Doing some research

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Hiho,

I've been keeping myself busy with this project ETLive(http://etlive.entirely.pro), our aim is to develop a similar platform as ID Software's Quakelive. The game we're trying to port is called Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, which is a free WW2 shooter released in 2003. (The game itself was a failed project, so they decided to release the multiplayer to the public for free).
There's still a quite large fanbase and competitive players, so me and a mate(Apologet) decided to take the challenge and create a 'Live' version of ET.

Currently our servers are sponsored by YCN-Hosting, which is a game hosting company.
Since we probably want to expand our servers to other countries/continents, we will have to find a way to make money. One way is to offer servers hosting at YCN, but I don't think that would be enough since gameserver hosting isn't that profitable to begin with.

Our friend John Carmack already told the public in an interview at Quakecon 2011(http://youtu.be/00Q9-ftiPVQ?t=1h4m45s) that the QuakeLive concept has failed financially and they're even losing money on it. Their businessmodel included Premium membership and online advertising pregame and ingame.

So, my question to you guys is, how do you think to make money on this to break even on our servers and other services?

Cheers

P.S. Don't ask how we're going to tackle the asset/engine licencing issues, this is a whole different story.
 
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I guess you could start with advertisements showing in the game if you are going for custom content. (TL:DR need to go to work)

Regardless of engine or copyright, advertisements slip past all that.
 
Dudemeister
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As I said in the chatbox, you can use a premium user system with week passes for non-premium players. Specifically, free users should be able to buy timed unlocks for premium features.
Free users should have access to most of the features the open source version of ET.
For premium users, add new maps, weapons and skins (if they are changeable). Free users should be able to unlock them permanently at a greater cost.
If you have a smaller servers, you could add priority matchmaking for premium.
 
Death from Above
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Does the game support ads in pause/loading screens.

That should be a good way to secure revenue
 
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The safest bet would be what Deverz said. You can expand on that idea and make people pay premium to get away from ads and gain other features.
If you have enough players that play the game, I think that ads would be far superior than any other business model. The crux is to direct the ads to your niche consumers i.e. FPS gamers.
 

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