Greed gets the better of Chedburn

A while ago, a new voting system was introduced. A system where you would no longer be rewarded for your votes, other than by the chance of winning 10,000 points. Surprisingly, this was not very popular: people didn't feel like spending a LOT of time for no reward.

Chedburn[1] pointed out that the voting would give merits. But as we all know: short-term rewards usually do a lot more than long term rewards.

So, instead of making the voting system more attractive, Chedburn[1] decided to remove it alltogether. In his words: "Due to the unpopularitity of this system, we've taken it down".

Never mind that, even while unpopular, it still served it's aim at getting TC in the top of most rankings. Chedburn continues complaining that this system could have doubled the income of Torn, but wonders at what cost.

UPDATE: it later turned out that the system taken away was not the voting system, but another experimental system. However, the remark about removing the option to swap 100 points for a 31 day donator status still remains undenied.

Now Chedburn is looking at other ways of getting more donators. "Removal of the donator pack for points in an option we have to look at. With more real money - there's no end to the size Torn can become. Unlimited employees, updates and features is one of the things we're aiming for, but we can't achieve this without more users and more donators."

Even though Chedburn tries to reassure us that every cent goes back into the game, I cannot help but detect the emergence of greed. No longer is it enough, apparently, to just build a game and have some fun with it, making a few pennies. Now it has to become some sort of multinational, huge corporation.

But at what cost?
Removal of the DP for points will destroy many of the unique characteristics of this game.

Gap

One of the unique factors of Torn City was that the gap between paying and non-paying members was a little smaller than that in other games. Meaning that as a player not paying real currency, you still had a chance at becoming something. This was one of the things that kept me in Torn. It's not that I cannot afford to pay US$ 5 a month, it's that I have better things to do with my money. Remove DP for points, and you destroy this, and increase the gap between paying and non-paying members. This will drive people away, and reduce the number of participants. And it is exactly that, the sheer amount of people, which makes Torn unique. Read the works of Chris Anderson ("The Long Tail" and "Free") to understand the importance of the non-paying layer in any community.

Destruction of points market

What is the most important use for points? Indeed, Donator Packs. Remove this option, and what am I gonna use my 7000 points for? Refills? That'll take me a year! Demand for points will collapse. As will the points prices. This will reduce the number of points sold by Anonymous, and reduce the amount of money going out of the economy. There we are again: inflation.

Inflation

Speaking of inflation, obviously, DPs will rise in price again, as supply drops. This is not bad in itself, but it will, once again, seriously disbalance the game. Newcomers will not be able to purchase a DP. I remember struggling for months to get the 35K I needed to buy a DP. How would a newbie, who plays the game properly (without the weekly 50K per point for voting) ever be able to do this?

Money talks

We also will see the return of an old TC problem: achievement is not a matter of being good at the game, but a matter of pumping in as much RL money as you can. We've seen examples in the past of people pumping hundreds of dollars into DP's, to sell them to get to their PI quickly. Chedburn, without a doubt, loves these people, but to the rest of us, they are despicable. Buying your way in success is not what winners do, and for newbies, seeing that to get all the stuff you want, you need to spend all your pocket money is not going to motivate them to do anything...except move on.

Solution

Want to solve this problem in an easy way? Then take a few steps:

1. Return the voting system, but provide guaranteed rewards. Vary the reward per voting-site: some give points, some give cash, some give you 10 energy, some give... be creative
   • This will keep people motivated to vote, and drive that much-wanted traffic to you.
2. Keep the 100 points for a DP
   • Because simply, there's no reason not to.
3. Increase the point cap a bit.
   • This helps in several ways: it helps those newbies selling their points (I hate it, but this is not about what is good for me, but about what's good for the community). It also increases the amount of cash taken out of the economy (which is also good, for combatting inflation, but also other purposes). And it increases the intrinsic value of a DP, thus encouraging some to put more DP items in the market, which they bought with US$ first.
4. And of course, do not forget the thing I've been saying for years: increase the amount of things to do which take money out of the economy. Less money = less people buying huge amounts of points = more people buying a DP with cash (or buying an item which was bought with cash).

What do you think? Leave a comment and be part of the discussion.