Time to change the business model

[mark-o-solo]

I have done a tour of all the (creative) space games: star citizen, empyrion, space engineers, KSP, you name it, I've been there. DU is by far the most amazing, complex game out there. It is the best. In terms of multitude of things to do, the depth of building, permission system, materials, scenery, lighting, etc.
Of course, there is still plenty of room to do better. For instance, the space brakes simply violate conservation of energy.

I understand and respect your decision to make it a monthly billing model, @NQ-Admin. But that decision was taken close to ten years ago!

In the name of the gaming community, in the name of bringing people onto this amazing game, in the name of more players and the future of DU: Please, pretty please shift to a purchase model instead of the monthly billing. I assure you, ALL of the friends I tried to get to play, including myself are scared off of this horrible model.

To compensate, add a shop for skins and rare deco items like star citizen and others have it. Add the option to buy ships, etc. You will get the needed revenue by getting a flood of new players once you move away from the subscription model. New players, that, in turn will start purchasing skins and the likes from the shop. Hell, I would buy skins!
Just please, get away from that trap, that horrible scarecrow of a subscription model.

Cheers

[blundertwink]

7 hours ago, mark-o-solo said:

Please, pretty please shift to a purchase model instead of the monthly billing

 

This has been suggested a few times through the forum's history, but the challenge is that changing the billing model doesn't suddenly make the game more marketable.

 

To say it another way...if you can't get people to play the game at $14.99/month, you won't sell them just by changing the purchase model (likely even making it more expensive to try). Even if they went free to play, it doesn't change the math around retention. 

 

There's no reason to believe that simply changing the billing model will result in a "flood" of new players...that's not a claim any reasonable company can work from without evidence. If you or your friends really wanted to play the game so badly, you'd pay a sub and try it for a month. 

 

We're not talking about an Eve-level niche game that can change billing models and have some inertia, we're talking about a game with maybe 100 concurrent players a day at peak -- so it'd basically be starting from scratch...for an MMO that's already released with no future updates on the horizon...?

 

All that being said...there's also no reason to believe you can just throw cash shop items into the game and make enough to sustain an sandbox MMO where costs are constantly growing over time in a way that traditional MMOs don't need to deal with. 

 

That takes study and time and deliberation, and I find it really hard to believe that you'd be so willing to buy cash shop items from a game when you aren't even willing to pay for a sub to try it...how can you know that you'd be so willing? What makes you think that simply changing the subscription model will make this game better to the point where it will attract a lot of customers? 

[mark-o-solo]

34 minutes ago, blundertwink said:

 

This has been suggested a few times through the forum's history, but the challenge is that changing the billing model doesn't suddenly make the game more marketable.

 

To say it another way...if you can't get people to play the game at $14.99/month, you won't sell them just by changing the purchase model (likely even making it more expensive to try). Even if they went free to play, it doesn't change the math around retention. 

 

There's no reason to believe that simply changing the billing model will result in a "flood" of new players...that's not a claim any reasonable company can work from without evidence. If you or your friends really wanted to play the game so badly, you'd pay a sub and try it for a month. 

 

We're not talking about an Eve-level niche game that can change billing models and have some inertia, we're talking about a game with maybe 100 concurrent players a day at peak -- so it'd basically be starting from scratch...for an MMO that's already released with no future updates on the horizon...?

 

All that being said...there's also no reason to believe you can just throw cash shop items into the game and make enough to sustain an sandbox MMO where costs are constantly growing over time in a way that traditional MMOs don't need to deal with. 

 

That takes study and time and deliberation, and I find it really hard to believe that you'd be so willing to buy cash shop items from a game when you aren't even willing to pay for a sub to try it...how can you know that you'd be so willing? What makes you think that simply changing the subscription model will make this game better to the point where it will attract a lot of customers? 

Oh I believe there is a lot of evidence that people are scared off by the model itself. I could cite 15 people in my own circle that are just like that: They'd easily pay 30, hell, even 50 bucks to play the game. They would pay for shop items, etc.
However, ALL of them are scare off the subscription model to the point they will not even give it a try. I myself got on DU by serendipity, a special set of favorable circumstances.
I see your point with marketable. Yes, DU is very complex and it is a sandbox, that is not a large player base.

But as I said, ask a 100 people why they are not on DU. 98 of them will tell you its the subscription model.

[Wyndle]

Anecdotal Evidence, however plentiful, will only ever be anecdotal.  You may know people who shy away from a subscription but that is not actionable from a corporate standpoint.  Also, the numbers you're throwing out seem to contradict your own statements about "trying" the game.  Comparing a $30-50 one time charge to a $15 game time code (no risk of forgetting the sub) suggests those people may be using cost as an excuse to not bother trying the game.  I pre-paid a year sub for each of 3 accounts on the release hype (before the sub price increase) which only cost me a little more than Bethesda was asking for the supreme package of Starfield-loading-screens at pre-release a year later.

 

Now that we're more than a year beyond the release of DU the real world economy is in much worse condition and DU development appears to be stalled out (how many total bullet points in the last several patch notes?).  I love the flight engine and the building tools but there really isn't anything more being offered in DU IMO.  I can get the same or better atmosphere flight from a slew of sims and while there's not a ton of space games DU isn't uncontested there either.  

As for building:  Why should I slave over doing the work that other studios pay teams of artists to do?  If RMT were in DU I could see an argument for earning a living through that effort but otherwise it's only an ego treadmill.  I could see building just for artistic release and personal pleasure if there weren't so many chores and limitations tied to it.

 

All of that said, and without touching on any of the controversies and bugs from the past, it doesn't look good for DU.

[Atmosph3rik]

The problem is that so much of the game's design depends on players committing to a subscription, and losing access to certain things if they stop.  The big question is what would "owning the game" actually entitle someone to?

 

Right now, you have to pay a sub to claim territory, and the longer you sub and train talents the more constructs you can deploy.  And if you cancel then you lose HQ territories and constructs.

 

If NQ sells the game for $30 or $50 how long can someone hold HQ territories? and how long does NQ leave their constructs in the game?

 

I think MMOs are so popular because they're kind of like a country club.  You pay extra to use their facilities, because they're well maintained, and there are other people there to enjoy them with or compete with.

 

DU has a few really cool and unique features, but one of them is that you can use all the other features in a shared online space and compete or collaborate with other players for territory and resources.  I don't think it's sustainable to sell permanent access to a shared space like that.

 

But i also don't think it makes sense to sell memberships to a country club with almost no staff and no plans for the future.  Bit of a catch 22 at this point.

 

Whatever NQ decides to do, i think they would need to announce their intentions for the future of the game, or announce that they have intentions for the game to have a future, before they do anything else.  Or it would be a waste of time.

 

 

 

 

[sHuRuLuNi]

On 11/6/2023 at 7:35 PM, mark-o-solo said:

Oh I believe there is a lot of evidence that people are scared off by the model itself. 

------------
But as I said, ask a 100 people why they are not on DU. 98 of them will tell you its the subscription model.

 

Actually, there is something to this. I am a Ruby Founder and have paid hundreds of euros backing this game. But I would have NEVER paid a subscription. I just never do that. I have never and will never pay a subscription for a game. Don't ask me why, no idea.

 

But I would have indeed been willing to pay for custom skins and such.

[CptLoRes]

If you pay money for something, you want to own it. Simple as that.

[Wyndle]

6 hours ago, CptLoRes said:

If you pay money for something, you want to own it. Simple as that.

Now that you word it that way...

...a monthly rental fee to own digital goods is an oxymoronic concept.  'nuff said.

[cerveau]

its standard for all MMOs, you do not own anything, you are paying for access to the game, in fact they own all the items on your character, and even your character, dont make the mistake of thinking you actually own anything.  if they chose to, they could take it from you as they own it, this of course never happens unless you are being banned for something.

 

Its in the TOS somewhere, as it is for all mmos.

[CptLoRes]

Which is why I said "you want to own it". So it is not necessarily the end result, especially when it comes to digital products. But it is still a ingrained want most people have, and why subscription makes many people hesitate more then paying a one time sum. And I am old enough that I remember a time when once you payed, you would get software on a physical medium that you owned and that would never expire. Something you could even resell if you no longer needed it. Imagine that!

 

And speaking on this topic. Big corp has been playing the long game for a while now, and have slowly but surly been training people to think that renting instead of owning is the norm (Neo-feudalism but with corp instead of government leading the charge).  And the end result is everything becoming subscriptions based as people start to accept this, regardless of if it makes sense or not for the product in question. I.e BMW tried to charge a subscription for seat warmers in their cars, but that turned out to be one step to far. But give it a couple of years and they will try again..

 

 

 

 

[Atmosph3rik]

4 hours ago, CptLoRes said:

Which is why I said "you want to own it". So it is not necessarily the end result, especially when it comes to digital products. But it is still a ingrained want most people have, and why subscription makes many people hesitate more then paying a one time sum. And I am old enough that I remember a time when once you payed, you would get software on a physical medium that you owned and that would never expire. Something you could even resell if you no longer needed it. Imagine that!

 

And speaking on this topic. Big corp has been playing the long game for a while now, and have slowly but surly been training people to think that renting instead of owning is the norm (Neo-feudalism but with corp instead of government leading the charge).  And the end result is everything becoming subscriptions based as people start to accept this, regardless of if it makes sense or not for the product in question. I.e BMW tried to charge a subscription for seat warmers in their cars, but that turned out to be one step to far. But give it a couple of years and they will try again..

 

 

 

When someone really wants something that they can't have, businesses are often tempted to just sell them whatever they do have, and tell them they are getting the thing that they wanted.

 

To me that's what NQ would be doing if they sold the game as is.

 

I would rather have a game company be honest and tell me that if i keep paying them, they will keep giving me access to their product.  Rather than telling me i own the product, and as long as someone keeps giving them money maybe i'll still have access to the product.

 

I don't like signing up for reoccurring charges either.  Especially when it's with a shady 3rd party company that makes it hard to cancel.  NQ was supposed to implement the DAC system, so it was possible to access the game without that level of commitment too.  

 

The first time i agreed to pay a subscription for an MMO i was giving my private info to SONY.  I think a lot of people would be more inclined to sign up for a reoccurring charge if it was with the same company that was selling the game.  Or at least a company that they trusted.

[RugesV]

Pretty sure NQ would be happy if you donated a couple tens of millions of dollars to them to provide the game for free to everyone. 

[Celestis]

FWIW, if your business model consisted of a subscription of less than $10 per month, I'd still be playing DU but at approx $20 per month it's too expensive so I have found other games that are less than $10 per month.

 

You could so easily have a cheap subscription or zero subscription for just the basic game with extras we have to pay to be able to do.

 

At the moment you are getting nothing from me and I'm not playing so offering me double talent points just isn't going to get me back.

 

If you offered players like me who have left half a year or more ago, a six month sub for $10 per month, I'd come back and so might others.

 

Just giving you feedback.

[Muhadmananda]

well before anything they would have to actually develop the game...tbh it all looks more like the server will get shut down soonish with there being no momentum from novaquark at all. optimistically thinking they could be working on a bigger update but i kinda doubt it sadly...DU could have been a great game but they really rammed it in the ground.