Seriously Iām disappointed! Not only has the unlimited passes and no adverts been taken away for many users (yes I know about the its and limited offer for different users blah blah blah) but I donāt know why it isnāt made a normal thing after all a lot of people but the package because its a good deal.
But also I canāt watch adverts to lower my wait time meaning Iām waiting ages for my passes to refill.
The subscription for the āpass free for official storiesā is useless to many as a lot of us donāt read them due to the gem choices which leads me to my next issueā¦
Gem choices have always been very expensive especially if you take into consideration that its a younger audience that are the majority and these customers donāt work meaning they canāt earn money to pay for the gems. But now they can pay for āpass free accessā as well as pay for gem choices.
To enjoy the full experience your looking at around Ā£20-Ā£30 if not more to fully engage and enjoy an āofficial storyā which majority of the time are not fully completed.
Episode, read/listen to the feed back instead of sending everyone the same auto message. There are better things you can do to make money. for example the unlimited passes for all stories, a lot more players would buy that package rather than the unlimited for official stories.
Cheaper gem choices meaning more players would be more willing to buy gems because the price to pay for a choice is lower and you would get more readers by doing this, a lot of people donāt read official stories because of the gem choices in the first place.
I agree with everything! I understand they need to make money somehow, but there truly are other ways. Episode can do memberships where people can pay like Ā£3-6 a month for unlimited passes and a certain amount of gems, letās say, 30 gems each month or 25 even. And keep the advert which allows us to lower the time wait. This is a lot better. A lot more people would join the subscription as itās not a lot to pay each month, and it has pretty good benefits, of course, they can still have their top-up options. Right now theyāre becoming like any other story app.
But this is just my suggestionā¦ ;(( I donāt know if anyone else would agree and even if someone agrees, I donāt think episode will ever consider.
I used to renew my subscription for unlimited passes and no ads every month, I decided to buy the new āVIPā package this week to see how it faired compared to the one they have sadly removed?? And I wonāt be renewing, as someone who doesnāt read official stories, I was massively disappointed, it felt as though the only benefit was to episode, I stead of including the community authors in āunlimited passesā scheme.
Sadly, I see this severely changing how I use the app, and how often I read the stories :((( very sad by this decision, seems to be a selfish one. Iāve stood by many decisions, such as the new ranking system (where gems are basically compulsory to be successful) and grinned and bared it. But this has put my back right up!
Itās gone from what was it? $10 for a month to what? $3.99 a week? For a package that isnāt half as good, only supports authors who are already being noticed by episode and is not at all helpful to unnoticed community writes?
Well at least we know what episode want, theyāve made that clear
A friend of mine bought the VIP thing and is able to read community stories as unlimited passes with no ads along with official stories, does it not work for you with community ones as well?
No only official stories for no passes. Community stories do have no ads though. The old deal I used to get allowed no passes for community stories as well, that is why the āVIPā subscription doesnāt seem as worth it :(((
It says on the advertisement that is only has free pass for official stories, I read it wrong and assumed it would be for community as well as thatās how it always was, but sadly not
That does suck. I actually got this offer too but for 3.99 as compared to 6.99 what Iāve seen other get. But there are lesser gems (20 instead of 50) Iāve not purchased it or tried to because itās showing in USD and not my currency. All the other offers to by gems and passes are in my currency (Indian rupees) but only this VIP thing is in. I find this little thing kind of weird and that is part of the reason I donāt want to buy it lol
Yes I got it at 3.99 too! And 20 not 50, when comparing it to the old subscription that I was loyal to every month it doesnāt seem worth it. Hopefully they reverse this soon
Yeah that does seem like a mistake to be honest I just hope episode fix their game, idk whatās going on lately, like I said in my above message the decisions theyāve been making lately seem poor, such as increasing the importance of gem choices, and now clearly favouring official stories, oh well. It will significantly change how often I read on the app
I personally miss back when three things happened.
When you could change your phone time to cheat for full passes
When you could get unlimited passes by going to the place where you would buy them, and they had the 48 hr free ticket thing.
And when your passes would start going up. EX: When I read 20 chapters, I got 4 tickets every 3hrs compared to when I read 500 chapters I got 30 tickets every 3hrs
I agree completely, I donāt read the episode āofficial ā stories only community ones. I hate the amount of gem choices for content.
There is such a wealth of talent out there and I bought the no-ads unlimited passes regularly each month, and supported the writers when I could, but I disagree with them getting gem choices for content too. I do strongly agree with and support being able to give gem for previews or support.
I know Episode needs money to function and itās correct they should pay their writers but they forget that everyone is short of money at the moment and this feels like a greedy decision .
I feel Episode have forgotten that without the talented writers they have no product to sell, and without regular readers they canāt make money out of those writers. The readers will follow the talented writers elsewhere, there are many similar platforms now, that are cheaper.
In my opinion itās just a bad offer. Itās almost double the price per month as the unlimited passes + no ads but for less content. Iāve stopped purchasing anything now and sadly, I also almost stopped reading completely now, since I just donāt want to waste my time watching ads. Every time Iām in the mood to read, I exit the app again, cause ads. Iād consider paying solely for ad free but not 4$ a week! Thatās just too much, if you have to pay for passes in addition (User stories).
