GameTap Offering Annual & Other Subscription Plans

JWPlatt · **Posted:** Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:02 pm

I logged onto GameTap today to change my credit card info. I found a nice surprise in that GameTap now offers more payment plans. The longer the plan, the cheaper it is. Uru Live can now be as low as $6.95 per month! I signed up for the year.

Annual Plan $6.95
6-Month Plan $7.95
3-Month Plan $8.95
Monthly Plan $9.95

Looks like GameTap has once again listened to its customers.

I do not know the answers to the inevitable questions regarding international payment plans where GameTap is not available.

EDIT: From 10/12/2006 to 10/22/2006, a 50% discount is available from GameTap for an annual subscription. One year of GameTap for $59.40 instead of the regular $119.40. That's $4.95 per month down from $9.95.

Rusty_Russell · **Posted:** Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:10 pm

That's good to know anyway. I'll sign up for a year, ex-GameTap, if it's possible.

Junee · **Posted:** Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:16 pm

But what if you can't get that lower price outside of Gametap? Conflict...

I'll leave this to Randomos to clear up.

Jarzzai · **Joined:** Fri Oct 06, 2006 12:54 pm **Posts:** 12

That is very timely news for me as i'm planning on signing up this week. Thank you for posting this information. Methinks those are quite reasonable rates for what they offer. Initially i'd planned on joining solely for URU Live, but there's also some good oldies/classics available there that look like great retro fun.
I would've paid that rate to experience URU Live alone, but lets not give them any ideas.

Eregion · **Posted:** Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:52 pm

So you get MOUL and a regular Sam and Max episodes for as less as 6.95$. Either one of those two would get me to sign on... if I lived in the states that is!

JWPlatt · **Posted:** Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:19 pm

I was just thinking I hope the discounts don't affect what Turner/GameTap is willing to provide toward Cyan's budget. I was willing to pay the regular amount but prefer annual charges. The discounts were a pleasant surprise. But if there were an option to pay the regular price for the year and put the discount ($3/month at the annual rate) directly into Cyan's budget, I would prefer that!

Owehn · **Posted:** Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:49 pm

Is there a way to change the plan you're on?

JWPlatt · **Posted:** Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:57 pm

Sign in to your account through the website, choose the blue "Pick A Plan" button to the right, and proceed to make your choice. I was told by support that the new charge would be placed at the end of your current billing month.

Owehn · **Posted:** Tue Oct 10, 2006 6:34 pm

Thanks, that worked.

randomos · **Joined:** Thu Jul 27, 2006 3:53 pm **Posts:** 55

Hi all,

We're still working out all the international stuff, so I don't have an answer for you yet (but it's a great question and has been forwarded).

Stay tuned...

Jarzzai · **Joined:** Fri Oct 06, 2006 12:54 pm **Posts:** 12

JWPlatt wrote:

I was just thinking I hope the discounts don't affect what Turner/GameTap is willing to provide toward Cyan's budget. I was willing to pay the regular amount but prefer annual charges. The discounts were a pleasant surprise. But if there were an option to pay the regular price for the year and put the discount ($3/month at the annual rate) directly into Cyan's budget, I would prefer that!

Good point JWPlatt! I agree with you that $10 USD per month is an acceptable rate to try and get this concept and gaming model off the ground and into the mainstream gamers' awareness, a price i too would happily pay for the experience. But i wouldn't be overly concerned that these new pricing plans will result in decreased funding for URU Live; I'm guessing that Turner is simply trying some new price points to make some headway into the market, and if successful, the increased volume in subscribers, and attracting some advert interests, should result in a profitable arrangement for all concerned. Maybe there'd be some short term revenue problems, but long term its much like the cable TV model without the service tiers. Lets hope they don't start implementing that! :shock:

IMO they (GameTap) really need to get some more hype coverage from the gaming media -if it wasn't for my interest in this URU Live revival i never would have become aware of their services at all. Gee, how many subscribers were there in the first URU Live attempt? Whatever it was, it wasn't enough to cover the costs as they were at that time. I'm sure Turner can carry some loss in order to (hopefully) expand its market

Kero · **Posted:** Tue Oct 10, 2006 7:40 pm

Interesting - when I went to the website they had a screen with a number of their game choices - including URU. I clicked on that and the tab said it was coming in 2006 under GameTap TV! Now why would they be putting an on-line GAME into their TV section and not their Game Vault under Adventure? If that is where they plan for us to access it we are in trouble. Who is going to look for an on-line GAME under the TV section?

PS: I checked out some of the other game choices and they were all tabbed with the type of game - adventure, action, arcade, etc.

jayctravis · **Joined:** Tue Aug 22, 2006 3:22 am **Posts:** 168

I think they've listed that because they've done really nice retrospective videos on all the myst games, and I would assume they're planning one for Uru Live.

I actually was surprised at the quality of some of their streaming video content...they definitely cater to game geeks of all stripes and feature a good amount of "behind the scenes" content for most of their games. They even have entire episodes of Sealab 2021 up, along with other music stuff and original animation.

This is also good in that the video content operates while you have games downloading...it's a neat way to pass the time.

gnorke · **Posted:** Tue Oct 10, 2006 7:51 pm

Thanks JWplatt for the info. I just changed my account to annual,

dadguy · **Posted:** Tue Oct 10, 2006 9:14 pm

Jarzzai, I believe that Gametap knows that our dedicated community would be comfortable with the $10/month deal, but this new plan will go a long way to:

1. Expand the acceptance of Gametap beyond our enthusiastic community.

2. Help insure that the revenue stream will carry on for a longer term (i.e., there is perhaps a tendency for high dropout rate on many of these MMOs with expanding content... maybe folks get impatient about the new content rate).

3. Now they have shown that the investment for a year's entertainment is only about 2X the cost of a first line release. This is much less scary than the $10/mo commitment.

I think this is a great move! Well done GameTap!

Dadguy

GameTap Offering Annual & Other Subscription Plans

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