When I read the title for this video I figured it must be something to do with Jim having a stroke while writing it. Now I know about about whalers and now feel even better about playing those FTP games and never giving them a dime.
I'd say the issue with IW was that it was a little *too* polished. Had I any rank at the time I worked there, I would have argued we were release-ready five months before we actually released. Now the game sure did shine after an additional 5 months of polish; and we had a HUGE fanbase (for what we were), but making that money back just proved impossible; the spending just wasn't there. Then a lot of people (including me) were out on their asses. Could we have been saved if we had released early? I actually don't rightly know. It's quite possible that it was just *too easy* to not spend money on that game (there was many a heated meeting over that). The DAUs were rights, the DSPUs were right, but the almighty ARPDAU was all wrong.grimner said:senordesol said:*Sigh* Oh Jim. Your heart's in the right place, so I can't be mad at you.
I've been in the F2P industry for a while now, and I have to tell you: being up to date on monetization and retention techniques is crucial and invaluable. "Why not just make good games?" You may ask. "Take a look that the iOS 20 Top Grossing/Top Paid lists" would be my answer.
One company I used to work for, Idle Games, we spent more than a YEAR and a HALF crafting a heartfelt, painstaking, absolutely gorgeous Free to Play game (Idle Worship)(Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uhzflV8QFQ) Hand-drawn animation, total non-monetizing progression completely possible, lots of humor and spirit. It lasted less than a year. Now Idle Games only makes casino games.
This isn't to say that you have to completely lose your soul in order to be effective in the F2P market; but you have to be aware of *who* is buying, how much, where, and why. My studio would *LOVE* to make a classic-style RPG for the mobile phone (in fact, I had all sorts of ideas about how to do it when I came on to my company) but there's no apparent money in that. Those exist in the mobile market; but people just don't seem to be buying them.
So be as mad as you want that the F2P industry is rather cynical in terms of how it views its clientele but remember that consumer entertainment is a democracy, and everyone votes with their wallets.
I believe that you make some serious and extremely valid points that are somewhat unadressed throughout the thread.
I would ask you this, though: What do you think went wrong with the release of Idle Worship? An overtly generous f2p system? Were many people downloading the game? If so, were many people playing, yet not paying? How was the game received? Was it well marketed? Sorry for 3rd degreeing you, just trying to get a handle on that side of things and think on ald the things that can conceivebly go wrong.
But, insofar as Jim is arguing from the viewpoint of the consumer, I do inevitably empathise with his argument. And I do believe there is a fine line in earning a living and turning a profit from a product ( which obviously implies studying the market and find ways to engage buyers to your product) and actively treating that same consumer base as "whales" and using exploitative and ethically questionable systems. There's little excusing in the business practices of an EA, Crytek or Square Enix, to name 3 examples of major studioes dabbling in microtransactions (with the first two actually including them in full priced games), and even less excuse for seminars on dealing with the fallout of shady business practices rather than avoiding them in the first place.
No it's saddly worsetruckspond said:There was a distinct absence of mic drop in that episode. Maybe that's because I didn't purchase the expansion pack which adds said mic drop as well as a new character skin.
Seriously now: "Whales"? THAT's what they call their paying customers now? WHALES!? Anyone who uses that term to describe a paying customer can just f$&# right off!
Cookie for TF2, WoT, LoL, every F2P FPS ever, facebook games, GW2 I guess since it does fit but looking for something else, and WoWmajor_chaos said:I'll take a whack at it.MCerberus said:A cookie per game you identify from the lists.
Do I win?"Well you already gave us money. Enjoy the hats and free content."Hat Simulator 2012TF2
"You won't progress as quickly to the big iconic tanks, but whatever." World of Tanks?
"Then you'll just have to play the game to unlock more characters." Marvel Heroes or League of Legends
"We've been giving you free currency since you've been around since before f2p. You'll have an xp penalty though. Oh, and have all these free xp boosters." The Secret World or Tera Online
"You're only renting the guns. Also you can't have these guns that are better than yours." 99% of F2P FPSs
"You're done playing, see you in 12 hours where it turns out no progress was made but log in anyway or you'll get penalized." Dungeon Keeper or facebook games in general
"The first two zones are free. Have fun grinding trash mobs to be able to afford what's next. Also no being part of the economy. Can't have that." No idea -1 cookie ;_;
"You payed for the game, enjoy the cash shop." Guild Wars 2?
"We realize that having a new character on our subscription game means a lot of leveling, give us $60." World of Warcraft
OT: Wow. I'm not surprised the industry has a low opinion of consumers, I'm just surprised that they are this brazen about it.
Of course all the worst offenders were advertising companies and micropublishers, who are greedy bastards pretty much by nature. There's a few shameful devs though. Here's a list of games/devs to avoid. It's not completely exhaustive, but I eyeballed all the panel titles on the list and checked which ones were by actual game developers:DirgeNovak said:That was GLORIOUS.
I'd really like a list of people who gave those whale panels so I can never give them a penny ever again.
The problem is Candy Crush is actually fun (that is, when it does not crash on perfect score BEFORE it remmebers it so you have to try again). I actually played it before the whole king fiasco that made me delete it sicne i dont support shitty companies.senordesol said:Since Candy Crush started make $1.5M dollars a day.TheHeinousAnus said:Since when did making a fun game stop being the best marketing tactic?