Re: MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?

From: Enno Rehling <enno@despammed.com>

Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 09:02:02 +0000

steve wrote:
>>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. Not all of them, of course, but the
>>majority does.
>
>
> How long has this game been in existance, and how many players does it
> have, if you dont mind me asking?  What proportion of players are
> German?  Are the numbers increasing/decreasing/stabalising?

As the other Steve pointed out, we're not a typical PBEM game, so I'm no
expert in the matter, and your mileage may vary wildly from this, really.

Eressea (the free game) has been in existence for 6 years. At peak, it had
2000 players, but we've raised the entry barrier (allowing only a llimited
number of new players per week, and making sure they know the rules well
enough before they start by sending them through a mandatory tutorial),
which caused numbers to drop to somewhere between 1500 and 1600. They are
currently rising slightly.

The english version has been working for a little over a year, and about 10%
of new players are english. Like I said earlier, we have no marketing, and
word of mouth spreads slowly. In total, only 3% of players are non-german now.

The pay-to-play game (Vinyambar) started about one year ago. We have around
150 active players in that, and they all speak german - and we accept giro
transfers to a german bank account as the only form of payment, which means
that non-germans would have a hard time playing it anyhow. Our goal wasn't
so much to make big bucks, rather than to be able to justify the insane
amount of time we spend on this to ourselves. You may want to do more
marketing than us, seriously, if you want to get into this business :-)

Oh, and this whole thing is of course going to make a nightmare of my tax
declarations.

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

MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?
spambucket666au@yahoo.com.au (steve)
Fri, 10 Jan 2003 02:36:15 +0000
Re: MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?
Knight37 <knight37m@email.com>
Fri, 10 Jan 2003 04:16:14 +0000
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?
spambucket666au@yahoo.com.au (steve)
Mon, 13 Jan 2003 23:53:51 +0000

Referenced By

MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?
spambucket666au@yahoo.com.au (steve)
Fri, 10 Jan 2003 02:36:15 +0000
Re: MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?
Knight37 <knight37m@email.com>
Fri, 10 Jan 2003 04:16:14 +0000
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?
spambucket666au@yahoo.com.au (steve)
Mon, 13 Jan 2003 23:53:51 +0000