Kicked out so good luck guys

[NoneNeeded]

A couple of screw-ups on the part of CCBill have resulting in my account being canceled. Since talking to them has not had any success in getting things fixed and the admin here never responded to my request for assistance, I bid you all farewell. The content has been dropping off lately and while I could justify the expense at the grandfathered annual rates, I can't justify re-enrolling at the current ones.

Good luck guys, there are a few artists I will miss but also some I won't. But good luck to all of you!

NN.

[Northern Chill]

Sorry to hear that your finances are in a dire state that you chose not to renew at this time. I hope that if things do improve for you, None Needed, that you will consider returning to the site and avail yourself to all the hard work put out by the artists and writers here on a regular basis.

Northern Chill

[Tony]

An interesting response…

According to CCBill, I signed up in 2011 and paid for a yearly "trial" fee followed by VERY low 90 day renewals. Normally I avoid sites that have automatic renewals since I tend to forget where I have signed up and I end up paying for things I'm not using. However, that low renewal cost I thought was totally reasonable and caused an exception to my normal avoid automatic renewal policy. (That and who was posting here at the time which I'll talk about later.) In fact, I seem to remember having signed up earlier than 2011 and having to start over in 2011. That would mean I thought the yearly fee was reasonable for the new content. And at the time, most of the content was new!

That renewal, and even the original yearly price is lower than the current offers which are:

$19.99 for a 30 day trial followed by $17.99 for a 30 Day renewals or $69.99 for a 90 day trial followed by $39.99 for 90 Day renewals. The first one is about $215 yearly, the second is about $160 yearly.

I assume that the original poster had the same deal I got and can't get the original subscription renewed through ccbill due to a problem. He also asked for an admin here to try and help and received no response. I would wonder what I would do if something similar happened to me. Or if you decide to not honor my original subscription pricing.

So in 2011 when I last signed up, all the MetroBay comics (Finister Foul, DR.Robo, etc) dealing with mind control were here as well as Drake with his Maxine Midnight, Roommates and others. Firstborn, Mindchanger and Akonikid were actively posting new content. Unfortunately, the agreements with Dr. Robo, Drake, Finister Foul and some others have lapsed. The MetroBay group have started their own website with their own subscriptions that some of us are now paying in addition to or instead of maintaining a subscription here. Drake posts some new content on his own website and doesn't charge a fee at all. Others have simply stopped creating stories while others are on hiatus and haven't had an active story in 6 months or more. There are several new artists so things haven't slowed down too much but the direction of the site has changed since 2011. In fact the number of comics per year are as follows:

2009 - 51 (4 months)
2010 - 166
2011 - 184
2012 - 196
2013 - 211
2014 - 233
2015 - 151 (9.5 months)

The current year is on track for less than 200 stories which would mark the first time the site didn't add more stories in a year than the previous year. That would also reflect in any decision to renew or not. There are a few currently running stories that I really like on this site and a number of others that I follow because I can. So would I renew at current prices if forced to? I wouldn't get the benefit of getting all the old content since I've already seen those. I would only get the new content. Would I consider the current pricing acceptable when I have might have running subscriptions on other sites? I hope I don't have to ever answer those questions like the original poster did!

When I first saw the original poster's post I also wondered as a businessman what I would do in general about this. It seems to me that it is very hard to maintain on going renewals when the content is maintained here for as long as you maintain it. I guess that is why you don't offer non-renewing subscriptions. Yet this seems like a false premise to me. As I mentioned before, without going into details about, there are ways of getting the content without maintaining a yearly subscription. It only takes a little more work on the customer's part. So the only real way to maintain happy, always subscribed customers is to provide enough new content on a regular basis that the renewal fees seem reasonable. And, of course, always helping people that need help. Not responding in the background is unacceptable. It is also obvious that the poster exhausted other choices and decided to see if posting here would help. I still hope it can help him/her.

So in this business:
Are you constantly churning customers rather than maintaining them?
Are you growing or shrinking your customer base? These two questions are very important to help you decide on this last one.
Are your fees a good value for new content?

It is hard to tell how the future will unfold on this site and I hope that you can maintain the site for as long as you want to. Yet as a potential new customer, the only thing I really know is what has been posted. Very little is on the "schedule" for the future. In fact, nothing new is on the schedule that we haven't been seeing for a month or more already. You need to compare that to any competition. What do they show? How often do they update? What do they charge? Does the site seem stable?

As an old customer that has seen what is in the archive, things look dim. It's not that you aren't producing new content, it's simply that your schedule isn't being maintained with some lead time to show you are still actively working. If I was never here before, it would be a treasure drove. Yet would that person stay and for how long?

I don't like seeing the type of posts above. It shows a problem that I hope is talked about and addressed in the background by the administrator and the artists. I also hope that the information I showed above is taken how it is given. In hopes that you can find a balance that helps maintain the site as long as you care to run the site. That balance always includes understanding your customers and their values. It is obvious to me that the original poster thought the value was fine at an older price and not fine at the current prices. At least not for an old customer restarting a subscription.

[mitru]

Hello...

As member of the actual MCcomix's artist staff I'm sorry to read these kind of posts, I'm sorry for you and I wish your finances get better in the future and you come back, if you wish.

I only can give an answer as artist... I know everyone has a personal tastes and I don't pretend everybody like my work, I understand it... but it's difficult to know what the people want when I rather get any feedback in the forums, only in my Deviant Art page I got some feedback oftenly, but I'm unable to know if they are subscribers of the websites or not.

From my point of view, if you want other kind of stories or changes, you should share your opinions with the artists to let them be able to do those changes. I've not got a scryer ball or pool to see what people like or not... I need your opinion, good or bad... sincerely the criticism is not only the better way to improve in the artistic world... it's the ONLY one.

So if you want changes in the stories, themes or anything else... ASK for it!

I'm always open minded, accept any suggestion and criticism as I'm here to get you satisfy with the product I'm offering. I always try to offer a wide range of different settings and stories but I'm pretty sure that sometimes I hit the nail on the head and other times I miss from far. But I'm unable to know the result if the people don't share their opinion about it with me.

You can tall me: this is a shit and I don't get angry... I've been doing comics for enough time to know that nobody is perfect and not everybody is going to like always the published work. But sincerely, I WANT your opinions... WE NEED THEM!

Hugs from the spanish boy!
Mitru & MitruComix staff

[jpeger]

Hi all.

I don't NSA every post, so it's not until it's brought to my attention, would I respond. So sorry for the delay in my response. Any direct questions to the admin can be sent to admin at hipcomix.com. The forum is more for discussion of comics, and not meant for administrative issues. However, I do feel it's in good form to respond to this.

First, I'd like to thank you all for your continued support. It's wonderful when I read there are members out there that have been supporting us for years. That tells me that we continue to make good stories for you to enjoy, and that's a complement to the whole team.

I'm not 100% sure on that comic count but rather than go counting, I'll just assume your correct. We guarantee 3 new comics a week. 166-233 comics a year delivers far more than 156. I'd like to thank you for pointing out that we impressively exceed our promise. Did we fall back a little this year by 0.5 comics a week? Perhaps. Do we still outperform our competitors? Most definitely!

As to the CCbill issue. We cannot control them as they are a 3rd party billing system. I know this issue, and have responded to both CCbill and the above party. CCbill has a step that's silly, but it is bank policy to reactivate their membership. Now, let's assume for some reason that step is impossible. Just wait 3-4 months, resign up, and fiscally, it's the same cost. We guarantee the comics will be here for a year, so you won't be missing out of any of the exciting adventures. That's the main reason we modeled it this way.

I want to thank you all again for your continued support. You're right, we aren't businessmen, we're artists. If we make a mistake from time to time, we're here to talk about it.

JP.

[Tony]

That you for the reply. I hope it all works out for the original poster.

While you're still looking at this thread, maybe you can fix the issue with posting replies and new threads to the Creative Guy's forum. I noticed and reported that issue to him quite a while ago and, to date, it still hasn't been resolved. I hope will be resolved soon since I'm sure he would appreciate hearing from people following his comics.

[NoneNeeded]

Roughly in order:
Northern, dire is not the word I would use but an annual subscription does run more over $160 a year. I have to justify that to myself. Like Tony, I don't usually subscribe to auto renewal sites but the annual membership made the difference.

Tony, I don't have access anymore but I think that the size of the comics in panel counts has also dropped. Yes, the size of the panels is much better than you see in a typical print comic, but at 13-14 panels per issue, you are getting only a couple of pages worth of printed comic each. I am pretty sure I did a count a couple years back and saw a drop. I am also pretty sure it has not increased since. I doubt I could repeat the analysis since the departure of a large chuck of content would screw up the results for years past.

Jpegger, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume your reply to me was lost the same way ccbill seems to have lost my request to update my email so this would not happen. I had sent mail to your admin account. I know I never saw a response but it doesn't sound like anything could be done anyway. The unreliability of email is part of what has me so annoyed with ccbill since they seem to have a system that requires 100% delivery success.

Like I said, I have enjoyed your work and wish you all the best. I may try the every couple months thing. That just always seemed sleazy to me.

[jpeger]

While you're still looking at this thread, maybe you can fix the issue with posting replies and new threads to the Creative Guy's forum.

All fixed.

[jpeger]

Like I said, I have enjoyed your work and wish you all the best. I may try the every couple months thing. That just always seemed sleazy to me.

Not sleazy. Affordable. Fair.

It's the reason we license them from the artists for a year. The only setback is, you aren't getting the newest comics right away for a few months, but it's certainly not sleazy if it's due to a billing company issue. I really have no control over it. I wish I did, but they do it this way to protect your card information.

We really only have access to your username, email, and expire date (and other information too like "reason for cancellation", etc) They handle all the active user processing, and they send me updates on who is a valid customer via a webscript that updates the local password database. This way my server only contains a username, and an encrypted password.

Thanks for the compliment on our work.

Jp.

[Tony]

While you're still looking at this thread, maybe you can fix the issue with posting replies and new threads to the Creative Guy's forum.

All fixed.

I can post replies to existing threads now. I can't start a new thread like I can in other sections of the forum.

[Tony]

I'm wondering if Creativeguy is also having a problem creating new topics. He hasn't posted new threads for his new comics there in a while. And, I can't start a new topic there either although I can in other areas.

[Tony]

I'm wondering if Creativeguy is also having a problem creating new topics. He hasn't posted new threads for his new comics there in a while. And, I can't start a new topic there either although I can in other areas.

I can't load the last three pages of Circus Master 5. I also can't start a new topic in CreativeGuy's area to say that.