Poll Charging an entry fee for Fantasy F1 - yes or no?

Would you pay to play?


  • Total voters
    28

Brogan

Legend
Staff Member
We have discussed this before and each time the members have made it clear that charging an entry fee is not desirable.

However, doing so has several benefits:
  1. It allows us to award prizes
  2. It will ensure those who sign up are committed to the game
  3. It will stop (or hopefully reduce) duplicate accounts and people trying to cheat
Of course there is also the negative that potentially less players would sign up.

So what are everyone's thoughts now?
Should we consider an entry fee for next year?

It could even be tied to an account upgrade, which would also provide other benefits other than just being able to play Fantasy F1.
 
I have voted no, but mainly because it is a good way to get new people to the site and increase the membership that way. Hopefully some of those members get involved and upgrade their membership level at a later date if they like it here. I think charging an up front fee would put most of the new members off unless we are talking something amazing as a prize tht money can't buy...
 
I would probably pay, but I think it would do more harm than good. It will stop some of the committed players from taking part and scare away pretty much anyone who is new to the forum/planning on taking part for the first time.
 
I will admit that what prompted the question again was due to discovering that someone registered multiple accounts to improve their chances of winning (i.e. cheat) at Fantasy F1.

I was considering awarding a prize this year but I am reluctant to do so if it would go to someone cheating or someone who just signed up to play the game and never posted nor got involved in the site in any other way.
 
There would be a huge drop in sign ups even amongst regular players. The only way to get a significant amount of entrants would be if the prize was something like tickets for the British GP the following year. To make that financially viable you would need 100 sign ups at £5 each.

Then you also have the issue of if it is an international winner. Would you offer tickets to the closest GP? How much are the priciest GP's?

It works well as a free game and we don't need a prize to entice us to play.

If you do want to have a paid for game with a significant prize then I'd make that a separate contest completely. I do have a lot of experience with online competitions and have won a huge range of prizes doing them and anything that involves financial outlay is usually one to be avoided.

Keep it free for now and build up the reputation for being a unique game in the fantasy f1 world and consider this question again in a couple of seasons time.

Just another quick point. The poll itself is misleading. Even though personally I would pay to play I don't think it should be at this time.
 
GP tickets is something I have considered.

We wouldn't necessarily need to cover the full cost of the tickets with the sign up fee - the shortfall could be made up from other revenue such as the Google adverts.

I do agree with a lot of your comments though, which is why I voted "Not sure".
 
From my competition experience if you offer a prize like GP tickets then it will be noticed by one of the many competition websites that exist. They have members who spend hours trawling the Internet looking for competitions which would then be posted on their boards.

Free competitions could get 100's of sign ups from a single posting while the paid ones struggled to get any additional sign ups. If you wanted to use the ff1 as a marketing tool for the website then this could be worth exploring but the vast majority of compers will just do the bare minimum to get an entry in.
 
I'm not sure hundreds of players who "just do the bare minimum to get in" would be beneficial to the site or a worthwhile addition.

So that once again leans me towards charging a fee if there is a prize; I'd much rather have a smaller number of dedicated members/players than hundreds of dedicated "compers" who would only be in it to win the prize and wouldn't otherwise contribute to the site.

That's no different to the thousands of members who sign up just to access the overtaking data but never ever post.
 
I like the idea of a contributors cup. We can keep the same format but would it be possible to just extract the members who have contributed to the site and give them their own cup competition?
 
Or just have a contributors lottery for some tickets?

That way the game gets played anyway, but there is the encouragement for people so contribute on a whim
 
Well I wouldn’t play if there was a fee, and I really like this game. So no.
I don’t play to win a prize, I play to play and to try and win, it’s the playing and competition that’s the appeal.
Winning for me would be the prize.

Everything is costing more and more these days, with less and less money to buy with.
I despise that F1 has gone partly PPV and I don’t buy that either. And yes I am bitter. lol
 
A simple no would have sufficed ;)

Personally I don't have an issue with it either way.
I would like to be able to offer prizes but for the reasons outlined by F1Yorkshire above, I don't think we can consider that if it's a free game as we'll just be inundated with "compers".

So really this was just something for the "real" members, giving them the opportunity to win a decent prize.

It's obvious from the early responses though that's not what's wanted so we can just continue as we have for the last few years - a free to enter game with the only prize being the satisfaction of winning.
 
I have to admit I have been one of those people who didn't care about the site that offered the competition. At the time being a comper was a successful hobby. I used to apply to around 20 different competitions every lunchtime. Some required effort but the majority was a simple case of entering an email address.

My biggest prize was a Sony tv, Blu ray player and a trip to ascot. That was through the Horse and Hounds website. I have never read it or had any inclination to read it I was just in it for the competition.

Of the 3 winners only 1 was interested in the actual racing. I enjoyed my day out and did spend the whole day making the most of the hospitality. The 3rd winner simply turned up, got their tv and left.
 
I voted yes (10 GBP)!!
1. Because it would probably ensure that there are no people playig with multiple accounts, which would be awesome.
2. It would most definetly make sure, that there are only dedicated participants taking part, which is very important to me.
3. Generally speaking, if there is something great and extraordinary available, that stands above the rest/comepetition then (no matter what part in life) I'd be willing to pay for it.


Honestly I wouldn't really care if there was a prize!
 
Unless you're dedicated you won't win the prize. It would be a waste to build a wonderful New interface then limit the game to 20 or less players.
 
I have no problem at all with keeping it free to enter, if that's what the majority of members/players want.

Unfortunately that also means there probably won't be prizes.
 
Probably why an additional competition would be better for a prize fund. The main F1 can run as it is but those who want to enter their existing FF1 team into the paid for championship can do.
 
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