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Girth Fillmore, on 14 December 2013 - 01:11 PM, said:
I don't understand the rage, really.
Ya, it's a lot of real money, but you're getting a bunch of mechs (with mechbays) and in the higher tiers, you're also getting premium time. Throw in some obscure fluff items as well, why not! The people that buy are the ones who want to support the game and companies monetarily. If you don't want to buy, don't buy.
I can laugh at the prices because I'm not going to be purchasing any of this stuff. I'm not mad that the packages are being offered. By the time the mechs are available for CBills, and assuming I'm still playing, I should have 250M or so to spend on whatever I want.
Ya, it's a lot of real money, but you're getting a bunch of mechs (with mechbays) and in the higher tiers, you're also getting premium time. Throw in some obscure fluff items as well, why not! The people that buy are the ones who want to support the game and companies monetarily. If you don't want to buy, don't buy.
I can laugh at the prices because I'm not going to be purchasing any of this stuff. I'm not mad that the packages are being offered. By the time the mechs are available for CBills, and assuming I'm still playing, I should have 250M or so to spend on whatever I want.
You inadvertently pointed out what people are so upset about.
Why would you be playing this game when those 'mechs become available?
I still drop, occasionally, but it's just... boring. Drop into the same map, with everyone running one or two optimized builds for each chassis (some of those chassis being tantamount to a handicap) - all for the sake of grinding up for C-bills to make 'mechs I've already bought and paid for competitive - on top of having to grind xp for them.
Sure - I can throw money at the inconveniences ... but even if I were to convert xp into gxp to level up a few mechs I see as being particularly interesting out of my Phoenix package.... what's that actually for?
Is the game really all that fun?
True - it's a game I -want- to be fun. It's a game I -want- to want to tell my friends about so that we can all drop in and play as a team... but the experience of the game has hardly changed in the past year - with most of the changes being tolerable at best and bad/destructive on the whole.
Don't get me wrong - I'm glad to see new maps coming, I'm glad to see new mechs coming.
But.... I can't help but feel as if all of those resources are a waste within the current game - and could be handled much better than they currently are.
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This a company and a game trying to remain a profitable business by offering their customers the option to purchase a product ahead of time. Sales like this allow them to operate in the F2P market and shows that they're looking at the game's long-term viability.
No, no... you're horribly, horribly confused.
GDC Vault - F2P the Wrong Way: Age of Empires Online
It's a somewhat long presentation - but there are some key highlights in there:
Business models do NOT equal Production Models. New player bases require an expansion of deeper features rather than a release of additional content that does little to enrich the gaming experience.
Established Titles CAN NOT HAVE A SOFT LAUNCH - a 'soft' launch is where a minimal game is 'launched' and expansions are added on little-by-little as interest grows. People come to established titles with expectations built based upon previous games in the series. Launching a minimal shell of a game and hoping to 'build it as you go' does not work. This is exactly what many of us were trying to tell PGI with regards to their launch date in October.
I am sure, if PGI even built themselves the capacity to see how many daily users are online (it wouldn't surprise me, at this point, if they do not have that capability), that PGI will notice an almost identical trend to that which is noted in the presentation. Releasing the Phoenix package did see a rallying of the community - I am sure. More players came back to see what the hubub was about, and revenues spiked (it did out-sell their expectations - and the Founders Package brought in 5 million dollars : http://www.google.co....57967247,d.aWc ) ... but that has already declined back down to more average pre-Phoenix numbers, I am sure.
The release of the Clans will reveal almost no gains in user activity.
The reason is because their production model is flawed (and I would argue, their business model is too).
They are not paying attention to the long-term success of this game. They have made probably close to $20M on a game that could have been developed with $1M. While I'm sure they've used creative accounting to over-bill for expenses and other such ways of making production look more expensive than it actually was (or needed to be) - the fact is that they are more than set to develop an impressive game.
Path of Exile was developed up to the release of its open beta with around $4M in developmental expenses - and when they launched their open beta, they launched with, easily, 50 hours of content, end-game content, complete leveling trees, complete game mechanics (that were only expanded upon through the open beta), etc.
I stopped playing that game for a while and returned to have to practically re-learn the game. Development on it was -very- fast.
And those guys built their own game engine from the ground up. They weren't building off of an established base like CryEngine.
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It's a video game, guys. Go outside, hug your loved ones and pets, and reflect on why you're so upset.
It's a business providing a service. Because of Intellectual Property Rights, Copy Rights, Trade Marks, etc - they currently hold a monopoly on this particular service that we really would like to see done justice.
