Game & Turn pricing

[Davin]

I am curious though, why you feel that a subscription reduces the incentive to not drop out of games that are not going well. 

In my mind there are a couple of reasons...  First, the ongoing cost seems to be generally lower for a subscription than for a turn-based fee.  And second, a subscription (at least in my book) allows you to start another game while you fight to the bitter end (with sometimes potentially meaningful results) in the game that you're not expecting to win and continue to get some gratification (if not revenge) out of it.  The latter allows you to play the new game for the usual cost and therefore going down with style in the previous game is essentially free.

Perhaps the dislike of subscriptions is that if you're not playing continuously then you feel like you're wasting money paying for gaming while not playing.  This is true to a certain extent, but you do have options.  For one thing, you can usually stop subscribing if you're going to be out for months at a time.  For another, often the subscription fee for several months is less than what it would have been if you were paying by the turn for what you actually played, and thus missing a month or so of play now and again is still cheaper than if you were paying for individual turns.  It can also depend on the game -- if your position continues to operate in some background way while you're absent, then you're still getting some play-benefit for that time spent and the subscription isn't exactly wasted.  And, of course, you could simply continue to play and avoid that whole issue.

Some people may have other reasons for disliking subscriptions, such as how payments are made and the like, but that would be a different kind of question to be dealt with in other ways.