hungrybutterfly1
Participant
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You were asking about the pricing scheme. My personal thoughts are:
a. It would probably not be wise to charge per mile/km. That would put the more ambitious user off. I’d also assume that especially afore mentioned ambitious users (like you – crossing the whole UK s/n) are more likely PR generating.
b. I’d think a monthly/annual fee would be best. There would be no limit for “heavy” users. The additional cost created by extensive use of a few members would likely to be compensated by a large majority of subscribing but moderate members.
c. I would not mind the occasional add, if not nerve wracking. A add at the start would be ok. Embedded adds (billboards) could be ok too, if not experience destroying.
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aaron
Keymaster
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These are all excellent points, thanks so much for these.
I like your thought of heavy users being good PR and they would be offset by light users. I tend to agree, I think a fixed membership would probably be better.
Yes I’m not sure what form the adverts will take. I’m going to have to do a load of experimentation.
Anyone else have any thoughts about this?
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Alex
Participant
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Perhaps there might be something in a ‘freemium’ model (no idea if that is the right word!).
Maybe the user could download the app for free, but only have access to a few pre-defined routes (like a demo). A monthly subscription could then offer the ability to make routes themselves, share with friends etc. It seems to be the model a lot of app makers use nowadays. whether it would work with the uniqueness of this idea I don’t know!
Alex
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aaron
Keymaster
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I like that idea. I like it a lot. Perhaps the freemium version sees adverts and paid doesn’t.
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Edouard Lorenceau
Participant
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Yea, to me if there’s a subscription (even if it’s 1$/month) there needs to be a REALLY good incentive to get it. It’s a big turnoff for most when they see a subscription.
Freemium with ads would work, but my guess is you’d also need to make new routes that users pay for. And while giant routes like the one you’re doing are neat, VERY few ppl would actually do them. So it should be lots of small routes near landmarks but very cheap (like $1-$3).
The ability to make your own routes, if allowed, should be pretty expensive. Or maybe limited to a country, but even then you risk the users never paying for more content ever again.
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Edouard Lorenceau
Participant
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Also, i think there needs to be incentives for completing routes. When you complete a route, you’d get a badge that you could share on social media saying “I biked from x to y in CycleVR!” with an actual badge.
Those badges would appear in a book that has silhouettes of all the badges you can get. The book part is quite important as people like to complete stuff and a book with empty slots just begs to be completed. Plus you could maybe see the badges get filled up as you complete the routes.
Also a leaderboard would be great! Have them for how much you’ve biked (distance), how many routes you’ve completed, and how much time you took on a route, also putting a percentage of how high at the top you are for each of those categories. It would push people to be completionists and being a completionist in a game is kinda neat, but here it’d be kind of being a completionist of the real world, which would carry so much more weight to it!
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aaron
Keymaster
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Yes! I love this ‘gamification’ stuff you’re talking about and it’s something I definitely want to include at some point. That’s an interesting area to explore so want to start a new thread? 🙂
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aaron
Keymaster
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I’d not thought about the idea of charging per route because my initial foundation of this was ‘cycle anywhere in the world’ but it’s an interesting thought. Personally I’m more of a ‘unlock everything for a subscription’ kind of guy OR I just put up with adverts but I’m sure there would be many others who prefer the micro-payment style you’re suggesting. Definitely worth considering.
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Alex
Participant
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Firstly, I LOVE the idea of gamification, I have a quite ‘out-there’ expansion of this idea which might be a thought for the far future. I’ll start a new thread (I’ll try to get your gamification idea summarised Edouard as mine expands on it – sorry if I don’t do it justice!).
Pricing scheme wise, I don’t know what is best! I’m not an app developer. Do you know of anyone in the app making industry or contact some kind of company which gathers information on apps? It seems this is something where data on previous apps and their models would help?
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aaron
Keymaster
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I don’t think there’s such a thing as ‘best’. I’ve worked in the mobile game industry and generally the approach is to make ALL the pricing schemes available (or as many as seems appropriate).
So you might pay nothing, in which case you see adverts. You might pay for individual bits, like a single journey. You might pay a subscription each month or maybe you just like to pay a lump sum up front so you don’t have to worry about it anymore.
The point is the buyer can make their own mind up how they want to pay for it.
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afxtwn
Participant
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I think a pricing structure similar to map apps like Viewranger and OS Maps etc might be a good idea. Where you pay for and download certain areas or sections of map. So the free version would allow you do a few short routes, say round London or other areas of the country but then to unlock more you would buy map upgrades or tiles or even a whole area such as a county or similar.
A monthly subscription does sound good but I think the content would need to justify paying out every month. So perhaps a subscription would allow you access to all maps and any future maps.
Alternatively people could pay once to remove adverts from the free version and unlock access to things like route creation tools but then buy additional maps.
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aaron
Keymaster
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Paying for an area is interesting. That way you would buy an area explore it for a while, then move on.
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drinkywhiskers
Participant
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As with my post RE gamification, excuse my ignorance on app development if my suggestions are not possible.
Love the freemium with ads idea. Just a couple of short routes (no more than 5-10miles) with some variety – city/country/mountains etc. Gives the passing, fleeting potential customer a taste of what they can expect and would potentially subsequently generate more subscribers than if it was subscription/one off paymemt only. (Got to be honest, unless it has been highly recommended or its a freemium app i really like, i generally skip over apps that require any payment)
Then I would suggest two side by side pricing formats.
A) monthly/annual subscription with access to all content and either free or paid for updates
B) a sort of pay as you ride as a above for the more casual/infrequent user. A selction of pre-designed routes for them to choose from for a fee. Maybe some multi buy offers etc. Sliding scale price range – the longer the route the higher the fee.
And/or C) Daily, weekly or monthly, you let everyone enter a race on a specific route for a fee – maybe subscribers get free entry – there is a leaderboard and people can measure their progress from previous competitions. Could do London, New York, the Alps, Australia – different destination each time.
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aaron
Keymaster
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“let everyone enter a race on a specific route for a fee”
That’s an interesting one. I like the idea of this because entrants could be awarded badges etc for their efforts. There could even be an actual real prize for the winner to encourage people to stump up the money. The winner might have to be chosen randomly from everyone that finished though because I know there’s no way I could keep up with pro-cyclists 🙂
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Adam Mann
Participant
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I really like the idea I like cycling but find it hard due to work, weather, motivation etc and my wife doesn’t BUT having an App like this she would join me and we could compete at home in our own time.
I don’t mind having to pay for something like this but I don’t like the idea of a subscription as some months I might not use it but I would be paying for it (like a gym which I would not attend). A one off payment would be better (like £20ish) as I would still have to buy a VR headset and any other kit that might be needed.
I would also assume that there would be both a Android and iOS app as if there wasnt you would be potentially loosing a lot of users who use only iOS devices.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Adam Mann.
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