[Elephant In The Room: Subscription $$$ Model of DU needs to change.]

21 hours ago, ShippyLongstalking said:

 

I tend to agree that a sub model is best for now, but I don't agree with this idea...

 

FTP exists because it makes money. Sub-based games that would die otherwise have thrived under this model.

 

Companies don't "crumble" because people "want everything for free" -- that makes no sense. It isn't a cultural thing, it's a monetization strategy...one that works very well for companies that understand it.

 

FTP is about the mathematics of conversion rates, not people being entitled and demanding free shit. 

 

Consider this example: 

• Someone lands in DU and gets really hooked. They enroll in a monthly sub. They play relentlessly for two months; they're hooked and play for 20-30 hours a week. 
• Even the best games eventually get boring, but DU has some major walls when it comes to content / things to do. 
• So they decide to pause their sub after 2-3 months. NQ has made $14 - $21 in revenue. Not great. 
• Now compare that to an FTP model -- someone that's hooked will absolutely buy into MT, especially in the height of being interested in the game and especially if the alternative is massive amounts of grinding.
• The shit they need to buy will cost more than a sub. 

The magic with FTP as a monetization strategy is conversion rate, which is why DU should stay away from it.

 

If they know 50% of all players eventually get an MT before becoming bored and leaving the game, that's big money. It's much, much easier to attract new players to a free game than one that requires a sub. They can shovel out cash for ads knowing that they'll make it all back and more. 

 

Companies do it because it works. 

 

I know this is a long rant...but subs are hardly the best model for revenue with DU, even if it makes the most sense today.

 

Subs only work with high retention...if someone is churning from a sub in 1-2 months, they simply aren't worth it. They need subs to be closer to 6-12 months to really see profit. 

 

Good luck trying to buy ads when your budget has to be $5-6 per acquisition because so many players churn after 1-2 months! 

 

FTP games are crappy because the game's design is built around the monetization strategy...but they do work...and unfortunately? They work best for games that struggle with retention/churn like DU.

 

I don't want an FTP model and I think NQ would struggle to make it work, but unless they can dramatically reduce churn, it'll be an inevitability. 

 

I'm 100% certain that the finance guy now leading NQ understands the nuance between subs, churn, and FTP and will do what makes them money. They will only stay with subs if DU's retention can dramatically improve...otherwise FTP is the better monetization strategy even if it is worse for the game. 

 

Sorry, but having lived through the initial FTP mania I can tell you that the driver was the whiners who had time but no money - so they had time to make a lot of noise - and drove a lot of companies to make the messy FTP transition (and it usually was messy) and add loot boxes and other crap to their games to support it.

 

The real driver for a lot of it initially was trying to keep up with WoW eating all the subs and no one else having enough to really be profitable (at least not in the way their backers wished).

 

Now, I will agree that it works, but you get for the most part crap in return. If your expected retention is 1-2 months then you don't need a lot of content or good background or single sharded persistent universes on a large scale because no one will ever see it. That is also also fine if that is the game you want to play. If however you believe you are creating a game where your revenue earners will play for significant lengths of time then the subscription model is the way to go. You may augment it with some cosmetic BS that people who wish to pay for it can get but for the most part your revenue is subs. As it also matches your cost model it does make the financial planning a lot easier and more transparent. Of course someone may hate it at that point as they can't play games with the money as easily but that is another story!

[Elephant In The Room: Subscription $$$ Model of DU needs to change.]

23 hours ago, FrigoPorco said:

So no one is talking about the elephant in the room. The money model. The 'subscription fees' model. I mean, a friend of mine said it correctly...."What if I like the game? What if I play it for 5 years, then I will have given these people a thousand bucks, to play a game...hmmm" (that's a PC upgrade, and yes, I get it.....coffee is $2 but, as far as modern gaming goes, this is an outdated model, when you need a page on your website to defend it, it's outdated NQ) . And my friend has a point. MMo's with new content every week are charging $7.99 a month.....and this is beta, and no new content. So a look at the subscription model is needed. Yes, this is the only game in town as far as voxel builders, but THINGS CHANGE and someone out there will make a voxel mmo for $39.99 flat price and sell 40 million copies on Steam. Tick tock...NQ...tick tock. 

What elephant? If you are running something on servers you need a revenue stream - or enough up front cash to invest it to create a revenue stream. If you want a single player game the up front fee is fine - but otherwise not so much. It is not so much an outdated model but a model that the 'I want everything for free' culture bashed at until some weak willed companies crumbled.

 

Also it is only a month's subscription to try a pure subscription game usually (you can complain and I would agree about games with an up front cost and a subscription). Nothing wrong with the model.

[Changes to Lua screen units]

In the end the screens are great, and some form of display is required to support the programming, but if they are destroying the basic functionality then the reality is something needs to change. The screen data (that is publicly visible) is a difficult thing to scale - and maybe what is needed is a split between personal screens (cockpit) and public screens. Remember every public screen has to go to every client - the more players there are in the game the more public screens there will be which means it is a multiplicative factor. This is bad. You need things to linearly scale as much as possible.

 

So, maybe the way to go here is in-cockpit screens (ie only viewed by the pilot for example) can be html/svg while public screens need to dynamically generate on the client based on the rest of the data regularly sent there.

 

Just a thought.