chess online
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donnadc 27-May-09, 19:32 |
 levels of subscriptionable to afford the $6.99 a month for silver membership. I renewed it last year as it suited me down to the ground yet this year the subscription was removed. I wanted to continue with this yet no it has been removed. Id like to find out why this was removed as it seemed to be a really good offer?! |
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As far as Silver, paying $6.99 a month will eventually add-up to more than double the yearly fee of $39.99, so the only advantage I see in the Silver is to renew for 1-month, start 30 games and let your membership lapse, continue playing your active games until most are finished, then 6 months later renew again for 1-month, start 30 more games and let your membership lapse, etc. If we keep whining about GK's pricing structure, perhaps the mysterious man behind the curtain will eventually listen. Since I am incapable of playing more than 12 games at a time, I am bothered by having to pay the same cost as someone who plays 50 games at a time. If GK were to offer a Bronze level membership for $24.99 with a limit of 20 games, this would suit me perfectly. |
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First of all, we do not play games with anyone's memberships, we do not "entice" anyone with secret rates, and everyone is paying the same rate for the same membership (save for the rare Christmas specials). Our membership rates are already more than reasonable, and we simply cannot afford to discount them en masse. The reason why the Bronze membership is no longer offered is because it was a complete failure. I'm not sure if everyone realizes that, but when you pay us $6.99 or $39.95, we do not get the full amount. A part of it stays with your credit card company (or PayPal), and various other middlemen (credit card/payment gateways, merchant processing, address verification, fraud prevention, recurring billing, etc. etc.). Some of the fees are calculated as a percentage, but the majority is a fixed dollar amount for each transaction. So when the payment amount is already low, for example, $6.99, once you are done with all the fixed dollar fees, what we end up receiving at our end is much smaller, compared to $39.95 for example, because most of it is the same regardless of the amount of the payment. Which is also the reason why the Silver premium membership, which is billed monthly, is seemingly more expensive than the Gold, which is billed annually. But once you remember that we have to pay 12x the fees over the long run (12 months in a year), you will understand that it is not so from our end. The only way we can offer a limited premium membership (say, 20 games for $20/year) is if it is very very popular, so we would be able to compensate small margins by selling high volume (i.e. doing the Walmart thing). Unfortunately, the Bronze membership wasn't any more popular than the Gold, so it just didn't work. Which is understandable in hindsight -- $40 isn't all that much more than $20 for a year worth of enjoyment, so most people didn't mind paying a bit more. Hopefully this will help explain our side of things.... |
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I think part of why the Bronze isn't (wasn't) so popular, is that it was never given as a regular option on the subscription page. It was quite a mysterious sort of subscription...! |
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(And sotto voce: if GK were to offer me a "special" rate, I promise not to tell donnadc |
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Life membership |
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The current buzz is that the $1500 Life membership will be phased-out over the next two years and that Chess Life will no longer be sent to life members. And for that matter, Chess Life probably won't be sent to regular members either, which is O.K. with me since they discontinued Key Krackers and told Larry Evans: "thanks for all the Fischer stories, but we're tired of hearing them!". (Personally I'll never get tired of Fischer stories.) And finally, if Sam Sloan isn't entertaining enough, there's Susan Polgar and Paul Truong to keep things lively. Whew! It's a regular Peyton Place at the USCF these days. |
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In any case,this has do bearing on the fact that a life membership would not work here on GK.The cost of maintaining such a large national organization as the USCF,the OTB tournament costs and much more is certainly not to be compared to a website chess site.There is a big difference between the USCF and GK.Having, say, even 100 life members on GK certainly will not cause a bankruptcy problem,i'm sure. GK probably has no plans to offer a life membership,as i've been told,but whatever GK's reasons for NOT offering it,I doubt is due to worrying that the GK site will crumble.Like i said,I seriously doubt that there would be too many players on GK willing to shell out the big bucks anyway. I dosen't matter to me if a life membership is ever offered here on GK,but i'm sure there would still be some players that would like to have it. |
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I meant to type..."in any case,this has NO bearing on the fact"... Sorry for the typo,this keyboard from HP is the worse for typing messages! |
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