Spiral Knights - Theory: Why the Sapphire boxes didn't do well

Theory: Why the Sapphire boxes didn't do well

13 replies [Last post]

Wed, 09/09/2015 - 08:18

Holy-Nightmare

Ok, of all the Gem boxes Sapphire seems to have done the worst.... in fact the number of items in the AH barely topped one page.

So what is the reason?
Some of you may say that the community is tired of reskinned items..... maybe....

I would like to point out WHO this game is aimed at. This game is aimed towards a younger audience, particularly the pre and early teens.
So, what does this have to do with anything? Think about it, what happens around the beginning of September?

SUMMER BREAK ENDS

That's right, I believe that the start of the School year is part of the reason. Kids have less time to play, and parents now have school to keep kids busy (and not some game).

Wed, 09/09/2015 - 08:43

Dahall

So how is Three Rings supposed to maintain their servers now that promotional content is losing its effectiveness? (not that I am doubting your theory, it does makes sense)

Wed, 09/09/2015 - 08:57

Holy-Nightmare

@ Dahall

They need to focus on when the students are available.

Weekends
Holidays
Fridays

Make events/promos extend over 2 or more weekends,

Wed, 09/09/2015 - 09:49

Flowchart

could also be that people spent more on the Slumber promo and didn't want to use money on this one.

Wed, 09/09/2015 - 10:18

Fangel

Yeah

Sapphire really doesn't have super new going for it. It looks good on a blue colorscheme.

Sapphire's colorscheme also isn't really anything that jumps out. It is very close to frosty, so while it would blend well with frosty, it doesn't blend well with other things. It might also blend well with a cool colorscheme.

The fact is that warm personal colors can't really sapphire since there's nothing to build upon. There's no good mix of colors. Frosty has a really light blue that can be used as a barrier (which I used to bridge the gap between blue and yellow). Cool has a grey color that can be used as a bridge as well. Glacial has complementary colors, thus is able to be used by either a warm or cool personal color and have it work with the right accessories. Sapphire... Doesn't have that.

My conclusion is that sapphire just really isn't aesthetically pleasing to a wide range of the playerbase, or the paying playerbase at that. Kids who are going back to school at this point would either A) have money to spend year round, or B) have no money outside of special occasions/gift money.
If you're seeing a decline in players online, you can pull the back to school card. If you're seeing a decline in promo acceptance, that's something to do with money or desire.

Wed, 09/09/2015 - 11:35

Holy-Nightmare

@ Fangel

Multiple factors contribute to a Box's success or failure. I would say that the end of Spring Break is a decently important factor in this case. As for the appeal of the boxes I can agree that the sapphire wasn't the color I expected. I was hoping for a much darker color scheme.

For those of you who don't know, Ruby and Sapphire are actually "related" gemstones. They are both forms of Corundum.
http://geology.com/minerals/corundum.shtml

I expected a dark blue to pair with the dark ruby red
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/File:Ruby_Tailed_Helm-Equipped.png

Instead we got a slightly melted Frosty color
Sapph: http://wiki.spiralknights.com/File:Sapphire_Tailed_Helm-Equipped.png
Frost: http://wiki.spiralknights.com/File:Frosty_Tailed_Helm-Equipped.png

Wed, 09/09/2015 - 12:01

Exerpa

The only reason to buy into

The only reason to buy into the flavor of the month is if you really want that particular color, otherwise what else are you going to do, try for a complete 12 color set?
The gem boxes are really just one single promo stretched out over 12 months, so after 3 months it's natural for interest to die down, now its having to wait through the 9 months of it being old.

Perhaps people just have costume fatigue? There comes a point where you have to ask yourself, just how many more costumes will I buy? Do you even wear the ones you have enough to justify buying them in the first place?

In the early days, it was a challenge to combine items to match color schemes and styles the best you could, but there's little point to that now. You want red, green, blue or yellow? Well your in luck these days, we have 5 or 6 different kinds of green/red/blue/yellow now! And there's going to be more where that came from, much, much more.. all the while getting harder to tell them apart from each other in the process.

Somethings gotta give, eventually you'll have the bizarre moment of saturation when the number of different colors and themes will outweigh the number of potential customers for them - if it hasn't happened already.

The cosmetic system is huge now and only continues to grow, but still works mostly under the same principles as when it was introduced. The core game has even been displaced by it, but they haven't promoted it to first class citizen status yet, so it's being held back. If this is supposed to be whats paying the bills for the next few years, it doesn't make sense to ignore the problems and hope that someone will always be be there to buy this weeks box instead of picking up a bargain from the auction house backlog.

Wed, 09/09/2015 - 13:24

Fangel

Agreed there

Yeah Sapphire simply isn't strong enough. Needs more vivid tones to really be worth it in my book.

I love the layer of customization we have right now, but I think we need more costume remodels to even out the reskin ones. Node slime was a great remodel, plus you got something really cool in every box, nothing locked behind a 15% chance wall. Spiralhorns was really well done too. Splash was a great promo as well.

We really need more promos like these. Gemstones are great but they're essentially reskins. Reskins are fine and all, but (outside of the onesie recently) I don't think we've had too many new models thrown into the game.

Wed, 09/09/2015 - 13:42

Holy-Nightmare

@ Fangel

Actually we have had a bunch of new models added (Namely the GU sets), OOO just hasn't taken advantage of it yet.

I would love to see reskins extended to include more armor sets

GU sets
Volcanic plate
Demo
Salamander
Jelly
Skelly
gunner

Wed, 09/09/2015 - 14:07

Fangel

Well yeah

Gunner update was added last year though, and they only immediately took advantage of the new appearance during that winterfest and we never saw them again.

I was meaning it would be great if we could have promotions with completely new costume models. The venom fiend was a good example of something new, as were the two I mentioned before. It's just been a while since we've had a promo that gave us entirely new costumes and cosmetics in every box.

Wed, 09/09/2015 - 16:00

#10

Fehzor

I mean the jewel promo boxes are kind of predictable as well which means that if I want a jewel aura I'm only going to go after it on the month of the color I want. For instance, pink = October so guess which month I'm waiting for and what I'm going to do if October brings us the wrong shade of pink...

Also you don't know that the box is doing poorly just based on the auction house. It's possible that it's still earning them money and it's more complicated than just how many were bought. It could be that they need Ian to produce art for an update or something and cannot just have him make promos 24/7 right now.

Thu, 09/10/2015 - 02:24

#11

Lulze

OOO has control over how much or how little they make..

It should be obvious to them (and im sure it is), if they want to make more money, they should put more work into new content, otherwise they can coast along with the same old same old.

I like to compare this game's business model with TF2, currently both heavily based on cosmetics. We both have a "key and crate" gambling system going on, but this works better if you give the players things they believe are worth gambling for, greater incentive to pay real money.

Spiral knights is different than tf2 in that the whole energy system has alot going on compared to TF2 keys, but thats not the topic of this discussion.

Anyways my point is, im sure they didnt expect to make big bucks off of the sapphire crates, and id go so far as to claim they planned to not make big profits this time around.

Thu, 09/10/2015 - 03:59

#12

Vohtarak-Forum

@holy

we really need new reskins from existing armor, I agree
especially hallow skelly and demo, I want something that doesnt look weird with my jack o' bombhead mask

Thu, 09/10/2015 - 12:21

#13

Hennils

My part:

@GU stuff
They did use part of it in the Slime Boxes.

@topic
I'd just guess, the people are fed up with boxes. Especially those, which mostly feature recolors of stuff that is already available in fifteen other themes.

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Theory: Why the Sapphire boxes didn't do well