pay2play

[FC]

My online game (ferion.net) is going pay2play to cover the expected future expences of our new host.

We have always been able to run the game on a free host but are now forced to pay for the bandwidth and servers.

The bannerincome of the website has been a joke compaired to the the numbers I see here. To compare, we get about 10.000.000 pageview per month which gets me $30-$50.
any kind of banners on a gaming site does not work, no matter how targeted. Ive tried everything.

Back to the pay2play (p2p) option.

Currently, a players will signup for our game. and play the newbie arena for free. It is a limited version of the full game to keep inactives(signup-once and never login) from the real arena's and let them learn the game.

After that they can join a real game (a new game start every week, and the last about 1-2 months) Still for free. They will have a crippled version of the game. Namely we have limited their option in the technology tree (for you who have played civilization, its something like that). Once they pay for that arena they will be able to develop all techs and play normally, if they do not pay, they will simply be overrun by the payers that have the techs.

Its looks pretty complicated for non-players/gamers. but it comes down to this. Players can play for free , but once they are doing well they will have to pay a small amount.

We are talking about $2 per game.

The main problem is how to receive payments.

Paypal is nice for creditcard owners, but not everybody has one.

International banktransfers are hugely expensive.

Has anyone got any advice, or idea's on how to receive small payments ?