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Post by craigrj on Oct 9, 2017 4:20:26 GMT -5
From going through both 4.1 and 4.2 I have to say I'm still fairly convinced they are trying to grab some of the MEC market - they are a business after all, and we cannot see their sub figures, but if CnC had the rep of being "difficult" then the monthly MEC market wouldn't necessarily take the risk. Of course, most people here are quite hardcore solvers and any grab for that market is going to annoy: but if we are merely 10% of the market and they have grown 50% in the other market, then in a business sense, we do not matter.
Look for example at the constant errors in MEC mailings - they are always getting key elements of their mysteries wrong: timelines for alibis wrong, dates wrong, numbers wrong - one of their apologists always ascribes this to being part of the overall META but it's just mistakes made, simple human error and proof-reading.
Box 4.2 came along quite quickly after 4.1, whilst they are also working on the mass Filigree mailings plus whatever these three "new" experiences are: I think they're overstretched.
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Post by Todd on Oct 9, 2017 10:01:02 GMT -5
This was a topic we spoke of extensively at the GenCon meet-up. Essentially, what percentage of subscribers actually make it into the Vault, and our best guess was 5 to 10%.
Then we discussed the possibility that MPC could eliminate the Vault and only potentially lose up to 10% of their subscribers. When one considers how long it took to develop the sort of puzzles we saw in Volume 3, does the reduced expense offset the loss of revenue?
I bailed out on MEC pretty early, so I'm not really familiar with the issues of which you speak, but I think it's particularly telling that the MEC members have a desire for meta. I believe that MPC subscribers have that desire even more, since that was the hook MPC initially used to draw us in. I believe that there is a much higher number of subscribers, probably over 30%, who want there to be a Vault whether they ever manage to crack it or not.
Between this and the lack of a Membership Kit for 2017, I believe that MPC will learn that they have disappointed a larger number of customers than anticipated. I know that I, for example, have been buying experiences in order to support the company that produces the Curios and Conundrums quarterly that I came to love with Volumes 1 and 2. Losing me (for example) as a subscriber would mean losing more than just $35/quarter. If I am not unique, then there is potentially greater revenue loss than their models predict.
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Box
Oct 9, 2017 10:09:17 GMT -5
Post by craigrj on Oct 9, 2017 10:09:17 GMT -5
True, but the business model works differently - let's say they have 1000 subscribers and 10% stop because of the direction CnC has taken - and they also withdraw their financial support from the other experiences too. So they are down to 900 subscribers, bad times. However, now that CnC is presented as a box, and the puzzles have solutions online, and there's no vault with multi levels of trickiness, that makes the package attractive to more people, so they increase their subscriber base by 25% - that puts them at 1100-1150 subscribers now, and a net benefit, good times. Furthermore, these new subscribers haven't purchased any of the experiences so far whereas the guys that have left are likely to have purchased one or more, therefore the chance of upselling experiences also increases. Double good times. From a business perspective, this makes sense, rather than continue to pander to the same (perceived) elite audience.
The problem of course comes in the 10% and 25% figures - what if these are reversed? What if the plan doesn't work? Then very bad times indeed.
So - why did they even try it? Perhaps because subs declined between 3.1 and 3.4 - and therefore they decided their current business model was not sustainable and they had to try something different. After all, if subs increased from 3.1 to 3.4 then even basic business sense tells you to keep doing more of the same instead of radically change it around.
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