Available to Facer Premium users only

I created watch face with interactions…

I want to publish it but there is checkbox inactive but selected, that my watch face will be available only for Premium Users…
Why?
This is not right as it is free watch face…And I cannot sell it either…

Do I make something wrong?

Using interactions, the color picker, etc, will sadly turn your watch face into Premium, as in, only people who actually have Premium status can get it, they can’t even buy it individually. It does suck that free watch faces are so limited but, it is what it is I guess :frowning:

That sucks a lot.
That is something I don’t understand.
I pay to be Creator Pro, or rather to have access to Pro functions - ok, I understand that. But if I don’t want to sell my watch face, there should be no limit.
To sell, you need to reach some limits and be invited - I understand that too, but if I’m not in that circle and I pay to have extra functions - I should have decision who have access to my work…

Don’t understand that at all…

Yer that does seems very odd. What happens if you make ‘pro’ watches, then cancel, Can you still alter and offer those faces ? I was going to try a month. 3 days really isn’t good enough.

I think if you cancel Pro, you are “deactivating” pro functions…
It makes sense, otherwise it would be a trick to the system.

I don’t mind to pay for Pro as they have more functions and it takes time to develop all extra features etc.

But once free designer does it, why to limit audience?
Hmm…

I mean I can think of a few reasons why it works the way it works… but honestly, I dislike it too, so no way I’m gonna look like I’m standing on their side lol.
At the end of the day though, it’s their platform and they can do whatever they like with it.
Personally I wanted Premium to create my “dream watch face” so to speak, and I did xD (don’t think I’ll be publishing that one, probably a copyright time-bomb).

Yes! I understand too…
To develop such platform and possibilities it is a HUGE work and time investment, not talking about money…

And it is very nice to be able to use the Creator for free to design something for your own - that was my first work here - I wanted to make something on my own for myself :wink:
Then I made another one and another and suddenly saw people like it…
It is nice feeling to create something people like…

The one I made with complications is something funny to use and I did it for my daughter… I have more ideas for complications, just was surprised it is limited…

But, as you say, there are some reasons for that, for sure…

Anyway, thx for response.
I will share the watch face once I finalize on it :wink:

Greetings!

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Having free access to the “basic” Facer creator functions to create free faces is great, so I do not want to complain too much :slight_smile:

However, I agree with @krzysztof.j.skibicki ; the Creator Pro model puts me off.
I guess US$6 per month is not a huge amount (depending on the exchange rate for those of us outside of the USA), but It feels like you have to pay to work for Facer (instead of the other way round).

I do understand that Facer needs to generate income from their work and thus charges for access to the pro functions in Facer creator and that they want to provide as much incentive as possible for users to subscribe to their premium service.

What do you guys think of the following suggestion:

  1. Leave the pro feature faces as premium access only, but allow creator pro subscribers to accumulate “points” based on the number of pro feature watch face syncs. Say 1 point per sync.

  2. When a designer ends his creator pro subscription, points are forfeited.

  3. Attach a $ value to a point so that paid Facer watch faces, creator pro subscriptions and current Premium only faces can be “purchased” using points.

The result:

  • No change for free faces created using the free designer functions

  • (Popular) Creator Pro subscribers get something in return for their efforts, i.e. they can use their points to “purchase” faces by other Pro & Partner designers on Facer and/or to subsidise their creator pro subscription.

  • Creator Pro subscribers can still subscribe to Facer Premium if they wish

The difficult part is calculating the dollar value of a point… Only Facer can do that.
How this will impact on Partner designers I am not sure either, but I guess they can also earn points…

Is this just a crazy idea or does it have sufficient merit to debate further?
Still Facer’s call in the end to implement or not…

As I said previously, I understand big work behind Pro functions, so I don’t mind to pay extra for that…
And, after I was thinking about whole case, 2nd part of the cost users syncing needs to.pay too.
That is why, even I make specific watch face with complications free, it is Premium, so extra functions are paid…
For me that’s become clear…

I also understand the current business model and guess that it is unlikely that Facer will implement something like this - lots of work plus possible support hassle for little reward for them.

As said, this is just a crazy idea that came to mind to counter the feeling of having to pay to work for Facer and to provide more incentive for designers to subscribe to creator pro.

Personally, I think simply allowing Creator Pro users to sell watch faces to non-premium users with a large share of the sale going to Facer would be a win for all. It’s the middle ground that is missing.

Currently:

Standard User - Cannot access and does not want to buy premium for the sake of one watch face, so ignores it
Premium User - Has access

Revised:
Standard User - Has option to buy the individual watch face and does so, with a large share going to facer
Premium User - Has access

Partner benefits stay the same in the fact that their watch faces are not available unless paid for.

Surely, this would be a better business model.

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Better and more practical than my crazy suggestion :slightly_smiling_face:

I think it’s absolutely “bonkers” that the designs i make for free and even pay for myself (creator premium sub.) are not free to every user, paying or not.

I was going to take a premium subscription, but now i know this, i will not. I’m not paying for extra functions, that someone else can’t even see if they aren’t paying for their own subscription.

Mmm, I think there may be a different way of looking at this but to see it one might need to go back in time a little, to maybe a year or so ago…

Back then there were only two systems, one based around the free Facer Creator and the other I guess being what one might call the premium Facer Creator. The free version allowed anyone, for free obviously, to make, share and download faces that had a minimum set of features. The other version contained premium Facer features that produced faces that were only available via subscription or by individual purchase. If one wanted to sync a face that had these premium features one had to, not surprisingly, pay a premium. Now, the only people who had access to those premium features to make faces were the Creative Partners. No-one else, not even if you paid. No one else could get access to those features to make a face.

Not surprisingly, this would have been seen by some ( maybe many ) as not fair.

So, then we have the modified system …

Now anyone, for a price, can get access to the premium features of Facer and fully enjoy the creative potential of the Facer platform. A great win for people who wanted those features to make faces. in addition, not only can people sync premium faces made by just a few, they can sync from many more designers who want to share their premium faces.

But, and this is a big but, the features are premium, the faces that are produced contain those features and are therefore premium. And to get access to other peoples premium faces you still have to pay for that privilege. Of course. They are and remain premium features only available to people who pay to get access to them.

So the other way of looking at this is …

Creator Pro is there for people who want access to premium features to make wonderful feature rich faces for themselves. If they want to share them, fair enough, but there is neither requirement nor financial incentive for them to do so. It is there choice. Having that choice, to share or not to share, is not a negative. The alternative would be to say, you can pay to access premium features, create feature rich faces for yourself but no, you can not share them.

So, you might consider this:

Which is better, the old system, with no ability to create faces with premium features or the new, where people are free to choose to pay for access to those features and to share or not share the result as they want?

No-one is forced to subscribe to Creator Pro. If one wants access to the full feature set then one can get it. If people don’t want the features or do not want to pay for them then they do not have to and can still enjoy and be part of the totally free standard Facer community.

For me, I think this was a great positive innovation for the community.

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I get that, because of how it whas in the past, this makes sense. But objectively, it is a weird system.

Instead of adjusting the old system, Facer was could have changed the system at a whole. This system makes sure that the ones who are at the top, stay there and make money, but it gets harder for the little guy/gal to make it to the top and sell their designs. Even when you pay for a premium sub.

I agree that it is a bit of a weird system and thus I do not subscribe to Creator Pro.

I also believe that it will be better if there is some way for Creator Pro subscribers to recoup their subscription. Personally I will be happy if I can just break even.

The system suggested by @kermagod.uk_facer above is simple and is my preferred solution, but this does require actual money to be paid to Creator Pro subscribers, which will have administration and banking cost implications for Facer.

I suggested a points system which does not require money to change hands, but still requires development to implement plus additional admin.

Any change is likely to also increase the support call volume & Facer cannot even keep up with the current support call volume.

We can debate as much as we want here, but only Facer knows what will work for them.
At present business models are driven more by the Corona virus than anything else, so I don’t expect anything to change soon.

How it works at present is clearly defined; it is up to each individual to decide to which services to subscribe and which not.

@mikeoday your description makes a lot of sense, but reading this thread helped me clarify my question - because I also didn’t/don’t understand the “pay Facer to create content for them”.

I completely understand the $5/mo to access premium watches. (I don’t pay for this, but I understand it)
I don’t understand the pay $6/mo to create, when those aren’t allowed to be sold. I guess I don’t really see the incentive here. mikeoday’s post is the best reasoning of “paying to create for yourself”.

My question/thought:
What if the $6/mo Creator Pro tier also include the access to premium watches?

As it stands, we have to pay $11/mo (~$130 a year!) for both. I’d think you have your Facer Pro at $5, with a $1 maybe $2/mo add-on to create premium.