GT Premium Trials

[mrnoname]

i thought of this a few weeks back.

how can non-GT Premium members really know what the benfits are if they can't try it

this should be done for 1 day a year

 

[DuckRacer]

Umm...

Ever looked at the GTPremium minisite?

 

[mrnoname]

LOL @ Q: Do you accept other forms of payment instead of Paypal?

A: Yes! Vist Payment Methods to learn about all the different choices that you have.

 

[DuckRacer]

LOL @ Q: Do you accept other forms of payment instead of Paypal?

A: Yes! Vist Payment Methods to learn about all the different choices that you have.

To be fair, it's incredibly outdated, but it gives you a feel of what you're getting.

 

[OZZYGT]

how can non-GT Premium members really know what the benfits are if they can't try it

this should be done for 1 day a year

Why don't you try it for one month a year for less than the price of a McDonald's meal?

 

[Keef]

Or you could just buy GTPremium service, since there are no detriments. Except that it costs a bit of money.

 

[2078TM]

If I may add my two cents here - from the perspective of improving GTP through the mechanism of more cash flow to Jordan.

Duck - I was not even aware the mini site existed until I went looking for it now because you mentioned it (and you say its outdated).

Ozzy and Keef - if your answers are essentially meant to be "mrnoname don't be such a cheap so-and-so" then they might be borderline OK but you are still telling him to buy something sight unseen.

As I see it, the real issue here is that upgrading to GT Premium is not something that most members do (As it appears to me; obviously, I have no statistics to back this up). The question is why.

You can spend an awful lot of time on this site and be only peripherally aware that GT Premium exists. And once you are aware of it the benefits are hardly obvious. More to the point, for all the time I have spent here I have seen no need to upgrade. The basic site does not seem to lack any features and the few things that I am aware of that Premium gives you (bigger avatar, name change) hardly warrant spending my money.

I can only assume that upgrading does provide value for money (although I don't know how much upgrading costs).

The fact that GT Premium exists need to be front and center in the home page and made desirable. Mrnoname's suggestion is excellent although I would go with perhaps a one week free membership (enough time to use the features and not want to go back to basic).

For any comments that may follow:

1) Yes, I am sure that a lot of the information (cost, features, etc.) is available somewhere on this site.

2) If you are tying to run a business you want to make it as easy as possible for your customers to buy your product - they should not have to work at it.

 

[Sharky.]

You get your name in red, get a shiny yellow badge under your avatar and are listed under "Forum Leaders".
You can upload a picture to your public profile.
Your avatar can be 120x120 pixels and 25kb.
You can opt to have no user title (ie hide user title).
Your PM box limit is raised to 1500.
You can open and close your own threads.
You get access to the secret forum

That's about it.

TBH, I'm a little bit concerned (no offence Jordan ) by the amount of people going Premium in the past few weeks... at this rate, there will be a whole truck-load of Premos, and thus Premium would look like a fad :|

 

[Car-less]

Personally I think GTPlanet gives you too much for free - custom avatars, private messaging, galleries and attachments. On some forums you would have to pay just to be able to make a post.

Not that I'm complaining. It's great to be able to do all that, but being able to do so much already I just don't see the need to upgrade to premium.

 

[Jondot]

this should be done for 1 day a year

If you're not willing to spend a measley $4 on it now, you're hardly likely to be swayed by 1 day of using it. If you don't like it, it's not as though you've lost a fortune, and it's gone to helping the site stay online.

 

[FormulaGT]

Personally I think GTPlanet gives you too much for free - custom avatars, private messaging, galleries and attachments. On some forums you would have to pay just to be able to make a post.

Not that I'm complaining. It's great to be able to do all that, but being able to do so much already I just don't see the need to upgrade to premium.

Look at the other side of the coin aswell: less free features and more fees may result in less site interest; less site interest means fewer Premium candidates. I think the balance is right here. You get a good amount of free features, but the Premium incentive remains if you want even more flexibility: bigger storage, avatar, the ability to change your name...

FormulaGT

 

[Perfect Balance]

There isn't anything to "see" than you can't see right now, other than the premium forum. You can see the red username and bigger avatars on the other premium user's posts. The PM count is just a number really. So besides the forum, just look around some.

 

[Car-less]

Look at the other side of the coin aswell: less free features and more fees may result in less site interest; less site interest means fewer Premium candidates. I think the balance is right here. You get a good amount of free features, but the Premium incentive remains if you want even more flexibility: bigger storage, avatar, the ability to change your name...

Smaller, tighter knit community. People get to know each other better, so are friendlier, more helpful and respectful. Get together more for real-life parties and meetings. Attract a better clientele.

I'm just comparing GTPlanet to another utterly different forum where I have been a paying member for the past four years. Not that there is anything wrong with GTP. It's just that with so many free features there's not much to entice people to pay up. If the free storage space was halved and the ability to upload avatars restricted we would still be doing rather well, but would be much more likely to be swayed by a free premium trial.

That better clientele I mentioned. In this other forum with just a few hundred members, we have two known members that work for the company whose products we are discussing. This has led to sneak previews of upcoming products for which our feedback has been sought, and acted apon. There have also been 'behind-the-scenes' tours of their facilities both in the UK, and elsewhere in Europe. Compare that to here. Tens of thousands of members, and how many are known to work for Sony/PD? Is our feedback sought for which features would we prefer in the next game? Do we get invited to attend photo/testing sessions?

...then again, perhaps Kaz himself does precisely these things in the premium forum?

 

[Evolution.]

Smaller, tighter knit community. People get to know each other better, so are friendlier, more helpful and respectful. Get together more for real-life parties and meetings. Attract a better clientele.

We are tight knit. There are only about 600 or less semi-active members on the forum, and everyone really knows each other. As for the parties and meetings, a decent majority of us can't even drive as it is, let alone go to a different country or continent (because alot of the active members are spread thin across the world). The UKGTP party is an annual thing. You should consider going, since you're suggesting more meetings and all.

I'm just comparing GTPlanet to another utterly different forum where I have been a paying member for the past four years. Not that there is anything wrong with GTP. It's just that with so many free features there's not much to entice people to pay up. If the free storage space was halved and the ability to upload avatars restricted we would still be doing rather well, but would be much more likely to be swayed by a free premium trial.

Keywords: Utterly different. Jordan isn't a tight-wad, obviously. He gives the public a lot and receives not much more than a "Thank you" in return (sans the Premos). He may say that it is enough to keep him going, but everyone knows that GTPlanet.net can not be easy to keep running. The cost must be tremendous. We are definitely ranked up there with some of the biggest boards on the internet, and Jordan probably wants to keep it that way. He has the glory of saying "Hey, I made this. This started with 30 or so members and an MSN Group website. Now we have over 90,000 members and growing". Making it a pay-to-post service would be, in my opinion, a step in the wrong direction. Jordan has a wonderful thing going here, and I severely doubt he's going to make such a drastic change.

That better clientele I mentioned. In this other forum with just a few hundred members, we have two known members that work for the company whose products we are discussing. This has led to sneak previews of upcoming products for which our feedback has been sought, and acted apon. There have also been 'behind-the-scenes' tours of their facilities both in the UK, and elsewhere in Europe. Compare that to here. Tens of thousands of members, and how many are known to work for Sony/PD? Is our feedback sought for which features would we prefer in the next game? Do we get invited to attend photo/testing sessions?

This isn't SonyPlanet or PolyphonyDigitalPlanet. This is GTPlanet. We gather here to discuss Gran Turismo (and a great majority of other things during the off-season). You don't need an official representative from a game to make your site look good. As I mentioned before, this all started as an MSN group. Nobody ever had the slightest clue it would turn out to be like this.

...then again, perhaps Kaz himself does precisely these things in the premium forum?

$3.99 and you might find out .

 

[DuckRacer]

We are tight knit. There are only about 600 or less semi-active members on the forum, and everyone really knows each other.

From what I've heard, there's about 1000 regular members. Of that number, I would guess about 300 actually regularly post in the non-GT sections of the site.

As for everything else, well said. 👍

 

[Dave A]

You can spend an awful lot of time on this site and be only peripherally aware that GT Premium exists. And once you are aware of it the benefits are hardly obvious. More to the point, for all the time I have spent here I have seen no need to upgrade. The basic site does not seem to lack any features and the few things that I am aware of that Premium gives you (bigger avatar, name change) hardly warrant spending my money.

To be perfectly honest the only reason I actually went and bought GT Premium was to support a site I had visited regularly for a few years and I couldn't see that suddenly stopping. The features of Premium were in effect a bonus. The added inbox capacity is the more used thing for me, but I can see things like the gallery space being an attraction to some members. What I do know is that Jordan is open to new ideas and suggestions, so suggestions like mrnonames do get looked at and pondered over. Personally I think it's a good suggestion, but I think there would have to be limits placed. The GT Premium forum threads could become clogged with posts by people who are on thier one day and posting all over the threads they've never seen before.

 

[Car-less]

We are tight knit. There are only about 600 or less semi-active members on the forum, and everyone really knows each other. As for the parties and meetings, a decent majority of us can't even drive as it is, let alone go to a different country or continent (because alot of the active members are spread thin across the world). The UKGTP party is an annual thing. You should consider going, since you're suggesting more meetings and all.

I haven't been here long enough to disagree, I just feel that the smaller the group, the tighter knit it is. If indeed there are only 600-1000 (thanks duck) active members then maybe I'm just too new and not feeling it yet.
As for the UKGTP parties, I am aware of them, and have already considered attending the next. I only signed up here about the time of the last one, and didn't have the time to arrange transport/accomodation.

Keywords: Utterly different. Jordan isn't a tight-wad, obviously. He gives the public a lot and receives not much more than a "Thank you" in return (sans the Premos). He may say that it is enough to keep him going, but everyone knows that GTPlanet.net can not be easy to keep running. The cost must be tremendous. We are definitely ranked up there with some of the biggest boards on the internet, and Jordan probably wants to keep it that way. He has the glory of saying "Hey, I made this. This started with 30 or so members and an MSN Group website. Now we have over 90,000 members and growing".

Indeed. I was just trying to point out that with all the freebies there is little incentive to pay for premium, so a free premium trial probably wouldn't be all that effective. If the freebies were fewer, the premium trials may work.

Making it a pay-to-post service would be, in my opinion, a step in the wrong direction. Jordan has a wonderful thing going here, and I severely doubt he's going to make such a drastic change.

Making it a pay-to-post service would likely kill it. I would definately not recommend it. Things are great as is - perhaps a little too good, and that might be hurting Jordans pocket book.

This isn't SonyPlanet or PolyphonyDigitalPlanet. This is GTPlanet. We gather here to discuss Gran Turismo (and a great majority of other things during the off-season). You don't need an official representative from a game to make your site look good. As I mentioned before, this all started as an MSN group. Nobody ever had the slightest clue it would turn out to be like this.

Likewise the BA was set up by-the-fans and for-the-fans. We went there to discuss many things, but with a focus on the products we love. It was only later that the representatives turned up, and that was off their own back. We didn't invite them, and their bosses did not send them. We never expected to influence future products, it just evolved that way.

$3.99 and you might find out .

I probably will at some point - but right now I am boycotting Paypal.
I think we are arguing for the same side here, and it's going way off topic so I'll just point back to the paragraph in Dark Blue and shut up now.

 

[Sharky.]

I just feel that the smaller the group, the tighter knit it is.

👍 That's how I feel. How would you lot (ie non-Premium) like it if you ended up having to share a (not too big) sub-forum et al. with a bajillion others?

I was having a PM discussion with Keef the other day about all this (well, it actually started with him asking me where the Forum Leaders list was, lol); we both felt that an awful lot of people have gone Premium the past few weeks (me included, but it was a Xmas gift (and I quote, "you deserve it") ), and that the Premium tag should be "granted to those with a recognisable personality, or the most notable members" and "those who are smart and helpful all the time and deserve the Quality Posts badge" (<- and thus Premium).

Premium is (mostly) a privilege bestowed on the notable members of GTP (eg. G.T, Ozzy, MachOne, Rebrum, Duck, Dunc [Rameses Thribble...], AMG., Bee, Danoff, Jondot et al (don't worry if I didn't include you)), and should remain so.


My 50 bucks. $$$

 

[DuckRacer]

we both felt that an awful lot of people have gone Premium the past few weeks

That's what I'm somewhat annoyed at. IMO, the biggest reason you join premium is to stand out. If many more people sign up, I'm demanding a golden username in comic sans.

 

[Slicks]

While GTPremium does indeed have a few benefits, I think the real reason to buy premium is to help support the site and keep it going.

And I would like to have a Premium account. Unfortunately, Jordan no longer accepts hard currency and thus I have no way to pay for Premium ('Till I'm 19, and with a credit card, at least. Might just have to wait though as it's only six months away).
Till then, I guess I'll keep the money for that lifetime subscription in my nightstand drawer...

 

[AMG.]

That's what I'm somewhat annoyed at.

I'm a bit shocked by that statement Duck. I would not have expected such an elitist remark coming from you. Rethorical: "Where" would you draw the line.

I think the real reason to buy premium is to help support the site and keep it going.

I share this opinion.

AMG.