Spellbound App

## Spellbound+

Spellbound Inc. had an app called Spellbound+ which was changed to Project: 863. At first this app was free for everyone with paid tiers that you can buy for extra perks. In this app they could post memes, fan art, and theories and the creators could interact with the fan base. Then as the story went on they decided it would be best to take away the free tier. While we were all sad it is understandable. They have to make money, to make the content better and for the good of the company. Matthias posted an explanation on the app on September 30th. Here is what the post said.

# Matthias' Post

## Spellbound+ Is Changing To 'Project: 863'

Hello everyone! Matthias here! Hope you guys are having a fun time with the community lately, excited to be a part of this journey with you!

Now that we are approaching Season 3 of 'Project: 863', I wanted to inform you of a couple of changes we will make to our platform and our content. Some of these changes might be a little hard to swallow, I totally understand that, but we believe they are critical for the continuation of Spellbound and our future stories. We would love your support and understanding during this time, as we work tirelessly to achieve excellence within our company for you. The following changes will take place over the coming month as we move into Season 3.

**Important: *Nothing is changing for existing paid members besides the removal of 'Writing with 863', but we will add a different perk; 'Reacting with 863' in which we react to creations, theories, discoveries only for premium members once a month.***

**Important: *Early release uploads of main channel content and We Are 863 Content were never a part of premium content. Those were always free releases.***

## Platform Changes

1. **The first change is that we will shift away from the Spellbound+ app name and branding.** Our company is most definitely still called Spellbound, but the app and icon name will change to reflect Project: 863. There are a lot of reasons for this but I'll give you the big reasons: we will better construct the groups, tiers, and feeds to make a lot more sense. It's difficult to find what you're looking for on the platform right now because of the way it's structured. Focusing it to one story allows us to use the top level hierarchy which is pretty much unused right now. Also, we only have one story; Project 863. We will most likely only have one story for quite some time as we work on internal things at Spellbound.
2. **We will change the perks to a tier system.** We were always planning on changing our perks seasonally, from the start, I communicated it will be 4.99 for just this season for early adopters. (*Thank you by the way to all you early adopters, you rock.*) We believe each season we can think of something new and fun to bring to the table. This change of adding tiers to premium allows that. These will most likely be 1.99, 4.99, and 9.99 as we complete things. Each tier will have different offerings, the highest tier including all the perks. Important: Anyone who signs up now under the 4.99 tier will be grandfathered in when we make this change, as most likely many of the perks in that tier will move to the 9.99 tier, such as the podcast. Again, all users who are signed up at 4.99 and anyone who signs up before we make this change, will keep their current perks for the next year!
3. **We will be closing down the 'free tier' on this platform.** This means the platform will no longer be open for free users. Free users will still have YouTube comments and the official subreddits to engage with our community. I understand this change will upset many people, but before you react, please read on. There are quite a few reasons we believe it necessary to make this change. 1. We use 'Mighty Networks' for this platform, no we didn't code it ourselves, and no, we do not own the app. We only have so much control over how the platform works. Right now there are issues currently on the platform that involve some 'less than desirable people' messaging minors in the community. We came together as a company and decided (unanimously, I might add) that we would much sooner shut down the entire platform than for our community to go through things of that nature. Maybe one day we will open it back up, but not until there are better moderation features. We have also attempted to close DMs, but that is proving to be more difficult than we expected. Hopefully closing just for free members will stave off these issues and still allow us to produce above and beyond content for everyone and additional content for premium supporters. We apologize to anyone who has been affected by this.

## Content Changes

Now, since the platform affects our content because that's how we interact with Subject 4, that will bring changes as well.

1. **We will only react to Reddit content from now on.** Since free users will not have access to the premium platform, we want to ensure all of our audience has an equal opportunity to be heard with their outstanding theories, discoveries, and memes. Reddit has always been the best place to do just that. Reacting to content on Spellbound was incredibly difficult for us internally because the feed would not/does not sort content well. I do not believe Might Networks was designed for communities as active and powerful as Subject 4 (considering the major outages when we launched). Take pride in that! For now, the main channel will exclusively return to reacting to content on our subreddit r/matthiassubmissions. There will still be 'Topics' for premium members to discuss theories, share art, and discoveries, but we will not react to that content on the main channel. Instead, we will make an addition reaction video once a month for premium members only, reacting to all their posts!
2. **We Are 863 is going on hiatus.** We have gotten a ton of feedback lately on We Are 863. This is one of the reasons we moved reacting to Subject 4 back into the main story. That left a gap in our content strategy. I don't want to do a half-baked job and throw up content we aren't excited to make, and based on feedback, isn't very compelling to react to. So we will go back to the drawing board and rethinking We Are 863 while we take a break from it.
3. **Behind 863 is moving to premium only.** This is a move based on a lot of your feedback as well. We have heard you loud and clear that when you are watching Project: 863, it destroys the immersion and fun of the story to be constantly suggested Behind The Scenes *while* you are currently watching or just finished watching the story itself. We want to make sure everyone has the best possible experience, but we also know a lot of you still really enjoy the Behind the Scenes content. So Behind 863 will still be available on the premium platform for your enjoyment and we will remove it from YouTube so people inside the story world do not accidentally stumble on it and destroy the magic.

All of these changes will happen by the end of October 2021. I know that's a lot of changes to take in, but we strive to make a better product for you every day. Thank you so much for being a supporter to Project: 863 and Spellbound. We appreciate you. Our moderators will remove any comments that are not conducive to the values of our culture, so please think before you type. Thank you.

# After that Post

Later on Samantha, who is Production Manager for Project: 863, posted another update on November 2nd about the free tier. Here is what the post said.

# Samantha's Post

## Free Tier

Hi everyone! I just wanted to give you all an update regarding the transition of Spellbound+ to Project: 863. The transition has been a more complicated process than expected, and therefore all changes will be delayed until **November 15th**. This means that all accounts in the free tier will **remain active until this date**. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding during this time.

Thank you!

# Update

As of November 15, 2021 the Spellbound App no longer has a free tier and was renamed Project: 863+.

# Final Update

As of 2022 the Spellbound App is no longer available to anyone.