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Monetize Players Better

Virtually every attempt at monetization on Roll20 is directed at GMs, not players.  Players rarely subscribe to Roll20 because there is no incentive to.  Pretty much everything subscriber upgrade, whether Plus or Pro, is focused on people running games and not people playing games.  The sole exception is the removal of loading screen ads, but that doesn't seem to encourage many folks to pony up $4.99 a month.  If we take the rough average of 1 GM per 4 players, you're only attempting to monetize 20% of your userbase. Develop some subscriber features that make it worthwhile for players to subscribe to Roll20.  Anything from special cosmetic token options to allowing a certain number of subscribed players to boost a game's features.  Brainstorm it. Right now, pay-to-play GMs are monetizing your player base better than Roll20 is.  If nothing else, charge P2P GMs a monthly per player fee.  Fifty cents or a dollar a slot for games that are marked as paid. We want to see Roll20 run better, faster, and make some serious improvements.  Focus on generating some revenue to do it by not ignoring the vast majority of your users.
I do get your idea, but some of my friends just don't have the money for a subscription. It should be well-balanced, what players should pay for and what "features" should stay free. That's sometimes not easy to decide.
Jesse said: Right now, pay-to-play GMs are monetizing your player base better than Roll20 is.  If nothing else, charge P2P GMs a monthly per player fee.  Fifty cents or a dollar a slot for games that are marked as paid. If Roll20 prioritized Pay to Play GM's game advertisements I'd be good with this idea. -Adam
Bjoern B. said: I do get your idea, but some of my friends just don't have the money for a subscription. It should be well-balanced, what players should pay for and what "features" should stay free. That's sometimes not easy to decide. I agree, Bjoern.  I'm not suggesting Roll20 remove anything from the free member level.  I am suggesting, though, that they add some features directed at players to their membership tiers.  Give players something worthwhile to subscribe to, because right now pretty much everything in the premium tiers is focused on GMs.
I don't support the idea of charging pay to play gms. But it would be nice for players who are plus or pro to have the ability to use their options in games they play in or have other options. Uploading persol API for my character etc. Even in limited capacity. 
I don't have a problem with it.  At the going average of $15 per player per session, a paid GM is making $60 per player per month.  I don't think charging them $1 per player is going to seriously affect their revenue stream.
I don't think u guys wanna suggest anything to give DM's even more incentive to use a different VTT a lot are already leaning away from roll20
DM Dallas said: I don't think u guys wanna suggest anything to give DM's even more incentive to use a different VTT a lot are already leaning away from roll20 I think the biggest issue for Pro DMs right now is exposure to their game listings.  I've had a game I've been advertising for two weeks that I can't get many eyeballs on due to the unknown algorithm that decides the order in which games appear as well as the absolute spam that some Pro DMs are posting.  If an extra dollar was charged to Pro DMs but it meant Roll20 staff were actually going to police the advertisements and provide tools for Pro DMs to get their games seen by the player base, I am all for it.  Right now there is a Wild Wild West vibe going on and I'd much prefer something more organized even if that comes at a price premium. -Adam
Adam Caramon said: DM Dallas said: I don't think u guys wanna suggest anything to give DM's even more incentive to use a different VTT a lot are already leaning away from roll20 I think the biggest issue for Pro DMs right now is exposure to their game listings.  I've had a game I've been advertising for two weeks that I can't get many eyeballs on due to the unknown algorithm that decides the order in which games appear as well as the absolute spam that some Pro DMs are posting.  If an extra dollar was charged to Pro DMs but it meant Roll20 staff were actually going to police the advertisements and provide tools for Pro DMs to get their games seen by the player base, I am all for it.  Right now there is a Wild Wild West vibe going on and I'd much prefer something more organized even if that comes at a price premium. -Adam Could part of the problem be that games are posted in the forum as well as the LFG-list? A forum is great for many things, but perhaps not for ordered lists, the ability to sort etc Question #2 Is the problem more prevalent now than before? We are after all in the middle of a global crisis, so people might be less willing to spend money on entertainment . 
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Jens F. said: Could part of the problem be that games are posted in the forum as well as the LFG-list? A forum is great for many things, but perhaps not for ordered lists, the ability to sort etc Question #2 Is the problem more prevalent now than before? We are after all in the middle of a global crisis, so people might be less willing to spend money on entertainment .  I can't speak for everyone on this, but I only ever use the forum when the "Join A Game" function is not working properly (i.e., no one is seeing my ad because it is buried 8 or 9 pages deep.)  I would love to not need the looking for group forum at all. I think it is more of a problem now.  In the past it seemed like the closer to starting that your game was, the higher on the list your ad would be displayed.  So it might take a few days or a week from when I initially posted an ad to get 50-60 views, but it still worked.  Now I see brand new games posted by Free accounts appearing on the first page and getting a lot of views while ads that have been around for two or more weeks are still languishing at page eight or nine.  Add to the problem that there are certain DMs that are spamming the Join a Game listings with 5, 10, 15, or more game listings and it exacerbates the problem. If I had the ability to pay a little bit more to choose a **single** game of mine to be "showcased" (i.e., it is prioritized on the game listings - displayed before any ads by FREE or Plus users, and displayed ahead of any non-showcased ads from other Pro users) - it would be worth it. -Adam
Adam, do you think it would be helpful if the game finder had an option to only return paid games?  So people interested in them could exclude free games and reduce the number of result pages? Otherwise, I completely agree the search results algorithm needs work and the basic search functionality needs to be significantly improved.  Folks need a way to see new/newer content easily.  It's no fun wading through 4 pages of the same results every day looking for the new listings.
Jesse said: Adam, do you think it would be helpful if the game finder had an option to only return paid games?  So people interested in them could exclude free games and reduce the number of result pages? Otherwise, I completely agree the search results algorithm needs work and the basic search functionality needs to be significantly improved.  Folks need a way to see new/newer content easily.  It's no fun wading through 4 pages of the same results every day looking for the new listings. I don't think it is critical to have a paid-only game filter but if it was something easy to implement they should just for sake of making it easier on the end user. A "new games only" filter would be great if the algorithm was more predictable.  Right now some new games hit the very top of the list immediately and others start buried deep.  If the oldest games were always defaulted to be displayed first or the "showcase" option I mentioned before were implemented, then the ability to filter for only new games would be a helpful tool for end users. -Adam
This is an awful idea
P2P DMs would just advertise their games as free and only inform the players about payments in private / on discord or other platforms ^^ Or they would just put it in the description and I'm sure r20 wouldn't have the manpower to read every game description and even if they did and started banning those DMs they would just lose paying customers. However I do agree with the boosting thing. Just look at how many discord users do it to boost their favorite servers for no apparent reason. Just look at how much money twitch streamers are getting from donations. Merely adding an option to donate roll20 dollars (like paying their subscription, which essentially only gives you roll20 dollars, not something you can cash out) to your DM would probably revitalize the roll20 marketplace too. Using third party alternatives to pay to your DM is iffy sometimes, paying directly through roll20 would make the experience easier for your users and would also give you much more control of what you can do with this new wave of p2p. And the DMs would have all this credit they could use for the marketplace (and to buy the books, modules, and supplements for 5e or other systems), which would increase marketplace revenue and would draw many more artists and content creators to your platform. Buying content without having to look for your credit card every time would make those buttons so much easier to click on ;) I think many DMs do P2P because you have to double buy books to use them in roll20. Of course there will always be people in this world that want to monetize their hobby of DMing and get paid dollars they can spend on food or bills, but for many it's still just a hobby they enjoy and don't want to pay too much for. (It already takes a lot of time to prep for online games, especially compared to irl games.) Was a bit all over the place, hope the gist of the idea goes through tho.
+1
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