At the moment Subspace is in free Beta test. The current billing scheme is being finalized and an official announcement will be made sometime in June or July and will be posted on the SubSpace website.

Here are some questions we often get asked:

WHY HAVE YOU NOT STARTED CHARGING ALREADY?
Frankly our service simply isn't good enough yet. Server dumps & crashes and a game that really doesn't cut it yet (in our view) simply does not warrant your money.

WHY A MONTHLY FEE? WHY NOT ONCE ONLY?
Well, the economics don't work for us. If people played Subspace and got bored in a month then we would be fine but, unfortunately, (or fortunately), players like the game and keep playing for many, many months. This has always been the case with 'internet only' games which retain a very long term player base. Bearing this in mind, our communications costs are at a fixed, monthly rate and we would be getting no new revenue. This would be unfair if we had to close down the service for people who had paid to play forever. Other games that do a once only payment system are typically retail products with a limited multi-player component added on, this is very different from our product which is constantly evolving and upgrading. Also boxed games are notoriously easy to hack and cheat with, this really isn't much fun. Finally, these boxed games usually do not require a large server component which is why typically they only have 4 to16 players in the game and, you guessed it, our servers cost a lot of money to keep going. Other products that give once only fees are usually just 'services' that allow people to play LAN games over the internet. These services pay nothing to the actual creators of the game so again the comparison really is not valid. It is interesting that the only other successful 'internet ONLY' games have all been hourly based. We thought that was too expensive for our players.

WHY NOT ADVERTISING BASED?
That would be our wish, and yours, too. Alas, the money just is not there yet. Advertising revenue on the web is tiny however there maybe a way to get advertisers to make the game cheaper (this months free gameplay is brought to you by "zippy computers", etc.) We hope that in time this will become a good way of paying for Subspace but it just ain't there yet.

WHY $10 a month?
That's as cheap as we can go. That's actually pretty close to cost. If our costs come down, the price will. Other schemes that could be profitable would include $.50 an hour and we may well off that as well.

I DON'T HAVE A CREDIT CARD... HOW CAN I PAY?
We are currently looking into several payment methods including a boxed version with a few months free-play bundled in and some others we can't mention yet. Rest assured this is a big deal for us.

IF YOU CHARGE, I WONT PAY.
Well that's just the breaks. We need to make money and until Star Trek becomes a reality, capitalism rules the planet. However, before you do just toss away Subspace consider what other forms of entertainment cost. A boxed game typically costs $50. Most games I buy last me a month or so, max; or in some good cases, a few months. $50 would give you 5 months play on Subspace. Finally, when I go to a movie, I pay about $10 including a soda and popcorn and that only lasts 2 hours.

Well, that's it, guys. I hope this explains our reasoning.

Later,
SubSpace Team.