OK so Empire is being positions as an MMO, does this mean that you'll be looking at a monthly subscription model or a once of model?
Gotta pay for those servers and updates somehow right?
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OK so Empire is being positions as an MMO, does this mean that you'll be looking at a monthly subscription model or a once of model?
Gotta pay for those servers and updates somehow right?
Indeed. Something formal is coming. I know Lee has been busy interviewing with various gaming sites, and that question has come up. I'm not in a position to say anything. Pretty sure it'll be announced this week.
I'll bring it up today and see when they plan on making the announcement and I'll let you know.
2 bucks a month, right? Sounds reasonable.
Yea 24$ a year is pretty reasonable assuming the game is as good as I hope it will be. I am not a huge fan of the freemium model so this should make everyone pretty equal.
We aren't huge fans either. We spent a lot of time analyzing our costs and tried to determine what was the lowest we could go, while being able to pay for hardware, bandwidth, overhead etc.. We came up with the $2/mth. Compared to how easy it is to spend a ton of money on a freemium game, only to end up being bested by someone what was willing to spend more money, which forces you to spend more.. etc.. quickly becomes a vicious cycle.
The other thing is it seems like so many freemium games have no real end point.. Once you end up with several guys on top because they spent a huge sum of money it's impossible to beat them. For most of us here it was a frustrating model for a game. We wanted to play a game that was based on skill, not who was willing to spend more. I guess it's one of those fundamental philosophies..
Sure you can lose in the game, just like you can in Civ, Moo, StarCraft, WarCraft etc... hopefully people want to play again to get better at the game, and then perhaps have a shot at winning themselves.. At least you know if you lose, you can figure out what you did wrong, and improve on your game play for the next game. Rather than know you lost a ton of stuff because some guy spent $50.
That's what beta is all about.. See what the players think of the game, and if there is anything they think might make the game better so we can improve the play mechanics and the experience for them.
Just some thoughts..
That means all i have to do is go find
8 quarters or
20 dimes or
200 pennies or
50 nickels or
3 quarters, 5 dimes, 10 nickels, and 25 pennies or
ima stop now...
a month and go take it to coin star and turn it into a iTunes code redeem it and have it subtracted the next day, yay...
or sign up for PayPal :-(
yup, $2 seems completely reasonable for a month, i can spend that at the bar in half a second. However, i'm sure all the juvenile whiners will be trashing it on itunes. Comes with the territory I guess.
i guess us loyal beta testers will just have to shout louder :p
I agree with the subscription model, but why not make a special offer? That could help you get an audience, and if they like it, they might stay. Maybe the first game you play is free? That would give you a chance to experience the core game. WoW had the problem where it wasn't possible to experience the main attraction of the game without paying... and if they got there and still didn't like it, they wasted $15+ dollars.
I agree, a marketing gimmick would probably be the best way to go with it. Sell the app for $4 and include 2 months subscription free; that will give the people who can't work it out for themselves ($4 for 2 months subscription) a simple mechanic for trying the game.