4-player chess priority, and donation options.

Staff members:

I would like to start becoming a paying member again, but I was wondering if it is possible to support the development of 4-player chess specifically. For example, is there some way to donate to the staff members who work on the game? Or is there an option to suggest what project my payment goes to?

Supporting 4-player chess is important to me, as I play a fair bit, but it would be nice to have a bit of transparency regarding the priority of 4-player chess for the website's staff. I believe that this game is technically still a prototype (is it?), but how serious is chess.com about developing this game further? Is it a permanent project whose tasks are being added to the regular queue of tasks? Is it a passion project that staff members work on only when they have time? I would like to contribute to the development of this game (whether it be through donation or volunteer work), but I am not sure if this is an option (specifically, having my membership fees go to the development of this variant).

Chess.com, many of us LOVE this game. Let us help you develop this game. Communicate with us! What is the overall status of this game? How can we contribute to its development?

Thanks for your hard work!

+1

+1

Related topics:

1. Nov 30, 2017

https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/open-source-4-player-chess

2. 

Nov 24, 2017

https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/chess-com-team-please-shed-some-light

3. One more topic seems to be removed from this forum. In that topic I told that I paid $29 for Gold membership to support 4PC development and asked chess.com team to provide a way to pay to 4PC team (and some small amount like $5 or $10 if a player does not need Gold membership benefits but wants to be able to invite teammates in 4PC Teams mode). When we pay for the membership we can not specify a reason like "I pay this, because I like 4 Player Chess", it is simple to add such a field to the checkout page.

(In that topic I used "battleMind is starving!" phrase and the Hello Board creator made a funny picture at http://www.smartbridge6.nine.ch/.4pcp/ with this phrase. But searching by "starving" word finds no topics on this forum.)

Good point!, this is the only 4 player chess site  on the whole web (I think), classic chess sites are enough. I'd too suport the developing/maintaining of 4-player chess (only). This game is so addictive, since I play it I find the classic one-to-one chess quite boring lol. I totaly am with Dragadiddle, it should be possible to suport this amazing game apart from the rest of the games.

+10

Please more four player chess! Should we really be afraid of possibilities like four player chess 960, four player crazyhouse, and four player king of the hill??! Chess.com should stake its claim on chess variants. For now, more support to four player chess does seem like a good investment to me. A donate button would be awesome.

I'm all for supporting four-player chess, but I'm afraid this type of thread could ultimately be detrimental to current players, prospective players and chess.com.

By noting that your subscription is because of a specific feature you like (4-player, in this case), you're opening the way for a pay-per-feature type service. I'm on at least two forums that have moved to this structure (many years ago now). If chess.com sees a bunch of people saying essentially "I'll pay for this specific service," they'd might just start charging for it.

If there were ever a per-feature fee, for four-player, teaming or whatever, that'll deter prospective future players. I love this variant, but I would've never tried it if there was a specific cost associated with it. Even a trial would dissuade me, especially when there's plenty of free two-player. You don't know what you're missing out on until you try the variant, so the cost doesn't make sense.

@mogulskier82, it seems you do not like 4PC actually. That is why you'd better allow this game to die than make a donation. Yes, you can play classic chess for free in many places, but 4PC is unique here at this moment. And until we have a 2nd website (competitor of chess.com) with this game it stays unique. "Pay for a usual game" and "pay for a unique game" are 2 different things.

@BabYagun Thanks for the related topics.  Cleared up a few things for me.

@mogulskier82 Good valid points.

@Dragadiddle Love your passion! (and so does Chess.com I assume) But with the links provided above perhaps patience will be a virtue.  I became a Diamond Member in 2013 for the very reasons you stated above.  Felt my money would help and if they were an honorable company would put it to good use.  The site has changed dramatically for the better. I can only assume that financially they are doing fine. 

@BabYagun don't confuse enjoyment with paying. I outlined how paying would be detrimental to getting new players who aren't familiar with this variant to join -- and that's what's needed if (a) chess.com wants this to be profitable, (b) players want chess.com to develop this more, (c) players want more people to play.

Perhaps there's a history of conversations between you two?

I just don't understand why you said this.

No, there's no history. To my knowledge, we've never played or spoken. I could be wrong, of course.