The more people that play the game, the more people are willing to spend to keep up with the flow, to fast track their way to the top. They will become involved with the community, more products will be on sale, more competition means more play time, and that means bonus points will be worth $1, and be sold for $1. Right now, they are worth 5c, and are being sold for $1 each because that point will not get you far up the ladder.
Like I said, the game I was administrating was not updating the game properly. They focused on the so-called "whales" and as soon as they got bored of not getting anything new, and also being alone in their whale world, they quit or found similar games. The game went under and actually shut down.
If they focused on investing money into the free-to-play side, they will see a high return. It will cost a bit of money in the start, but soon, people will want to spend a little bit of cash each to get above each other. Soon, it will stack up.
So, to say you can't see any income from non-payers is ridiculous. Players aren't stupid. When there are so many new players, it's in their nature to think "Ah, the game is growing. If I do not get a move on with my company/account, I will fall behind". Right now, I'm honestly lazy with my company. I'm in relatively high spots on the leaderboard, and I am only a few months old...
JustNash ...this isn't a charity. The guys that own this game run it to make money off it. That means they have to walk a tight rope and balance between generating revenue and keeping a significant player base (because that's the base for revenue).
That's what my manager thought. He shut the game down soon after it died.
JustNash Or that they invent sales of bonus items that bring them several 100$. It pays their bills, and imo the more they can make on a regular basis, the higher the value of their company, the more they'll do their best at looking after its future and the more means they'll have to come up with new stuff.
They "Invent" sales that bring them a tonne of cash... Tell me if I'm wrong, but that seems just greedy. I've seen about 200 of them this year. The whales eat them up.. Not even sure why, but ok. It's what they did to the game I was in, too. Instead of focusing on the players, they focused on the milking of "whales". I'm not saying this game will die, because it recovered once before - just like my game. But, there are so many times you can restart a heart with a defib. One day, it will get shut down, if the management team don't know what they are doing.
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JustNash Some suggest that user numbers are dropping fast. How can we tell? They have all the numbers to base decisions on.
I don't think they are necessarily dropping. I do think however it is not growing, at least not fast, especially with the silly updates that are being released. There are only so many times I can say "Like in the game I administrated..." but it's true: The management team there and the management team of Virtonomics are not dissimilar. I can only speak from experience. I had the numbers, I knew we had to act before it crashes, but the manager was not listening.
JustNash I trust they're quite good at what they do. Even if - obviously - I'm not always happy with what they do.
I also trust the bank robber that they are good at what they do, even if I'm not happy with it. These people are excellent at squeezing the last drop out of the players.
So, I love this game. It's a great creation, and well designed. It has a lot of potential, but step one of any online game, above all, is communication. |