gossip!

Warning - I have not personally verified this information. I am passing this along from a forum post.

Apparently Alawar is experimenting with a new (old) method of getting customer money. Recurring monthly billing for access to all content, plus a "trial" membership that's super-cheap (just $1!) - but if you don't cancel it within that super-short trial period, you're on the hook for the rebill.

Why do I call it new-old? This *used* to be a highly popular method of selling adult entertainment sites. Lure the browser in with all the pictures+video they can eat for a super low price (It was originally free trials, but I think this was later found to be illegal and they had to charge people at least a buck or two) and if you didn't cancel, you were tied into the program. Some of them also made it much more difficult to cancel than to sign up, like you'd have to call someone and actually talk to them and state that you no longer wanted to look at Gigantic Asses or whatever the site was.

I wonder how many casual game users are familiar with this technique from that angle? :)

I have no idea if it's still commonplace in that business, but I doubt it... I'd assume they've come up with whole new ways to part people from their money by now.