As we all know Airline Empires is designed, built and maintained by one person: Yuxi. Now by his good graces Yuxi (and the website staff) had set up AE to operate off donations and ad revenue allowing it to be completely free to use assuming you have an internet connection.
That needs to change. Pronto.
The last major update to the game was the addition of seat configs to airline pages for all to see, and that was years ago. AE4, which I'm convinced is actually a myth at this point, has been in development for years now with no completion date in sight. Now none of this is the fault of one man developing a game in his spare time pro bono, and I'm surprised he's doing it in the first place.
The solution: more manpower to push AE development along, and that means we need to start paying.
So my proposal is this: A fee to use the forums. A fee to play the game. Super simple stuff. I pay an amount, it could be monthly it could be a one time thing, and I have the ability to use the forums. The precedent is the setup airlines.net used for years. Plus it'd cut down on all the stupid s*** people post all the goddamn time. On a community as large as AE, a stipend to anybody who wants to help develop AE could be paid out and as we all know money is the ultimate incentive.
I'd ask for your thoughts but I can already hear the bitching and moaning.