YouPlayorWePay claims to offer downtime insurance
by Mike Schramm 
Jan 14th 2009 at 3:00PM
I think this is a wild idea (even if it is something I wouldn't actually put my money in). We got tipped about a new site called "You Play or We Pay" and from the looks of it, these guys are offering none other than downtime insurance. That is: you pay a fee to them regularly, and then they "compensate" you for any downtime that your server has. They call it "third-party compensation," but that sounds like insurance to me.At any rate, we wouldn't quite recommend jumping in headfirst yet -- they haven't, as far as we can see, revealed any prices, and while you can register your characters, you can't actually get any sort of payout quite yet, as they say they're still working on the system. For all we know the site could be an elaborate scam at this point. But it is an intriguing idea, and if they're really ready to put their money where their FAQ is, these guys may have an actual business plan that depends on Blizzard keeping the servers up. Just like all insurance companies, they must have figured out that the servers stay up more often than not, and that there was money to be made there.
It's quite an interesting plan, and we'll keep an eye on it to see if they ever announce a fee or explain themselves better. The math doesn't quite seem right here, but if somehow their fees are low enough and the payouts are high enough, it's possible that you really could be compensated for downtime by a completely separate company other than Blizzard. Very interesting.
Update: The company has contacted WoW Insider, and we've requested an interview. Stay tuned.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Realm Status, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Making money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Huey2k2 Jan 14th 2009 3:06PM
I can't possibly see how this could work. They'd be paying out every single Tuesday to EVERYONE who registers, it just doesn't make sense.
oddworld Jan 14th 2009 3:11PM
i imagine it's for "unscheduled" downtime, IE, not stuff that is announced and expected. otherwise these people have NO right to be running a business, because that's an obvious, obvious flaw in the plan.
Azhariel Jan 14th 2009 3:15PM
Actually, their prices might be high enough so that even getting money back every tuesday, they still are on profit for that week..
The whole idea behind this seems preposterous anyway.
hold up Jan 14th 2009 4:02PM
This is how it works:
They track your "normal" server activity and give you a quote based on those numbers. For example, if you are on a High pop server you will be a "high risk" so they will adjust by either charging you more money or lowering your payout on time spent in queue/server lag. They basically log when a server goes into High/Max/Offline status and then start compensation from there. Not based on your individual time spent in the queue.
Also, they limit your payout to 1.75x your "activation fee" (insurance cost for the month). Meaning if you pay $10 insurance fee, you can only make yourself $17.50 a month max. The only way I can ever see this working in a player's favor is if you are on a Low pop server and there are unexpected server crashes. Because of the low risk tied to the Low pop servers their payout would be much greater in comparison to a High pop server who has had their Downtime risk padded.
Of course, there is always the other option, sign up for the insurance then bring down your own server with an army of Bots -> profit.
Loadead Jan 14th 2009 4:42PM
re: Hold up
Don't give BRK any ideas!
Arktic Jan 14th 2009 4:58PM
"Also, they limit your payout to 1.75x your "activation fee" (insurance cost for the month). Meaning if you pay $10 insurance fee, you can only make yourself $17.50 a month max."
Doesn't that mean you only MADE $7.50?
... and even then, we've had bad downtime for the last few months because Wrath just came out, but once Blizzard fixes the issues and offers more free character transfers, the realms will stable out, so let's do some speculation math:
$10 per month for the next 6 months
Jan - bad downtime, $17.50 payout
Feb - getting better, $11.00 payout
Mar - patches come out, $9.50 payout
Apr - people starting to get tired of Wrath, $6.00 payout
May - nice weather outside, $3.00 payout
June - school's out, $6.50 payout
In this example it ended up costing you $6.50 for 6 months, and you ended up getting nothing in return.
If this is a true business, and not some scam, then you should stay away from it (and if it is a scam, you should also stay away from it.) The purpose of a business is to make money. If they are not making money, they will keep your money and go under.
Look at the business of Blizzard for example, they charge you $15 a month and you get entertainment in return. YPOWP charges you $X a month, and what do you get in return? (If you said your money back, refer to my previous paragraph talking about the purpose of a business.) You don't even get that play time back, which is the exact thing they are insuring.
I for one will not be signing up for this "service".
kabshiel Jan 14th 2009 9:49PM
Basically this is a total waste of your money. You will always pay more than they will pay you. It's how all insurance works.
The only insurance you should ever buy are to cover things that would basically bankrupt you: health, home, etc. This, like buying an extended warranty on an appliance, is just throwing your money away.
rosencratz Jan 15th 2009 4:16AM
Inn-Sewer-Ants?
This is either a scam, a legitimate scam called "insurance" or a profitable reason for players toactually try and crash their servers.
There doesn't appear to be a good side to this...
Kvothe Jan 14th 2009 3:10PM
I don't trust this. I don't trust this at all.
FlameFlash Jan 14th 2009 3:12PM
I concur.
Seems like a nice and easy scam for those who sit there obsessivly hitting F5 on the realm status page when something bad happens.
Then there's stuff like instance servers and Outland servers etc. What will they do about those possibly going down but the main Azeroth staying up?
silverdragon Jan 14th 2009 3:20PM
Exactly!
Deadly. Off. Topic. Jan 14th 2009 3:53PM
Why does the phrase “there’s a sucker born every minute” ring through my mind.
I wouldn't pay for something like this for the same reason I wouldn't give a punk off the street access to my bank account.
JDM Jan 14th 2009 5:17PM
Neither do I. It's got a giant "SCAM" neon sign glowing over it.
But you know there will be a -ton- of people who don't know any better and will dish out the money for the service. It's a sad world.
G Jan 14th 2009 7:59PM
I would like to formally announce my own web site.
http://www.PayMeYouDummy.com/
Thank you very much.
Bigfish Jan 14th 2009 3:11PM
This is almsot assuredly a scam. A scam called insurance. Gauranteed. It won't work based on one simple fact: insurance is a program meant to smooth costs. Only a small percentage of drivers will get in an accident every year, but we all pay insurance because the private cost of an auto accident far outstrips our ability to instantly pay it out of pocket. It works because everyone pitches in and only a few actually get pay outs.
This is going to flop because if the server is down for one person, its going to be down for everyone. The only way they will turn a profit is to charge more in premiums than they will pay out for server outages, and as soon as that one big server outage pops up and the company has to pay out more than they took in, they declare bankruptcy and run off with your money.
Beatphreek Jan 15th 2009 2:41AM
Maybe we should do this with big corporations... we won't call it insurance because we would be subject to all sorts of laws and laws are no fun... instead lets call it something else.. like maybe a Credit Defautl Swap... then we will pay people if their loans go bad... hell when the risk gets too high, other people can sell their insuranc... err... I mean swaps to other people at more than they pay every month... oh wow, no way this could be a bad thing...
Somehow this all sounds kind of familiar....
Ekimus Jan 14th 2009 3:13PM
It's a flawed business model in the first place. Insurance works because of the "in case shit happens" model. I'll pay somebody a ton of cash, so I'm not completely hosed when something really bad happens (death, car accident, etc...).
This company can't possibly hold any guarantees or influence that the servers will be up. The might as well be selling Sneeze Insurance. Here's $10, if I sneeze, please compensate me by giving me $5.
Ekimus Jan 14th 2009 3:16PM
So, in summation.
Scam, Scam, Scam. It's practically a pyramid scheme.
snowleopard233 Jan 14th 2009 3:16PM
Seriously? There’s an article about something so obviously stupid? Between this and the post about some the best forum post of the day, patch release day really needs to come.
Gessilea Jan 14th 2009 5:06PM
I agree that the service is stupid, but I disagree that writing an article about it is stupid. The reason I read WoWInsider is to be kept up to date on all things WoW. If someone is offering a sketchy outside service, I'd like to hear about it. I'd also like to see WoWInsider do some research (which it sounds like they're doing) and find out how legit this is.