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Re: monetising BNT

Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2014 05:07 UTC
by thekabal
I should preface this with a very clear statement that the following comments I'm making are *mine* and mine alone, not the opinion of "The BNT Development team", not that we really issue comments as a group generally. But just to be clear: My opinion follows..
coolmates wrote:here is a fantastic way to monetise your game whilst adding something great for your players: add your own brand tv network to your planet(s) and enable your players to do the same.
There are ways to reduce the costs (you can get free domains from .tk, you can get free hosting lots of places, etc), but I'll agree with you that in some cases admins might like to earn money from their game. Generally, that is accomplished by Ads. Unfortunately, because our game is open-source, we don't get a say in which Ads admins run on their games.

However, that doesn't mean it is "something great for your players". For players, an Ad is a company interrupting what you wanted to do so that they can try to sell you something. That is almost never a good thing for the player. But much worse is to put product placement INTO the game (your example of Cable TV on Planets links in game) beyond a standard ad.

It disrupts the story of the game, and injects a message that literally doesn't fit into the theme or story of the game. Its like playing blackjack, but one of the cards coming up as an ad for a used car shop instead of a face card.

It is frankly slimy, and in every way I would rather you turn off the BNT game (if it costs so much that you must resort to these efforts to pay for it), and by doing so not sully the reputation of the game with those ads.

There is no legal remedy to bad taste, but I hope that you will take this opinion into account. We've worked damned hard for A DECADE, and to see it used as a shell for selling cable TV? Disgusting.

Re: monetising BNT

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2016 05:15 UTC
by RancerDS
You pointed out how some game admins might be taking advantage of free domains/hosting, etc. It is possible that a hosting provider company allows their "free" hosting service inside of an HTML frame, giving them the ability to have framed ads on the sides, top and/or bottom; not to mention those majorly annoying pop-up frames that add-in blockers can't even prevent.

Some previous forums I'd used had a frame inside it which had the advertisments. Fortunately, they were relatively small banners that didn't take up more than 20% of the page at worst - that would also be hidden when scrolling down. I think it's pretty well stated in the Terms & Conditions of any free service what you're getting and what you're giving up (getting rammed down your throat) in the process.

Something did pop into mind today. A Game Admin might want to try to "charge" for a service for a feature that isn't normally within the game-play framework. The main idea centered around how you can upgrade a ship but not downgrade. If a player wanted to be able to park in Fed Space while offline but had went over the average tech allowed, they could pay for that "service" of the Admin logging into their page, setting the levels lower and then saving the data. That they'd be using their time to manage a player's account outside of the normal usage/game-play.

Of course, most Admins probably wouldn't want to figure the refund amounts in credits for downgrading their techs, making it another "cost" players would bear.