Re: MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?

From: Enno Rehling <enno@despammed.com>

Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 17:22:56 +0000

MadCentral wrote:
> You're wrong Enno.  *That's* not the reason he wont reach a large target
> audience.  There are a great many players out there prepared to pay the price
> of a great game.  $100 a year is comparable to the cheapest commercial
> DungeonWorld position.  The absolute minimum a commercial DW position is going
> to cost is about $78 a year (26 turns @ $3.00 per turn).  The vast majority of
> players spend a lot more than that per turn.  A fair few pay $1000+ a year in
> turn fees.

I stand corrected, then. Didn't know you could get 500+ players at that
price, but it's encouraging to see that I'm wrong. But reaching thousands of
players? MMORPGs reach hundreds of thousands (though only one has broken a
million so far).

So yes, I should have thought before I write. It should be possible, if you
have a good game and you do proper marketing, to get more players. And no, I
do understand why someone would choose to pay for a good game rather than
play an inferior free game - if I was looking for a good game, price would
not be the issue, it would be the fact that I have very limited time and
want to spend it having loads of fun. I thought I was in a very small
minority group - most other PBEM players I know are students, seem to have
time in abundance, and are notoriously short on money :-)

> Don't get me Wrong, AO looks like a bunch of fun.  But its obviously not for
> everybody.

Oh yeah, I absolutely agree. It's not even for me, because I have way too
little time beside work and hobby to play it properly. I suck at it :-)

>> Our price is 16.25 euro per quarter (1.25 a week) in our case. Even so we
>> have a hard sell, because there are too many free games out there, and many
>> players are willing to substitute a lower-quality free game for a
>> higher-quality pay-to-play game.
>
> I don't find I have a hard sell at all, and many of our players pay a lot more
> than 16.25 per quarter.  Maybe you just dont have a game which has a large
> commercial appeal?  Or perhaps you need to get some advice on promotion and
> target audiences?  I'm not suggesting either is the case, I have no idea, I'm
> only offering what I've found to be the two most common reasons why games
> struggle to find quality commercial players.

Oh, our marketing stinks to hell :-) I know, because I've studied that
stuff. We don't advertise, and we're honest when it comes to what we
consider flaws in our game, we do the whole thing purely as a hobby, and we
limit ourselves to a german audience (at least for the commercial market)
because we're too lazy to look into credit card billing systems. I know why
we've only got around 150 paying customers. But I'm not trying to make a
living of it. I decided for myself that it's a tough job, and I respect what
you're doing, but it's not for me, not full-time.

Enno.
--
If C++ has taught me one thing, it's this: Just because the system is
consistent doesn't mean it's not the work of Satan. (Andrew Plotkin)

References

Re: MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?
Enno Rehling <enno@despammed.com>
Mon, 13 Jan 2003 08:41:02 +0000
Re: MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?
madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral)
Mon, 13 Jan 2003 16:12:29 +0000

Referenced By

Re: MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?
Enno Rehling <enno@despammed.com>
Mon, 13 Jan 2003 08:41:02 +0000
Re: MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?
madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral)
Mon, 13 Jan 2003 16:12:29 +0000