Originally Posted by Baraius
You're missing a market opportunity then. Just guarantee a team of addon developers around $100k a year. Keep the rest for yourself. Retire to a beach with good wireless so you can play WoW. :-)
-Baraius
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If I had any knowledge of marketing (apart from common sense) or website development, then I definitely would. I'm currently focused on finishing my biochem/microbiology degree and getting into med school.
Originally Posted by Mazzlefizz
If I thought I could have gotten anywhere remotely close to 1700 people to subscribe per month, I would have done it when I originally proposed it right before I stopped playing WoW. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it seems highly unlikely. I actually did a poll on it at the time. The results, while encouraging, were nowhere remotely near what you're imagining.
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Originally Posted by Arcalyn
You should re-do the POLL now, now that people are standed without the UI.
Its easy for someone to say they wouldn't pay when they are using it ( and it works ) for free. But now that it doesn't work, it be the perfect time to step in and say, "
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I agree. No one wants to pay for something they're already getting for free. Also, I submit that the people who take these polls or even who post here are not the only possible market. I have been thinking about this for quite some time (i.e. paying for continued support for UI's) but only posted about this lately. Eventually things would spread through word-of-mouth. For example, Zygor's guide/addon costs $50/faction. I just looked at the members list for his forums and it appears he has as many as ~400 paying customers (correct me if I'm wrong, but I tried registering and it wouldn't let me unless I purchased the guide). Thus, he has made as much as ~$20k.
Originally Posted by wiseman168
Don't u think would be easy just pay one time flat fee? $14.95 or more? send me the $$ I email you the mod?
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Maybe if it were a flat fee for each major patch/break. Again, I bring up the example of Zygor (since it's the only instance of a pay addon apart from WoWecon that I am aware of): the 1-70 guide was $50/faction, but he recently released the 70-80 guide, and (according to his website) was going to charge existing customers a small upgrade fee for the 70-80 content, and charge new customers $50 for 1-80. I think that was a bit of a slap in the face to existing customers, and he should've charged at least as much as the combined 1-70+upgrade fee for new customers. However, the lesson in this is that the charge needs to be periodic; whether that's monthly, or whenever a UI-breaking patch comes out, would be up to the author.
My logic for this is that if you just pay a flat fee and want lifetime free updates, that's an unreasonable expectation. The only way the coder has incentive to continue coding (apart from their sense of integrity) is that they will continue receiving periodic payments to do so. This also opens the door to more customers, since a lot of people can't afford/justify a high initial price. In addition, if something comes up in the coder's life and they can't continue with their work, then they're not on the hook forever and no one could be justified in bad-mouthing them for having discontinued development.
Originally Posted by Yhor
Only a few people I'd trust enough to do this with.. and even though Mazz has been AWOL for awhile in search of better mmos, he tops the list because this is his baby. However, IF Seerah or one of her counterparts gave a thumbs up for it, I'd trust it's worthy of my cash.
The problem with this is, the code would have to be more generic and couldn't include a lot of other mods (those authors would demand removal of their mods from this UI). People get touchy, and have started heated discussions in the past when this subject came up. Good luck getting it to fly.
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As far as other mods' authors demanding removal of their code, I have a fairly simple solution: the only charge(s) would be for the Mazzifier/Mazzle-unique code which would be hosted at a private, authenticated site where you enter all your cc/PayPal info etc.; all the other mods could be included as a separate, free download hosted here. Or, to insure that there is a minimal amount of pirating going on, if bandwidth isn't much of an issue, then host the additional addons on the pay site, but with the disclaimer that they are free (If that's possible--I'm unsure as to the laws on this latest suggestion).
Anyway, please put me down if you ever consider this, Mazzle (or anyone you designate to do this--profit sharing perhaps?). I'd pay at least $5/month not to have the hassle of having to re-do all my buttons and everything else everytime there's a big patch. The closest UI that I've found that configures things for you is Arkive, but it's still missing my biggest pet-peeve, which is having to actually place all my buttons and bindings in a logical manner on my 5 (soon to be 8) different toons.