Hi,
First of all, I hate to admit that I love this game but such is the nature of addiction.
I like that there is so much going on, even though sometimes it feels like a bit much. Having to manage so many things at once is like an exciting brain teaser that never ends with the constant cycles of bingos, tournaments, storybooks, etc.
I am the kind of player that doesn't really spend much real money in these games, usually because I don't plan to get into them enough that I would stick around. I am pretty locked into this one but there's no way on earth that I will spend $29.99, $39.99, $99.99 etc. on virtual dragons and gold. That just isn't going to happen, especially since the game can be rather flaky with the rollbacks and when that happens you get nothing but you can be sure it will take any gold you used during that time.
Last Christmas, my wife paid for the value pack on her phone and got it for me on mine as a little Christmas gift. They cost $2.79 each and once you do that, you never see it again. All I see now are the $12+ offers so I take it the value pack was a teaser to get you in.
My suggestion to you is to bring that value pack back and leave it forever. I do believe that hardcore users who play daily and with zest owe you a fee. It's like a subscription to some online game only the beauty here is that it is voluntary. Servers and staff don't operate for free but I would rather quit the game then have to pay hundreds of dollars to play the game. If there was a $3 option that gave me 120 gold (like the value pack) or more, I would probably pick one up from time to time. That is easy to justify and is easy on the wallet if done no more than once a month.
I feel like you have a lot of casual players that could probably end up giving you $20 a year, whereas now you get $0. You might sell 1000 $30 dragons but you could probably get 50,000 $3 customers. I'd like to know how other people feel about this. It's clear to me that some of our suggestions are being listened to and relayed to other teams within storm8 by the fantastic admins who run this forum. I only wish you folks were as s****ed at coding the server communication and authentication section of this app.