Customer Service Announcement: Premium Membership

SOE, you just lost my next yearly renewal due to this change. Thank god it is coming up in March so I didn't pay for another whole year before this change went into affect. I just cancelled my subscription this morning for making this change without my consent.

I guess this will mean more of those expensive gold/black weapons and commissar hats.

Wow, really.

By excluding Player Studio items, you've excluded 90% of the reason any player who's been around for 6 months or more would want to sign up for a membership. For example, I've been here since you started; I've already have all the SOE turrets, guns and upgrades I want. Any money I spend (admittedly, not much anymore) is on cosmetics, and you guys at SOE don't generate enough new cosmetics to warrant my continued spending.

Basically what I see here is an effort to make the membership sub more appealing to new and untapped wallets. That's not a bad thing, in and of itself, but there's nothing in this change that caters to me, the player who's been playing all this time. That's all kinds of disappointing, because I feel like I'm in this for the long haul, and I'm really not all that opposed to spending the $15 a month to support a game I love.

I'm pretty forgiving as far as game development goes (I didn't really mind the Christmas hiccup!), but yeah, I cancelled my subscription months back for lack of feeling that it really did anything for me as a player. Nothing you have done since has made me want to resub. I'll still play, but it'll be for free.

I'm not happy about this, people often save SC for deals and whatnot, forcing people to use the one item selection before end of the month just seems like a greedy move by SOE.

They were so hoping we wouldnt notice

I have played PS2 since the Beta and then had the Alpha pack so I consider my self a loyal player.

Simply put this blows donkey ball$ and reeks of SOE trying to screw us over again. Like many others on here I used to stock pile my SC along with my cert points to buy and then buff something I wanted. Now this will force me to choose something that I don't really want just to get something out of my monthly membership. The XP bonus doesnt really matter now as I am fairly highly ranked. Also as I play on Esamir the priority login to continents doesn't really bother me as it is rare I switch.

With the recent spate of failed patches and long down time, coupled with the drop of new content ( Hossin anyone ), the recent poor performance and constant nerfs to equipment I am starting to think either SOE have lost the plot or jumped forward a few months to April 1st when they announced this.

Unless they do a rethink on this, and pretty damn sharpish, I see a lot of membership payments being cancelled!! Mine will be one of them....with IMMEDIATE effect!!

...and membership is cancelled :-(

Lucky I read this, as my 2nd 6 months plan is just about to expire.

I didn*t want to, but the new benefit plan just sucks, so I had to do it!

This would basically focre me to periodically buy SC to participate in the sales and if some new items come out, I would have to wait a couple of months to get them all? Think Max - Flamethrowers come out and I am stuck with one for a month?

No thanks...

Well this is the straw that broke the camel's back. I just cancelled my subscription. With the game often being unavailable during my free time, and getting screwed on the anniversary bundle boost, I'm done paying for this game.

Don't do it just yet mate. I've got a thread going where I am asking a simple question - what is on the immediate horizon that makes this 'better' than the flexible, use when you want, 500SC / month?

Thread is this one:

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/current-membership-deal-upcoming-items.166088/

If the response is, as I think it will be, either marketing BS, details on black / gold / chrome nonsense or in fact, nothing that makes it worthwhile, then I'll race you to the queue to cancel subscriptions.

This is a poor way to support players have supported you long term. Player Studio items are the only good things left on the market. I would suspect most long standing players have any weapons worth having.

It's sad but I would cancel my membership and encourage anyone I play with to do the same if/when this happens. I just don't feel SOE genuinely wants to nurture a good community; rather to nickle and dime.

It's weird how even though in theory this offers more value, as someone who likes to stock up SC through membership until I see something I actually want, I feel as though I'm being cheated (because it encourages me to buy stuff I don't even want). Not ripped off as such but certainly I feel like the value of membership is actually reduced.
It's not helped by the fact that I'm already feeling a shortage of disposable income so this is not good timing for me.

This shouldn't go into effect for those who bought the membership before this change. E.g. I got an Auraxium membership last September, and it's good till September 2014, I would request that you honor terms you stated when I was purchasing it for the whole year until it runs out; and after that, change whatever you want.

(Ignore this, double post due to me thinking forums had gone all wibbly wobbly timey wimey)

This is just greedy ..

I have been a member for a long time and a supporter of the game, but this will cause me to cancel membership since I lose the benefit of buying small things here and there at my own pace...
I feel that the current system gave very small benefits and mostly saw it as a supporter role to the game, but now with the change and no more SC there is no more benefit at all. It's a shame and it makes it even harder to recommend to friends to become members.

I would like to know if SOE intends to apply these changes to new subscriptions only or if already running 3,6,12 month memberships will get changed as well.

To put it bluntly and say it once more, I subscribed with 500 SC per month as the deal and would see getting this replaced by the new 1 item for 2000 SC max system as a breach of contract.

And there you hit the nail on the head - the entire reason this is happening.

Subscribed players rarely need to buy SC. I buy the odd little thing here and there, if it's in a sale, or if I really want it - or I'll save up for a month or two to get something more expensive. It is very rare, post-subscription, for me to put any extra cash into SC. I did this xmas, for the Dark Digi camo, but that was a one off, and not something I would have considered had the camo not been on sale.

The picture we can take from that is simple: subbed players aren't spending enough on SC. Newer players often bounce off the game, and those who don't are usually more concerned about SC for equipment in the early stages of the game, if they get any at all - while longer term subbed players usually have all the equipment they need, and are now largely concerned with new equipment (if it ever comes; incidentally one of the reasons so many members have saved SC), filling out any gear gaps that still remain, and the occasional cosmetic. Let's face it, most of us missed our Alpha boost and subbed for the resource/xp boost, especially those of us close to BR100. The SC was added value that made the package more attractive; part of that attractiveness was the freedom to do whatever you wanted with that SC. One item a month is very different.

This membership change, as Buddhi realised, is expressly designed to force subscribed members to purchase SC more frequently (to increase overall revenue). Subscribed members likely used their stored SC in the xmas sales, rather than buying more; consequently sales revenues for the period are likely lower than predicted. No doubt this is true for most, if not all of their games that use this model. Of course, after seeing that, they're going to want to change it.

This is a reduction in player choice, opportunity and purchasing power dressed up as a 'bonus' (and that bare-faced lie is, perhaps, the worst thing about it)

This is SOE deciding their cash cows don't lay out enough milk; a bait and switch of the highest order.

This is an appalling way to treat paying customers.

This is not good for veterans.

I have already put $100's into this game since launch. I have every weapon I want.

All I am interested in now are Player Studio items which don't qualify.

I will more then likely be cancelling since now the membership boils down to an expensive boost.

SOE,

I strongly urge you to reconsider the changes to the membership program. While this will undoubtedly increase your revenue in the short-term, it will significantly adversely affect your revenue in the mid to long term. By maintaining attractive membership benefits, you promote continued participation in the program - thereby maintaining a steady stream of revenue. If you reduce the benefits of the program, you incur the risk of reducing that revenue stream.

The question is this - will you gain enough revenue in station-cash purchases to make up for the lost membership revenue? For example, if I cancel my recurring 3 month subscription I will need to buy $13 in station cash every month for you to break even.

More importantly, the immeasurable cost of customer disenfranchisement is of significant concern. By reducing the benefits of your paying customers, you risk disenfranchising them, inclining your customers to cancel their subscriptions out of principle. This changed benefit is undoubtedly worse - instead of a fluid station cash pool, you instead propose a one-off voucher that loses its remaining value. The second order of effect here - you disincentivize people from making purchases smaller than 20,000 station cash with their membership benefit - ultimately reigniting a feeling of being ripped off every month when we select an item worth less than 20,000 station cash.

With the numbers we're talking about, money is of little concern for me, but on principle alone, I would have a very difficult time giving you the same amount with reduced benefits. Take this as you will, but a meaningful portion of your customer base will put their money with their mouth is. Don't go down the path of implants and go for a "cash grab", when the more responsible strategy is to build a positive relationship with the customers, while providing them fair benefits, and motivates repeat business.

Just canceled my 12 month membership with still 3 months left. I realize I won't get the 1500 in station cash I have left to earn, but I don't like this change. With that 500sc a month I could buy a few items, now they want to limit me to one item so forcing me to have to spend money to get anything else I want. This change would also prevent me from taking advantage of sales as I no longer have that station cash. No, thank you. Was the $120 a year not enough SOE? On top of the several hundred I've given you for station cash as well? I'm done. You get no more of my money. Also, why did Matherson not get the double experience the last couple of days? I'm very disappointed in you SOE.