Step back and look at the potential cost to EA/BW for them giving the free 30 days

You are over-analyzing it.

The gross revenue that they are guaranteed to lose is 30 days worth of subscription fees, for all of the people that they gave the month to.

All of their other costs, all of their previous revenue, all of their cash surplus, are all irrelevant to the point at hand - they're providing their service free for a month.

You're quite right, if you were analyzing their financial statements as a whole... if you were thinking about them from an operating standpoint. But this isn't an operating standpoint, it's a simple snapshot in time.

You speak of deferred revenue, well what about this deferred revenue that they're writing down as a loss? It has a real monetary value.

No need for all the legalese, I think you get the point I was trying to make. The cost of giving the free month wasn't just a small insignificant gesture that didn't have some considerable cost to it.

The timing of their "offer" is everything.

If they really meant well, the application should have been immediate and NOT timed so it would hit so late in the month.

By pushing the application to 4/24 they are squeezing in another month from the players who preordered or bought the game immediately when it launched.

Good intentions. Poor implementation.

Shadomen

I didn't even know it worked this way. Happened to have my sub expiring exactly on 24th due to some billing issues back in December. Will be funny if they charge me first

Maybe they are planning on adding alot of stuff in the next month and are giving people who arent all that happy with 1.2 a reasion to stick around and check it out

If someone created an MMO that caused $20 bills to come out of your computer, some people would complain that the serial numbers were not sequential.

Um. Its not a loss. Its just not a gain.

There is a "value" from keeping people around even if they don't pay. Trust me, they already did the math. They don't need you to do so.

There is a very good reason for the free 20 days of game time.
While it LOOKS like a gift to the players its actually a means to pad there sub numbers for the may quarterly report that they are required to give to investors.

Think about the timing here. Aprils subs are due to hit very soon. Now if a lot of players have cancelled that would look bad for may's numbers. Way to fix it give tons of players free 30 game time and that carries those possibly cancelled subs over the may reports.
I had recently cancelled myself but was still considered active when the promotion went out.
So i got my email saying i will get a free 30 days of game time at the end of this billing cycle.
Now even if i do not re sub or even log in by the books i will be counted as a active sub for the may report.

All this is just a big PR spin for the EA boys to look good to the investors.

I would expect that the quarterly numbers will also include the number of people which are currently enjoying thier 30 days of free time, and that it will be noted as an addendum to the report of active subscribers.

Actually, I would not be suprised to find out that it would be required.

You think they did that just to be nice?

Its a marketing ploy hoping that a percentage of the people that already unsubscribed come back based on trying fail.2.

I am not even bothering to try it, but they must have some good predicted percentages for them to invest that much money.


Honestly, I will probably get flamed, but the free month just makes them look desperate.

How long before its completely F2P?