Planetarion Forums - View Single Post

zPeti · 14 Oct 2009, 14:35

Hi Everyone,

Just thought I would update everyone on what is going on at the company that owns Planetarion.

I will soon be in a position to employ some people in the company, which is a position that will help greatly in the future of Planetarion.

The whole Facebook idea is not forgotten, it is just a much bigger job than I anticipated at the beginning, especially as I am a one man team with lots of other tasks too.

Anyway, my thoughts on Planetarion right now are this:

The overriding view I have is that currently the game is in a state in which it is extremely difficult to expand it with new players, while at the same time it is pretty successful with the current players, who I do not want to lose at any cost.

Now, I definitely want to take the game in the Facebook direction in the next 2-3-4 months, but this poses many problems. The casual Facebook user won't really want to play a big game like Planetarion that requires quite a lot of commitment. At the same time it might be a good for advertising. The way I see it there are two options (or both).

1. I create a smaller, simpler separate game for Facebook, which would probably be one of the first space based games on Facebook. The concepts would be very similar to the current Planetarion, but it would be a stand-alone smaller game. However, it would advertise the game and probably bring in the players from Facebook who like the small game and want more.
In short, it would build the Planetarion brand, and also players who don't play it any more might want to play the simpler version.

2. We go down the Planetarion-Facebook interface route, PA will stay very similar but will have a few tools available on Facebook, you will also be able to post status updates to Facebook. This would also be a good advertisement, but in terms of actual player numbers, there would probably be less of an expansion.

(3. The third option is to make major changes to the main game, but I don't want to go down this route and lose a lot of current players).

At this point I also want to mention some ideas that PA Team had, another possibility is to run the speedgames on Facebook, which might work much better as they are short but might get people familiar with PA.

At this point I also want to thank the whole PATeam for getting this far with me so far, their work has basically made it possible for PA to keep running, and I really do appreciate this. Especially as now I am in a more and more confident position to take things forward. Thanks for all your hard work.

14 Oct 2009, 14:35	#1
zPeti Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 87	Plans Hi Everyone, Just thought I would update everyone on what is going on at the company that owns Planetarion. I will soon be in a position to employ some people in the company, which is a position that will help greatly in the future of Planetarion. The whole Facebook idea is not forgotten, it is just a much bigger job than I anticipated at the beginning, especially as I am a one man team with lots of other tasks too. Anyway, my thoughts on Planetarion right now are this: The overriding view I have is that currently the game is in a state in which it is extremely difficult to expand it with new players, while at the same time it is pretty successful with the current players, who I do not want to lose at any cost. Now, I definitely want to take the game in the Facebook direction in the next 2-3-4 months, but this poses many problems. The casual Facebook user won't really want to play a big game like Planetarion that requires quite a lot of commitment. At the same time it might be a good for advertising. The way I see it there are two options (or both). 1. I create a smaller, simpler separate game for Facebook, which would probably be one of the first space based games on Facebook. The concepts would be very similar to the current Planetarion, but it would be a stand-alone smaller game. However, it would advertise the game and probably bring in the players from Facebook who like the small game and want more. In short, it would build the Planetarion brand, and also players who don't play it any more might want to play the simpler version. 2. We go down the Planetarion-Facebook interface route, PA will stay very similar but will have a few tools available on Facebook, you will also be able to post status updates to Facebook. This would also be a good advertisement, but in terms of actual player numbers, there would probably be less of an expansion. (3. The third option is to make major changes to the main game, but I don't want to go down this route and lose a lot of current players). At this point I also want to mention some ideas that PA Team had, another possibility is to run the speedgames on Facebook, which might work much better as they are short but might get people familiar with PA. At this point I also want to thank the whole PATeam for getting this far with me so far, their work has basically made it possible for PA to keep running, and I really do appreciate this. Especially as now I am in a more and more confident position to take things forward. Thanks for all your hard work.