The Future of PA(positiveOutlook)

[Qdeathstar]

Quite long, but an interesting read.

First, as i know i am a rather seedy character, meaning most have never noticed me before i have actually played since round three without much success, but still have had a good time. Nevertheless, as i watch PAs de-evolution from a simi-profitable game to a game without a profitable quarter in the near future, i ask. Why has this happend.

Well, as far as i can see, it stems from a continuing list of bad business decisions. Lets start from the very earliest encarnation of P2P, and the removal of advertising.

Although it is true that advertising revenue toward the end of the year 2000 began to fade, and the planetarion community was begging to feel the effects of a world-wide recession in the economies it negleted to seek new ways to bring the advertising revenue in. Things such as forced-clicking of banners and sent emails which contained revenue links. Im sure that this at the time might have caused mass-anger built up the in the planetarion community, and we may have indeed lost a percentage of our players who did not want to participate in the future of PA< but, it would have been less that the outrage of pricing.

When P2P was finally announced, the implementation was done poorly. Fearing that there would be a complete Revolt against the p2p they gave people a free option. This was a mistake. For one, the free option still cost PA money to run, and it did not insure that there would be a inflow of new customers. Secondly they totally removed Advertising from its site at all. People, dont mind indescript banners on the top of a page, even in p2p. And, the still free accounts should have been advertising-heavy to cover the cost of their free-planets.

Secondly, PA failed to address another question that is vital in starting any successful business. A: IF people will pay for my product, how much will the pay?

Irrogantly, it seems to me, from my perspected, the PA management decided that their product was so great that they would be able to charge a ten dollar for two account fee, with the grandious idea that people had people in line to give their account to. To many, they would rather buy one account for 5 because thats what they would be using, yet that wasnt an option, and so many felt sour about that.

Another major, almost fatal flaw that PA has had in its structure is its marketing. You, your wits and a browser against the entire universe. That is not the type of game a new player would want to play, and its not what PA is.

that phrase emphasises isolation in a vast network of planets who are all attaking each other. How can a new commer ever hope to survive in a place as desolate and violet as this.

Secondly PA made no attempt to the emphasize the key characteristics which made the game good. IN all their ad campaigns and catch phrases, they failed to adress the real-life action of politics, of group work, and most importantly of Community. People flock to online games like sim-city online, not because of the game itself, but because of the community. PA should have sold its community, before its community sold out.

The innitially high-price of p2p alienated many players who were promised that p2p would never happen. However, im not so ignorant to say that it wasnt a nessary step. IF you want to move to a p2p system, you can just expect to jump right in and have people in line to give you money. Your first step should have been to add new features to the game for p2p and then gradually made more and more of the game p2p untill you had a game that was p2p for around 2 bucks a pop. Then you could have began to charge more, and more, untill you had a product that people felt was worth 10 bucks a round. Along with this, as PA's money probles grew, almost to the point of self destruction, PA still failed to realize that price-hikes were not going to fix its problems. When most businesses are having probles bring in profits (any retailer, or servcie provider) they lower priced to driver more sales, and the more sales the more profits although at a lower profit margin. However, PA 2 times now toward the enevetable end of PA, PA has increased prices to compensate for lost players, failing to realize that this only drives more and more people away from the game.

Additionally, a majority of the people i have had discussions with in the PA community feal that the deal with jolt was a bad move. I havent heard much about this so im not going to speculate so much. Ive heard that in both offers the head team members would have stayed on board as creative developers.Ive also heard that PA took a lower price for the game because they believed that JOLT would put more into the game.

There is little logic in that. Why would a company who is willing to invest less in a game put more into it. The company who invest the most into a game will get the best results, and that is common sence.

IT seems to me that their are a lot of problems with PA's economy and a majority have to do with bad decision making.

So, what can be done.

Well, besides fixing/scraping round 10 (theres another thread for round 11, please dont confuse this thread) we could to something that is not almost impossible to do.

For at least 2 rounds, bring back free PA, with advertising, to bring advertising revenue. You already have jolts banner, why not a few more. At the same, begin a decent marketing campain. Give interviews to gaming sights and stress the pa community. Although it is shaken now, it could one day rule again. This will increase PAs base market again as people move back to a free PA, if even for a while. This has been suggestioned by many who wish to play free games of PA only because they are cheep. They however fail to adress the longevity of such a system. This would be phase one of a three phase re-marketing campaign.

For the second or third round bring back p2p at a lower cost (5 bucks) without advertising, perhaps a roid-cap increase aswell, and keep free-advertising revenue based game
This pleases people who still want to be free for the timebeing, while allowing player to add to the game by particingpatiing in paid-only-polls wich have a direct influence on the game, and free speed rounds to a certain number of ppl selected from the p2p at random. Also no 2 universes, as that adds to cost.

the third of fourth round start the all p2p again, with advertsing on portal and message boards
once people have begun to see the p2p beniftis and have gotten used to the idea, and have began to gain appreciation for the comunity a nominal 5 dollar fee for playing wont seem that bad, as long as you emphasis what your game is about. Community.

From their, as long as your player base continues to grow or remain steady, PA could slowing increasy prices.. 1 dollar every 2 rounds or so.

Additionally to get new players keep the interviews with game web sites alive and keep the marketing campaign up. It may be time to move to a flash intro screen instead of the flat PAportal wich is some-what confusing because it is made for people already playing PA, not for new commers.

If youve read this far, thank you. Additional, this is not a flaming, it is just a suggestion on the sugestion thread about what i see was PA's key flaws. PA's management have done, and continue to do extreamly well, what they do, wich is to experiment with new ways of bringing intertainment to the masses. However, theyre marketing skills need help, and jolt doesnt seem to be getting the job done, so ive posted my sugestions.

Deathstar.

[Qdeathstar]

In Addition,

Forced clicking does work at is legal, ive seen it used with advertiser permision

Charging under 10 dollars is possible and is done frequently

I know that free play is not possible, this isnt about making PA free Again.

[Hexy]

hmmmmmmm well written well defined good points nicely done

[mykro]

very nice thread, recognised alot ofn things i jus couldnt put my finger on, i remember playin pa in rounds 3&4 they were excellent, the same feeling is not there anymore, it was so exciting in recent round but now all u seem to hear is bugs and rankings! :Legolas:

[therealmig]

Well written Post, god cant believe i actually read the whole thing.

Lets hope someone from the Pa team atleast responds to confirm that they have read it and its been taken in. Ill go prod someone now.

How about we start compiling a list of websites and magazines someone should approach to get the Planetarion name recognised again.

[Karmulian]

Very well written post, and most of which i agree with,
although most of it i find it difficult to comment on as its from an era before i was in pateam

The payments issue is out of our control really, and is upto jolt.
However we are currently in discussions for a free round or 2, so will have to see what comes of that
as for speed games they to will be coming

i agree that the portal is for those who already play, hopefully this problem should be removed with the new portal..

interviews with game websites, these are quite difficult to get nowdays due to PA's bad rep, but again hopefully plans are afoot

[Qdeathstar]

Thank you for your comments, we can only hope that Keef or someone with jolt takes a look at this.

[Qdeathstar]

Quote: Karmulian

"interviews with game websites, these are quite difficult to get nowdays due to PA's bad rep, but again hopefully plans are afoot"

:-), yeah i know, but i was thinking, if ppl give Al Sharpton a platform, with the bad rep that he's got, im sure that PA can get a platform too

[Scouser]

I agree completely with those points.
I haven't played since P2P started but would be very willing to come back for free rounds, and, if the game was decent (like the early rounds) I would pay for subsequent rounds (if they were like £5). I think that would be the case for many people. I have no problem with limited amounts of advertising.

on a side note.. people used to complain a lot but there was a huge userbase, its only when efforts were made to make it fairer that people started leaving imo. people don't know whats best for them i say

[Scouser]

oh and if free rounds are brought back, advertise like theres no tomorrow otherwise theres no point.

[DrunkenViking]

Originally Posted by mykro

very nice thread, recognised alot ofn things i jus couldnt put my finger on, i remember playin pa in rounds 3&4 they were excellent, the same feeling is not there anymore, it was so exciting in recent round but now all u seem to hear is bugs and rankings! :Legolas:

erm, i agree, r3&4 was great...... i still got the same feeling about r10. All i ever remember from r3&4 was bugs tho..... what i remember from r10 is not the overwhelming bugs(i only heard about a couple that actually mattered), but the bug abusers(organized by certain alliances....). From r3&4 however, i remember buttloads of bugs, but the one and only thing that made those round so much fun, was the number of planets. I don't care if 45% of them were furgion escorts/multis, it was planets, with roids whom i could steal....

deathstar: great post! Many good ways of increasing the player count. Hopefully the fact that it's now 2004(soon at least) and that the .com industry is finally growing strong again, will make some of theese things possible to do.

[Leshy]

Not a bad post at all, but again I must disagree with you on a few points.

You're talking about the introduction of P2P as if it was a planned feature - it was not. Things such as 'forced ad clicking' and 'sending emails with links' were never implemented because they would cause nothing but annoyance, rightfully so. At that point, business was going bright for Planetarion. The game was growing fairly quickly, the Creators stated time and again that Planetarion would remain free, and it looked as if that would indeed be the case.

But then the Internet bubble burst, and many companies went under. Including the major ad company that owed Fifth Season a fair amount of money (over 100,000 pounds according to Zeus in another thread posted recently). That meant that Fifth Season was suddenly a 100,000 pounds short on their financial stats, which meant that they had to get in money, and fast. Adding additional advertising was obviously not by any means a secure way to do that, hence they went down the P2P lane. Maybe it wasn't the best decision, but I doubt they had many viable alternatives at that point. Especially adding in payment methods slowly was not an option at that point. Advertising was removed mainly because it didn't bring in much of a revenue anymore, and because players did indeed want banners to be removed because they were already paying.

The 'Buy one account, get one for free' was obviously used by many players in order to share costs, but at the very least it did a good job of keeping people in the game. Many people were looking for other people to play in order to share those costs, which meant there were still 20k players at that point. It was also the same round, however, that FS was plagued by major credit card fraud from Romania and Lithuania, causing credit card companies to withhold payments from Fifth Season - I'm not entirely sure about the details, but I reckon that struck a serious blow against a company already in some serious financial trouble. As such, there was little leeway to set up alternative payment schemes and methods, and the fairly rigid P2P model was continued. And as they say, the rest is history.

Secondly PA made no attempt to the emphasize the key characteristics which made the game good. IN all their ad campaigns and catch phrases

The only real advertising I've seen from Planetarion was the PaX ad placed by Jolt, and the banners on the Jolt site. If anything, I'd personally say the lack of advertising was a bigger problem than the quality of it.

When most businesses are having probles bring in profits (any retailer, or servcie provider) they lower priced to driver more sales, and the more sales the more profits although at a lower profit margin.

The problem for most internet companies isn't that people aren't willing to pay a certain price, but that they are unwilling to pay. Period. Planetarion has never been particularly expensive, and other than the major price increase from R9 to R10 (but that was up to Jolt) I can't really recall people quitting en masse due to prices increasing, although I could be wrong. At any rate, I do not believe that lowering the price would have increased the playerbase at all, or at least enough to make a bigger overall profit.

There is little logic in that. Why would a company who is willing to invest less in a game put more into it. The company who invest the most into a game will get the best results, and that is common sence.

A small company that is willing to put work and effort into Planetarion, but can only afford a lower buying price would be far more desirable than a large company showing little interest and concern, although they might offer more money to buy the product. The highest bidder is never automatically the best buyer. Unfortunately Jolt has turned out to be of the second category.

As for pricing schemes from now on, that is all up to the owners, that being Jolt. I do not really see Jolt turning Planetarion into a free game (especially for a prolonged period of time).

Also no 2 universes, as that adds to cost.

Running 2 simultaneous universes PaX-style is not in any way more expensive than a single big one.

the third of fourth round start the all p2p again

This is where I strongly disagree. People will not get used to P2P or be willing to pay for a product that is also available for free (one of the many similar free games). Take Planetarion to a p2p-only scheme again, and you'll only be going back in time. History is there to learn from, not to repeat it.

As for the 5 dollar fee, I believe the price was set at a minimum value of 10 or so because below a certain amount, credit card companies charge extra transaction costs, nullifying a large part of the income. I'm not sure if that's still the case, though.

Other than that, I agree with you and can only hope Jolt is willing to consider alternative options in order to keep Planetarion alive. After all, they really care!

[wakey]

ffs havent I already read this exact same post at least TWICE before. Posting the same thing over and over again on differnt forums doesnt make it any more relevent or correct.

Quite long, but an interesting read.

First, as i know i am a rather seedy character, meaning most have never noticed me before i have actually played since round three without much success, but still have had a good time. Nevertheless, as i watch PAs de-evolution from a simi-profitable game to a game without a profitable quarter in the near future, i ask. Why has this happend.

As I've said elsewhere PA has never been profitable, pretty much since day 1 it was running at a loss. I dont know how many time i'm gonna have to tell you this before you actually understand it.

Well, as far as i can see, it stems from a continuing list of bad business decisions. Lets start from the very earliest encarnation of P2P, and the removal of advertising.

Although it is true that advertising revenue toward the end of the year 2000 began to fade, and the planetarion community was begging to feel the effects of a world-wide recession in the economies it negleted to seek new ways to bring the advertising revenue in. Things such as forced-clicking of banners and sent emails which contained revenue links. Im sure that this at the time might have caused mass-anger built up the in the planetarion community, and we may have indeed lost a percentage of our players who did not want to participate in the future of PA< but, it would have been less that the outrage of pricing.

Again I've told you this wasnt possible. Pretty much all the ad agencies disallowed such practices and the few who did were offering such low rates that they werent viable. The sites making money from such methods were the ones who were selling their own ad space and were able to negotiate decent rates of pay for these kinds of ads which was a situation that wasnt finacially viable for PA.

Other ad methods were considered and some were used (I'm sure everyone remember the Slammer or as they are known here The Scammer and their PS2 offer which was supposed to get people £100 rebate on a PS2 and PA money per order, ofc most people didnt get their rebate, hey some didnt even get the PS2 and PA never got its money)

When P2P was finally announced, the implementation was done poorly. Fearing that there would be a complete Revolt against the p2p they gave people a free option. This was a mistake. For one, the free option still cost PA money to run, and it did not insure that there would be a inflow of new customers. Secondly they totally removed Advertising from its site at all. People, dont mind indescript banners on the top of a page, even in p2p. And, the still free accounts should have been advertising-heavy to cover the cost of their free-planets.

There WASNT any truly free planets in the first p2p round.

Secondly, PA failed to address another question that is vital in starting any successful business. A: IF people will pay for my product, how much will the pay?

Irrogantly, it seems to me, from my perspected, the PA management decided that their product was so great that they would be able to charge a ten dollar for two account fee, with the grandious idea that people had people in line to give their account to. To many, they would rather buy one account for 5 because thats what they would be using, yet that wasnt an option, and so many felt sour about that.

And a more vital question for a business is "How much do I have to charge to make a profit"

As I've said over and over again to you It wasnt that they thought the product was so great it was worth $10, they valued the game price at between $3 and $5 which is exactly what they charged. HOWEVER as i keep saying they were restricted to transactions over $10 so they gave you two accounts for that price (or if you bought more you gota greater discount per price). Yes everyone would have perfered to have been able to buy just a single account but it quite simply wasnt possible. And actually I would personally say this methods wasnt resented on the whole part, it allowed a large number of players who wouldnt have otherwise been able to play to do so and when it was removed for r6 there was uproar

And BEFORE you start going "Credit Card Transactions under $10 are possible" for some companies yes they are BUT for PA at that time they werent.

Secondly PA made no attempt to the emphasize the key characteristics which made the game good. IN all their ad campaigns and catch phrases, they failed to adress the real-life action of politics, of group work, and most importantly of Community. People flock to online games like sim-city online, not because of the game itself, but because of the community. PA should have sold its community, before its community sold out.

The community didnt need to be sold, the community sold itself as we saw with the way numbers were rising. HOWEVER by the time the time that p2p had begun this community was no longer one that you could sell, its was too hostile and closed as Zeus attempts to introduce people showed.

The innitially high-price of p2p alienated many players who were promised that p2p would never happen. However, im not so ignorant to say that it wasnt a nessary step. IF you want to move to a p2p system, you can just expect to jump right in and have people in line to give you money. Your first step should have been to add new features to the game for p2p and then gradually made more and more of the game p2p untill you had a game that was p2p for around 2 bucks a pop. Then you could have began to charge more, and more, untill you had a product that people felt was worth 10 bucks a round. Along with this, as PA's money probles grew, almost to the point of self destruction, PA still failed to realize that price-hikes were not going to fix its problems. When most businesses are having probles bring in profits (any retailer, or servcie provider) they lower priced to driver more sales, and the more sales the more profits although at a lower profit margin. However, PA 2 times now toward the enevetable end of PA, PA has increased prices to compensate for lost players, failing to realize that this only drives more and more people away from the game.

Yes but most business have a service that lowering the price would really help, PA didnt. Much of PA's community were such that they wouldnt pay even if only $0.01 was asked for an account and once you lose all these people a game like this becomes less fun leading to more leaving. Thats why charging the higher fees as a way of opening up ways to allow free accounts to boost the numbers makes perfect sense for a game like this rather than reducing prices

Additionally, a majority of the people i have had discussions with in the PA community feal that the deal with jolt was a bad move. I havent heard much about this so im not going to speculate so much. Ive heard that in both offers the head team members would have stayed on board as creative developers.Ive also heard that PA took a lower price for the game because they believed that JOLT would put more into the game.

There is little logic in that. Why would a company who is willing to invest less in a game put more into it. The company who invest the most into a game will get the best results, and that is common sence.

Again something I've already pointed out how taking a lesser fee does have some logic behind it. You have two people after the game, both smallish 'companies' without a vast amount of finances. Now its safe to assume the company who offers the least of these two will have more to spend on the progress of the game as they havent blwon as much of their budget on aquiring the game.

Also hindsight is a wonderful thing, we can all sit here and go "going to jolt was the wrong decision" however at the time it seemed like a good move for everyone. And whats to say that the other company would ahve been any better, they could in fact have been even worse.

IT seems to me that their are a lot of problems with PA's economy and a majority have to do with bad decision making.

So, what can be done.

Well, besides fixing/scraping round 10 (theres another thread for round 11, please dont confuse this thread) we could to something that is not almost impossible to do.

For at least 2 rounds, bring back free PA, with advertising, to bring advertising revenue. You already have jolts banner, why not a few more. At the same, begin a decent marketing campain. Give interviews to gaming sights and stress the pa community. Although it is shaken now, it could one day rule again. This will increase PAs base market again as people move back to a free PA, if even for a while. This has been suggestioned by many who wish to play free games of PA only because they are cheep. They however fail to adress the longevity of such a system. This would be phase one of a three phase re-marketing campaign.

For the second or third round bring back p2p at a lower cost (5 bucks) without advertising, perhaps a roid-cap increase aswell, and keep free-advertising revenue based game
This pleases people who still want to be free for the timebeing, while allowing player to add to the game by particingpatiing in paid-only-polls wich have a direct influence on the game, and free speed rounds to a certain number of ppl selected from the p2p at random. Also no 2 universes, as that adds to cost.

the third of fourth round start the all p2p again, with advertsing on portal and message boards
once people have begun to see the p2p beniftis and have gotten used to the idea, and have began to gain appreciation for the comunity a nominal 5 dollar fee for playing wont seem that bad, as long as you emphasis what your game is about. Community.

From their, as long as your player base continues to grow or remain steady, PA could slowing increasy prices.. 1 dollar every 2 rounds or so.

Additionally to get new players keep the interviews with game web sites alive and keep the marketing campaign up. It may be time to move to a flash intro screen instead of the flat PAportal wich is some-what confusing because it is made for people already playing PA, not for new commers.

If youve read this far, thank you. Additional, this is not a flaming, it is just a suggestion on the sugestion thread about what i see was PA's key flaws. PA's management have done, and continue to do extreamly well, what they do, wich is to experiment with new ways of bringing intertainment to the masses. However, theyre marketing skills need help, and jolt doesnt seem to be getting the job done, so ive posted my sugestions.

Deathstar.

Once again I'll raise the issue of the fact ITS NOT THE PRICE thats the issue. Lowering of the price will price will not see people flock back and while free rounds might very few of these will stay when it goes back to p2p.

And I will also again point out that charging too low is probally not possible due to the cost of taking payments

[Fernando]

Originally Posted by mykro

v i remember playin pa in rounds 3&4 they were excellent, the same feeling is not there anymore

I agree with that. I have lost the interest on the game as it is.


ALSO: Jolt people dont usually read the threads. If you intend on going somewhre with this, I suggest you try and catch someone from jolt on IRC or email them. Otherwise, this would have only been a waste of time by you and *another* thread into the list of many "how to improve/bring PA back to life"

Happy new year
(and may PA become what it once was with 2004)

Fernando

[Qdeathstar]

Wakey, I only posted this twice. Onces on the suggestions forums, and then once when i fealt it was worth moving it to planetarion discussion.. another person posted and moved it to the front again.. i would debate with leshy and wakey right now, but ive got strep throat atm so it will have to wait.

[Qdeathstar]

and leshy, im saying what was done, why it didnt work, and a better way for it to be implented in the future..

if you have a product people enjoy, and if you gradually make it p2p, then you can work it in... slowly..

and stop with (you cant charge under 10 bucks) because that is definitly bs.

ss is charging under 10 bucks for services and isnt having a problem.. O.o

[Qdeathstar]

and as far as ad-compain and catch phrase

what about when someone comes upon www.planetarion.com (thats how i found it) then the front page is the ad... and all the review sites that reviewed the game... thats all ads.. in one way or another..

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

and leshy, im saying what was done, why it didnt work, and a better way for it to be implented in the future..

if you have a product people enjoy, and if you gradually make it p2p, then you can work it in... slowly..

and stop with (you cant charge under 10 bucks) because that is definitly bs.

ss is charging under 10 bucks for services and isnt having a problem.. O.o

And as I keep pointing out SS ISNT PA. Just because one company can offer fees that low doesnt mean they all can. $10 was the minimum fee PA were able to charge without it being worthless and as I tried to explain on the other version of this thread Jolt could be differnt and the fees they are charged for a transaction could perhaps be lower than FS were ever given but they could quite easierly not be. UNLESS someone from Jolt comes here and gives us figures for the lowest transaction they can handle sitting here posting "They should lower the cost" is pointless because you dont have a clue on whats realisticly possible.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by wakey

And as I keep pointing out SS ISNT PA. Just because one company can offer fees that low doesnt mean they all can.

Why though?

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

and leshy, im saying what was done, why it didnt work, and a better way for it to be implented in the future..

if you have a product people enjoy, and if you gradually make it p2p, then you can work it in... slowly..

and stop with (you cant charge under 10 bucks) because that is definitly bs.

ss is charging under 10 bucks for services and isnt having a problem.. O.o

Qdeathstar, I understand exactly what you are saying. I however, think there are several things about PA's history that you are mistaken about, which slightly alters the conclusions you can draw from it for the future.

For most people, the price is not an issue. It is the idea of P2P. Whether people are forced to pay $2 or $10 in order to play doesn't matter, a majority will be unwilling to pay and leave. Period. Hence, I do not see a future for PA with any kind of forced P2P-model as it will not be able to sustain a userbase large enough for the game to be interesting, bringing us back to the downward spiral that PA has already went down.

As for the $10 issue, I don't know the details of that. I suspect that at the time it depended on some of the payment methods, possibly credit card, but it could also have been Solo or Switch, or whichever one they supported back then. I didn't pay much attention to credit card systems two years ago, but the fact that you can pay small fees now, doesn't mean it was the same back then. I know that a few years back I had to pay extra money for charging amounts below a certain value on my debit card, which is no longer the case either. In the same way, I don't know what payment methods SS offers, as their Payment Support doesn't work . As for PA's current position, I indeed see no reason why Jolt cannot charge lower prices.

[Scouser]

I think lowering the price is a significant factor in bringing people back, ok not for everyone but i do believe it matters a significant amount - £10 or thereabouts is too much for a 3 month long game. People i know are surprised when i tell them the price (even if they are lazy arsed students who think they should get everything free : )

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by Scouser

£10 or thereabouts is too much for a 3 month long game.

Undoubtedly this round's price is fairly extravagant - but even with previous rounds lower prices, usernumbers dwindled considerably. Payment is a steep cliff, regardless of price.

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by Leshy

Undoubtedly this round's price is fairly extravagant - but even with previous rounds lower prices, usernumbers dwindled considerably. Payment is a steep cliff, regardless of price.

Compare it with other prices like a cinema visit including drinks and popcorn, a disco evening, buying a fullprice tripple-A game like Max Payne 2, monthly fee's of a mmorpg or the price of a audo-CD or a movie-dvd (ok ok - the later two are bad examples because as (most) other people, i think they are pretty overpriced .

Anyhow - entertainment products which cost more and give less hours entertainment, dont have these buiseness-threatening problems. The money is there and the people do spend it - but probably more selectively atm. - anyway, think about do-able ways to increase the gaming experience of PA and the price will be viewed in a different perspective. I dont regret a single cent of the 45 Euro spend for MP2 for example and if they only had a equally well done sequel or other game right now - i would happily spend another 45 or 55.

[W]

I don't buy CD's because I get my music for free on the internet. I don't buy games for the same reason. And I'll never give PA any money at all, since there are free alternatives out there. To make a buisness, you have to present something more valuable than the competitors, and the price difference has to be smaller than the value difference. Apart from the "it's worth more for me to stay here and pay than having to move communities", PA has no values to speak of. It has nothing that free games don't have.

Sorry to ruin your positive outlook thread, but this game lives on people too lazy to switch to other games, and absolutely nothing else.

[Qdeathstar]

W... i think that your post had more to do with how proud you were that you could get warez and mp3's off the enternet.. Woo.

I havent seen a great deal of games that can give me the same PA experience.. although if they dont do somethign about round 10 O.o heh. Anyway... just because some on copies a game point for point and they make it free doesnt mean its better, it means the creator is a lazy ass whore-monger.. and i wont play with that kind of person.

[Qdeathstar]

::question:: did you even read the first part of the thread?

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

i think that your post had more to do with how proud you were that you could get warez and mp3's off the enternet.. Woo.

I think you're grossly misinterpreting his post.

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by W

I don't buy CD's because I get my music for free on the internet. I don't buy games for the same reason.

I don't see you getting any game of the quality of Max Payne 2 for free from the internet, unless you get them illegally. Music is very subjective and i agree that there are enough high quality free alternatives on the internet like the "tracked worx 2k" cd's which i just listen to. But as with computergames, i dont see you getting free legal alternatives of similar quality for movies either.

Originally Posted by W

And I'll never give PA any money at all, since there are free alternatives out there. To make a buisness, you have to present something more valuable than the competitors, and the price difference has to be smaller than the value difference. Apart from the "it's worth more for me to stay here and pay than having to move communities", PA has no values to speak of. It has nothing that free games don't have.

The advantages which PA has compared to "competitors", have admittedly decreased steadily. I fully agree with you that the value of PA has to be increased if they want to successfully charge money for it again. I think there is still a (small) chance to get this working as a buiseness, if the value is just increased significantly. Think about the advantages which PA has over other games and over its free competitors. Think how you can increase the advantage(s) and build new ones.
People dont like to pay if they can get something roughly equal for free and the last big advantage which PA had (the community, player numbers), is rapidly fading.

Sadly i dont see it happening. Quite to the contrary - it seems the work is currently on re-inventing what has been done umpteen times before and which will bring back PA to the same level as its competitors (possibly). Too bad that that wont cut it to make ppl pay ...

Mistakes from the past seem to be picked up and repeated right now.

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

Anyway... just because some on copies a game point for point and they make it free doesnt mean its better, it means the creator is a lazy ass whore-monger.. and i wont play with that kind of person.

I dont think it is that easy. If somebody can easily re-develop your work when they are part-time hobby programmers and even surpass your own product, it would make me think what i have done wrong and not only biatch at those people ...

Face it - other computer games producers dont have this problem even though whole hobby teams of ppl work on their own clones. I dont see ID-Software beeing affected of ppl trying to do their own clones - not even much affected by a lot commercial teams doing basically the same thing and trying to cash in.

Make PA really huge again - with many interesting features and keep beeing at the front of new things instead of running behind (like trying to copy toolsites or alliance sites).

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Ramihyn

I don't see you getting any game of the quality of Max Payne 2 for free from the internet, unless you get them illegally. Music is very subjective and i agree that there are enough high quality free alternatives on the internet like the "tracked worx 2k" cd's which i just listen to. But as with computergames, i dont see you getting free legal alternatives of similar quality for movies either.

PEOPLE IN DOWNLOADING THINGS ILLEGALLY FROM THE INTERNET SHOCK!!!!!!!

I pay for (most) games, mainly because I like to have the recourse to a guaranteed backup, and also like to play online.

But many people I know don't; hell, when people come over here for lans, we may be playing games that not one of us owns legally (Up until recently, BF1942), whereas some others are owned by most or all of us (Warcraft III).

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Ramihyn

I dont think it is that easy. If somebody can easily re-develop your work when they are part-time hobby programmers and even surpass your own product, it would make me think what i have done wrong and not only biatch at those people ...

Face it - other computer games producers dont have this problem even though whole hobby teams of ppl work on their own clones. I dont see ID-Software beeing affected of ppl trying to do their own clones - not even much affected by a lot commercial teams doing basically the same thing and trying to cash in.

Make PA really huge again - with many interesting features and keep beeing at the front of new things instead of running behind (like trying to copy toolsites or alliance sites).

That's more of a problem with the medium.

First person shooters (by necessity) are driven by much more complex pieces of code, even for simple 3D engines, and if you don't want to have to make you're own you're looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars to license them.

Internet games, on the other hand, use much simpler tools. No 3D rendering, no plot, no modelling. Just numbers. Calculating numbers.

It's no shock that the only real independent hit of recent times was a more strategy (ie. non graphical) title; I refer of course to Uplink. A great game, which I recommend to anyone.

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

A great game, which I recommend to anyone.

Ban user. Advertising.

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

That's more of a problem with the medium.

First person shooters (by necessity) are driven by much more complex pieces of code, even for simple 3D engines, and if you don't want to have to make you're own you're looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars to license them.

Thats not entirely true, there are many ok'ish 3d engines out now and you can get full toolchains with a engine for something like 89$ during development time. Once your game rocks and you found a publisher even, you pay another 5.000$ and there you go. Thats dirt cheap tbh. There are also free engines out there which are ok'ish. You wont be able to do something like doom3 with them ofc, but they are good enough to get you into the buiseness.

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Internet games, on the other hand, use much simpler tools. No 3D rendering, no plot, no modelling. Just numbers. Calculating numbers.

A while ago, ppl would have said the same about websites - i doubt you would still uphold that nowadays as companies like disney invested over 500k $ into theirs. The upper limit now with browser controlled games, is pretty high imho if you consider "common" plugins like flash and common techniques like wap - not to mention the huge possibilities on the server side which are completely independant of the browser. I even licensed a "full" 3d engine set as active-x plugin for fun and experimenting with it.

Apart from that - i dont see any reason why ppl couldnt run a java or even a plain windows pa-client with good gfx and more options while still playing the same PA as the rest of the ppl. Maybe with a optional offline universe where you could play against bots. Spread that version as a teaser and invite them to a real challenge against human players on the internet - which then will cost a few bucks.

There are way more possibilities to enhance the gaming experience of PA, then the very limited resources available in manpower could deliver anyway.

[MrL_JaKiri]

However, I doubt you can name me a single one of those games which has sold in the region that PA is looking to. I doubt some big studio games have had the number of customers which PA had at its peak.

Originally Posted by Ramihyn

A while ago, ppl would have said the same about websites (stuff stuff stuff)

That's innovation where innovation is not required, or is detrimental: part of the beauty of games like PA is their simplicity and ease of use; their low download requirements being a large part of that.

You can play PA from anywhere with a net connection, even if it's just a modem. I also don't fancy trying to play a flash/java game at work.

Once you move into the field of proper graphical gaming, your sellability will slump, especially if there are high costs involved.

If I want to play a 3D spinniovision space strategy game, I'll go and buy Homeworld 2; that'll cost the same as a round or 2. Hell, you can get Homeworld for £5 these days, which is 1/2 the cost of a regular round.

I just don't see how graphics would benefit PA. On another online game, we considered implementing a simple flash sequence (a simple one; a rotatable 3D starmap) but abandoned it because of the additional amount to download.

And too many flash animations on a website is just shit.

[Qdeathstar]

i agree with MrL_Jakiri.

If you make PA a 3d game, or a flash game.. because 1. PA was never like that and i wouldnt be PA and 1. Most of the Java/flash ive seen used in browser games turns out confusing and bad...

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

However, I doubt you can name me a single one of those games which has sold in the region that PA is looking to.

I have no clue which numbers "PA is looking to", but for example Sierra's Starsiege and Tribes 2 where done using the Torque Engine which is priced 100$ and thats all unless your company has more then 500.000$ in sales.

[

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

That's innovation where innovation is not required, or is detrimental: part of the beauty of games like PA is their simplicity and ease of use; their low download requirements being a large part of that.

You can play PA from anywhere with a net connection, even if it's just a modem. I also don't fancy trying to play a flash/java game at work.

I talked about making a _optional_ windows client with 3d which could connect to the normal PA online universe and basically just has some nicer gfx - visualising a PA combat is pointless, but likely to get more peoples attention then showing them the combat report in the newsscan ... If you put something like that on a couple of game magazine CDs (together with the appropriate infos), you would have a cheap way of getting many ppl to look at PA.

The beauty of such a client would be that you can integrate a stand-alone bot-only universe for free - to get the people hooked up to the game. If they want to play online against humans, they pay a fee. The client could have some additional features ofc. but still would play the same PA game like the other ppl with their browsers play.

It would be a cheap broad advertisement, it introduces ppl to PA in a offline version, ppl basically "upgrade" to the online massive multiplayer game through the fee and it would give PA an advantage again which competitors (not yet) have. (i already thought of making a 3d client version to a pa clone as a engine test, but i didnt do it then, because i was annoyed that i would have to fake access through a web-client).

Nevertheless its wasted time to discuss it - instead of doing new things, we will get the third or forth re-implementation of PA instead of someting new and then ppl will say it is so unfair that the clones grow and PA doesnt ...

Oh and im not argueing for such things like this client, because i personally want it - quite to the contrary. As a coder, the webbrowser only version of PA is/was fine for me, but i know from experience with publishers and investors in the gaming buiseness that they want those things because they grab potential customers attention. You and I may think its dumb to work a week on super-explosions with incredible true-color fireworks with realistic shadows and environment interaction (aka destruction), but it makes ppl stop and have a look and thats a very important thing nowadays - getting someones attention.

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

i agree with MrL_Jakiri.

If you make PA a 3d game, or a flash game.. because 1. PA was never like that and i wouldnt be PA and 1. Most of the Java/flash ive seen used in browser games turns out confusing and bad...

Thats not what i meant, see my answer to MrL_Jakiri

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Ramihyn

I have no clue which numbers "PA is looking to", but for example Sierra's Starsiege and Tribes 2 where done using the Torque Engine which is priced 100$ and thats all unless your company has more then 500.000$ in sales.

And both of those games were commercial failures; what is your point?

Originally Posted by Ramihyn

Stuff stuff stuff

There's two significant problems with this.

The first is the immense amount of coding required; a project of this size would take an enormous number of manhours, something that PA doesn't have without a permanant employed staff, which in itself is dependent on the success of PA.

The second is the code.

PA has always guarded its code immensely carefully, requiring a representative of PA to be present for it to be run.

Releasing it on coverdisks would just be a way to say to the cloners 'Hey! Have this bot for free, without any of the legwork!'

[Qdeathstar]

Originally Posted by Ramihyn

I talked about making a _optional_ windows client with 3d which could connect to the normal PA online universe and basically just has some nicer gfx - visualising a PA combat is pointless, but likely to get more peoples attention then showing them the combat report in the newsscan ... If you put something like that on a couple of game magazine CDs (together with the appropriate infos), you would have a cheap way of getting many ppl to look at PA.

The beauty of such a client would be that you can integrate a stand-alone bot-only universe for free - to get the people hooked up to the game. If they want to play online against humans, they pay a fee. The client could have some additional features ofc. but still would play the same PA game like the other ppl with their browsers play.

It would be a cheap broad advertisement, it introduces ppl to PA in a offline version, ppl basically "upgrade" to the online massive multiplayer game through the fee and it would give PA an advantage again which competitors (not yet) have. (i already thought of making a 3d client version to a pa clone as a engine test, but i didnt do it then, because i was annoyed that i would have to fake access through a web-client).

Ohh. I like that idea because then as a single-player game it would be freeware and you could submit it to all the freeware sites and demo sites and shareware sites...

the only thing is you need someone who knows how to program more than php/java/html because those game creators like gamestudio dont work worth crap unless you do.. Trust me ive tried lol ;-)

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

The second is the code.

PA has always guarded its code immensely carefully, requiring a representative of PA to be present for it to be run.

Releasing it on coverdisks would just be a way to say to the cloners 'Hey! Have this bot for free, without any of the legwork!'

Ok, ive taken c++... and this is just common since. There is no source code after you make a .exe file. The source code is what you write, it is very long (often) and is in letters... You can run that as a program, you have to compile it. Once you compile, you can turn it into an exe.. once its an exe there isnt source code and you cant decompile a program... otherwise we would have the source code for any program ever written.

[-=Zyth=-]

It all comes down to 1 thing (or 4 things namely p's)


MARKETING


Do a little study and PA will once again BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER like it once did.

[Qdeathstar]

amen

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

Ok, ive taken c++... and this is just common since. There is no source code after you make a .exe file. The source code is what you write, it is very long (often) and is in letters... You can run that as a program, you have to compile it. Once you compile, you can turn it into an exe.. once its an exe there isnt source code and you cant decompile a program... otherwise we would have the source code for any program ever written.

You don't have to reverse engineer the code, you can just stick the bot running in the equivilent universe directly, changing the relevent inputs into the game.

It's even easier if there's lancode for PA included.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by -=Zyth=-

It all comes down to 1 thing (or 4 things namely p's)


MARKETING


Do a little study and PA will once again BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER like it once did.

Where's the money going to come from?

Even for the first Jolt round proper, the only advertising was in a lesser UK PC magazine, and on it's own pages.

Part of the problem has to be the name; people will hear it and not think there's anything new involved.

[Ramihyn]

This kind of discussion would be more appropriate at a game developer forum by now (though there it would be too simplified). So i apologize in advance, but i dont want to leave the impression that things arent possible just because i didnt reply to the points made. Also i realise that i put many names and URLs in these postings which is probably not appropriate in this forum (advertising?) and apologize for it - but if i do some ominous "there IS a engine and also some game and it works" - it wouldnt do anything good but to let me sound like a excited 12 year old - so here we go :/

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

And both of those games were commercial failures; what is your point?

You still didnt define any concrete number for what "PA is looking to" actually means. Same for the reference to the "big customer number" of PA. The moment PA actually charged money, the customer numbers rapidly went down.

"According to NPD by way of VoodooExtreme, Tribes 2 has sold over
112,000 units and taken in $5.1 million dollars." - June 7, 2001

Citation from the site manager of http://www.mmo-dawn.com/

There you have one affordable 3d engine with which people where able to produce a mediocre product and get it sold through a decent distributor (Sierra). As i said, you wont produce DOOM3 with these engines, but they are definately capable of achieving a ok'ish product.

Now i am not interested in a discussion about if Tribes 2 was a "financial success" because you think it should have made 250.000 in the first 6 months. These numbers are "ok'ish" at most and probably low, but they are way higher then anything we talk about with PA.

Thats just one of the cheap engines I evaluated some time ago, others are PowerRender/PRX and Conitec's A5 engine. Look for example at http://conitec.net/a4info.htm and check the products which have been done with A4 already - and dont forget that they are now at A6 and much also depends on CPU/GPU which also continuously deliver more.

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

There's two significant problems with this.

The first is the immense amount of coding required; a project of this size would take an enormous number of manhours, something that PA doesn't have without a permanant employed staff, which in itself is dependent on the success of PA.

True, it is more work. If you have some experience with 3d engines and tools, its not as bad as it looks. The community of PA would definately be needed to help out with 3d models, textures and gfx in general. But that isnt impossible. Ofc if you target to achieve things like HalfLife2 or if you never worked with a 3d engine, you are doomed :P

Look at some of the A4/A5 examples and you see what you can realisticaly achieve.

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

The second is the code.

PA has always guarded its code immensely carefully, requiring a representative of PA to be present for it to be run.

Releasing it on coverdisks would just be a way to say to the cloners 'Hey! Have this bot for free, without any of the legwork!'

Well ... i hope you dont seriously think you have a big industry secret in your drawer with the PA code. I think by the number of clones popping up by now (some already released their source under GPL and others now create new derivative works from it), it should tell you that nobody really needs the PA code to make a clone.

I wouldnt have a problem with releasing my botcode written for such a client in binary form. Maybe even in source form - the major point why i wouldnt want source like that released, isnt about secrecy - its about having to clean the code up because others look into it

And since i wrote game-AI for strategy games some years ago, i bet my bots wouldnt be last in a competition

[Qdeathstar]

well then, get crackin ;-)

[Qdeathstar]

"You don't have to reverse engineer the code, you can just stick the bot running in the equivilent universe directly, changing the relevent inputs into the game."


That seems like a lot of work just for equation... bah, the only thing that one has to do is clone you idea... and that isnt in the source code... b/s if karm or mit had the code (they dont) and someone paid to give it to them, they would sell out :-)

[MrL_JaKiri]

Any PA bot would have to have a decent AI attached; nothing simple like the bots we've all seen before. They'd have to be able to work together, compete against other groups of bots and the like, otherwise it won't be a decent sim of PA.

ps.

Originally Posted by Ramihyn

There you have one affordable 3d engine with which people where able to produce a mediocre product and get it sold through a decent distributor (Sierra). As i said, you wont produce DOOM3 with these engines, but they are definately capable of achieving a ok'ish product.

Tribes 2 was an absolutely fantastic game. The sales are good achievements for a mediocre piece of software, but when you factor in that Tribes 2 was bundled with some graphics cards (if memory serves), then it's about as big a failure as most Looking Glass games.

[GReaper]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

And both of those games were commercial failures; what is your point?

Going offtopic, but since when were Tribes and Tribes 2 commercial failures?

They may not be as popular as CS or the Quake series, but neither were total failures.

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

then it's about as big a failure as most Looking Glass games.

Looking Glass produced ace games :((((((((((

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Leshy

Looking Glass produced ace games :((((((((((

Yes, but noone bought them.

And as to the Tribes 2 thing:

If I see a game in Woolworths (usually the home of games that cost £35 even after they've come out on budget) for £5 2 months after release, I tend to think there's something that's going wrong.