26 replies to this topic

[Lupus Aurelius]

Agent of Change, on 21 November 2012 - 07:59 AM, said:

On average a lot more than that, but it is spread out among multiple hobbies and pass times. The point is while the 16-20 demo is attractive for revenue generation it is rarely a sustainable business model for ongoing profits.

As was stated before 'general gamers' jump on the new hotness coming down the pipe much like MWO players jump on the new mech chassis, the difference being there is so much 'new hotness' coming down the road at any given tiem that it becomes easier to just pick up the newest and leave the past int he past.

Really there are two overall general archetypes for long term profits when dealing with an ongoing product:

New Player cash infusion: This business model focuses on pulling in new players to get their initial (usually the larget they will make at one time) investment. Once you have their money the first time you aren't worried about player attrition because you are focused on simply bringing in more new players. The advantages of this are big chunks of revenue but it is incredibly swingy and tends to cluster around 'content releases'. Downsides include continually lowering the bar to 'open it up' to wider and wider audiences, this of course inevitably alienates the people who invested prior to each 'adjustment' to bring new people in. This Model usually also focuses on the young who will in their exuberance blow their own money or parents money getting involved.

Cultivated Community Revenue Stream: This model lives on the other side of the spectrum it focuses less on hordes of new players and more on creating an environment that keeps a player around and paying once they decide to invest. Monetarily this is generally less big spike and more of a steady reliable stream of money. This is what many subscription models were based on and it is possible in F2P if done right. This model however has limitations, by focusing on a core audience to keep and hold, the overall 'accessibility' is reduced, there becomes a barrier to entry which will alienate some potential new players much as the other model alienates existing players. this model tends to focus on older people who will budget and invest in something but only if it maintains the standards they expect.

Now I am partial to the latter because I largely see it as a divide between creating a gaming experience worth having and a watered down cash grab. I think that teh best model lies somewhere between these two, but it does mean narrowing your intended audience to something less than 'everybody everywhere' and trying to avoid driving you most staunch supporters away.

Thank you, exactly the point I was making, and a cogent summation.

[Mercules]

Ritter Cuda, on 21 November 2012 - 07:40 AM, said:

all reliaive, how much do you spend a week on entaintment? They spend over 100 dollars on avg.

Yes, but it is very unlikely that they spend $100 on one video game whereas I have seen a late 30s person spend at least $50 a week on a game that had microtransactions in it. His thought was that $50 a week keeping him out of the bar several night that week saved him about $150 dollars as he would easy spend $200 in those nights at the bar.

[AvatarofWhat]

Ritter Cuda, on 21 November 2012 - 07:40 AM, said:

all reliaive, how much do you spend a week on entaintment? They spend over 100 dollars on avg.

I would like to see where you get your statistics on this. Regardless like it has been said before how much of that is going towards a single online game? Maybe your parents were rich or something but over 100 dollars a week on average when most teenagers don't even work a job? right...

Show some proof that teenagers on average spend over 100 dollars a week on online gaming or get out.

[Triggerhippy]

Fantastic post!

well said that man!

applause applause

[Fugu]

I only disagree about the third group. You describe gamers who aren't specifically here because it has the MW label but just for a good game as ******* which is, in general, not true.

MW:O isn't complicated at all. It is, currently, a lot like CoD. You set up your loadout, join a game and shoot the other team.
It just looks a lot more complicated because the mechlab is a convoluted mess. Why have three different menues for loadout, modules and visual thingies? It's really uncomfortable.

Also, nothing is labeled and nothing is explained besides that one video. In the actual game almost nothing is ever explained.
It's basic polishing and most games have that when they become avaible to the public masses. Not having those things is just setting up unneccessary hurdles.
"Beta" is not an excuse for that. You want people to play your game and you want people to understand your game. It's not up to them to gather all the basic information that they must (setting weapon groups, how to target, what things do) know to play the game, it's up to the people who made the game to give that information to them as easily as possible.

People get a tiny window with a confusing mechlab and no explanations at all and I can't blame them if they think that MW:O is some super complicated Eve-style micromanage thing when it's really just CoD with 'Mechs.


PS:
I don't use CoD as an example in a demeaning way. It's just a nice example how you can have customization with leveling structured in a way that really everyone understands it at first glance without tons of sub-menues. It's a tad more shallow but would look equaly confusing if it were structured like the mechlab.

[Coolant]

however, if that dependable base is only a couple thousand people, you cannot support a company or it's employees let alone a game with all the expensive hardware needed...

OP you pointed out that PGI needed to find a balance, and yet you are obviously biased toward a certain group of the community...a group that may or may not be able to financially support the game

[Agent of Change]

Coolant, on 21 November 2012 - 12:34 PM, said:

however, if that dependable base is only a couple thousand people, you cannot support a company or it's employees let alone a game with all the expensive hardware needed... OP you pointed out that PGI needed to find a balance, and yet you are obviously biased toward a certain group of the community...a group that may or may not be able to financially support the game

The problem is that they try to keep the fans who are here for Mechwarrior and draw people in without overly reducing the complexity or challenge in the game. Case in point 3rd person view, they have recently said we over-reacted and the decsion hasn't been made, but the my end they are sure acting like it's a forgone conclusion that it will be made. Now it seems like a minor thing on the surface, add 3rd person to help newbs... noble even.

Except for two things there are other better ways to ease the learning curve that have not been tried and...

this is the big one for people like me...

If they can go back on one of the few things the were pretty emphatic about as a bedrock aspect of core game play (an immersive, in cockpit, first person view) even a little then they are saying that nothing about this game is fixed and anything can be changed on a whim. And to do it now with a negative reaction outstripping even that of the first OB kerfuffle, especially when significant amount of time has been put forth into better solutions, would show they have more interest in driving towards any audience at the expense of game play and their dedicated fans. And it would make clear the lack of fore-site possessed by the driving forces to create a system that would take an already forcefully split player base (premie and pug) and further divide it into quarters by view mode. Furthermore i don't believe it's necessarily the devs driving the decisions that many of us see clearly as bad for the game we signed up to support, but regardless of the devs desire if the money people can push the game into something that is no longer what i signed up for the result is the same.

For my part I had always said that I didn't get the legendary founders package because I only wanted one mech but i would more than make up the difference when there was something worth investing in. there is about to be, but i find myself hesitant to put more money into the game until i know whether they are going to violate one of the specific things that convinced me to invest in the first place, i've had 60 bucks worth of entertainment so i won't want a refund but whether I invest more depends very strong on the direction that the game goes ala the OP's post.