We have an updated announcement that you can read here.

Premium accounts are coming in December! First, Mr. Robot is launching a huge site redesign with new free features. Next, he’s launching premium accounts with super-charged features. Mr. Robot isn’t greedy, he just wants to keep making gaming tools as his day job, is that so bad? Us human minions working for Mr. Robot like to call this a “dream job.”

On that note, I’d like to take a minute to tell you about Team Robot. We started as 3 friends who’ve gamed together since college, and started this site in 2009 as a side project after we got home from our career-day-jobs. Then in November of last year, we decided to take the plunge, a hell of a lot of risk, and build a company out of supporting gamers. We’re dipping into our savings, big time, to get our company off the ground. And we’ve taken that monetary risk, passed up buying that over-priced but delicious bacon flavored chocolate bar, and cut back on Christmas gifts this year,  because we believe we can make tools worth paying for. We see every purchase come through, and appreciate every one of them! So thank you for the support already with app downloads!

What do I get with a premium account? On launch, the premium accounts will come with the mobile web app, RoboCouncil (on the web and mobile), and the new Shopping List feature. In early 2012 we have plans for a “Gear Upgrade Planner” for Warcraft and hopefully for SW:TOR.

We already have code started for League of Legends and SW:TOR, and will also be working on Diablo III. All of this is coming in 2012.

We only have 1 premium account level, which gets you access to every premium feature for every game we support. So if you play WoW, LoL and Diablo III, then you get to use all of the premium tools (in 2012)!

How much will premium accounts cost?
We have a subscription option and ala cart.

The annual payment option will charge you once a year, and you can choose to have it auto-renew or not. You can lock in the lower rate by signing up for an annual subscription at $12 a year, and that price will not go up next year. Although we have a smaller suite of premium features right now, we do offer you some cool stuff and remove ads for all premium accounts. If you sign up for the annual subscription, we get that money up front, which will help us hire a couple of fans to build more features for more games faster. So if you plan on paying one way or the other, we appreciate the annual subscription if you can afford the up-front cost.

Update on 12/3: We recently decided to offer each feature ala cart, and most premium features will cost $2 each. Read more here.

We are using Paypal to process the payments, but you don’t need a Paypal account. You can just enter your credit card in and go on your merry way. We need to use a verified and secure 3rd party vendor to process payments for us, because, well, they are secure and keep your credit card safe. None of your payment info will ever be hosted on our site or servers, even if you choose to auto-renew, it’s all handled by Paypal, and we can’t access it. That’s fine by us, since we take your information very seriously and want it to be handled by the security experts!

We have an updated announcement that you can read here.

So we’re taking the plunge and moving out of the app stores, and onto the mobile web. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to find the smoothest transition plan, but this is the first time (and last!) we’re doing something like this. So if there are bumps, we apologize, and want you to contact us with any problems, feedback@askmrrobot.com. We will be helping each and every person out that reaches out with a problem or concern.

The mobile web version will continue to be a premium feature, and we won’t have a free version. A free version would need to be ad-supported, but ads just don’t fit on mobile phones, and they often throw errors (and will continue to until the ad providers and servers get better). So, we’ve made the decision to continue to charge for the mobile web version. However, it’s included in the premium package, so you get a whole lot of goodies for $1 a month.

Why are we moving it out of the app stores? We have a thorough explanation here.

Already own the app? Mr. Robot has you covered! As a thank you for being an early app owner, Mr. Robot is making special user accounts, just for you. These special accounts will get you free access to the mobile web version and RoboCouncil all the way to Mists of Pandaria. Also, if you buy an annual subscription at any point up to Mists of Pandaria, you get $2 off the price. Update on 12/3 – we are sweetening the package, sine we love our early adopters! You now get the Mobile app and RoboCouncil free, forever. As well as half off the annual subscription if you sign up by Jan 31.

Our plan for the transition: please bear with us during this transition. We are trying to make this as smooth as possible, but if you experience any bumps along the way, just email us at feedback@askmrrobot.com. We are happy to help!

1. Create your free account on when our new website launches and start your mobile web trial. We will launch the mobile web version of the app in early December, and your free trial is a temporary solution until step #2 is complete!
2. Update the app when it hits the stores. We have submitted an updated app to the Apple store, but their approval process may take up to 2 weeks (this is the part out of our control, so you will get a free trial in step #1 until the update is approved by Apple). Android owners will be able to update right away (as soon as the mobile web version is live, in early December).
3. Get the special code from your updated app, found on the launch screen. The update will contain a special code that you will apply to the user account you created (and if you haven’t created one, you can do so through a link in the app). The code will get you free access to the mobile web version and RoboCouncil until Mists of Pandaria  forever. The code also gives you $2 $6 off an annual subscription if you choose to upgrade for other cool features, at any point up to MoP.
4. The update will remain in app stores until Dec. 31. So be sure update and use your code. After Dec. 31, we will remove the app from the stores, because we don’t want people buying an app that won’t be supported. Once it is removed from the store, you will not be able to get the update, so it is very important you update before Dec. 31 to get your code.
5. If you have any questions or concerns, email us at feedback@askmrrobot.com. We will respond to every single email. You can also post comments here.

In the very near future, Mr. Robot will no longer sell his app in iTunes and the Android markets. Instead, he’s moving it to be a web-based app… which in all honesty will look and act just like the app and you will barely notice a difference. You’ll just browse to it instead of launching it.

Why these changes?

Delays on the Apple Market: Apple takes 1-2 weeks to approve any changes we make to the app. That means every time there is a patch, like 4.3, iPhone and iPad users get information late. And that’s not cool, man.

Platform support: it doesn’t take a ton of work for us to port these apps over to the Apple and Android markets, but it does take some effort. And inevitably, users have problems with the app stores themselves, or technical difficulties from jailbreaking a phone or running uncommon OS’s, so we try to help them. But that means we have to become experts for every platform and OS… that time adds up. And we’d rather be spending our limited resources developing cool features, not porting & supporting the app on 4 different markets. We haven’t supported Windows phones or Blackberries yet because the demand isn’t high enough to dedicate time to it, and that royally sucks for people who own those phones. Mr. Robot doesn’t want to discriminate against those humans anymore, so moving the mobile functionality to the web will now support all platforms.

Money matters: Some of you have an Android phone and an iPad, which means you have to buy Mr. Robot’s app twice (he apologizes for that btw). Also, sometimes people do something nice for Mr. Robot and he wants to give them a free app, which he can’t do on the Android market right now, bummer. In addition to all of that, both Google and Apple take 30% of every app sale… sure $0.60 from a $2 app may not seem like much, but if we sold $10,000 worth of apps, that’s $3,333 we could have used to pay another developer to make cool features, so why let Apple or Google have that money?

Moving the app to the web also allows Mr. Robot to let you try features before you buy them (no credit card required). What a thoughtful robot.

How will the web-app work? Once it’s live, you will just browse to www.askmrrobot.com on your mobile device, and we will auto-detect that you are on a phone. We will show you the mobile friendly web-version which will look, and function, like the app does today. That version will require a premium subscription, which is only $1 a month (our low early-adopter price) or $12 annually.

What if I already bought the app? Mr. Robot has your covered! As a thank you for being an early app owner, Mr. Robot is making special user accounts, just for you. These special accounts will get you free access to the mobile web version and RoboCouncil all the way to Mists of Pandaria forever. Also, if you buy an annual subscription at any point up to Mists of Pandaria, you get $2  $6 off the price. Mr. Robot talks more about the transition plan here.