Discord subscriptions seem to be working. People like to customize their profile (ie express themselves), even though profiles are not something frequently interacted with (that's the surprising part!)
I have a server (for my game) with about 1000 people. Out of the 300 people logged in, 50 of them have custom profiles.
So, it seems like a good idea for Meta.
You can get free profile decorations these days from watching ads (discord “orbs”). It would be interesting to know how many of those users have the nitro subscription badge next to their name
I just counted 35 online profiles with nitro. Same ~300 people online currently
How’d you make a game with 1,000 people? It’s impressive.
They're players, not devs.
Yeah, I was asking how you got so many players.
Forgive me for not wanting to write up the history of the game's development. It boils down to product market fit, innovation, and fantasy fulfillment/fun.
See for yourself: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/
tbh I mostly pay for nitro for cross-server, animated emoji
The main problem is that premium subscriptions don’t generate that much revenue when compared to ads alone. The users who pay are the most valuable users to advertisers and the users who don’t pay are the least valuable. Discord generates about $1 in revenue per user compared to Facebook at closer to $100. For Discord at $1 per user, any subscription that’s a few dollars or more is probably paying for the lost advertising revenue, but it wouldn’t translate for Meta so they aren’t including ad free which drastically reduces the value.
I’ll be surprised if Meta’s subscriptions are as popular as Discord’s without being advertising free. Cosmetics are liked amongst Discord’s audience of nerds, but not Meta’s audience of normal people.
Very interested to see how this works out for Meta. Since they’re not excluding ads, it’s basically free money, so they may as well offer these subscriptions.
I wish these companies didn't need to make billions in revenue. There's no reason why a small company couldn't manage a site like Discord, make enough to pay their developers, and be successful. But instead every company needs to become a unicorn and pay investors billions.
I actually cancelled my Discord subscription because they've gradually been adding more intrusive ads and subscriptions don't protect you from ads.