The story is that I wanted to try out the Crossover Games product to see how it preformed. So as expected I hoarded out my email address to try it legally. To my surprise it actually ran Steam remarkably well (notably TF2). Much better than running it in VMware Fusion. My only few sour points of the product were the minor sound issues (I run digital out of my mac) and some mouse tracking issues. My experience that the mouse was not just right, very similar to playing Bioshock on the PC. Laggy. Overall I thought it was just about worth the investment, as I do like supporting independent software companies.

Then I received this email:

GOSH! Maybe its just me. As a company why would you want to present you brand by in my words ‘scamming’ your customers with this type of payment solution?

Let me explain…

Trialpay is a company built on the concept that people don’t want to pay for software. I think it has a big influence from the media industry where a lot of people make a living off an ad-based business model. Anyway, their website actually provides a good diagram of how they work:

I do respect this type of business model, however I feel that this cheapens your brand. Instead of a customer actually purchasing your product, the practically get it for ‘Free’. As a result, the perceived value goes down. I do realize the point of getting a vig from a advertiser for a conversion is always better than nothing at all, but it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe its just I am seeing more and more companies getting into the whole ad-supported game, and I am almost at a tipping point where I can’t take it anymore… more on that later.

My favorite part of its Terms of Service:

e. You may not sign up for an advertiser offer with the intent to immediately cancel or return the item or service from the advertiser. A “quick cancellation” is considered to be fraudulent, and may void your order. TrialPay may, at its discretion, suspend or revoke your right to use the TrialPay service if you are found to have engaged in such activity.

The one thing I am very impressed about is their own website. It is actually well designed, and clearly laid out. The UX is very good. But at the end of the day… at this moment in time, personally I don’t really agree with this type of model of telling your customer to spend their money on goods somewhere else just to get yours for free.

Is everything monetized by advertising these days?