Interesting that they made a point about the problems with the payment option of monthly, online credit card payments, but (again) ignored an existing alternative.
Disney began selling AT&T "game cards" this month for Toontown Online. The had announced that they would be doing this several months ago, so the information was available when the article was written.
The game cards are $10 and give a $10 credit for Toontown. That is one month play for normal users. The package also includes a CD with the Toontown install on it, to make things easier for those who have slower internet connections.
Another change to the monthly pricing model that Disney introduced is a discount for 6 month and 1 year pre-paid subscriptions. Six months costs a bit less than many over-the-counter games, and 1 year costs a bit more. Most people could probably complete most of the existing content (i.e. "finish the game") within the 6 months, so it's not a bad deal compared to buying a conventional game.
Another thing that I find interesting is the mention of number of subscribers to the games. Those numbers are going to be provided through the companies running the games, so they may be a bit questionable. Perhaps the reason that Disney is being largely ignored by the media is that Disney has been very tight-lipped about the number of subscribers on Toontown. There has been a large surge in users on Toontown since TV advertising began in August. Besides the obvious increase in numbers online (usually between 1,000-5,000 depending on time), we can see exactly when the TV ads started on the Toontown fan site. Between July 14th to August 3rd, we got between 1-17 new users per day. On August 4th, we got 146 new users. The site continues to get about 300 new users per week. Since the site is not promoted by Disney, it is pretty safe to guess that there are many more people playing Toontown than ever find the fan site.
-rcv-
Disney began selling AT&T "game cards" this month for Toontown Online. The had announced that they would be doing this several months ago, so the information was available when the article was written.
The game cards are $10 and give a $10 credit for Toontown. That is one month play for normal users. The package also includes a CD with the Toontown install on it, to make things easier for those who have slower internet connections.
Another change to the monthly pricing model that Disney introduced is a discount for 6 month and 1 year pre-paid subscriptions. Six months costs a bit less than many over-the-counter games, and 1 year costs a bit more. Most people could probably complete most of the existing content (i.e. "finish the game") within the 6 months, so it's not a bad deal compared to buying a conventional game.
Another thing that I find interesting is the mention of number of subscribers to the games. Those numbers are going to be provided through the companies running the games, so they may be a bit questionable. Perhaps the reason that Disney is being largely ignored by the media is that Disney has been very tight-lipped about the number of subscribers on Toontown. There has been a large surge in users on Toontown since TV advertising began in August. Besides the obvious increase in numbers online (usually between 1,000-5,000 depending on time), we can see exactly when the TV ads started on the Toontown fan site. Between July 14th to August 3rd, we got between 1-17 new users per day. On August 4th, we got 146 new users. The site continues to get about 300 new users per week. Since the site is not promoted by Disney, it is pretty safe to guess that there are many more people playing Toontown than ever find the fan site.
-rcv-