[UPDATED] Playtime over for You Play or We Pay
by Zach Yonzon 
Apr 16th 2009 at 2:00PM
Initially, the site planned to charge for their service but eventually moved to a free model after some mysterious downtime of their own. It was such a novel idea that WoW Insider even interviewed the site's founders, George Tung and Milos Golubovic. It seems that this bizarre saga has at last come to an end, and questions of whether the site was for real or not (did anyone ever get compensation?) will never be answered.
[UPDATE: Several readers chimed in to answer that question -- apparently YPOWP sent its members 30-day game cards as compensation for lost play time. This indicates that the service, even after going to the free model, was for real. It also isn't against the TOS. That service was frowned upon by Blizzard legal, though, and YPOWP was taken down because of intellectual property rights issues instead.]
Filed under: Fan stuff, Realm Status, Odds and ends, News items, Weird But True, Opinions, New In Pop Culture
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
FifthDream Apr 16th 2009 2:05PM
Yeah, i didn't see what THEY'D be getting out of it, so i didn't understand why they were bothering.
syberghost Apr 16th 2009 3:14PM
Money. They were getting money. Doesn't seem all that hard to see why somebody would want to get money.
Darkinstine Apr 16th 2009 2:13PM
For the love of all that's holy proof read it before you post it!!!!
Branwyn Apr 16th 2009 2:24PM
"For the love of all that's holy proof read it before you post it!!!!"
This.
ObtuseMoose Apr 16th 2009 4:54PM
In what seemed like an endless circle of rereading, I was amused to learn the initial and too-confusing-to-be-complete first sentence.
vexis58 Apr 16th 2009 6:45PM
I have to assume Blizzard ordered them to stop, or something like that. The context of the article makes it pretty clear. But I did have to read that sentence a few times just to make sure my eyes weren't just skipping over the missing verb.
Killrah Apr 16th 2009 2:13PM
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Keyra Apr 16th 2009 11:00PM
^^ This.
Sorrowind Apr 16th 2009 2:18PM
They get advertising space and revenue from a trafficked site.
LandMineHare Apr 16th 2009 2:40PM
I'm sure the 3.1 fiasco caused them to go out of business...
WHERE IS YPOWP.COM'S BAILOUT :(
Olicon Apr 17th 2009 12:52AM
I kind of agree with it.
I think what happened was Bliz trying to protect themselves, since YPoWP business is tied directly to their service. This could have a lot of unwanted legal complexity that Bliz don't need to deal with, especially since they're not getting anyting out of it.
Saya Apr 16th 2009 2:23PM
The site was very legit. I actually did receive a 30-day game card from them that is now in effect on my WoW account. I do not think that they were doing this to get money out of it since the website ad sales went towards paying people compensation.
I can confirm that they did in fact hold up to what they were saying on the website. There was at no point any information given to them that could compromise me personally (i.e. credit card / bank info) and I received my game card code through email.
It is actually sad to see that they were shut down and I am wondering why WoW Insider is questioning them in the end since they were the ones who directed traffic to the site.
What it boils down to is someone had a unique and fun idea to help out the community and they got squashed in the end. Now downtime is just plain painful again.
Retgar Apr 16th 2009 2:33PM
So how much money did you put in to get that $14.99 game card?
Saya Apr 16th 2009 2:36PM
I didn't put a single cent into this. The only thing invested was the five minutes it took to sign in and the 5 seconds at the beginning of the month to claim a comp spot.
So for the time and effort spent $14.99 was a great payoff.
elvendude Apr 17th 2009 12:20AM
Thank you for posting this Saya. I'm very glad to hear a breath of non-hate in this thread.
@Retgar
No one ever gave YPOWP money. They never charged a single customer a dime.
Maxguy2099 Apr 16th 2009 2:30PM
first the addons now this!...Is blizzard now one of those greedy corporations??
Beanwaddage Apr 16th 2009 2:51PM
What do you mean "now" they have always been. I mean they're a company a business their aim is to make as much money as possible. That's why they try to appeal to as many people as possible. The add-ons was not without warrant... i mean if people were making crappy add-ons with ads in them etc... they need to be stopped.
Nyright Apr 16th 2009 4:18PM
Well, if people are making crappy mods with ads in them, you're just not supposed to download them.
thurmanmurman Apr 16th 2009 2:41PM
I knew it was b.s. the first time you guys plugged them here. It was a stupid idea for a website, and didn't help the WoW community in any way. I really hope you keep these kind of people away from this page.
Darkharmony Apr 17th 2009 12:21AM
At first it was a bad idea. But if you took the time to go to the site when they revamped then you would know it turned out to be better.
Their was no subscription fee and basically it was a contest each month based on server down time.