts to increase sales has long been a part of marketing.

Or as the saying goes, "The first one is free."

I get that, but the game isn't in print so interest in the game wont generate anything for the publisher

[Gislef]

I get that, but the game isn't in print so interest in the game wont generate anything for the publisher

More plays on BGA: mo' money for the publisher.

Admittedly, I don't know if they get "usage" royalties. This is all hypothetical at this point.

[SiRan90]

I get that, but the game isn't in print so interest in the game wont generate anything for the publisher

More plays on BGA: mo' money for the publisher.

Admittedly, I don't know if they get "usage" royalties. This is all hypothetical at this point.

Ah I see, no they only get paid for premium games, publishers don't get anything for free games

[Gislef]

Ah I see, no they only get paid for premium games, publishers don't get anything for free games

Yep, I kind of figured they didn't. I didn't figure that there would be any immediate payoff from BGA for publishers taking games non-Premium.

My primary market strategy is temporarily taking the "dead wood" games' off of Premium to get more people playing them. Then reverting them back to Premium.

I'd rather see the occasional existing game promoted as suggested than a constant stream of new ones. Or both!

IMO, it would be better for all involved

[ChiefPointThief]

Then again, if no one does their part, no one will benefit either.

Agreed. But no one is creating the tables currently. And some users can't.

Remove the Premium status for now, and see if letting everyone do their part benefits everyone. If it doesn't, reenable it.

There are people playing it, not a lot but not noone. But how does taking it off premium help the publisher? I can't find a new copy of the game anywhere so it must be out of print. How does the publisher gain any money if more people play it on bga for free?

I haven’t seen any information about how much these publishers are making for their games but like I used in my azul and coal baron example if coal baton makes $1 per month azul makes $4,484. & that isn’t even the top game on the site in terms of time. So if we say hypothetically that coal baron makes $10 every year is it worth it?

The issue is publishers wanting to make money off of every game played right from the start. All less popular games should start non premium. This allows for their to be a community for the game. Once that community grows then you make the decision on if it should be turned to premium or not. Then hardcore players of the game will generate you profit for years to come. The few pennies at the start doesn’t outweigh the potential future dollars.

Even if a game is out of print it may come back at a future date. To even find out it’s out of print means perhaps you went to their website and checked out everything else they have to offer. If a publisher is going to have the mindset of “this is my product and I refuse to let ppl use it without paying” that pride could actually hurt potential growth.

[tbhp]

The issue is publishers wanting to make money off of every game played right from the start. All less popular games should start non premium. This allows for their to be a community for the game. Once that community grows then you make the decision on if it should be turned to premium or not.

The problem is that if the game never catches on, then the publishers will have to face the fact that they just gave out for free something that will never make them any money, which like I said before, they probably feel is bad for their ego. They prefer to remain safe from that disastrous possibility than to follow a well thought out strategy that, over many games and on the long run, can give them more profits.

[ChiefPointThief]

The issue is publishers wanting to make money off of every game played right from the start. All less popular games should start non premium. This allows for their to be a community for the game. Once that community grows then you make the decision on if it should be turned to premium or not.

The problem is that if the game never catches on, then the publishers will have to face the fact that they just gave out for free something that will never make them any money, which like I said before, they probably feel is bad for their ego. They prefer to remain safe from that disastrous possibility than to follow a well thought out strategy that, over many games and on the long run, can give them more profits.

Let’s take captain flip. This game started as non premium and converted after gaining a decent sized community. It was also featured on a bga awards announcement a few years back. No way to tell how much impact that had. But I don’t think this community would be as healthy had it started off as premium. Now a healthy portion of players have thousands of games (including myself) and because the community was able to grow during the free trial there are tons of players to play with and know the game that are non premium. The publisher didn’t lose revenue during the free trial. Like giving out free samples in a grocery store you are potentially gaining lifetime customers.

With the community it has now with every addition like expansions, new tiles, etc they are making more and more revenue. The little extra money making the game premium from the start isn’t worth stunting its growth.

(I had a better more detailed response initially but it got erased. Grr )

[Silene]

I think company just doesn't want to spend any time on a game that's not likely to gain them anything. That includes even thinking about whether to make it free and contacting BGA to change the status quo. Not doing anything has the best value for them.
Maybe you need to contact them repetedly about the issue so that reading your mails turns into more effort than actually thinking about the game status .