sorry klip.
it's something I really thought of posting in gremlin chatter because asking "what do you think about F2P in general" would have been a great question to ask, but I'll go for another question instead.
what do you think of SK F2P model and its monetization?
I'm a F2P and I'm not an expert at these things, so I wanted some opinions from you guys since you have surely been spending more time than me on MMOs and such. to me, SK does both of the situation described in the video, as well as some attempt to the good way (OCH), and overall it's just sort of bad. SK has its paywalls AND you can go around them, since the OP weapons are accessible to everyone. the whole enrgy to crown conversion is indeed a good idea, but to me it would have been better to set a price instead of making the players decide.
so, what about you?
SK monetization (stealing a charatcter.)
We've already seen how OOO has been doing these recent months,two-three promos and then 1 new content.It seems as if they used that moneta to work on the new content.
And to respond to your request,It would be better to let the players control businesses and marketings since it has been like this for so long and the prices still range from 5900-8900.It has been rising and falling like a real market would.
The only thing I'd like would be if they made graph charts on crown/CE prices / time(days)
At least OOO isn't like "BUY ENERGY TO ADVANCE THROUGH THE GAME"
On a related note, I've been waiting for an opportunity to link this video.
I see paying in Spiral Knights as more of an afterthought, a way to get more with less time. There is a pseudo paywall, but it's bypassed with the crown/energy exchange. Spiral Knights does have one problem though: When you buy a box you expect to get something neat, even if it's not the specific item you wanted. I've seen someone open five boxes in a row and get nothing more than variant tickets and [something else I'm not familiar with] while another player opens their box and gets a bunch of awesome stuff. That's going to make the paying user feel bad.
I like that idea of the "Money Bomb" though... having something like that cost $1.00 or $0.50 would make the game more interesting, even if it didn't drop anything really important.
I don't think SK has the best monetization scheme I've ever seen, but it is very far from the worst. I like how it's set up, though the fact that it's player-defined does tend to make it a bit unpredictable. But hey, that's a small price to pay for such a good game.
Times of mist were very dark and bad. They changed it for good. Very good.
You now completly avoid energy, paywalls are not walls if think in good way (They only rescue players from death of powerfull monsters). Only costumes are for the paying or grinding much. All promo gear are reskins (maybe except one). DLCs are buyable for game currency. And SK have Steam Trade. It's the one of best F2P systems I've ever seen.
They limited excessive play, so you wouldn't get too bored.
And they allowed you to rage craft 2 2star items a day...
Holy heck.. SK needs money bombs! OOO watch the OP from like 5:50 and copy this idea. So amazing, i will buy all the bombs!
SK needs incentives to not only pay, but to play. I have already done my shares of grinding hell in hell (FSC). My crowns have gone to other games (Terraria, Super Meat Boy, Awesomenauts, etc.) and not to SK. Why? Because the only things in SK that get updated are rehashed cosmetics and limited time events. I get that building events early on can make a yearly cycle of waiting for events, such as Winterfest, a bit more fun, like waiting for that Slime Arena to pop up in the Arcade. But what new, permanent stuff would be added to the game, excluding recolors and Apocrea weapons? The lack of permanent, real content can easily kill a MMO, especially an unpopular one like Spiral Knights.
Another problem are other issues that players have been facing in the past. weapons makes playing with less powerful weapons seem boring. And what about the DA wall bug? Or another DLC? Stun on Sudarska hits? New and unique levels, like the zerg rush Compounds? We haven't gotten any of that. And when was the last time we got a real content update? Almost a year ago. The space between a new game from SEGA is one year, and that was the space of time for a content-related update (the pickups don't count since they reskin Drakon's Flame Barrier with hit limits, etc. and the Danger Mission knight is a Mecha with an Autogun). Seriously?
If the OOO programmers (and if like, five more joined the SK team) decided to start making new levels (like, NEW, new, not another lame reskin of a Clockworks level) and other new things, SK will be fun again. But until then, the game will remain the way it is. A hack-'n-shash TF2 with abysimal enemy AI, terrible weapon balancing, an unfilled plot that could go a really great direction, and a lackluster PvP.
But what am I doing here, making an off-topic essay that should have been sent to my freshman English teacher? Join the guild "Red Spiral Sallets" and join by linking an Extra Credits video that supports the topic of how SK should be monitized, like this one here: https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=WXA559KNopI
That includes you too, Thunder. Change that profile pic.
Honestly, Spiral Knights is guilty of both of these things via the Supply Depot (http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/98756 shows how buying gear makes the game worse for you) and Operation Crimson Hammer (which acts as a very small, almost negligeable paywall), though it does try to get around both via the "energy market" that makes switching between crowns and energy easy.
The issue that sticks out to me is that the energy system is largely unnecessary at this point. Our best bet for selling things fairly and cleanly and well are the costume boxes that regularly come out; all else might as well be sold for crowns due to the likely discrepancy between money being spent purely on costumes and money being spent on every other facet of the game.
I think this game is dieing due to being a simple and small game. You play it and have fun and get 5*. After you get 5* you get more and the game quickly gets dull and boring. No new content combined with a game that doesn't have alot of content to begin with makes it die. There are so many more free MMORPGs like RIFT and Mabinogi that has so many quests and dungeons/levels that you won't even know what to do in the first few weeks of playing it.
TL;DR
SK is a short and sweet game but it doesn't have alot of things to do after endgame.
So, how does spiral Knights avoid the money wall or provide a disincentive for spending money.
Well, Firstly, I think they avoid the money wall pretty well since you can play and eventually get all the highest gear you want, if you're patient.
And secondly, while I wouldn't say there's any disincentive to spend money, there's really not much incentive to, either. You are basically just paying for impatience.
Finally, there are some incentives to spend money that people gladly pay. One is to get things quicker. It's certainly nice to be able to get something by a $10 purchase of energy that would otherwise take a month of play time. Two, costumes and accessories via prize boxes. You don't need to buy these things since they don't advance you in the game, but people like to upgrade their appearance and so are completely willing to spend that money.
In conclusion, I think they are doing pretty well, but they probably need a few more incentives to pay that feel more necessary.