With the countless and seemingly endless promotions we were receiving, a lot of us were under the impression that OOO just wanted our money. But now, with this long sought gunner update of ours we so dearly wanted, it's like OOO ACTUALLY wants us to play the game (hence why the recipes for everything are only at Basil). Of course, this one new content release doesn't mean they won't go back to their money-grab promotional items, but quite frankly I'm surprised they are making us (or just some of us) "play" (or rather grind) the game for once. Maybe they can't make up their minds what they want to do. To pay or to play? They haven't struck a balance between the two yet, that's for sure.
To Pay or To Play, That Is the Question
Thu, 12/04/2014 - 07:42
Thu, 12/04/2014 - 09:10
#2
they need both
Obviously they need paying players to provide revenue.
However, they also need playing players, to provide entertainment for the paying players. In fact, they are willing to give away the game for free to many thousands of non-paying players, just to make the game more fun for the paying players.
Thu, 12/04/2014 - 11:21
#3
>hence why the recipes for
>hence why the recipes for everything are only at Basil
If they weren't thru Basil then they would need to think up yet another way to distribute them. The guns could fit into the HoH, but the armor sets would probably have needed their own NPC.
Thu, 12/04/2014 - 11:32
#4
Meep.
From a biographical point of view, I can say that to play without buying extras with real-life money can be quite a bore. But when you get to your goal, it's going to be worthwhile.
The only thing I'm going add is that paying for extra energy is that it's a catalyst to your journey of development from an apprentice to a vanguard. It speeds up the process however the downside is that you need to pay money. In my opinion, it's not really necessary to buy energy unless you are impatient and don't like wasting a lot of time. It's your choice to earn or to burn [money].
Thu, 12/04/2014 - 12:48
#5
Support the devs!
What if I want to buy energy to support OOO? Am I allowed to do that? Will I be shunned as a "wallet warrior" or something?
Tbh, I like this game a lot. It's a good bit of fun with a 4 player party to just slaughter everything in sight. I don't really need to buy energy at the moment, but I feel like doing so anyways because I want this game to continue to get awesome things like the Gunner Update. The endless supply boxes got a bit annoying, won't disagree there, but they are a company with costs and wages. They need money just like anyone else.
My choice is to pay, and to play.
Thu, 12/04/2014 - 20:18
#6
so...today is the day I got my 1 million crowns (Willingness to grind)
Thu, 12/04/2014 - 21:14
#7
Not anymore
After getting burnt by the heat crystal system and the endless lockboxes and waiting over a year for a meaningful update, I dont think I'd ever give them anymore money and instead play the game but it became too grindy I cannot stand it anymore. And this is coming from someone who went to Warframe and that game is made ENTIRELY out of grind.
Thu, 12/04/2014 - 23:31
#8
However, they also need playing players, to provide entertainment for the paying players. In fact, they are willing to give away the game for free to many thousands of non-paying players, just to make the game more fun for the paying players.
I actually laughed really hard when you said this, because of how paying players are generally purchasing costume items for incredible amounts of money. A that point, it's basically just buying the right to feel unique, accomplished and powerful without working towards any of these things at all. It's such a tame way of describing something so truly awful... To provide entertainment for the paying players.
"Whales."
Fri, 12/05/2014 - 08:14
#9
right
By the way, I didn't come up with this idea. It seems to be pretty standard, in the economics of such games nowadays.
Arguably much of society runs on similar principles. For example, when I go to a museum, zoo, or hospital, there is always a wall listing donors according to how much they have donated.
I'm okay with it, as long as the whales in question are not addicts. Preying on addicts is immoral. That's why the gambling aspects of Spiral Knights worry me.
Fri, 12/05/2014 - 09:22
#10
Void
*murders everyone in the thread*
Anybody else feels like thinking?... no? k then stop wasting time and go open some boxes kid, GO GO GO! OOO gotta eat yknow.
Fri, 12/05/2014 - 09:27
#11
all pay and no play makes jack a dull boy
all pay and no play makes jack a dull boy
all pay and no play makes jack a dull boy
all pay and no play makes jack a dull boy
all pay and no play makes jack a dull boy
all pay and no play makes jack a dull boy
all pay and no play makes jack a dull boy
Fri, 12/05/2014 - 10:14
#12
@Aviri
You know I WOULD...but I can't afford the 750 THOUSAND energy I need to buy all the keys to open my boxes.
Sat, 12/27/2014 - 19:30
#13
@Burq how ironic. I CAME from
@Burq how ironic. I CAME from Warframe.
B.T.W. I'm loving this game.
Sat, 12/27/2014 - 19:44
#14
d
Isn't it obvious?
Sat, 12/27/2014 - 20:15
#15
you free to play players can be odd sometimes
because some of you think the crowns you dig up from clockworks funds the running of this game without the paying players to buy them from you using real money.
paying players can set goals too, not everything can be bought. like gear. its no fun to buy those from the supply depot, nor can you get everything.
basically, grind in moderation.
Sun, 12/28/2014 - 09:28
#16
<--- Pay to play and proud of it.
You are so misguided and insulting. All of you.
First, the "WHALES" really don't need you. They can play on F2P games. They can purchase non-rigged to grab your cash games. They can get in their cars and drive to a diner or movie theater.
Back in the day, like 10 years ago, developers came up with this principle of "whales" in their F2P business model but it was heavily flawed. The first major flaw being "whales" need them and the non-paying customer. Neither are true and quiet the opposite, the non-paying gamer has always been what ruins the games they have spent lots of money on. Non-paying gamers are always hostile, rude and insulting towards the paying gamer, the one who pays your way to play. You would never be so nasty and disrespectful to the person sitting next to you at a ball game that they just bought your ticket.
"They are willing to give away the game for free to many thousands of non-paying players, just to make the game more fun for the paying players." Think again. They slammed the door in the face on their paying customers and closed their wallets forever. They rigged the game and added pay walls to jerk the wallets open on the non-payers. They made your game suck. You wanted to play for free...go ahead and grind your hearts out. It was almost like they were punishing the non-payer for giving in to their demands.
The whales won't pay for that crap. They want real games, good games. Which comes to other other major flaw in the business model. Everyday more games come out, better ones. New game makers start new companies everyday. The whales don't need anyone of them for tomorrow will be a new game to try. A new company to hope in.
There are many developers of the 90's who worked under that business model and many of them have closed their games and companies. Some left the business entirely. Some have gone on to teach and do seminars on gaming. I will not post individuals names nor the games they ran but think like this; "This is the reason that game failed..." "This game failed to launch because..." "I ended up shutting down my development company because of the game failures." As a student or a parent paying for a student child, I'd be in the administration office demanding my money back because I'm not here to learn how to fail.
There was also a long forgotten part of that business model. Make things the customer would want to buy in game. But hunger and greed cast that aside. The games became rigged. The whales felt ripped off and crapped on and left.
Those of you non-paying customers and developers have to think differently here. You have a major uphill mission now. Those of you who refused to pay for all your reasons now have to become the "whales". You have to find it in your hearts to open your wallets to a company that has disemboweled it's paying customers. You thought your parents wouldn't pay for online games before, didn't trust the makers. Now you have to get them to pay on one that has proven they will screw the "whales" and rip them off. Allow hate and disrespect to be shown towards their valuable customers. The developers have to make those things SOO freaking good now to get you to buy.
F2P is DEAD. Someone should script Steam and other game portal sites' chat to see just how many of those "whales" are saying "F" F2P. Never again. We're all playing REAL, good, non rigged games on multiplayer servers together without the non payers and all the crap that happens to our games when they are there.
Sun, 12/28/2014 - 09:51
#17
^^
Calm it down, yo. O_O
Ive put money into this game, but only to buy a scarf and OCH.
I played for free, for a very long time though. When someone comes up with a basically set costume and amazing gear, I don't envy them or call them a "paying noob" behind their back. The guys who would surrender their money for the game are greatly appreciated to those who ride in for free.
But what sets aside F2Ps and P2Ps? This game doesn't have pay-only items like WoT or Warface. (Mixmaster... but eh.) Everything can be acquired through the game for free. The idea of F2P is that you give someone a chance to say "I like your game" THEN give them money, or at least that's whats been explained to me through the devs of Trove.
Either way, you just called everyone who posted here ignorant and insulting. Try ranting out of want for change next time instead of out of anger and hate.
Sun, 12/28/2014 - 10:26
#18
I'm vohtarak, call me by that name
just popped in to say lamnoone made me laugh more than failarmy on youtube, the anger and hate put into that is off the charts, please make more angry rants (also, you say the free community hates p2pers, I really dont see it that much, yet it seems a p2per hates f2pers a lot, that being you)
Sun, 12/28/2014 - 10:56
#19
Well I have to draw a line when it comes to spending.
I've put some money into the game because I think it deserves it, around thirty five dollars some of which came from selling team fortress goods on the steam market... But what I don't do is buy these hundred dollar swords and unique gear halos in prize boxes. At that point, I start to ask myself what I'm doing with my life.
If I'm at the ball game and I look up from my ten dollar seat at some guy in his floating mansion box, I might not be so quick to thank him for his generous donation to the ball park.
And regardless of what you say, someone out there is buying that gear halo.... If it weren't so, SEGA wouldn't be repeatedly selling these big gets.
Sun, 12/28/2014 - 11:42
#20
Iamnoone
Iamnoone, I am not insulting P2P players. I have spent money on this game in the past, and I'm glad that other players continue to spend money.
My comments were based on what I observe in Spiral Knights, and what I've read on various gaming web sites. For example, it's much less fun to spend real money on a costume, if you can't show off that costume to a bunch of players who don't have it. In this way, non-paying players provide an audience for paying players.
I'm not saying that this is the best way to run a game. But, according to various F2P game designers, this is the best strategy they've devised.
Also, a lot of your comments seem to be raging not at the overall F2P strategy, but rather at the details of how Three Rings has implemented this strategy.
Sun, 12/28/2014 - 12:04
#21
Fight hate with hate
@iamnoone
Ironic, why should I or anyone pay for any game with its items consist of binary numbers?
Players decide the value of a game, is it fun or boring? Frankly it is a boring, so why should we pay? It is like blamming the customers of McDonald's for their burgers getting smaller, no, a company are solely responsible for their own awful business decisions.
I do not need to pay EA for betafield4 because the game is not worth the money at launch, developers nowdays are far too greedy to be trusted with one off purchases, Destiny is the proof of that, I got an incomplete grindfest with baited DLCs.
I say, as suppose to become whales, we need to all become F2Pers, we need to show these greedy developers that they need to work harder than that to be worthy of real money purchases, they need to make a game that can be both grindy and fun as suppose to a boring chore. Get on it OOO, make SK into a good game before reaching your hands into the wallets of your players.
Mon, 12/29/2014 - 07:42
#22
~hugs Midnight-Dj~
And there is your answer Hmmlol. You pay if your game is fun and playable, your are enjoying it, you are making good friends, the game makers are making things you WANT to use in that game and the game will be there for you when you want to play it now and in the future. Ask yourself, are they worth your time and cash investments.
You don't pay when you and your game isn't respected by the game makers in any way or when they aren't acting as the professionals they are supposed to be. You don't pay to help them or save them. That is counter productive to business. Make them work for it. You don't owe them anything. Their job is to make something you would want to buy not to be scamming your money like heroine addicts.
A true professional person would do what is good for the business and community as a whole. Their personal feelings, relationships, etc would not be brought into the business. They would care about their professional reputation now and into the future. Their decisions would be made very carefully on both.
I would question the professionalism of anyone who made a game and played it as their personal game even hired others into the company who are doing that. Decisions would then be made in regards to the game that would support and enhance their game rather than the game they are making for others. Then its more like their personal game that they want others to pay for. And then the like-heroin-addict may start using those decisions and their millions of accounts, and the millions all their friends and family have, to be stronger than yours making you have to spend money to develop yours to beat them in game.
Mon, 12/29/2014 - 12:07
#23
Going off a side tangent...
Outside of promos/cosmetics, the game itself is really bad at encouraging you to buy energy. When you spend money, it feels like admitting defeat. I actually got a bit depressed when I found out a guildie bought his 5* equipment from the supply depot.
So are you surprised that they focus so much on promos? Promos can reliably make them the money that funds this game. Adding new mechanics takes far more effort for barely any monetary gain.
Mon, 12/29/2014 - 13:19
#24
that is depressing
I actually got a bit depressed when I found out a guildie bought his 5* equipment from the supply depot.
That is depressing, and for a different reason --- namely, that the prices for items on the Supply Depot are so inflated. There's a big difference between that behavior and buying energy to buy orbs or fire crystals so that you don't have to save crowns for them, which is probably a more common reason for buying energy.
Mon, 12/29/2014 - 14:22
#25
algorithms are the solutions to any problem.
I don't really feel like responding to all the F2P issues in the last posts, but I'll manage to put up a word or two.
games in general have to stuggle to get noticed. they have to compete with every other game, movie, book, and be better than a walk outside, doing sport, reading forums and I could go on and on. right now games have only a handful of things to rely on: setting, features and mechanics are the three that rule them all. if at least one is (good and) interesting and the other two are ok, the game will get noticed... somewhat. advertising and having a partnership will help a lot.
game designers have the job of making these three elements work toghether, and oh boy I think it's one of the most difficult jobs on the face of earth. point is, it's not easy to make a game, how can fix it be easy?
F2P right now is currently poorly implemented pretty much everywhere. the main problem I see is one: grinding versus game time.
wanting to extend game time is good. seriously, it is. it makes players more engaged towards games, thus making them more likely to immerse in the game and thus not care to spend a or two in the game, which is what developers usually need to survive in the buisness.
that clashes with the method used to extend game time, which is usually making players do the same thing over and over again, which makes the players just get out of the experience for some fresh air, or just frustrate them, which make them not likely to support you. designers seriously need to think of something else to make players do to extend play time, but right now they are stuck there, banging their heads to the wall. I've seen some ideas to alleviate the problem, in this game and in others, that can be summed up in "take some other weapons with you during the grind, but grind anyway." cause killing a slime 1000000000 using 1000 weapons is totally different in 1000 ways.
someone needs to come up with an idea to revolutionize the term "F2P". I don't really want it scrapped, because it would be of no use whatsoever. this is the internet, and I'm sure you can find servers of P2P games for free somehwere out there. besides, I really think that developers moving from console games to internet games means there is a large market in here, and that market would get hit bad if all games started to have a 1 per month subsciption to pay. this is because culture and games and parents don't want their children to spend money on internet ect.
ended up writing quite a bit. oh well. wating for responses...
Mon, 12/29/2014 - 17:59
#26
Oh I definitely agree with you. A while ago I said that for this game and others, a level editor combined with rogue like level construction would do incredible things, like something Taylor Swift would try to show you-- or sell you, considering how starving artists like her need your money for their work and the work of their cosmetologists/chemists, so that you can smell like them as well. See, Bopp thinks I'm funny. That's what matters anyway.
Tue, 12/30/2014 - 11:57
#27
my 2 cents
What F2P issue are we talking about?
The P2P section is awful compared to what it was, now all you have is Energy or prize box (that has 1% to make you filthy rich, 10% cool stuff, 89% garbage you wasted money on).
I remember all the different packs that was available, it was actually inviting and you felt like winning when you had an ele pass, now you put money in the game it's to *potentially* get costumes/accessories faster...
I have a love/hate relationship with OOO and I usually don't mind spending some $$ toward SK because I played this game for so long (it prevented me from doing other stuff) but I do not feel like encouraging the way they are treating the players and the game. I do like creative promotions
I do not like reused and "fast-pace"? promotions. I'd better they take their time to make a really beautiful one and think it through, like the gremlins promo had gremlins goggles you can't even use them with the helm...
Where did the creativity go?
Tue, 12/30/2014 - 16:52
#28
What F2P issue are we talking about?
The P2P section is awful compared to what it was, now all you have is Energy or prize box (that has 1% to make you filthy rich, 10% cool stuff, 89% garbage you wasted money on).
I remember all the different packs that was available, it was actually inviting and you felt like winning when you had an ele pass, now you put money in the game it's to *potentially* get costumes/accessories faster...
Pretty much the way i feel.
I used to buy a lot promo when they come out at least every month or 2 months. right now it just sad to see how much of these promos are just plain a money grab, i mean, spent 50 usd just for 14 boxes which would end by giving me only trash? i dont understand how people prefeer 14 boxes instead 20,000 energy + 7 boxes. i honestly would prefeer energy + boxes and fair chance to get something instead tons of boxes with trash and miracle chances.
honestly i dont have spent in this game since the introduction of "costume prize boxes only" i dont have bought one, i feel its a pretty way to take away your money without the chance to get something nice and get some profit of it. and at this point energy its pretty useless since you can get orbs just by playing and even if that its a trouble you still have the so vanaveryhing to get cr and buy energy, (which many forumers have stated) so why you would buy energy anyways?
what looked a good promo and a reason to get a bit of profit from your energy purchase its now a lottery ticket to see if you "get" something nice but of course 0.5% chance sounds like a good reason to buy and instead of it, get in the end a UV ticket which only cost 20k cr.
sad but true, reason to not buy anymore promo and just wait some days to get the promo stuff cheaper.
Tue, 12/30/2014 - 16:12
#29
I guess it turns out that
I guess it turns out that it's not only the players who gamble and.. won or lost?
Rather than craft a system that sells a lot of small things at agreeable prices that everyone needs and/or wants, they gambled on a system that went fishing for the great whales.
The accessory system is horrible. The infinite buy->wear->destroy->repeat cycle is a design gamble over the safe and simple buy once and collect them all strategy. I have no idea if there is a subset of the population who really does buy and destroy the same accessories over and over again, but for everyone else it's a deterrent to collecting ALL the accessories, not just the RARE ones. If your weapons were bound to your armor not yourself, then the game would be unworkable; but gear is a need not a want - so apparently being unworkable is acceptable on the thing that nobody really needs but you were counting on to print money.
But cosmetics are purely opt-in, as long as the core game play was left untouched then it doesn't really matter?
Well, that was until the Radiant issue.
The game is now more than ever truly free to play - technically of course. It is possible to rely solely on drops and not consume any energy at all on your quest to beat the Big Bad and receive your heroes parade. And now you can quit and uninstall. But if you want to stick around a bit longer, well, then too bad. Instead of offering the commodities you want at prices you can afford, the game gets nasty and suddenly expects you to throw ludicrous amounts of money down the hole for a game YOU ALREADY FINISHED. Rather than retaining the veterans as a valued resource, the game yells "Get off my Internet!" instead.
So now you have the bizarre gamble of non paying new players going from start to finish for free on the hope that a handful of post-victory players will make the irrational choice of picking up the tab for them?
I don't know about you, but if I think a system is broken then I'm not enticed to put money into it. Lockboxes are essentially covered in barbed wire, theres nothing in them that I want purely because the system to use those things appears broken to me. And now while the progression game works for free, the endgame looks broken to me also so I'm not going to put money into that either.
Judging by some of the half-baked content that came out this year (nothing added to Winterfest this year? REALLY?) the speculation I draw from all of this is the 2014 funding was cutback* to the point where actual development is made in bursts and drip-fed through out the year, most of the system is on auto-pilot.
2015 looks pretty grim..
..So long and thanks for the snipe garden statue*?
Tue, 12/30/2014 - 18:12
#30
Ehhhh....
What's a shame is the fact that Spiral Knights is a progressional level system while also being a F2P game. This means that the game is both free to play and free to progress. What's bad about that is that the game allows you to pay to progress. In almost no other game with a free to play model can you simply buy the next tier item and then continue with the story.
However, unlike many F2P models, Spiral Knights does gear collection right, and that is everyone can get everything(sans mixmaster. Still hoping we get a craftable alternative) without paying a cent.
Basically, Spiral Knights is free to play but pay to progress. Luckily you can get the money to progress in-game. My guess is that they wanted people playing the game again with the gunner update, so they pulled out the option to pay to progress, which I consider to be a good thing. The only real way to make Spiral Knights free to play would be for there to be some sort of gamemode where every weapon is viable (proto sword being useful while a winter's grave doesn't outclass it on all levels) with no entry fee and have a lot of things to do in that gamemode. However Spiral Knights is an MMORPG, thus you should expect to be paying something coming in, and for lower tiered weapons to be trash(who would prefer a leather cap opposed to a heavy plate one in just about any RPG? Especially if it doesn't actually slow you down). Free to Play is essentially "pay as much as you want" now-a-days. If you like the game throw money at it, otherwise don't worry about it.
According to my Steam stats I have 2,984 hours playing Spiral knights and spent $373.90 on the game since the trading cards were released. That's a 7.98 hours:dollars spent ratio. That means just about every hour I've played this game can be weighed at about 8 dollars, and I'm still enjoying the game. Compare this to something like Assassin's Creed II where I have a 1.33 hours:dollars ratio, or Skyrim where I have a a 2.91 hours:dollars ratio.
Tue, 12/30/2014 - 20:18
#31
>spenders taking paywall
>spenders taking paywall attacks personally
Hahah, okay.
Firstly, OOO doesn't really whale. Spending money on the game doesn't make you a whale. Whaling is when a company provides an egotistical reason to spend, namely competitive advantages, leading to the creation of fat whale-players and free players who won't do small-scale spending since they know it won't count for jack unless they fatten up completely. If you think our PvP is highly competitive or money based, then like, you have brain problems. Back to the point though; companies can be money hungry without being whalers. Look at micropay games. So on that note, if you spend money on the game, I don't think anyone's blaming you for the fact that 3O is grabbin gems around the clock. You think they aren't though? Shard bomb update. 3O makes a bomb less effective while simultaneously making it no longer cost less CE to fully upgrade than other items. Combined those sort of tactics with reskins, chance boxes, you name it, and it's pretty easy to see the cash-dash. Whatever though, take it as an attack on spenders.
Tue, 12/30/2014 - 20:29
#32
Void
Pay to progress is fine until you realize that to heat up a single 5* item you have to spend around 6k of Energy :X
fall back to the shadows!!!
Tue, 12/30/2014 - 22:00
#33
@Iamnoone:
Actually, no, I
@Iamnoone:
Actually, no, I don't have an answer. Everyone here seems to be focused on P2P vs. F2P. That wasn't really the angle I was going about, however I do think the discussion of whales has been rather interesting.
Let me try to explain this in a better way. My question shouldn't be taken from a player's point of view, rather a Dev's point of view. Imagine this conversation between two Dev's:
Dev #1: "I hope our game is a success and everyone loves to play it."
Dev #2: "Well, I'm still in debt from that loan I got for my house."
Dev #1: "You're right, we do need some cash flow."
Dev #2: "So what are we going to do? Have our players actually play the content in the game, or just give them lots of pretty stuff to buy?"
Dev #1: "I'm not sure."
Little clearer now? Hopefully, but please, do continue on with your ideas of whales and what not.
Wed, 12/31/2014 - 10:23
#34
I got called a loser for
I got called a loser for opening a lockbox in infernal armour by some random knight
Even though I've been free (Apart from OCH) up to Defender
gg
Fri, 01/02/2015 - 05:43
#35
@Bopp
Quote "Obviously they need paying players to provide revenue."
Unless that paying player complains about something, then they'd rather you buggered off. Right? (that's me, I'm talking about me) :p
But seriously, this company exist to MAKE MONEY. Every company exists to do that, so everything this company is doing has the end goal of tricking/encouraging some desperate crazy idiot to spend real cash on gear or energy, etc. It's true, that when a company like this start to lose business (paying players) they will change their tactics (I've worked for similar companies), usually making it look like they're favouring the FREE to Play players/features, when in fact they're just desperately trying to fill up their player base again with free players, in the knowledge that a good percentage of those players will eventually get fedup and desperate enough to pay real money for gear/energy (how many of you can relate to that? ME!!). It's a numbers game, there's an entire study on the subject somewhere on the internet (clever marketing, psychology etc).
Before I stopped playing 2 years ago (roughly), my friends list was more than 20 or so players. When I came back to the game, only 2 of those players still play. All the others haven't logged in for over a year. Half of those people I know on Steam and when I ask them to come and play, they refuse (sometimes with real venom in their comments towards SK). Before you start with the "people move on, play new games, etc", some of those players are still playing Torchlight, Quake, Arma, RuneScape etc.. Players will stay, if you don't push them away ;)
SK need to pay more attention to their paying players feedback and be less sensitive to the negative feedback too. Or this game is just going to get progressively worse and it is, if you are paying attention to the feedback and in-game features, you can sense something desperate and broken! But hey, it's ok, at least the staff get to work in a submarine (no seriously, that's just dam cool. I'm jelly!).
I hope SK don't go messing with me on this one, I'm just giving honest feedback and I'm trying to keep it polite. I speak my mind, it's a curse! I respect the developers though as I've looked through the open source stuff and it's solid. Which makes me wonder why they couldn't fix that recipe issue I had ?
Anyways, HAPPY NEW YEAR peeps.. Come say hi to me in-game (or tell me to wind my neck in, or something clever..er). Where I won't be spending real money anymore, so I'll need lots of advice on making it the grind-way :p
Fri, 01/02/2015 - 05:36
#36
@Hmmlol
Your "poor indie developer" analogy isn't three things!
You do know they are part of the Sega family , right?
Whatever your answer, they are part of Sega.. <--- SEGA!!
As someone who developed shareware in the 80's (oh god, those were tough times), I've never sat down had a conversation like that with my partners. We've always made the decision: "are we going to charge a one off fee, or a subscription?".. Simples! I'd pay a monthly fee to play this game if they offered it, but then that would break the illusion they've created (someone knows what I'm saying) . :p
Sat, 01/03/2015 - 13:30
#37
@Hmmlol
From a developers stand point is totally different from as a customer, should I pay or not. Let's talk development and business. First off, don't spend money you don't have. A developers personal financial business has nothing to do with the game/company. It doesn't belong there. The developers are a group of professionals working together on a business venture. In the case of online games, the person doing the artwork doesn't care if a coder has a mortgage and doesn't need to hear about it. They have their own and it isn't task related. Let's drop all personal issues out of this.
The group/company comes together with the task of making a game, as a business venture. "I hope our game is a success and everyone loves to play it." This is a given. If the game isn't fun and worth playing, people wouldn't love it and wouldn't want to play it. So first order is to plan and build the game. The cash flow is a given as it is a business and planned for and developed all along. Those promos are a necessity and would be art of a good business plan.
Fails with those promos are; only counting on one, getting too greedy with that one especially when times get tough, not allowing a worth wide game currencies conversion to occur such as the item being bound, making those items so overburdening to other peoples game you are hated for having them and making those items needed to play, the pay wall.
So as a developer, I would make a game I knew was cool and fun to play. Same as the artist. The businessman has to find the place to properly interject how to make the money. I would look at worked well for others what didn't. Gaia had wonderful success with the monthly thank you notes. Guaranteed to get the item, choice of two. So cool, easily sellable items to tons of gold. "I'll buy one and sell one. I'll but four and get one of each item and sell one of each. Runescape, the original one, open for all to play. Once you opened the paid world of Runescape you never went back. Anywhere you worked/played was worth the nominal (non-recurring pay when you want) fee.
Another area that has always been a profit area was profile and character room/home. Some ability to develop there through play but the coolest being purchased items in the game store. In game gifting helps spread the wealth.
At that point of "I'm not sure.", I would respond "I AM!" Give them a good clean fun game. Bring them in in droves. Make them the coolest things they have to buy. Give them paid areas/content to go future in their games. And when done, lets do it again and give them another one of our games they can't put down.
2014 was definitely the year of promotions. But if you've been here for 2012-2013 you know that OOO was pretty good with balancing game updates and promotions.