Survey re: Ingress Monthly Subscriptions
I'll just steal the post on /r/ingress, because it did summarize it quite well:
The survey is throwing around numbers like USD$3.99 - USD$11.99 per month, trying to suss out how much we're willing to pay for a subscription. The standout question on the survey was asking which monthly package we would subscribe to:
Which of the following subscriptions would you be most likely to subscribe to:
* 200 additional inventory capacity (2,200 total); medal and codename emblem; 200 CMU per month; 1 Loadout Kit with defensive items per month
* 500 additional inventory capacity (2,500 total); medal and codename emblem; 500 CMU per month; 1 Loadout Kit with building and defensive items per month
* 1,000 additional inventory capacity (3,000 total); medal and codename emblem; 1,000 CMU per month; 1 Loadout Kit with Boosts, building, and defensive items per month
And the final question, if there are any other items or features we'd like to see included in a subscription offering.
Comments
Having inventory space tied to a subscription seems very pay to win which can be VERY detrimental to this competitive of a game. Why not add “rental” key/media lockers or other media sorting/storage options instead?
Id rather hate to face an opponent that can hold 1000more bursters... Not really fair pay with wallet for higher inventory....
I have not received my email yet, but another agent says she cannot get past choosing an option to get to the next question. This seems very unfair as any who want to continue must choose an option which will give false information. The feedback would show that everyone who filled out the survey is willing and that is not the case.
I haven't received the survey yet atleast but I'll drop my opinion here.
I don't care much about the extra inventory, CMU or loadout kits. I want to support the game for a small amount of money and get a tiered (not necessarily counting for levels but I do want that bling) medal. I wish the price would stay reasonably low, like 5-7 dollars per month. I wonder also if there's an option for yearly billing with a small discount.
To farm some dislikes, I'm personally okay with any tier and any price.
I'm playing this damm game for over 5 years now almost daily. I've made so much friends and memories, I've visited so many places and even shilled out almost 1500€ for Epiphany Night for flying to San Francisco from Germany. Ingress is probably literally the reason I didn't commit Persona 3.
No matter the contents and the price, I'll gladly pay for the subscription. Ingress is an amazing game, and I want to throw my money at it.
I'm looking at the above options like this:
1 key locker (100 keys) = ~2.65 one time only
5 Key lockers (500 keys) = ~9.90 ( ~1.98 ea) one time only
Assuming the highest subscription benifits:
47.88 yearly (3.99 reoccuring )
143.88 yearly (11.99 reoccuring)
All this before having to pay for anomaly registration to obtain a badge (assuming there is one, which could cost hundreds to attend).
Unless new features are introduced to justify my spending money on the subscription beyond the money I already spend for non L8 gear load outs during FS, when maxing AP gains, Frakkers, APEX boosts, or for badges (assuming no subscription based CMU discounts are attached to the subscription), No thanks.
Post 2.48.2 release addition:
If the subscription allowed me to Remote Participate into an anomaly and capture portals via dronenet maybe I would pay 3.99 a month for that feature.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but:
If I subscribe, I do not want a shiny medal telling the rest of the world that I subscribed. My financial transactions between me and Niantic I consider fairly private, and it's no other player's business how much money I spent on them.
I might pick the cheapest one time to support the game and get a new badge, but nothing else offered is really appealing right now. Maybe in the future when new features are added and better advantage for subscription, but for now I prefer keeping my free status.
Pogo and wu get an event per week and for ingress we are being asked how much we would like to pay for bonuses per month? I admit, I never thought of such a marketing approach to increase a games numbers in players and get more positive reviews in play store.
I don't see the "no thanks" options.... To who is willing to buy subscription please also consider the "drug" effect in buying it.
If you pay once you will have to keep paying to not lose or have to recycle the hundreds of excess items in your inventory to keep hacking.
Ingress brought me many friends, many nice events meetups in different countries.
I have no clue how much i actually spent on Ingress (well ok not directly on Ingress but for travels/swag and so on) and I'm even willing to pay for a subscription and get nothing in return for all the fun and people it brought me over the years.
the extra inventory space sure is a nice idea but everything beyond 500 is just too much pay 2 win in my opinion
And I'd be more than willing to pay extra for every support ticket that actually gets solved and not shifted from one to another support member and each giving me the same answer the one before gave when actually got a reply from me that it didn't work (or use his brain when it comes to spoofers crossing a river 5 times and capturing portals on both sides that clearly can't be captured from being on the river or actually looks into wayfarer complaints and checks them)
I've been playing since the beginning, the subscription has been discussed very often. Personally I don't care about the price, I have always left money in the Ingress Store whenever I could.
As for the survey, I think it's a pity that the option "I don't want a subscription" is missing. Yes, it's obvious that it's optional and anyone can play without a subscription, but just to reduce the mimimi a bit, the option should be there.
What bothers me the most is the loadout, I don't need it and if I get load on items every month without doing anything for it, that's not my idea of this game. The idea to get Fracker, Beacons or Apex every month would interest me more but not with 1000 extra inventory space, that's exaggerated.
Am am willing to buy a subscription as well. I am all for having some extra stuff and supporting a game I have enjoyed for years isn't much to ask.
What I don't like is an unlevel playing field that could happen because of this. The 2k item cap is a big portion of the strategy especially when it comes to big events.
I do agree extra storage is necessary and is probably the most valuable portion of any money that exchanged hands. What I would like to see is still some sort of limitation on how much can actually be used. Having an extra thousand items in storage versus inactive inventory could very well be the balance that they might be looking for.
Example
You have an active inventory which is exactly the same as the game plays now. With your subscription you are given a capsule with an extra thousand inventory space in it but it can only be accessed for a limited time and then it has some sort of timing mechanism which keeps you from accessing it again for a set amount of time. Let's say 24 hours. This way you can still have a balance game. But you would also be able to move things into a storage facility and gear up for an anomaly weekend, or store keys for a large op.
Having more space in your inventory could be more fun for you, but not for your opponent. I think this is beyond fair play. I think you play a game with the same options in the beginning, not with someone in advance of 200, 500 or even 1000 bursters more, just because jou or your apponement had more to spent more money! This wouldn't be fair!!!!
hm still no e-mail here...
I would be willing to pay for a subscription if I received an adequate support that really addresses complaints of dishonest players. If at the same time really interesting events appear that give the most exciting confrontation between the factions. Such that getting a medal would be a really difficult task.
Extra space in the inventory is not needed, you need to farm more often and spend stuff, play. You need to think and plan ahead how much and what you need. 2000 items in inventory are enough for this. To make the game easier for money does not mean to make it more interesting, and in the case of ingress, it will simply completely destroy it. The interest of Congress is in its difficulties, and not in the stupid reeling in its area with a bunch of bombs and resonators.
I haven't received the survey yet either, but in my eyes, if Niantic want to be taken seriously about opening up a subscription model, they first need to regain confidence in their players.
For years we have seen constant bugs, issues, lack of communication with little recourse. Why should the players be forced to pay for a product that will likely remain broken in many ways? What assurances can Niantic give that the payment model will actually benefit players?
I am more than happy to support Niantic via a subscription, however, I don't want to be given an unfair advantage over other players in terms of inventory space. Inventory management is one of the key aspects of succeeding at the game.
I also don't care much about the bonus monthly CMU or the loadout kit. The only thing I would spend money on in the store are the frackers, since they raised the price on it, I haven't bothered to buy them anymore. There's nothing else of value in the store either.
I would very happily pay for a media locker. Especially for the Tessellation. Imagine if you could view the Janus Tessellation board in-game and collect all the media on the same board in-game, that would have been a nice way to interconnect the Tessellation with the rest of the game.
To answer the final question, I don't think any items should be included in the subscription, it's just not necessary. I would happily pay just to have consistent, regular communication from the Niantic team on these forums. Listen to the players, actively show that you are working on and priortising issues and feedback - that's what you have the Vanguard program for after all, maybe it's time to actually utilise that and respect the playerbase. You want money, give us legitimate reasons why we should spend.
Also, if you do go subscription-model based, please be mindful of the amount you are charging and keep it comparable to other games (non-Niantic games). USD$11.99 is over $17 AUD, which is way too expensive for a monthly charge, other countries may suffer higher costs that would simply be unreasonable.
I have been back and forth on how a subscription model for Ingress would really work. Perhaps the most for inventory would be 200 (assuming they thought +10% inventory space) but I want to think of something that makes it act with a little bit of a restriction?
I'm also looking at the cosmetic effects - maybe make any of the custom avatars accessible when you're subscribed?
Those of you who didn't get the email, can you check your settings to see if Email / Send me events, offers, and updates is enabled? It might not help with this one, but it may help in future surveys.
My main worry regarding increased inventory is during anomalies and events - if we ever have them again. If anomalies require paid tickets, I hope it includes a temporary inventory boost for all registered attendees for a week before till a few days after the anomaly. My other concern has to do with people creating backpack accounts.
@theimmc how would this encourage backpacking? I really doubt many players are going to spend money to boost the inventory cap on a backpack account. And those who will have multiple accounts, are going to do so regardless of what the inventory cap is. There's nothing stopping someone with one backpack from creating two, three, or four more such accounts as it is. If anything, increasing inventory space actually discourages backpacks since it makes it easier to legitimately store gear in a legitimate player account.
I'm on the record on here as being hugely supportive of this. I prefer an Ingress which generates enough cash-flow to actually maintain and evolve the game to a cash-strapped Ingress on life-support.
I agree that some in-game benefit is necessary in order to actually generate subscriptions - it's unlikely that a subscription which amounts to effectively a donation (for a badge/profile icon/whatever) would attract enough people.
But there is a trade-off because the game inherently needs a healthy community of players, and if new or less-well-off players drop off because of the helplessness of the imbalance (the simple mechanics mean that, unlike other adversarial multiplayer games, there isn't really much "getting good" you can do to compensate) then that detracts from the experience - and willingness to pay - of subscribers too.
I think that 500, let alone 1000, is way past that inflection point and will hurt the game more than the revenue it generates.
200, or even 100, is enough of a benefit to make it a no-brainer for anybody who can afford it - but doesn't create an overwhelming resource imbalance between agents.
I'm on the fence about the proposed inventory cap increases, but I am in full agreement that Niantic should have started seriously looking yesterday at ways to maintain their revenue stream. The wording of the survey questions doesn't give me much hope that they've considered much beyond the inventory caps, though... they are more or less asking, "How much inventory space would you buy? Would you pay $12 for it? $10? $6? Would you want apex bundled with your inventory space? What if we bundle xmp? Could you would you in a house? Or with a fox? Or with a mouse?"
couple of conditions i,would be happy to subscribe for.
1) three tier of inventory space increasements (200-$4/500-$7/1000-$10)
2) a fracker and an apex in the highest tier
3) offering a reward of a VR Link Amp for consistent maintaining of subscription
4) No need to offer load outs as its not necessary
5) badge should be tiered to show support and deeication, with each increasement per month paid and can gain wings for double onyx (1/6/12/24/36/72)
+1000 inventory? No,please. It will ruin ingame balance even more than itoen- and aegis/vrps nerf. I see that nia wants some money,but that's a bit too much.
i'm not against subscription but 50% more inventory space is game breaker.
instant nomination review by nia, direct access to a cm, key hack bonus, removing mods etc there's a lot of bonuses less brutal to give.
hexalton with 1000 more items would assure elite rank for exemple 😂😂
Whatever they decide on the final values and the load out, it won't suit everyone, clearly, 500 more inventory space is a start, but also key lockers is required.
But what Niantic is missing, is that they have no free option for attaining CMU.
I thought that the rumour of daily tasks, like with virtually every other game, would make an appearance by now
I would also pay for unique visits and unique capture visibility in the scanner. It's much less unbalancing as extra inventory space, but really helpful for quite a few personal goals for agents.
I prefer a badge that symbolizes my contribution to Ingress's sustainability instead of more inventory space (and I will pay regularly if the price is not too much even there is no other benefit because I still love this game). Features that have impact on game balance should be fair and available to all agents in game.
I will express my opinion. There are two problems with this type of subscription.
1. Many agents believe that it’s normal to open another account for a mother-in-law, a grand-nephew, and so on. They already have "bags" where to put things. I am categorically against this, but alas, the situation here is the same as with 4 modifiers in the portal that put one person.
2. Increased inventory is a significant advantage in the game. And this advantage can only be obtained by paying.
Agents who are not able to pay have no alternative ways of obtaining inventory extensions, through the same quests, for example. How does this happen in other games.
Agreed get the bags, multiaccounting, spoofing out of the game FIRST. Then we'll feel OK with improved inventory capacity.