speculation: GB is pay to play due to license holder demand

[TomL]

What if "pay to play" for GB was a strict condition from the license holder for getting the GB license at all?

This would explain why FS isn't offering a "buy once, play for free" option for GB.

 

[Xanija]

I don't think so. I think it was a deliberate choice to get more downloads for the main product. Getting 2x the tokens just for installing another pinball game.

 

[Rich Lehmann]

That doesn't make sense. It is the first virtual game they have made from scratch. They would not have begun designing the game until they had the license. If this had been the case, it would have made much more sense to simply pick another brand to license rather than change their entire business plan for virtual games.

 

[TomL]

We all agree that the pay to play model is uncharacteristic for TPA. I'm just suggesting that GB was done this way because of a restriction external to TPA.

Wasn't the license for GB part of a larger package of licenses? Maybe the only way for the license holder to agree to the package at all was if GB was offered solely as pay to play.

 

[Kratos3]

You mean like when the TZ, ST:TNG, and T2 licenses run out?

 

[MWink]

I would love to know the real reason why FarSight went with the pay-to-play scheme but I'm not sure they'll ever share it. If it was a strict condition for getting the license they should have just passed on it. Pay-to-play is just flat out unacceptable to me. I'd rather see the manpower put into correcting spelling errors in the TPA instructions than building more pay-to-play tables.

 

[brakel]

I would love to know the real reason why FarSight went with the pay-to-play scheme but I'm not sure they'll ever share it. If it was a strict condition for getting the license they should have just passed on it. Pay-to-play is just flat out unacceptable to me. I'd rather see the manpower put into correcting spelling errors in the TPA instructions than building more pay-to-play tables.

How would they make money correcting spelling errors?

 

[jaredmorgs]

I would love to know the real reason why FarSight went with the pay-to-play scheme but I'm not sure they'll ever share it. If it was a strict condition for getting the license they should have just passed on it. Pay-to-play is just flat out unacceptable to me. I'd rather see the manpower put into correcting spelling errors in the TPA instructions than building more pay-to-play tables.

Because: 95% of modern app developers use Freemium as a vaild revenue source. Some better than others...

Maybe FarSight could release an app that lets us crowdsource the instruction creation, or at least contribute grammar patches. I know it would keep some folks busy during the beta test cycles.

There are plenty of translation services out there for stuff like this. They would just need to make the strings into XML or another mark-up language suitable for string memory systems.