Originally posted by Vortus
-1
If the owner isn't interested enough to play, then sell. If they want to hold on to the team for posterity, gotta pay for it. I can see it if the team is retired PERMANENTLY like a dot. Probably need to be some restrictions on that as well. But, as GLB can make more teams at will, I see no reason why teams cannot be retired like a dot. As a retired dot will keep its awards, so should a retired team. But, brining it back from the dead, nope.
The OP still works well for users who need to take a leave of absence for legitimate reasons. The situation isn't always so black and white.
Besides, the OP states that it costs flex to retire the team, i.e. you are paying for secured rights. The only additional condition I foresee on that front is an expiration date on those rights, meaning that if the team is not reactivated within a certain time limit, it becomes permanently retired with all trophies and team awards saved to the profile page of the owner(s). As with many cases of licensed rights, the owner should have the option to renew the license before expiration, sort of like a pay-in-advance system rather than renewing at the end of each season, though at a discounted rate since the team is inactive while "retired". It becomes an additional revenue generator for GLB while giving dedicated users the option to hold on to a team legacy when they have to step away, be it for military deployment, legal issues, health, or even financial reasons. A dedicated user who has to take leave for personal reasons is much more likely to return when life allows. That's really who the OP is meant for - the people who typically spend dough on GLB supporting a team, several dots, and scheduling scrimmages. Sometimes they may just need to retire one or two teams while the agent himself remains active, such as when money is a little tighter than normal for whatever reason.
When I joined GLB last summer, I had been out of work for almost a year. I was without a car and without a job for another 7 months. Unemployment had already run out, but I had found ways to make some cash here and there....enough to have a little extra for something like GLB which was my only real luxury at that point. Now that I have around 12 dots, a team, and an OC position, I know I would like a few options on GLB that could help me hold on to all the work I've put in so far rather than throwing it all away should I ever be unemployed again. It was by far the longest stretch without income I've had since I was 15 years old. In fact, I have been out of work 3 times in the past 3 years. Prior to that, I had only claimed Unemployment once in 23 years of working, and that was only for about 2 weeks during a temporary layoff. I never imagined something like what I just went through would ever happen, especially not while having to care for an ailing parent with both cancer and heart disease. It was only the second time I had ever gone more than a few weeks without a job. Because of that, I've been luckier than a lot of people. Still, the point remains that life can have unexpected turns, and agents who have been loyal paying customers of GLB should have some options for protecting that investment when life takes a detour. It's a courtesy service.
