This could be the end of the strange story of YouPlayorWePay.com -- or a new beginning. We
posted about the site when it first appeared, and even
interviewed the founders, but apparently they've decided to make some major adjustments to the site, as it's now down for "reconstruction." A forum post by George Tung says that they are
not only redesigning the site, but "re-doing our whole concept." One of our tipsters suggests that Blizzard legal may have gotten involved, but that seems unlikely -- Tung also posts that "when we are done, there will not be any more concerns about our service not being worth or if what we are doing is legal."
So there you have it. We'll have to see what they've got in store for us (though, of course, there's a chance the site may not return at all). Lots of people have had questions and concerns about the concept behind this site from the beginning, and we remain curious to see how this "reconstruction" will answer them.
Thanks to everyone who sent this in!Tags: answers, compensation, concept, downtime, fees, forums, insurance, legal, legit, reconstruction, service, youplayorwepay
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Realm Status, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Making money
Jan 24th 2009 at 9:00AM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Blarger Jan 24th 2009 9:21AM
lololololololololololololololol
Viper007Bond Jan 24th 2009 9:48AM
Especially at all of the morons that already signed up.
Shot Jan 24th 2009 9:29AM
Sorry guys, it was an interesting idea you had. You just didn't anticipate people thinking about it or discussing it at all.
mark Jan 24th 2009 9:38AM
damn could u imagine if u applied for this on monday xD i didnt get to play for 3 mornings they could have payed :P
Verit Jan 24th 2009 12:24PM
You're assuming they are financially solvent. The problem with insurance companies is they are effectively spreading the risk - they assume that most people are safe drivers, or that its highly unlikely your house won't be broken into when your away.
What if the risk spreads to every single player around the same time? It seems to me most of these outages are distributed among the entire playerbase because of database upsize issues or bugs in server/client patches.
Even this comcast outtage - affected most all comcast customers across the country.
It would be like insuring a million auto-drivers knowing full well that every 3 months every single one of them would be involved in an accident at the exact same time.
Its a scam if I've ever seen one ;).
Joby Jan 24th 2009 9:49AM
Gee what a surprise, after a week with emergency maintenance and downtime a new service offering to refund your money for missed game time took their website down! I am astounded. Shocking. I'm sure BOTH people that took them up on their terrific offer are just furious.
Brien Jan 24th 2009 9:52AM
I'm not sure why people have ever questioned why they were legal in the first place.
Their service was nothing more than WoW insurance. Insurance is legal, no one ever worries that their auto insurance is illegal.
You pay them a premium to insure your characters against the inability to play. If you are unable to play, you receive a pay out.
Its just insurance, people.
Green Armadillo Jan 24th 2009 10:25AM
Yes, but insurance is also regulated - for example, I'd imagine there are regulations, which might differ from state to state, that say you must have X amount of cash on hand to pay claims.
Fact is, health or car insurance work because the cost of needing them and not having them is so great that you're prepared to live with paying a premium that you usually won't get any money back on. WoW downtime is irritating, but not financially ruinous.
Dogzilla Jan 24th 2009 10:38AM
Hey - I realize that you guys think readers of this site do nothing but, but could you take a little time to accomodate folks who do other things and don't, say, read every post on this site every day? Like, for example, explaining what it is that this site does? I realize you have a link to an earlier post describing the site, but it's common courtesy to add those six words in this post (eg: "a site that offers downtime insurance").
Also, when you're talking about what someone does in a group, it's "role", not "roll" (eg: "The ROLE of the main tank is to...")
Iry Jan 24th 2009 10:46AM
This was a half baked idea from people who were probably half baked when they dreamt it up.
It is in Blizzards best interests to keep their servers up - it is their responsibility to reimburse us if the servers are down for a lengthy period. I have been reimbursed play time on a few occasions for exactly this. Why would I need to pay extra?
Who really cares about a couple of hours of downtime here and there?
(If you are one of those people, please look out of the window. There's a big wide world out there waiting for you with lots of other fun things to do!)
Btw, gratz to WI - you got played for some free market research.
bgee1 Jan 24th 2009 11:01AM
Wow Insider you should be ashamed of yourselves for giving these scam artists free advertising. People trust this site and when you write about this and interview the owner you legitimize it for some readers.
Murmillos Jan 24th 2009 12:52PM
Being on wow insider is not a free pass to being "100% truthful and trustworthy". I'm not sure who believes that. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm sure wowinsider itself was sceptical of this site/idea. Unless wowinsider has flashing red text going "100% TRUST THIS SITE, TRUST US!!! WHAT COULD GO WRONG.."
well.. even then I wouldn't trust that site.
WoWInsider is a news information blog. Nothing more, nothing less.
Murmillos Jan 24th 2009 12:53PM
*skeptical* even...
Keyra Jan 24th 2009 12:56PM
I would agree with you except for one thing - the first post about these people argued that it might be legitimate, but it smells of a scam. This was further echoed even during the interview post (which only came about because of the first post, and someone from YouPlayOrWePay felt that they needed to immediately jump to their own defense).
It isn't giving them free advertising. It is pointing out that something smelled fishy about it and providing it as a means for readers of WI to look into it before deciding whether or not to use the service. In other words, it was giving a warning, more than anything else.
At least, this is what I took away from this trio of posts, at any rate.
Magma Jan 24th 2009 1:54PM
I love the idiots who are 100% positive it is a scam and yet have no evidence at all. I'm not going to say either way whether it was or not, but stop saying stupid things without proof to back it up.
joerendous Jan 24th 2009 3:40PM
but... that would be undermining the very foundation of the interwebs!
Balsa Jan 24th 2009 4:16PM
It may not be a scam, but the only other option is that they are completely retarded. I think calling it a scam gives them too much credit.
Nathanyel Jan 24th 2009 2:00PM
Either they're going bankrupt really really quickly because of downtimes/problems like the post-3.0.8 ones, or it's just a major scam.
me Jan 24th 2009 5:28PM
As crazy as downtime insurance sounds, there are "real world" companies that provide similar insurance. It sounded crazy when I first heard about it but a number of companies offer weather insurance for outdoor events.
bigjonno Jan 24th 2009 6:09PM
If I was running a big outdoor event that cost money, I'd want insurance against it being rained off.