BAR-CODE opened this issue on Dec 24, 2006 · 50 posts
Acadia posted Tue, 26 December 2006 at 11:06 AM
I totally forgot about the December 25th thingy.
I've read through this whole thread and can see both points of view.
I look at Renderosity as a shopping mall in my home of sorts. Each area of the site offers something different or some form of entertainment.
When you frequent a shopping mall and it's various parts, even if it's owned by one corporation, you don't expect that shopping mall owner to give away free merchandise to every single customer that ever walked through their doors. That's a sure way into bankruptcy. Besides, some people could just use the mall as a place to power walk or as a short cut to get to another street when it's cold outside.
I don't know for sure how many total members this site has, but I heard 250,000. Now let's say that 100,000 of those are actually "active" members and have logged in somewhere on the site within the last 3 months (persuming that 3 months is the accepted time period between being considered active and inactive). Let's keep in mind that not all of those 100,000 may be MP patrons. Some could just be gallery viewers.
Ok, now let's say that Renderosity sent out emails with a $5.00 gift certificate to each of those 100,000 members. That's $500,000.00!!! A half a million bucks!!!!!!!! That's not chump change!
Now I know some will say, but it's "Virtual": it's not like they are really giving away money and it's not really costing them anything if they gave a $5.00 gift certificate to their members. However, that's not true. Everything in the MP has a tangible value on paper and the monies that are spent in the MP are split down the middle between the Merchant and Renderosity (the company). Giving away a simple $5.00 gift certificate to 100,000 of it's most recently active members would still affect the company's bottom line in a big way!
Oh, and let's not forget those membes who were perhaps not active for 3 months and 1 day and missed the "cut off" to qualify for that $5.00 gift certificate and now feel slighted and have hurt feelings because they were left out.
The other option would have been for Renderosity to hold a "random draw" in order to give away the 25 gift certificats of $25.00. Not really a viable option for a large website IMHO.
I can see a shopping mall offering a no purchase necessary draw but every draw that I've ever seen like that in an actual mall required the entrant to be present at the time of the draw. That's well and good in an actual shopping mall. If you're in the mall chances are you are spending money, even if it's on an ice cream or a cup of coffee or parking. The purpose of a mall offering a random draw is just a way for them to draw people into the mall and to promote sales. While you don't have to buy anything most people will buy something if they are in a store.
However, how do you do that on a website? This site has hundreds of thousands of members, but how many are actually active members? How many memberships are actually alias accounts of existing members? How many members even buy anything from here? Many people just sign up to view the galleries or to be able to post in the forums to ask questions etc. TBH that's why I joined initially. I knew someone who used Poser and was always sending me links to pictures that I couldn't see until I became a member.
In order for Renderosity, or any large site to conduct a "draw" they would have to have some way of determining indiviual, active members. What better way than having them log into the MP and buy something? Can't get more active than that.
If they were to just randomly pick 25 people from all of the memberships here, some people could end up getting more than one prize because of multiple accounts, or the prize would go to waste on a member that wasn't active here anymore...and we know there are thousands of those, or it could end up going to someone who is only a member because they wanted to view someone's pretty pictures.
Some merchants and non-merchants offered 4 weeks of Christmas freebies. There was a nice variety of things and looked to me to be something for everyone. They didn't have to do that, but they did out of the goodness of their hearts. It wasn't a Renderosity (the company) thing, it was a Renderosity (the community) thing.
Renderosity themselves (the company) had the Treasure Hunt and gave away some really great prizes to those who were patient enough and lucky enough to be the first to find the icon and submit the location. I don't have patience for stuff like that, especially when I know that the hours I spent looking wasn't a guaranteed yield of something in the end. But I was happy for those who did participate and coveted the top spots!
Threads like this really dismay me. :(
The Christmas season has taken on such a greedy tone over the years and now it's finding it's way into the virtual world. Everyone wants more and more and nothing is ever good enough. Forgive me if I ramble on a bit here. When I was 12 years old I was thrilled one year to get a jewelery box, a pair of ice skates, a bottle cutting kit and a pair of slippers and pj's. I thought I made off like a bandit! Try giving that stuff to a 12 year old today! Today kids want that stuff PLUS TV's, stereos, computers, game consoles, designer clothing...all things costing hundreds of dollars!!!!
It's been my experience that the more you give the more people want and the more they come to expect.
I'm very grateful for all that Renderosity as a company and as a community has done for us.
Please, don't let the greed of the season make you feel slighted or unappreciated. Be grateful for what you have and what you got and what you get from the community as a whole. :)
"It is good to see ourselves as
others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we
are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not
angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to
say." - Ghandi