Woodruff wrote:For folks like me, I think this would be a negative from a money-making standpoint because, as chapcrap poitns out, speed games are one of the biggest things that people pay for.
Are they really? I don't think so.
I think most people get premium so they can get to play more than 4 games at once. Things like invites, starting private games, etc. are perks, but speed games? They're hardly most people's primary motivation for paying money - otherwise there'd be more speedgames being played. The thing is, anyone can go to live chat and ask for people to play RT. Sure, it's not a "real" speedgame, but for most freemiums it doesn't make much difference I wager.
Restricting the speed games to a certain games played cap would encourage multis. And despite the claims of the C&A team, there are ways of creating multis that have virtually no way of getting caught, if you don't make any noise about yourself.
Restricting the speed games to only the classic map would be stupid as well - ok, great, people who like the classic map get to play the classic map against other people who like the classic map. Then what? The freemiums can still go and play their RT games on other maps. What's the point of such a restriction? Oh no, the Entertainment Team can't host their Special little Speed Events anymore. Well tough shit, the Entertainment Team is just going to have to come up with some better Entertainment. Which is more important here, getting more satisfied customers, or keeping the ET happy?
The fact is, a lot (if not most) of the NR:s who quit the site without finishing their first game(s) do it because they thought they'd get to play realtime games here. And when they find out they have to wait 24h for their next turn they lose interest. With free speedgames, there'd be a rush of new members, the retention rate would very likely improve significantly, and that is what CC needs right now. I'm pretty sure those people would also buy premium, and if they wouldn't, well, then the site should just come up with new perks for the premium members, make premium membership more attractive.
Sadly, this is all moot, since as we all know the sugs forum is the graveyard of ideas...