It's been a while since we decided to suspend Paid to Play - and each time I wanted to review it, I would go back to the forum thread - read the posts, and decide that maybe it's not worth doing it.
We started Paid to Play as a way to see how we could get community members who loved Razer, but couldn't afford to buy our gear, a way to grind and earn Razer products and other awesome giveaways. However, while we had good intentions for it, we started getting a lot of complaints, demands and worst of all - death threats to our team and I decided to put a stop to it.
I've thought about how we might bring it back sometime and here are my thoughts:
1. It will be focused more for users of Razer products and services - i.e. it's more to reward our existing customers as opposed to someone looking for a free hand-out.
2. We will probably want to focus on users of Razer zGold - and that will be the MAIN way of earning zSilver - for those who spend on games etc with zGold and earn zSilver.
3. We will still have multiple SECONDARY different ways of earning zSilver - it could be Paid to Play on PC, or on Mobile, or maybe through our partners like Esports Mogul and much more. It will still be possible to grind but there will be multiple different ways instead of just one way.
4. This will no longer be for those who aren't already Razer customers - and using Razer services is going to be the main way to earn zSilver - the other free ways of doing so will be secondary ways.
5. Anytime it gets negative, people demanding stuff, complaining or death threats we'll suspend it again.
Just some thoughts about this - it may or may not come back - but just some of my thoughts on how we might evolve Paid to Play.
This topic has been closed for comments
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@mltan Once again, thank you very much for zGold and zSilver idea, I've earned some great equipment that I wouldn't get in other way. Really appreciate it and truly sorry for all the complainers.
@thehitchno It's not about punishing but about REWARDING, sorry you don't understand that after a year in the community. Won't write nothing more because I got warned once for similar discussion ;)
@shmekermeister @Blazespot We all know that the problem is not AFK but multi accounts, as P2P as Mogul are "overexploited" that way.
Really admire mltan that he wants to go through that again.
Keep it up RAZER 💚
@thehitchno It's not about punishing but about REWARDING, sorry you don't understand that after a year in the community. Won't write nothing more because I got warned once for similar discussion ;)
@shmekermeister @Blazespot We all know that the problem is not AFK but multi accounts, as P2P as Mogul are "overexploited" that way.
Really admire mltan that he wants to go through that again.
Keep it up RAZER 💚
Userlevel 7
H00dy
We all know that the problem is not AFK but multi accounts, as P2P as Mogul are "overexploited" that way.
I agree, multi accounts are problem on both platforms, even though on PtP multi accounts = AFK (since you can't play on multiple PCs).
A
H00dy
@thehitchno It's not about punishing but about REWARDING, sorry you don't understand that after a year in the community. Won't write nothing more because I got warned once for similar discussion ;)
Really admire mltan that he wants to go through that again.
Keep it up RAZER 💚
No, it's exactly that and I understand it perfectly. This entire thing screeches "someone saying we need to squeeze more profit and this xyz thing is costing too much." It *is* a publicly traded company after all, and SEA is in a downturn. It's punishing the people at the lower end, this is a 180° that they teach you in marketing classes. You want more warm bodies, you want more people to have a chance to see your product, get your product, and create brand loyalty. Razer is in a niche market, but the only thing that stops more people getting there is the "entry barrier" point. The whole idea is to give people enough chances, to offset costs, win something or whatever else. You want them to feel like they're gaining something so they could get something and feel a part of the community.
This is why all those food saver/coupon card/point systems were so popular for so long. You kept going back, you kept buying - something, even if it's via word of mouth on a product to more people. In turn you became valuable and felt you were valuable. In this case, they're gutting out the part where people could get discounts, chances to win, ways to earn points and I'll bet in the next 6mo they'll try pushing an "elite" low-scrip payment system that gives you discounts at "partner" storefronts. This of course is where those point system/coupon cards/food saver things ended up in the end as well, and companies simply burned loyal customers because of a short-term gain.
Userlevel 7
Yes I’m in on first point, maybe a limited products gifts for loyal costumers who always buy your products every new one comes out with something special like the mugs holder:big_grin_:. With Razer ID you can notice how many products a user purchased right. It was also nice P2P but yes poeple always want more and more, it’s really difficult I believe to control. Putting focus on existing loyal costumers will invite more new loyal costumers imo, starting for users who use Razer as their main PC, like Blade stealth, Razer Core and Razer Keyboard mouse as pheriperals with Razer Phone as his mobile device;)
mltan
Well, we're rewarding our customers - they're the ones who don't make death threats.
mltan
It's been a while since we decided to suspend Paid to Play - and each time I wanted to review it, I would go back to the forum thread - read the posts, and decide that maybe it's not worth doing it.
We started Paid to Play as a way to see how we could get community members who loved Razer, but couldn't afford to buy our gear, a way to grind and earn Razer products and other awesome giveaways. However, while we had good intentions for it, we started getting a lot of complaints, demands and worst of all - death threats to our team and I decided to put a stop to it.
I've thought about how we might bring it back sometime and here are my thoughts:
1. It will be focused more for users of Razer products and services - i.e. it's more to reward our existing customers as opposed to someone looking for a free hand-out.
2. We will probably want to focus on users of Razer zGold - and that will be the MAIN way of earning zSilver - for those who spend on games etc with zGold and earn zSilver.
3. We will still have multiple SECONDARY different ways of earning zSilver - it could be Paid to Play on PC, or on Mobile, or maybe through our partners like Esports Mogul and much more. It will still be possible to grind but there will be multiple different ways instead of just one way.
4. This will no longer be for those who aren't already Razer customers - and using Razer services is going to be the main way to earn zSilver - the other free ways of doing so will be secondary ways.
5. Anytime it gets negative, people demanding stuff, complaining or death threats we'll suspend it again.
Just some thoughts about this - it may or may not come back - but just some of my thoughts on how we might evolve Paid to Play.
Userlevel 7
Undefin3dLaptop
To reward Razer customers, if you're able to see if Razer products are hooked up and being used via Cortex, then you could consider bonuses for how many peripherals you're using. Like 1 zSilver per hour of gaming is given to someone using a Razer mouse. That is doubled if a keyboard is attached. Tripled if a headset is linked up as well. It'd be incentive to have a Razer peripheral collection then. Pretty happy with my Deathadder Elite. I have two! One at home and one at work ;)
So what about the headsets that aren't USB, and that the system won't be able to see? What about things that are used constantly but don't ever get to be recognised unless you have a photo with all of your Razer gear together - like a Razer Mouse Bungee, or the myriad of Razer Mouse Pouches or bags that some people would have (I have a Razer Mouse Pouch for most of my individual Razer mice), or non-Chroma Razer mousemats?
Userlevel 7
PT.Singer
So what about the headsets that aren't USB, and that the system won't be able to see? What about things that are used constantly but don't ever get to be recognised unless you have a photo with all of your Razer gear together - like a Razer Mouse Bungee, or the myriad of Razer Mouse Pouches or bags that some people would have (I have a Razer Mouse Pouch for most of my individual Razer mice), or non-Chroma Razer mousemats?
I’m thinking about gold member, maybe if you have such things, some of them comes with serial numbers that could be registered on Synapse right, so more pheriperals or Systems you have, you get some point to achieve some level membership (gold/silver/bronze) that could effects earnings system if there’s any, it’s like supermarket point card, more you buy you get more points...is it:rolleyes:, i don’t really use such point card though:big_grin_:, wait Starbucks has something similar isn’t it.
mltan
It's been a while since we decided to suspend Paid to Play - and each time I wanted to review it, I would go back to the forum thread - read the posts, and decide that maybe it's not worth doing it.
We started Paid to Play as a way to see how we could get community members who loved Razer, but couldn't afford to buy our gear, a way to grind and earn Razer products and other awesome giveaways. However, while we had good intentions for it, we started getting a lot of complaints, demands and worst of all - death threats to our team and I decided to put a stop to it.
I've thought about how we might bring it back sometime and here are my thoughts:
1. It will be focused more for users of Razer products and services - i.e. it's more to reward our existing customers as opposed to someone looking for a free hand-out.
2. We will probably want to focus on users of Razer zGold - and that will be the MAIN way of earning zSilver - for those who spend on games etc with zGold and earn zSilver.
3. We will still have multiple SECONDARY different ways of earning zSilver - it could be Paid to Play on PC, or on Mobile, or maybe through our partners like Esports Mogul and much more. It will still be possible to grind but there will be multiple different ways instead of just one way.
4. This will no longer be for those who aren't already Razer customers - and using Razer services is going to be the main way to earn zSilver - the other free ways of doing so will be secondary ways.
5. Anytime it gets negative, people demanding stuff, complaining or death threats we'll suspend it again.
Just some thoughts about this - it may or may not come back - but just some of my thoughts on how we might evolve Paid to Play.
1) This IMO is a necessity. Opening free accounts to grind for a chance at physical goods is dumb, especially in a salty community like gaming. People get angry when they play a game that they have no chance on winning. You need some way of limiting the amount of people taking place as well as the amount of points going out. This allows people who actually put time into the program to have a fair shot at a reward. You said that about month of grinding points could get you as firefly when you announced zSilver. That isn't a good thing when you are only handing out a couple hundred of them and you have a couple million people grinding for them. You need to be able to control people playing and points being earned, especially in a global promotion.
2) I'm not a fan of zGold for reason's I won't get into here. That said, you are probably right with this one. Collecting zSilver by users of zGold should be the main way of earning zSilver. Using zGold would directly hand back Razer something for getting zSilver. It should be expected that zSilver being handed out as a promotion would supply a collector a greater amount. But that doesn't mean Razer shouldn't look into other promotional issuing of zSilver, such as sponsored paid to play events. But again, these have to be thought about in terms of geographic locations. It seems that zGold as well as other promotions favor SEA. Other aspects favor the states. You can't have everyone competing in the same game for the limited prizes and offering better rules for some vs. others and not expect a table to be flipped over. It seems the zVault revamp is looking to fix some of this. So I believe you guys are on a much better track.
3) Secondary ways have to exist. It's also better to allow some passive collection. You have to make make zSilver collectible for people on the regular in order to keep people interested, especially with the expiry date. It's pointless to have people collect these points if they can never collect enough to use. Paid to Play originally did this. One could play and not even realize they were collecting points until they could get something. I feel the goal should be to create a system where people grind without knowing they are grinding. The original Paid to Play was much too generous. It's was worth it to grind. Don't do that. Mogul's current setup of zSilver as prizes is nice and all, but it's too stingy to keep people's attention. You need to find a balance. That balance also has to make sure the redemptions are feasible. Mid to high-mid tier prizes should be available to most people who save every non-zGold point within the year expiry limit.
4) You have to limit things. Period. You have to limit as many sock puppet accounts as possible.Free points for everyone sounds great, but when it becomes free points for my 50 imaginary friends to get me free stuff, you make the whole program not work. You have to have some sort of account verification.
5) How long have to been on the internet? You can't threaten trolls. The more you threaten them, the more powerful they become. Seriously, people complain just to shut things down. This is why you need some way of verifying accounts. So you can single out the problem makers instead of punishing everyone for the idiots who call in bomb threats. It seems most of the anger idiots had with Paid to Play is that it benefited people who started collecting earlier and it took too long to collect the needed points to get what they wanted. That isn't/can't going to change. They are still going to complain and rage. Maybe more so because they might not be included anymore. It's the some problem when a service transitions from free to a paid. If you feel this is too much of a problem, you should just do away with zSilver because you can't stop trolls on the internet, you can only ignore them or counter-troll.
Userlevel 7
- CEO
- 15 replies
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16 November 2018
thehitchno
That doesn't make sense. It seems like you're punishing the people who were trying to get into the ecosystem but couldn't afford it. And instead of say going after the abusers civilly or criminally you're letting them dictate how things will go in the future. I will guess...within 3-6 months, you'll see stupid people doing stupid things, and knowing that because you've bowed to outside pressure, will bow again. Then it'll become a case of rinse and repeat, because they know every time they do something you'll act in a manner that they know will screw over other people.
Well whichever, but turning your nose up at people as potential news customers hasn't worked for any company yet, especially one that doesn't have a dominant marketshare. And actions that effect the community, are more likely to cause a wider amount of negative feedback.
It's not punishing people outside the ecosystem - but rewarding the ones in our ecosystem. As simple as that.
Userlevel 7
thehitchno
And instead of say going after the abusers civilly or criminally you're letting them dictate how things will go in the future. They know every time they do something you'll act in a manner that they know will screw over other people.
That is a point I didn't think of before. What if somebody (maybe a customer that didn't like his poor friend using the same gear, or a shareholder or employee or anybody really, there can be numerous reasons), didn't like Razer giving away gear? They could just make a couple posts or send a couple messages and have the program cancelled to their will.
Maybe that's what has happened even.
I dont know where is a problem, just replace the paid-to-play system with the same system as faceit where you get points for playing matches. Mogul arena has it. Unfortunately with the "Region Restriction" system.
Mogul Arena would be an awesome way to earn, but it REALLY needs A LOT of SERIOUS work.
Currently, 99.5% of events are in ASIA. That effectively eliminates US and EU users to participate in them due to server location and time of those events.
It also needs to support more current games like PUBG, Fornut, CoD etc.
Those are the 2 biggest issues with Mogul Arena as before Razer Arena was shut down, it was pretty good and enjoyable since I could actually compete in CSGO tournaments.
Currently, 99.5% of events are in ASIA. That effectively eliminates US and EU users to participate in them due to server location and time of those events.
It also needs to support more current games like PUBG, Fornut, CoD etc.
Those are the 2 biggest issues with Mogul Arena as before Razer Arena was shut down, it was pretty good and enjoyable since I could actually compete in CSGO tournaments.
Userlevel 7
Bangerzzz
Mogul Arena would be an awesome way to earn, but it REALLY needs A LOT of SERIOUS work.
Currently, 99.5% of events are in ASIA. That effectively eliminates US and EU users to participate in them due to server location and time of those events.
It also needs to support more current games like PUBG, Fornut, CoD etc.
Those are the 2 biggest issues with Mogul Arena as before Razer Arena was shut down, it was pretty good and enjoyable since I could actually compete in CSGO tournaments.
This and multiaccounts on Esports Elite. It's the same problem that PtP had.
shmekermeister
This and multiaccounts on Esports Elite. It's the same problem that PtP had.
What ? no its not u will just play normal matches in games and for this you will get some points(zSilvers) look at Faceit system...
Userlevel 7
Killi8n
What ? no its not u will just play normal matches in games and for this you will get some points(zSilvers) look at Faceit system...
In that case, I am all for it! But I am talking about the current state of the system.
Userlevel 5
I'd love to see Paid to Play coming back! It was a perfect way to replace my older Razer products over time as I use them too much.
Are people who are currently part of the 43k+ members of the 'Give Us The Razer Toaster' facebook page considered to be part of the Razer ecosystem?
As someone with lots of Razer peripherals and a Razer case I am loving this idea. It's about time to reward just the loyal fans and not have entitled people ruining everything.
Is there any reason to still have points expire after a year though? The only way to reasonably get enough points to get anything now is to spend zgold and it would cost you over 500 dollars to get anything decent. If you wanted one of the top point items it would be thousands of dollars. That just seems a little unreasonable for a normal person to blow in a year trying to get something, especially since the items change every few months.
Userlevel 7
SESNut
Is there any reason to still have points expire after a year though? The only way to reasonably get enough points to get anything now is to spend zgold and it would cost you over 500 dollars to get anything decent. If you wanted one of the top point items it would be thousands of dollars. That just seems a little unreasonable for a normal person to blow in a year trying to get something, especially since the items change every few months.
A business can't have too much money on the books, that's why all gift cards expire. Like if you lost a gift card and found it in 20 years that company would have to keep track of that balance and keep that money on hand forever, that's why they need to expire.
To get the top rewards you should be paying many hundreds of dollars since the rewards are worth a lot. (Or you can get lucky on Mogul and get a ton of zsilver) People putting zero money into Razer shouldn't expect the top rewards but be happy with the smaller ones.:smile_:
Uhm what.
Amazon points never expire.
Credit card rewards never expire.
And i said thousands of dollars, like 3000.
Amazon points never expire.
Credit card rewards never expire.
And i said thousands of dollars, like 3000.
Userlevel 7
SESNut
Uhm what.
Amazon points never expire.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you have to have an Amazon credit card to earn points? So if you don't pay in time, they get money from you with their APR anyway, and if you get rid of the card I think the points go away.
Credit card rewards never expire.
This depends on the credit card. Some cards have an expiration on their rewards, and some of those that don't have an expiration on rewards have a cap.
And I said thousands of dollars, like 3000
Let's not forget that above all else, the company's tagline is "For Gamers, By Gamers". It is not unreasonable for a company with such a tagline to expect that the users of its products will be spending thousands of dollars on games in a year, so this seems perfectly reasonable.
Of course, those top tier products would be cheaper to buy outright, so it doesn't make sense for somebody who is not willing to spend thousands of dollars on games to obtain the top tier products using zSilver. Barring the Razer Chroma Mug Holder, I don't remember any zSilver peripheral that wasn't available for sale as well.
Amazon gift card balances never expire
Userlevel 7
SESNut
Amazon gift card balances never expire
But that is a gift card balance: money for equal money. @ARMOR_152 misspoke when he said that ALL gift cards expire.
Gift cards are not the same as a rewards system, though.
PT.Singer
But that is a gift card balance: money for equal money. @ARMOR_152 misspoke when he said that ALL gift cards expire.
Gift cards are not the same as a rewards system, though.
Yeah, a gift card refers to money for a product or services to come later. It's seen as a loan, and has laws protecting them. U.S. federal law prohibits gift cards from expiring for at least 5 years since adding money. Some states prohibit gift cards from expiring at all. That is why a lot of large U.S. companies have gift cards that don't expire.
It seems like the term is regarded here as a dirty word, but zSilver is a promotion to get people to use Razer. It's not tied to any concept of owing you anything outside of the rules of the promotion. You don't put anything in of actual value expecting to get something in return. As much as @mltan hyped the 'Paid to Pay' system up as Razer paying you to play games, he wasn't offering you actual employment expecting to send out W2s or 1099s based on how many hours of RDR2 you logged this month. It was something designed to get you using Razer software with the promise of Razer hardware with the hopes that you'd enjoy everything and pay for more Razer services. The idea was if you were interested enough in them to collect that much zSilver, they'd try to send you out something that represented the value of the time you put in dealing with them that you didn't have to. It's a mutual friendly gesture, not something owed to you.
Right now we don't know what is going on with the zSilver system. We only know that the system is being revamped on Dec. 3, with zGold and MOLpoints merging into Razer Gold and zSilver becoming Razer Silver. It's implied in the FAQ that the rewards catalog for Razer Silver will be different, which means that the new catalog will probably be priced to match how you earn the new Silver format. But the fact is that it's an optional program either way. You don't have to take part in it. If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. If you don't think the game is fair, don't play.
you didn't actually give me a good reason as to why they need to have zsilver expire anymore since paid to play is gone.
also, use it or don't otherwise tough tiddies is kind of a terrible argument by the way
also, use it or don't otherwise tough tiddies is kind of a terrible argument by the way
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