Cash Shop Incentives

[Procne]

Stalls for real cash only. With upkeep. Like 15-20$ to buy a stall, and 5$ monthly upkeep. Although with the power they provide currently I wouldn't be surprised if people were willing to pay 100$ to buy, and 20$ upkeep.

Tool for destroying walls - destroys walls (or adds bonus to it) on player's claim. Wears down over time, cannot be used if pclaim is overlapped with vclaim if player is not a member of this village.

[Nixman]

Maybe a premium system would be a good idea, if you subscribe to a premium account you gain certain benefits, such as premium only market stalls, or discounts on boston items, maybe be able to sell for a little more too. Considering you can buy silver anyways, a monthly payment wouldn't be all that different. Maybe a 20 slot inventory as long as your premium is active. or a %less upkeep costs on your claim and so on.

[Potjeh]

Those are some ideas worthy of Zynga, especially jwhite's batch. Making the game so blatantly P2W can only decrease the income as it would decimate the player population. I for one wouldn't touch it with a remote controlled 10 foot pole if these ideas were implemented. In fact, the stalls and the english snuff (it's +20% experience from every inspirational, right?) already rub me all kinds of wrong, but they're minor enough to ignore for now. Then again, the journey to hell begins with a single step.

Anyway, rather than looking for inspiration in an abomination like Zynga, I think the devs should look up to Valve, because TF2 is the only F2P game I've ever seen that's done the whole cash shop thing right. That is, the focus should be on cosmetic items. The big difference of course is that you can't lose those in TF2 (but you can still trade them), so I think it might be a good idea to make cosmetic clothes unlootable. The biggest market for cosmetic items would be buildings, though, if they weren't made of paper mache. Seriously, it's just plain ridiculous how you can destroy the top end buildings in one bar worth of phlegm with an average PvP character.

[Sevenless]

*Coughs* League of Legends *Coughs* They are definitely the reigning king of F2P with cash shop games atm.

I don't think we can entirely avoid the P2W aspect (if we're gonna sell ingame currency that's an obvious indication it's something we're willing to do in order to finance the game), but yeah Chief's ideas are just ludicrous. Mind, I don't honestly believe he's serious about it either so eh.

[Potjeh]

Sure, some degree of BS is unavoidable (unless you're Valve, apparently), as F2P with cash shop is the worst revenue model ever conceived by man, but you can at least grind crickets for silver. Having stuff that has actual utility and can only be bought for RL cash would be a crime against art, though.

[Sevenless]

Sure, some degree of BS is unavoidable (unless you're Valve, apparently), as F2P with cash shop is the worst revenue model ever conceived by man, but you can at least grind crickets for silver. Having stuff that has actual utility and can only be bought for RL cash would be a crime against art, though.

To be fair you lumped in my suggestions with Chiefs. The only area I border on iffy on is the premium currency. If people were willing, they could pay a helluva lotta silver for it and skew things. But I don't see that happening, or we'd see people in the trade section offering 10k silver for item packs or something silly.

I can't find the reference, it was a quote from a developer in a Gamasutra article about F2P. The honest truth is that we're not operating solely off a "pay what you can afford model" for F2P games, even the cosmetic only. We're trapping the mentally unwell who really can't afford to pay that much but do it anyway because it's the only part of their life they enjoy living. And trust me, I've known the "whales", they are always incredibly sick people and it depresses me.

F2P games are taxing the unhealthy so that the average person can enjoy the game at no cost. We're basically running Casino operations (in Canada those profits go to support government programs). That dark side of this payment model is what everyone's blissfully ignoring. It's honestly made me reconsider my dream to be a game dev, knowing that I'd essentially have to start via F2P, and have to take advantage of sick people to do it.

[Procne]

I thought people who are paying and buying stuff in F2P games are mostly those who have a lot of spare money and buy stuff on a whim. Or just prefer to speed things up with a boost from cash shop than to work in a game.

For example kid of some people I know - he sees something interesting in the cash shop and goes "mommy, buy me this", mommy pulls out her CC and bam, kid gets his hat for 15$

[Sevenless]

I thought people who are paying and buying stuff in F2P games are mostly those who have a lot of spare money and buy stuff on a whim. Or just prefer to speed things up with a boost from cash shop than to work in a game.

For example kid of some people I know - he sees something interesting in the cash shop and goes "mommy, buy me this", mommy pulls out her CC and bam, kid gets his hat for 15$

That's what we like to think. But the reality is people like my once friend Poat (Pronounced Poet and she damn well let you know that). Bipolar, very sick, working a **** McJob, and spent every single dollar of her disposable income on games (One f2p in particular of course, but the name doesn't matter much). She would regularly spend 100-200$/week on it to buy fame and fortune. She could barely afford rent and food, but she put that much into the game anyway. It let her live a fantasy life where everyone loved her (for her money) and she was a superstar. This is a classic profile of the "Whale" consumer in F2P games, and it's what both Paradox and much of the industry bank on for revenue. Kids crying "Mommy" do not spend 100$ + per month on games.

I've known a lot of people like this. I've got more stories if you're not convinced.

[Nixman]

I'm sure many different types of people pay and play, well and unwell. The great thing about games is that they can cater to everyone because everyone who is here generally has one thing in common, they generally like the game.

But anyways, I think we are going off topic.

[Sevenless]

I'm sure many different types of people pay and play, well and unwell. The great thing about games is that they can cater to everyone because everyone who is here generally has one thing in common, they generally like the game.

But anyways, I think we are going off topic.

Indeed, back on topic:

I'm a big believer in modularity. Premium currency, premium writs for buildings (paid for with premium currency). Let the ingame stuff handle being a store, and let the OOG store simply be a way to load your wallet with gold/writs. I think forum posts in announcements can advertise the new item packs just fine on their own honestly.