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.Quote:
Originally Posted by BeeJay
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trom
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lavenders2
If we go to a model where people pay $1.99 and say get the first month free, they would still have to sign up for the IAP sub to continue. The other issue is it would allow pirates to download the game and play for a month for free, since there is no real mechanic to see if you actually purchased the game.
Having the IAP subscription model from the start it allows us to have everything set up and running from the start and not have any issues with pirates. We have thought about having IAP where you can buy credits to play in a game, but that certainly won't be at the start.
I agree, I just feel this would lose a bunch of potential customers because they can't even really see/experience the game with paying for a subscription.
Maybe something like Lavenders2 said about getting a free game. Maybe they have access to like a "tutorial island" which is a single sector tutorial type of thing?
Is it possible to have a offer on launch where $1.99 will give you 2 months instead of one, and after two months pass, the real subscription model gets put out ($1.99 a month)? In other words, you will only get the 1 free month if you pay within the first two months of launch. That will encourage people who are on the ropes about deciding if the game is worth it more likely to say yes.
I like this idea, maybe with the purchase of the game at 1.99 you get a full games worth if over two months and if under get a full month's worth.
Like no matter when you purchase the game, not just launch
btw Lavenders i love your sig :P
Minecraft ftw!Quote:
Originally Posted by ksib
The problem with extending the free month deal is that people will delete the app, make a new account, and get half price again. By making it two months, you can only get the deal once
What about the people who want to buy it after the two months? They can only view trailers and hope that a friend already bought it if they are hesitant to purchase the game due to the subscription.
If you were hesitant on a game for 2 months, chances are you either never had the money in the first place, or by then you will lose interest. The only problem with extending the time of the offer is that people are going to take advantage of it. Zarksoft can't be getting just half the income on the game forever, that isn't fair on themQuote:
Originally Posted by ksib
What about people who live under a rock or something? But more seriously, what about someone who doesn't hear about it until much later? Yeah, it's a much smaller margin of people, but it is still large enough to be considered.
Whenever I am unsure if I want to buy a game or not, I read the reviews. The whole point of the initial price reduction is to convince people who are on the verge of getting the game to buy it early on. After two months, if people give out positive reviews for it, then those people are going to be more likely to buy the game. It's not like someone is going to buy the game at a cheaper price if they don't like the idea of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by ksib
This is true, I agree with you. I just find that a "demo" is always a better seller IMO.
I agree with you. The only way a demo that runs forever is going to work is where they don't get the full experience with their trial time. For a MMO like this where games are finite, I just can't see this working (unless you payed very little for the first month, but then you don't get the full experience).Quote:
Originally Posted by ksib
While in a perfect world it would be nice to have a problem like WoW... :) On a side note here are some of the logistics.. We are running a real server back end, not a fluffy web back end. We maintain connections to the game server while you are playing like any MMO. It costs quite a bit of money to maintain the servers. If we gave people the chance to play for free we could end up with tons of servers running at less than half capacity because someone didn't like the game. That wouldn't be good for anyone playing. All it would mean is people might drop from the game because their experience was bad or because no one else was playing in their game. Since they could only play one free game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lavenders2
In the worst case we end up being overwhelmed with free people vs paying customers, and then the paying customers have a bad experience because of lag, or not being able to get in decent games, due to the fact that there are a ton of free people playing.
Now that's not saying that we won't ever do something to open it up, but at this point in time it's something we decided not to offer. The other option would be to go freemium, but that is something we really have no desire to do. If people want to play or try the game, we figured for the price of a cup of coffee it's a pretty fair trade.
Maybe do a $1.99 for 2 months offer on a specific event (EG. Christmas, Haloween)? That way you will already have built up a fan base and have people who have already payed. You will also get some money anyway, so it should help support the servers during that time.Quote:
Originally Posted by zarkwizard
I think I still have to agree with Zark and friends on this one. $2 is not an outrageous price to pay to play the game and if you don't like the game after one month then I guess you will have to buy one less coffee that month to stay within budget. Protection from pirates is pretty important as that will keep a lot of the trolls out and will make the experience for the rest of us better.
My only concern is how many people you will be able to attract to come play the game. 4X games don't have the same kind of following as say FPS genres and I don't think this project is really all that well known yetvso some more advertisement or interviews on game sites would be helpful.
I also agree with Zark and Trom, if the game turns out as good as I expect it's going to be $2 a month is nothing.
Just a suggestion; Maybe it's possible to release a "lite" version of the game with a single-player mode against AI only? That way more people will give the game a shot and might subscribe for the full game when they like it. Also the servers won't be stressed as much with people trying out the game.
Edit: I see that this suggestion was already made, I will read threads more carefully from now on :o
Developing an AI is a ton of work. I don't think there's much "lite" about that :-)
I don't think selling a 4X game via iOS is going to be very hard. the iOS platforms are perfect for this an TBS games. on a PC/Mac it would be hard to sell this game, but you will pick up many 4X gamers as well as many MMO gamers with iOS that wouldn't otherwise play a 4X. A game like this has been waiting for a platform like this.