Why did Planetarion fall ?

[clau777]

Perhaps I'm repeating other threads but I cba to read all the thousands of threads on the forums so please bare with me .
I began playing Pa at the end of r3 . It was great what can i tell you , thousands of planets , millions of ships it was a show to watch . But now there are far more few players in PaX . Why ? Pa became p2p ? I don't think that everyone really quit because of that . Why would you pay for something when its free somewhere else ? I'm talking about pa clones . Imho i believe that is what made PA fall , plus some minor cases of real life etc . PaX is more challenging than the previous rounds , I like it and I think most of the players do . Can't Spinner & Co. do something about those pa clones ? Sue them ffs and get all those players back !


P.S. : excuse my English pls and note i am bored

[Freedom]

Hmm I run a pa clone and a totally different game ( no i aint gonna advertise it).

The logic behind pa clones and weather they are sueable is very erm grey to say teh least. You can't sue someone for using a few game ideas such as space roids and ships, but you can sue if they use images and exactly teh same storyline etc.

To sum it up, its a waste of money to try and sue PA Clones, you wouldn't get anywhere. The only way you could close a PA clone is to ask the owner nicely =D

[Tomkat]

I logged into ******** at a mate's house after a club last night for 2 secs, and one of his friends was watching the screen. He said "oh, I've played something like that, it was good" "Planetarion?" "yeah, that's right" "why don't you play any more?" "i'm not paying for game like that on the net".

When I first thought about it, it seemed a stupid idea to pay for it too. Then I spoke to someone in a channel and he went "Well, the way I think of it, it's the price of a couple of pints. And it is about 3 months of entertainment".

The actual money isn't a problem for most people. It is the idea of paying that made it unpopular. When asking people to pay, PA should have encouraged them by comparing the price with other things (That is: one pack of cigarettes, 2 pints, the price of a takeaway pizza, etc etc). It helps put things into perspective.

[clau777]

Originally Posted by Freedom

Hmm I run a pa clone and a totally different game ( no i aint gonna advertise it).

The logic behind pa clones and weather they are sueable is very erm grey to say teh least. You can't sue someone for using a few game ideas such as space roids and ships, but you can sue if they use images and exactly teh same storyline etc.

To sum it up, its a waste of money to try and sue PA Clones, you wouldn't get anywhere. The only way you could close a PA clone is to ask the owner nicely =D

The storyline belongs to Planetarion(I think) . They should have kept their rights reserved . If its about ships , and roids ,and buildings ...come on what do you understand when u say pa clone ? something thats like the original...only a few names being changed and a few addons to tech tree and stats but it follows the same main idea of Planetarion .

[Freedom]

I think tomkat just hit the nail on the head. People weren't looking at the price in the correct perspective. Although your examples are somewhat inaccurate there ecactly what i woudl have done.

Play PA for 3 months, for the price of 3-4 pints, 2 cinema tickets, 1 pizza (from pizzahut). In fact you could encourage people to put 10p into a jar every day for 3 months and at the end of the round they woudl have enough money to pay for the next round =)

[Dave]

Kindly dont blame the so called 'clones' for Planetarions fall.

I made ******** because of P2P, I wanted to offer an alternative, and I wanted the fun to remain in one way or another.

But the thing that gave ******** its biggest influx of players is very simple.
PaX
Over 1000 players came to us due to seeing PaX and leaving Planetarion.

So it would be more accurate to say that Spinner caused Planetarions downfall, as both P2P and PaX were his actions.

[Killerbij]

I agree with Tomkat; any marketing they should have done (and can still do for a possible PAXI) should have revolved around the time you spend at the game and how much it costs compared to other things. Maybe even calculate the price per second of several other things and put it on an add

Without decent consumer marketing (and I never saw anything decent yet) PA is doomed now and in the future.

[Freedom]

Clau777 thats the problem though you see, PA has IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) over certain aspects of the game such as the rigid storyline - whcih none of us know anymore anyways. but they cant take credit for things like the ship names that use the names of swords, or even the idea of asteroids as they are part of science. What they can take credit for is anything origional they have created, and that stretches as bout as far as images.

An EXACT clone would be in worse ground than teh standard pa clones. If they were to immitate the game exactly then they would be much mor eeasily sueable - but it woudl stil be costly and if the owner of the game is anythign liek the majority of the owners of clones, they don't have much money so it would be pretty pointless.

[clau777]

Maybe Spinner got bored of planetarion . Got all rich on the p2p rounds and he decided its time to quit

[Karmulian]

ofc stab in the dark there would be less pa clones were PA free

[Lerxst]

I just state here what reasons my friends who quit had:
- p2p
- no fun anymore with the r5/7/9 style to "play"
- too time-consuming for "real" people
- now play better online-games
- the playerbase of PA are either dumb children or ego-inflaters with no brain

As said - the reasons I were told by approx. 20 ppl who quit. Not to be generalized but maybe a "hint".

[Hurragutten]

One of the reasons is the game it self.
Coming into this game as a newbie is almost impossible. If you don't know a person that can get you into one of the major alliances your screen will be blood red every single day. Not much fun starting a new game that way.

Random gals could in fact help newbies get to know better players

[clau777]

Originally Posted by Hurragutten

Random gals could in fact help newbies get to know better players

new players are usually inactive and exiled from the so called active galaxies . so they end up in a shitty gal with other newbies and stop liking the game due to 24/24 red screen

[mens]

Originally Posted by clau777

Maybe Spinner got bored of planetarion . Got all rich on the p2p rounds and he decided its time to quit

he'd probably punch you in the face if you told him this

[pablissimo]

Paging W to thread 170927.

Game hasn't evolved...changing times...non-specific userbase...superior alternatives...yadda yadda yadda

[clau777]

Pfft PA Team members are quitting too ....I begin to think more and more that Spinner is bored with it

[GReaper]

Whoever is comparing it to the price of a pizza and other various things, why don't you compare it to some other games? Most MMORPG/FPS games offer 3 months of play for usually about £20-25, these games are fairly unique and offer a different experience. Compare that to £10 for a basic web based game which you can easily get for free elsewhere, why bother? Why waste the money when theres plenty of choice available?

People don't want to play a game with hardly any other players. Newbies don't want to pay for a game where they have no chance unless they're in an alliance.

[Leshy]

It's way too simple to attribute Planetarion's decline to one single reason. As this thread shows, there are a lot of different causes and effects that have caused the playerbase to diminish. A few points worth touching upon in my opinion:

• The Spinner Factor
  First of all, Spinner has not grown bored with the game, and he certainly hasn't grown rich out of it. Anyone claiming either of these is completely clueless.
  Having said that, he has also made mistakes over the course of the game during it's 3 years. Missing deadlines, paying too little attention to good suggestions, maybe being too far away from the community (although that's what Zeus was for), things like that.
  
• The Payment Factor
  As has been pointed out, the idea of having to pay for something on the web is still a big barrier for people, especially when they can get the same thing for free somewhere else (eg one of the many clones). The fact that they are not getting the same thing (read: A relatively big universe (I reckon the clones aren't having bigger universes than a few k players, something even PA didn't reach until round 8-9) running for months with players and alliances playing seriously, a rather good community) doesn't get through to them, so they never look beyond the game they're playing (no offense to the clones).
  
• The PaX Factor
  PaX was a rather big change for Planetarion. The issue that PA never really developed was tried to address, as well as build a solid base for a game that could be expanded upon and improved over time. The old Planetarion had everything bolted onto it, stickytaped into the code and held together with a bit of cellotape, so to speak. An attempt was made to both make the game easier to get into for newbies, as well as expand the standard options of build ships, steal roids, sit on roids growing away from the rest of the universe, win round.
  The reason a good many players left, was because in my opinion, people tend to not like change. They've grown used to something, and if it's different, it's not the same and thus bad, as well as a good opportunity to head off into RL. Another amount of people will have quit because PaX really had no appeal to them, which is fair enough. The crux of the problem lies in the fact that there was no influx of new players at all. A rather hefty ?15 price, combined with only a 2-week trial period and a universe of players constantly roiding anyone who joins in, don't make for an appealing incentive to join. In addition, Jolt hasn't made much of an effort for PA either, other than an ad in PC Zone - but try finding a link to Planetarion anywhere on their own site, for example.

There's probably a dozen more reasons why PA is at the point where it is now, but these were a few things I wanted to mention.

[pablissimo]

You broke your list. No[/list]tag old bean.

[Ta. Fixed. -Leshy]

[Coffee]

Originally Posted by clau777

I'm talking about pa clones . Imho i believe that is what made PA fall , plus some minor cases of real life etc . ... Sue them ffs and get all those players back !

Sue them for producing a better, cheaper product? Are you an idiot enough to think anyone should be allowed to own an entire genre that they didnt even create through over active litigation? no wonder the world is a mess if thats how people think!

I like diversity, and if pa goes under its their own fault, nobody elses.

[clau777]

first of all you are the idiot Coffee .
second of all is your tiny little brain aware of copyrights ?what diversity ? changing the names of some ships and constructions etc ? adding or substracting some points to shipstats makes a game different ? its the same main idea , same storyline !

[ParraCida]

In my opinion planetarion lost its player count by going P2P, now, that should not have been a problem. The first round of p2p was 23k planets and was making a profit for the creators. The problem ofcourse being that due to massive CC frauding they ended up having to pay 30k dollar back to the credit card companies. This in return lead to not being to advertise to get new players, ie 'invest' in your product. Players kept leaving, as players do, but because of the lack of a sufficient free trial or advertising there were little new players in comparison.

In the end it only had an accelerating effect, the less people played each round, the more people quit the round after. Because, in planetarion, more people equals more fun. This ofcourse is just my opinion, I know lots of people think otherwise, but if I had to make an educated guess, this is it

[Dave]

Originally Posted by clau777

first of all you are the idiot Coffee .
second of all is your tiny little brain aware of copyrights ?what diversity ? changing the names of some ships and constructions etc ? adding or substracting some points to shipstats makes a game different ? its the same main idea , same storyline !

That my dear sir would be a patent.

Planetarion do not own a patent of online web based space game.

[berten]

Reason is easy: p2p was the start of it

it cut us back in r5 from 180k --> 25k (if i remember correctly)
now there' sno problemt here really
25k planets was very playable and tehre were more then enough people out there.

But now comes the problem:

half of universe got bashed r5. Now if i hadn't been me i would've quit after r5. not gonna pay for a game where i had allmost no fun last round xcept for the first night of incs and the revolt.

we lost half of players in r5 again, i think mainly cause of that reason,
and liket hat it continues.

Players will not pay if they didn't have fun round before. Easy.


Then there's the newbie factor,
for a game to survice u need new input of players,
but i don't htink anyone will pay for a game they didn't even play yet.

Giving em a free univsers where there are 1/100 active planets ain't fun, so they won't pay.

Imo the free planets like in r6 were best solution for this, let em turn around int he real universe, where all the fighting is happening.

Then tehre's the alliance factor (also newbie point there). Nobody in the big alliances will recruit a newbie (unless maybe personal friend or summit) and the small alliances that will recruit em aren't int he big picture of planetarion. Hence newbie's that did get to play will get bashed anyways adnt hen quit

Imo those are the 3 main problems

btw lo clau777 how's life these days?

Berten
Ðragons

[Noodles]

At the end of the day P2P probably was at the source of the problems... But I agree, the PA Clones out there certainly do not help. I know many people that have got bored between rounds of Planetarion and started to play one of the many clones out there. Only they never came back...

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by clau777

same storyline !

Story-line? What story-line?

The only "story" I've ever been aware of in Planetarion is one contributed by the players. Alliance, rivalries, etc.

I despise the idea of intellectual property anyway, but my bias aside - why should Planetarion have to sue everyone in sight? If PA Clones can run for "free" then why can't PA? Planetarion has a massive advantage over the clones since it was first (sort of).

Should Altavista sue Google out of existence? Should Google sue AllTheWeb? Etc.

PA fell because it just wasn't worth it on a lot of levels. The game is horrible for newbies (bashed to hell, no targets, massive investment of time needed, etc). For the hardcore it's worth playing while there is at least some targets left. The decline was inevitable after P2P, sadly.

As for PAX, this is the first round I haven't bought an account since P2P started (I think). Why? I haven't really looked into it that much, but it seems a little too complicated to bother with. The funnest rounds (for me) were the ones with the most simple stats. Same with other game genres. The more balanced RTS seem to get, the more boring they seem. Obviously there are exceptions (Starcraft springing to mind) but they seem to thrive on simplicity (with depth in strategy being available).

[Coffee]

Originally Posted by clau777

first of all you are the idiot Coffee .
second of all is your tiny little brain aware of copyrights ?what diversity ? changing the names of some ships and constructions etc ? adding or substracting some points to shipstats makes a game different ? its the same main idea , same storyline !

you have no idea about planetarion, its history, development, my involvement, patents, copyright law, the technical details behind such a game and where it came from, let alone how it fell, where its going and the ramifications of granting patents/copyrights on 'browser based space game', which if possible, we would all be playing pong still (which was my original point about your fanboy rantings).

My point was if spinner were to 'ban clones' all we would have is planetarion, there would be no incentive for them to improve it, charge a proper price for it or actually try to improve things. not that they do but thats a moot point. without diversity there is no competiton, without competition there is no development and when you dont have development you have a stagnant, boring game.

Evolve or die*.

Or 'evolve or litigate' as appears to be so common today.

[Coffee]

And for the record clau, i know your a troll, i just wanted to clarify for everyone elses benifit.

[Tomkat]

Oh shut up Coffee. Why can't you contribute productively to a thread without resorting to insulting people?

[Opus]

p2p did the trick...but this is by no means fault of the creators. The cost for playing PA for 3 months is extremelly cheap...the problem is people that want things the "easy way" (aka cheap).

But PAX might be the final blow...the game changed way too much. I did preffer the old style game.

By the way...I am in a mid-size alliance...and got bashed and roided every day...but still prefer R5-R9,5

[Coffee]

Originally Posted by Tomkat

Oh shut up Coffee. Why can't you contribute productively to a thread without resorting to insulting people?

He said spinner should sue anyone who had created a clone as an attempt to bring planetarions customers back. He then called me an idiot for not understanding 'copyright law', which doesnt even remotely apply. Then we have the whole fact that Planetarion is based on Utopia, which is, you guessed it, a browser based game with a real-time slant.

Suggesting the wide scale litigation of every single clone as a 'viable' way to bring back playerbase is one of the most retarded suggestions i've ever heard, simply due to the prior art, the total lack of patents even if there was no priors, the sheer logisitcs of suing successfully several dozen clones spread across the world, not to mention the massive customer backlash, boycott, sheer cost and ddos that would follow such a move.

Do you actually think his 'success through litigation' idea is a good thing?

[Tomkat]

I'm not commenting on how valid clau's argument is.

It is possible to have a discussion (even a heated one) without insulting people and calling them idiots or morons though. It bring the tone of the thread right down.

[Coffee]

Originally Posted by Coffee

Are you an idiot enough to think anyone should be allowed to own an entire genre that they didnt even create

• I didnt call him an idiot, i brought to light the idiocy of his statement
• he called me an idiot not the other way round
• you cant expect to spout such rubbish without being called on it, surely?

And as far as copyright law goes, i own the copyrights (or most of) on the rd2-3 gfx, so a clone could probably use them with impunity as i probably wouldnt sue. Now defend your point, as is the purpose of discussion, or stop typing.

[Scoot951]

Originally Posted by Tomkat

I'm not commenting on how valid clau's argument is.

It is possible to have a discussion (even a heated one) without insulting people and calling them idiots or morons though. It bring the tone of the thread right down.

There's nothing wrong with calling someone stupid, when they actually say something stupid.

[clau777]

1. I apologise for calling names to whoever
2. I DO NOT SPEAK PERFECT ENGLISH OR KNOW ALL THE WORDS IN IT ! ...therefor "That my dear sir would be a patent."
I apologise for not knowing all the English vocabulary , I just tried to express myself how i knew best
3. This thread is not about sueing clones ! It is just about the reasons that made planetarion what it is today ! The part about pa clones is just an opinion and one of the reasons !

Now .. Cofee I don't believe you know me , unless you are a friend of mine under a fake nick . So a smart fellow like you should know someone before calling him names ! that goes for you too Scoot951 ! I don't expect everyone to agree to my opinion , but at least reply in a civilised way and express your believes !

Finnaly I think this thread is degenerating so ppl focus to the title of it "Why did Planetarion fall ?"

[pablissimo]

Originally Posted by clau777

1. I apologise for calling names to whoever
2. I DO NOT SPEAK PERFECT ENGLISH OR KNOW ALL THE WORDS IN IT ! ...therefor "That my dear sir would be a patent."
I apologise for not knowing all the English vocabulary , I just tried to express myself how i knew best
3. This thread is not about sueing clones ! It is just about the reasons that made planetarion what it is today ! The part about pa clones is just an opinion and one of the reasons !

Now .. Cofee I don't believe you know me , unless you are a friend of mine under a fake nick . So a smart fellow like you should know someone before calling him names ! that goes for you too Scoot951 ! I don't expect everyone to agree to my opinion , but at least reply in a civilised way and express your believes !

Finnaly I think this thread is degenerating so ppl focus to the title of it "Why did Planetarion fall ?"

There's a very significant difference between a copyright and a patent, which is the source of the contention here.

[kyrealean]

the gameplay changes in Round 4 were the beginnings of the end for Planetarion.... they took a game that had good stats from Rd2-3 and made it utterly crap in round 4, with the usual stat changes in the middle of the round utterly screwing people that had built their fleets/planets round certain stats.

ofc P2P that came in Rd5 escalated the exodus of players from the game, and from there it has went nowhere but down.


oh and i was extremely bored to venture to these boards again lol been happily playing other games in my free time and its refreshing to not have to watch a gal status for hours on end, or all the other crap that went with PA

[Remy]

Well, on the economic point of view, the following:

Planetarion is a product, like other products. And its a game (yes a game, even if some won't believe it).

Most games in this world have a life span far shorter then PA has. But like every luxury good, ppl will enjoy playing it, then will start to get bored with it, and then drop it.

There are oc the other reasons (stupid changes, p2p, pravte/random, etc.) but i thginkits simple: ppl get over PA after a while and start another game.

My piece

[clau777]

i told you guys that Spinner got bored I don't believe a word about why he quit ( http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=171075 ) ! he got rich and left the game as it is now with noone that cares whats happening ! "Jolt didn't pay me " . come on u have a contract with them , there must be something you can do about it

[Lerxst]

Originally Posted by clau777

he got rich and left the game

"rofl"

[Pwhite]

I think that p2p was a good thing, as it got rid of 99% of the inactives and multis in the game. However when someone thinks about buying a game they think of graphics etc - not web pages.

Another reason for pas downfall in my view is that the game is very time consuming and hard to learn. PaX delt with how hard the game is upto a certain extent but nobody seemed to like it.

For a lot of active people planetarion is almost like a full time job to play which has prolly put a lot of people off.

[W]

The idea of suing someone over copying the mechanics of PA is not just idiotic, but outright ludicrous, and worthy of severe mocking. It shows a total lack of insight into intellectual property rights, no understanding of PA's history, and an overly optimistic view of how much money jolt has to throw away on joke lawyers.

That being said, I can think of a couple of reasons for planetarions downfall

• Spinners economic sense
• The optimism and general lack of skills of the coders of the game
• The game theory understanding of Spinner and those with influence over Spinner and game design
• Zero loyalty to any and all individuals of the game, singly or collectively
• A general lack of intelligence and ability to keep the fact hidden amongs those doing PA PR
• The faulty idea that someone can run a web based game as a full time job and actually earn money without being on the absolute top of the line
• Spinner

Been a while since i've been on the forums ..... and just had to re-register ... wh000 h0000000

but .....................

anyone thought of the phrase " flogging a dead horse " ?

[Knight Theamion]

By clau's reasoning I own the copyrights (partially) on the races since r6.



heh

And by most people that were aware of the 'original' r6 stats, those stats saved the game for a few rounds (also partially, but well)

heh heh

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by clau777

i told you guys that Spinner got bored I don't believe a word about why he quit ( http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=171075 ) ! he got rich and left the game as it is now with noone that cares whats happening ! "Jolt didn't pay me " . come on u have a contract with them , there must be something you can do about it

Heh. Have you ever made it out into the real world? The reasons spinner stated are the reasons why he's leaving PA. I pity you if you think this has been some masterful ploy by him to get money out of the game. Despite what anyone says spinner has put more time, energy and money into this game that he got out of it.

[Backbone]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Despite what anyone says spinner has put more time, energy and money into this game that he got out of it.

and that is probably why planetarin fell. It became too serious, especially for spinner and the other creators. That lead to the delaying of the end when it became not profitable and maybe good ideas to make it profitable where ignored.

If you like something too much it can be as bad as infernal hate.

[Merlin]

Originally Posted by clau777

first of all you are the idiot Coffee .
second of all is your tiny little brain aware of copyrights ?what diversity ? changing the names of some ships and constructions etc ? adding or substracting some points to shipstats makes a game different ? its the same main idea , same storyline !

I guess then the the people that wrote and coded Tradewars & Tradewars 2000 could be within thier rights to sue Spinner and all. I played Tradewars back in the BBS days before the internet and long before Planetarion. PA is just a clone of that and other early space games.
Please don't be so lame as to assume Spinner created this genre of game because that is far far away from the truth. The fact is like Microsoft, Spinner was in the right place at the right time with a free product that people wanted. Now others have that free product and are attracting the same PA players. I should know I am playing both this crummy pax, and one of the most well known clones. Most of the PA community are playing that other game. Truthfully I expect Spinner to take the time to get a decent paying job and hopefully learn from his mistakes and come back with a Planetarion / PAX cross that will attract old and new players alike. As other have hosted free games so will he. Remember I posted this when it happens, I don't want you lamers claiming you said it

[Ohm]

1. Irresponseble leaders that didnt do a good enough job preventing :
2. Cheating
3. Blocks

[clau777]

I bet this is it for Pa , no PAXI , have fun while you can

[Gerbie]

Originally Posted by W

The idea of suing someone over copying the mechanics of PA is not just idiotic, but outright ludicrous, and worthy of severe mocking. It shows a total lack of insight into intellectual property rights, no understanding of PA's history, and an overly optimistic view of how much money jolt has to throw away on joke lawyers.

That being said, I can think of a couple of reasons for planetarions downfall

• Spinners economic sense
• The optimism and general lack of skills of the coders of the game
• The game theory understanding of Spinner and those with influence over Spinner and game design
• Zero loyalty to any and all individuals of the game, singly or collectively
• A general lack of intelligence and ability to keep the fact hidden amongs those doing PA PR
• The faulty idea that someone can run a web based game as a full time job and actually earn money without being on the absolute top of the line
• Spinner

The first could relate to 2 things:
1. signing a work contract disabling him to support his family.
2. Making a worse quality product for a higher price and expect sales to increase.
1. should have been fixed. The fact that Jolt let Spinner leave doesn't make sence unless they believe he's not worth a good salary and rather hire someone else to take his place.
2. should be fixed too. Though it's being worked on.

The second comment. Optimism is not bad as long as it's not unrealistic and you make sure you can overcome when things turn out bad. I have no complaints on the coding skills. You can't expect everything to go right from the start. It's the next point that's more to blame.

Game theory understanding is indeed a weak point. As they don't seem to understand the game they create things have to go clearly wrong before they correct it. If it's not an obvious failure they often don't correct it.

Blaming Spinner is no longer possible as he left, but the management on what to code has been wrong. Forums an passport should have come last. The game itself is the most important.