f13.net forums - Commodifying Your Free Time, Part 438

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July 18, 2025, 08:53:14 AM

we're back, baby

A quick search of for 'Gamepal' turns up nothing, so I guess I'm the first one here to steal this off Terra Nova. Not that the idea is anything but the evolution of the beast.

Basically Yantis or a related stooge is trying to copy Netflix by providing rentals of high end PCs in various MMOs.

After years of this crap, I'm hard pressed to say more than that if you include annoying features like leveling treadmills to provide 'stickyness', you leave yourself open to this sort of parasitism. If getting to the endgame were fun, there would be no market for shortcuts.

But I suppose I just don't understand how games work.

****

Well, that was the post I was going to make, but then I read the Terra Nova comments thread, when I should have been packing the car, and found that those of less sloth and more vision had looked into this, and that rentals were for $300 a month, and no accounts were actually for rent. Then I found this gem in the thread.

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Greetings! My name is AJ Robey, and I am a representative at GamePal.com.

I'm not sure where this explosion of word about our rental service stemmed, but as you can see it has not officially been finalized.

Basically, our plans and intentions are to provide a customer with the ability to sort through a variety of character classes instead of purchasing an account, and selling it back for significantly less, if they can indeed find someone to sell to that satisfies their needs.

Our rental service will be able to be used for various reasons, such as a customer signing up for the rental service to fit in well needed classes that are missing on raid nights (this is a bit extreme, we do realize =D), and as stated before, allow a customer to see which class they like the best before making their final purchase, therefore in the long run making the process 100% easier and less expensive. Also, some find themselves getting bored with their classes extremely fast, and may want to keep switching off to keep themselves entertained. These are just a few examples.

We are also crunching a few numbers, and deciding our policy for buying an account outright once a rental subscription has been paid for, or even multiple subscriptions, perhaps taking a percentage of the subscription charges and placing them toward that account. And yes, that would mean that the system may allow someone to obtain a free account if their % of the subscription fees toward that account matches the account price itself.

We do believe we have the inventory to kick things off, but still have a few policies to really nail down so there is no confusion, which is why you see that no accounts are currently offered for rent.

Thank you all for your comments/suggestions we've surely enjoyed reading through them, and thank you for your compliments on our newfound idea. We hope to turn this into something huge, and will work really hard to do so.

So I guess I'm guilty of helping these jerks with viral marketing. Oh well.

I've linked the Terra Nova thread above, which does have some interesting thoughts in it, but this is probably an appropriate place for those inclined to fling monkey feces to do so.

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Unlimited Accounts
Price Per Month: $199.99
Total Rentals: Unlimited
Total Amount of Rentals At One Time : 1

Unlimted Accounts X2
Price Per Month: $279.99
Total Rentals: Unlimited
Total Amount of Rentals At One Time : 2

The absurdly high price is most likely so that only those who would purchase an account would get into it. If it were, say, $29 a month how many 'vigilantes' of gamer justice would partake just to delete or otherwise thrash the character on the account. And since you're deleting data in a game vs destroying a physical object, gamepal would have an uphill battle to get any sort of restitution.

This is stupid. Yantis is a cunt. Pierce is a cocksucker. I plan on commodifying their head on a stick when I go to E3 next year. God, I hope they're there.

There's no one I want to beat the shit out of more.

Quote from: Shockeye on June 11, 2005, 01:06:36 PM

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When I checked their site earlier, the prices were $299 and $399.

It would be easy enough to include some language in the contract to the effect that if you delete a character on a rental account, your credit card is charge some absurdly high amount. Dunno what they could do about reputation mangling, though.

Having said that, this is a stupid idea.

Except that when you receive no physical product you can chargeback your credit card until the cows come home.

I... there's.... but...

PARASITIC THUNDERCUNTS

That's the only thing I can say. These leeching cockgobblers who sit on the underside of MMOG's like the fucking mafia just piss me off so much. This is obscenely stupid, and yet I can see turdburglars lining up to use this service. I can see uberguilds taking up donations for cleric accounts.

Sometimes, I hate this fucking industry.

Thundercunts?

Jesus christ. That's a great word.

It'd be a fantastic last name for a pornstar. Particularly if she made cervical pyrotechnics part of the act.

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Sometimes, I hate this fucking industry.

Only because sometimes you are asleep and not actively hating atm.

Also, LOL at thundercunts. I want to see an action figure!

Thunder... Thunder... Thundercunts! Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Thundercunts, ok thats a humorous image. Cuntweasels on the other hand I find quite disturbing. I mean, do they live in there? What do they eat? No never mind, don't tell me I don't want to know.

Ultimately, what's the fucking point of it all though?

I mean really, most of the high-end shit is no drop, so the point of pharming is kinda moot unless you feel like being an asshole and fucking with the honest-to-god benighted lowbies that are actually trying to play the game the right fucking way. And if they're doing that, then thundercunts they are.

I'm not concerned - this business model has its own failure built in. The accounts will be throwaways and easily banned. However much it helps churn box sales it won't be as lucrative and time-effective as simply selling gold/items.

Wired has an article up about GamePal.

Quote from: Wired

GamePal customers pay a $300 deposit, $150 for the first month and $130 for each subsequent month for access to their choice of 50 accounts (available initially) for 14 popular MMOs, including EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes and Ultima Online.

Newcomers to these games who aren't sure where they want to devote their time are in luck: GamePal allows them to try out what they want.

"For all 14 games, they can choose any (available) account they want," said GamePal co-founder Eric Smith. "It's up to them what game they want to play."

Renters get their deposit back if they don't do anything to "damage" an account -- getting demoted to lower levels, ditching in-game possessions or violating the games' terms of service, Smith said.

...

"It sounds like that's pretty much a violation of our terms of service," said Chris Kramer, director of public relations for Sony Online Entertainment, publisher of EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies, among others. "Part of having an ... account is that you're not supposed to share your information with other players."

Now, here it gets interesting. If using GamePal violates a game's terms of service, would GamePal have to give you back your deposit?

Legally? Who the fuck knows? This whole thing is in such a grey area, it's like a fog bank off the coast of New England.

Again, all you leeching parasitic bitches (Gamepal) needs to fucking die of the zombie crotch rot.

I had one of those fucktards from Yantis in one of my EQ guilds way back when.

He tried to explain to me that spending 15k for basically +3sta, +2ac (or something miniscule like that) was a good idea.

I hate these fuckers. The fuck up games in so many ways...I wonder if I could use a plea of "temporary insanity" if I ganked one of these guys at E3...

"Fear the BACKSTAB!" *Shhiiink*

Strazos killed a_Thundercunt3021

Well the only good news is at those prices not everyone can afford them. In a way, it's a good idea for a business, but it's such a sleazy idea that it makes me think of these guys as internet used car dealers.

Do you get refunded if the account gets mysteriously banned while you're "trying it out"?