Spiral Knights - The Forums Do Not Speak For The Playerbase: 'Free to Play and Pay 2 Win'

The Forums Do Not Speak For The Playerbase: 'Free to Play and Pay 2 Win'

8 replies [Last post]

Fri, 07/22/2011 - 13:32

Eruzei

LINK: http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/paying-to-win
[Warning: Some Profanity]

This is a great presentation on one dev company's learning experience regarding Free-to-Play, 'Pay 2 Win', and discovering who their playerbase really is (hint: it's not the majority of people raging on the message boards), and their surprising discoveries about what they -really- want. The speaker goes through the genesis of his team and his game, their logic is setting up their cash shop the way they did, and why they changed what they did WHEN they did. If you're interesting in the internal workings of game development, you will probably like this.

I figured some forumfolks would be interested in getting this insider's view in how a F2P game is set up and modified, seeing as how 'patch rage' has been quite a common thing around here for the past few updates. If anything, I think it may be enlightening to realize why 3R may seem to not be all that concerned about people rageposting about changes to the game on the messageboards here, a fact that I know frustrates many people.

Sat, 07/23/2011 - 20:14

Shoebox

Didn't think they could circumcise foresight.

I actually thought the guy was an idiot.

But oh well, now his crappy game has to compete with TF2.

Sun, 07/24/2011 - 15:19

Eruzei

Yeah, nothing says 'idiot'

Yeah, nothing says 'idiot' like taking a failing game and saving it, allowing it to grow and fund his team to take on new projects. Would've been smarter for him to just let the game die and lose their jobs, I guess.

Anyway, what I found most interesting was the data regarding:

1. How many people spend money in a F2P (90% never do)
2. The fact that a 'huge spender' is someone who pays just $20 over the course of their activity
3. How many people post on the forums/internet (barely any, although those who do tend to be the most passionate)
4. How few people actually ragequit over economy changes in a game (even those who claim they will)
5. The amount of money spent per active user that's needed to be profitable in a F2P (less than a dollar per player!)
6. Even though players scream about 'unfair advantages' in a Cash Shop, they'll eat it up like candy if it's offered
7. Gaming 'journalism' websites are basically regurgitated forum gossip, and not anything actually professional or substantive

In other words, despite a lot of the nerdrage directed towards 3R over the course of SK's life so far, they've apparently been doing the right things to try to fix profit and balance the ingame economy, number 1 of which is ignoring most of the screaming going on here over it, and only looking at the actual meta data from the players instead. In other words, the forum userbase here is a tiny speck in the overall player population, so it shouldn't surprise anyone when 'petition threads' and other such stuff here gets basically ignored by 3R.

Sun, 07/24/2011 - 18:52

NZBrony

Legacy Username

I played runescape for about

I played runescape for about 9 years too, just after RS2 came out of beta.
Never did really get into the whole let's complain about everything at every week's update deal, I read the forums and corrected people a few times, but for the most part I sat in game and discussed the update with people while using it and generally the feedback was positive.

If you've played RS and know about the whole PVP 2007 was best year ever and all that, you'll probably remember the riots and spamming on the forums. And yet, their online player numbers have grown steadily regardless of what the forums have said.
I mean jeez I remember when their online player numbers where 32000 at absolute peak time on a saturday in the middle of school holidays.
Now it's pretty much 10 times that.

Same deal here. Personally I would prefer to get UV's on my items myself, BUT I like the option of being able to OPTIONALLY roll for a UV on an item I made that turned out vanilla.
When I started out, I went ahead and bought some items on the AH that were vanilla because I had no CE. Now I am grateful that I can get a UV on their now upgraded versions with 100% certainty.

Sun, 07/24/2011 - 22:24

Shoebox

Yeah, nothing says 'idiot'

Yeah, nothing says 'idiot' like taking a failing game and saving it, allowing it to grow and fund his team to take on new projects.

Nothing says idiot like making press releases saying you'll never add something, worrying about bad press, then six months down the line after wasting millions of other people's money going '[screw] IT I'VE GOT NOTHING TO LOSE EXCEPT MY JOB' and doing it anyway.

Great plan.

Mon, 07/25/2011 - 17:05

Eruzei

"When I started out, I went

"When I started out, I went ahead and bought some items on the AH that were vanilla because I had no CE. Now I am grateful that I can get a UV on their now upgraded versions with 100% certainty."

Yeah, overall it's actually giving people the chance at a UV that would've been extremely difficult/cost prohibitive to obtain at all the old way. And really, the game needs crownsinks, or else inflation will continue to spiral (lol) out of control. Now folks have a reason to save up crowns after getting the gear they want. Whether it's enough to have a lasting effect on the economy, however, is still to be seen.

I find these kinds of developer presentations really interesting, since generally you rarely get hard info on stuff like player churn/activity and their buying habits/etc otherwise. Especially since the F2P model is still new in Western market, and there's only a handful of non-Facebook-type games that have been made especially for it (aside from Spiral Knights, and Battlefield Heroes, I only know of Wizard101, FreeRealms, and World of Tanks; if there are others I haven't heard about them).

Mon, 07/25/2011 - 18:05

Ecyrbb

look

Look there are things that make a game great and 3 rings will do what they must to do to get money and people rage about that but the truth is no matter how much they rage they still play the game and like it and the more people actually do pay the more development goes into this game and other great 3 rings games so is it really that bad that we have to pay tiny prices now and then. I personally am content with the game and i don't pay just cause i'm too lazy too. Also did you guys know this game right now is the #2 free to play browser game now right behind runescape. That means no matter how much they rage people actually LIKE this game.

Wed, 07/27/2011 - 10:16

Crimson-Cat

Fascinating

I found the linked video to be fascinating. It is interesting to see how developers of games like SK balance the need to make a profit with the desires of the players. I'm sure Nick and the other delevopers were having similar discussions a few months ago.

Thank you for posting it, Ecyrbb.

Wed, 07/27/2011 - 17:39

MadLordOfMlk

Legacy Username

I saw the (equivalent)

I saw the (equivalent) presentation at GDC, actually. It had a lot of pretty fantastic insight.

Actually, an important life lesson you can take away is that people will whine, complain, and moan a lot about things but they don't actually do anything beyond complain. It's the same thing whenever there's a change on Facebook, for example.

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The Forums Do Not Speak For The Playerbase: 'Free to Play and Pay 2 Win'