Guide - how to make (PayPal) AF donations

[thod]

Disclaimer

This is an old question which seems to have been raised multiple times. But even after searching this site and wasting time I could have used to play I couldn't find a button to pay. I also couldn't find postings of successful donations. So I just tried and report here what I did.
Please keep in mind - what I write here is not endorsed by Jason and Danielle. I will delete this thread if they object against donations to their game.

Step 1:
Find a post by Danielle and go to her profile. There you will find an e-mail address.

Step 2:
Log into your own PayPal account and go to Send Money. Paste in Danielle's e-mail and fill in the amount you want to donate. Then just send it off as any normal PayPal transaction.

FAQ:
Q: Is there not a simpler solution - somewhere a button on a webpage to pay?
A: Not that I know off. I did look and couldn't find one.
Q: Does this really work?
A: My donation shows up in my own account as completed. I seem to remember that it would show up as pending if the address has no valid PayPal account. But I can't guarantee that - it's too long since I had such an instance with a payment. So at the moment I would say - yes - it works. The donations went out 1 hour ago and nothing bounced / got refunded.
Q: Why send money to Danielle and not Jason?
A: I couldn't find an e-mail addess for Jason and anyhow - I only wanted to try it out once. I assume they will find a way how to share it.
Q: What happens if AF is no longer free.
A: What did you not understand of the word donation. In this case your money is gone and you have to pay again.
Q: How much should I send?
A: This is completely up to you. Don't go overboard (unless you also bought the application 'I'm rich' and think AF deserves at least the same) but also keep in mind that there is a PayPal fee deducted. If you go far below $0.99 then most will end up with PayPal and not Jason and Danielle.
Q: Won't this just go into the spam filter / not reach them?
A: If this would be the case then PayPal customers would loose millions a day. Even if it ends up in the Spam / gets filtered out, it will still reach the account - as long as there is one. And at the current state it seems to me there is one associated with the address.

I hope this guide is helpful - and won't get me banned here. It is done with the best intentions - but I admit it feels a little bit like a hack behind Jason's and Danielle's back.
I can only hope they don't mind. This game just rocks and deserves a donation.

Please Jason, Danielle - let me know if you are offended by this action. I'm doing this, because I like this game and because I saw this question asked multiple times - but no reply from your side (unless I missed it).

Thod

[asmeurer]

Sounds like it would get lost in their junk mailbox.

[theconfuzed1]

I would at least like to know their thoughts about this before doing so.

I gave you karma for the thought though.

Personally, I hope they start charging soon. If they can manage to turn this out for free, just imagine what they could do otherwise!

[thod]

Asmeurer

I've added your question to the FAQ. Spam shouldn't be a problem. Money will still reach an account.

Confuzed - I changed some of my wording. I think there were a lot of questions around this right at the start - 18 July onwards. Search for donation and you get many hits - but unless I missed it - not a single answer from them.

To me it seems the devs are just too nice to ask for something which still contains lots of bugs. But I can be wrong.

Oh - and thanks for the Karma. My first - yeah - and not even long on the board yet.

Thod

[Alexander]

Aug 10, 2008 0:34:34 GMT -5 theconfuzed1 said:

I would at least like to know their thoughts about this before doing so.

I gave you karma for the thought though.

Personally, I hope they start charging soon. If they can manage to turn this out for free, just imagine what they could do otherwise!

I agree!

[jacobtgaines]

I'll be thrilled to find out what is possible with sufficient funding. +1 for the idea!

[nbnb]

you think that they will quit their jobs and start coding 24/7 just because they get a few bucks?

This game will lose 99% of the players when they start charging. Thats not what an MMO is about.
You might say "didnt you read all the posts saying >>please take my money<< ?"
There are only hardcore gamers in this forum. People who are really interested in the game. Most players play the game alone and without reading through the 7k posts.
(last time i checked there were about 300 000 players. 2000 registered users in the forum. Thats 0.6%)
Only 0.6% were interested enough to take a look on the website.
And even in this 0.6% hardcore gamers there are some voices against commercializing this game.

My first impression before downloading was "Cool. an MMO!"
After downloading "Nah. just a bejeweled clone".
If i spent money for this i would have been pissed about that fact. (i really like mmos and dislike bejeweled)
I would have given bad reviews.
Last but not least: I would have informed Danielle about the security considerations AFTER I reported this issue to fulldisclousere/bugtraq/heise security/macrumors/...
(There was a huge hole for the first days. It was possible to see all 100 000 emailadresses and phone numbers)

And i think theyd have had more legal trouble with the "the device sends all your phone numbers unencrypted to a website without informing you" thing.

conclusion:
1) They will lose approximately 100% of their gamers.
2) Security holes are much more serious issues.
3) No support-willing community. (i usually don't work for free for the people i pay to do their job)
4) No more in the download highscores.

Sorry for all tense mistakes but i never knew how to use the tenses appropriately

[asmeurer]

Have to agree with nbnb.

[eliu87]

Yeah, and of the what 0.6% that bothered to register with the forum, how many are actually regular members who actively participate?
Plus you're forgetting something. A lot of AF members, myself included are in Canada. In the Canadian app store, you can't buy apps with an iTunes gift card, you have to use a credit card. Due to this obscure Apple policy, many Canadians have simply given up on paid apps. It doesn't matter if the game costed 99 cents. Right there, you'd lose many players.

EDIT: As of now, there's only 20 members who have a post count of above 50...

[thod]

nbnb

I agree with most what you write - even if I think the 99% (100%) is a little bit high for effect But even if 70% of players stopped - this would be wrong.

Do you feel I drive the game towards commercialisation. This was not my intend.

I'm now playing both commercial and non commercial games for approx. 25 year - having started with Play-by-Mail. I've seen a non-commercial distributor and game buddy going bancrupt - having not another one leaving the game drift on it's own and kill that way when he couldn't any longer keep up with demand. I've also seen another game work fine for years - with no contributions at all.

Questions I ask myself with the tremendous success and growth of AF are:
What about the server hosting the game. Is it up to scratch or would it benefit from some upgrade - be it bandwidth, be it more power.
What about a backup server in case the current goes down due to hardware failure.

I've seen these problems over the years. It was less of an issue with a one week turn cycle. Just postpone a few days, or a week. Stuff could be sorted out. But AF is 24/7.

I feel that free donations might allow the devs more freedom to think about these issues - and to have something in place before a black-out happens. And it could even keep the game for free for longer.

Maybe I'm naive.

eliu87 - I wasn't aware about the apple issues in Canada. I don't really understand them. As far as I'm aware you had to use a credit card here in the UK to get your iPhone activated via the apple store. In this respect they have my credit card information anyhow. But probably I miss something.

Thod

[sundrgn13]

I think that a good way to look at the donation/payment/free issue would be this:

- Aurora Feint, The Beginning - should be free. It does have bugs. I, for one, would be upset if I had paid for this app, and it didn't function properly. But b/c it is free - I happily sit at home and play through the bugs. I send my crash logs to Danielle, hang out on the forum and post my weird screen shots, reset my ipod every 15 seconds (or I did until someone figured out about the whole tool on top of a tool thing), deal w/the whole ipod volume reset issue, and I don't complain, b/c it is free. Danielle & Jason are smart to put this game out for free b/c they are creating a bunch of AF addicts (that are doing all of their testing for them (w/ minimal griping), for free), b/c the game is free.

- But, should Danielle and Jason charge for future versions (I mean, like a Part II or III or something, not an update) of the game? I think so. If they can put out a game that is bug free, I would pay for it. And, I have to think that a lot of the AF addicts would pay for it too. By then, all of the smart people will have downloaded the free version, so will know what to expect of a paid app.

- Lastly, b/c I'm addicted to AF, if D&J approve, I would probably send them a donation. I mean, there needs to be a Part II to this game or more levels or something, right? I'm at 8/8 and 4/4 for everything. I don't have anything left to do, unless I reset my character again. So, a donation to keep them programming, seems a small price to pay to support my habit.

[macrocker]

If you have a Prenium or Business account in Paypal, you can post a button here in this forum and donate directly from the forum. That way, it will be easier.
But the game should stay free. Unless the bugs are 90%solved.

[shima53]

I agree with sundrgn13.

[Alexander]

I would not like to be charged for the game. But, I would be more than happy to donate. I am sure there may be a need for additional servers and/or faster servers. And, for such things funding would be needed.

[intgod]

I want to pay for this application. It's really simple: I like this game so much that I want it to continue to evolve. I hardly doubt that can be achieved with people working for ... nothing. A game this good needs to have resources to continue being so good. I can imagina AF evolving into a monthly payment system.

Anyway, all of you "threatening" to leave the game if it became paid: if they release the game and you have to pay for it and *I* buy the game at, oh, 7.99 euro ... that probably means they got 7.99 euro more than they would ever get releasing it for free. And if you want to donate, oh fine, but why not pay for the game?

Do you really still think that "free" versus "priced" is the factor of success for a game? Hundreds of thousands of people have found a way around the Credit Card problem just to play World of Warcraft. And that's a paid game, people.

I'd be more than happy to start paying a monthly fee or getting a paid expansion - as soon as the bugs are fixed. AF just crashes a little too randomly than I'm really comfortable with.