AH3: Steam Edition?

[Drano]

Catch South Park episode "Freemium isn't free". Pretty much explains it all in a way only they can!

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[MrKrabs]

This isn't quite just a game.... This is a hobby...

A very large portion of the playerbase have multiple years under their belts while other games are littered with many people that are mere thrill seekers and those same games cater to those people.

By paying a mere 15 a month you are paying for this grand clubhouse of aces high and a community full of the best people in the world and that is even accounting for the occasional miscreant that likes to spoil the fun for others.

Tell me.. how many of these other games have a community like this? A community that will not fizzle out after a few years?

Anyways a recap... This is a hobby for many not some game.

[Tumor]

Running AH on Steam COULD result in a truly horrific nightmare.  Hey, JMHO but we have plenty of game-the-game console kiddie style players hangin around here already.  Sure, it might increase numbers, but at what cost?  There's an ever decreasing niche of the kind of people AH is good for, and good for AH.  I'd just as soon see HTC finish up III, and concentrate on prying these kinds of players out of the woodwork via targeted advertising. 

[SirNuke]

If you don't play anything other than aces high and have no interest in other game, your opinion is not worth anything.

Everyone wants to think he's "elite" and plays the superior game. Superior unknown game die like any other, and that's what is happening to aces high.

[zack1234]

Log on

Up a plane

Make loads of noise

Log off

Nuke does not play anymore so has no opinion on AH.

[Plawranc]

I have not played in a long time. And I have seen the few get even fewer to paraphrase the Longest Day. I wish I could say that Aces High could be saved. But War Thunder and other F2P models are killing us. And to be honest, as long as they keep up the pressure. They will. The fact is a monthly sub is a huge difference to something free.

[SirNuke]

Nuke does not play anymore so has no opinion on AH.

I wish I was, but an empty arena is not worth 15$ a month

[Badger85]

Thank you all for contributing to the discussion. Two further points from me:

To get onto Steam, in addition to the development costs, I think HTC would have to invest in a marketing effort to re-brand AH3. I thought Gman brought up some really good points, and I looked up how many players WarBirds has playing on Steam: the numbers are almost non-existent. So it seems Steam didn't really help WarBirds.

WB 2016 was released on Apr 2015 onto Steam, but they don't really have good brand positioning, if you ask me, based on their Steam store page. What sets them apart from the likes of WT and IL-2? It's hard to say based on their own branding, so that may have contributed to their lackluster performance on Steam. I think AH would have to make a strong case, if HTC were to use Steam, on their store page for what makes it different from other combat flight sims on the market.

This brings me to my second point. How would AH be able to attract the serious type of gamers that could contribute in a productive way to Special Events like FSO? I'm a little biased in this regard because, as I've said earlier, I think Special Events are what make AH unique in the gaming arena. I know I'm not alone in this because I remember seeing a poll on the AH forums which suggested there was a very large percentage of people that feel the same way that I do about AH Special Events.

I think it would be possible to attract the right kind of gamer on Steam and create a gateway for them to enter the Special Events world. The community is already here, but it may take greater cooperation of squads (who already have an interest in expanding their membership base) to help new players assimilate into FSO type events. Maybe there would be a special registration and training process for new players interested in Special Events that would also weed out the trolls looking to commit their antics.

What do you guys think?

[lunatic1]

Full disclosure: Though I had joined AH in 2012 and supported it for a couple of years, I have not been a member for over a year.

One of the significant things that prevents me from joining again is what I perceive to be a steep pricing model. One way of lowering prices for gaming companies, in my opinion, is to offer their product on Steam and get a tremendous boost in people trying the game.

Is there any chance AH3 will be on Steam with a new pricing structure? I did a cursory search for this in the forum and have not seen a discussion of this yet (though I'm sure it has been mentioned somewhere sometime).

What are your thoughts?

then why are you still here in this forum?

[lunatic1]

 

I guess if $15.00 breaks the bank, you need to work on bettering your salary, either through a better job or promotion at your current one.  Perhaps your efforts right now should not be spent on any online game.  You could always give up one or more of the porn sites you subscribe too.  I know that's a tough one, porn or AH, porn or AH.

+1

[vHACKv]

Am I the only one that saw Steam accounts had a bug (feature) or was hacked over Christmas?

http://kotaku.com/valve-still-hasnt-told-steam-users-about-the-christmas-1750114754

Look how wonderful they are about communicating! Do you think you could get the admin of the Steam servers on the phone in about 12 seconds from now?  I think some people have no idea what we have here and how wonderful it truly is.

Giving 15+ years of established customers / users and their accounts plus 30% off the top, to some third party gaming company that is the flavor of the week, would be business seppuku. These guys are having growing pains and this issue above might actually kill them.

Enough with the crazy talk, a Steam version is as tangible as Glzz's leprechaun's pet unicorn's seamen sample (All things mentioned there I think are banned on the BBS).

This whole thread is one big word vomit, including the unicorn seamen part. Please think or Google then read the results or something before you post this crap. 

[lunatic1]

As I have posted many times the fifteen bucks is a filter screening out the trouble makers.  Well . . . most of them.

+1

[lunatic1]

why should Hitech pay for another company to run their game when they can pay for their own site?

[lunatic1]

If you don't play anything other than aces high and have no interest in other game, your opinion is not worth anything.

Everyone wants to think he's "elite" and plays the superior game. Superior unknown game die like any other, and that's what is happening to aces high.

it is said you don't play ah2 anymore so why should you have an opinion?
I was away from this game for 7 months-and every day all I could think of was getting back to this game.
and yes this is the only game I play. I have been playing since 2008 except for the 7 months I was out.
so my opinion is worth a whole hell of a lot.
where is it said I have to play other games as well as AH to have an opinion.

in my book ACES HIGH 2     is the SUPERIOR GAME.
I have looked at the other games on youtube.
warthunder's a joke-too cartoonish-even the ene players callsigns are visable-all the info to see the enemy you don't have to hunt for the badguy.
world of tanks-is a joke looks like a cartoon-in real life tanks didna run into each other to blow them up
world of ships-all sides have id and range markers-a joke.

I play the game I want to play-not what somebody wants me to play.

and no I was not in jail or prison.

[SirNuke]

it is said you don't play ah2 anymore so why should you have an opinion?
I was away from this game for 7 months-and every day all I could think of was getting back to this game.
and yes this is the only game I play. I have been playing since 2008 except for the 7 months I was out.
so my opinion is worth a whole hell of a lot.
where is it said I have to play other games as well as AH to have an opinion.

in my book ACES HIGH 2     is the SUPERIOR GAME.
I have looked at the other games on youtube.
warthunder's a joke-too cartoonish-even the ene players callsigns are visable-all the info to see the enemy you don't have to hunt for the badguy.
world of tanks-is a joke looks like a cartoon-in real life tanks didna run into each other to blow them up
world of ships-all sides have id and range markers-a joke.

I play the game I want to play-not what somebody wants me to play.

and no I was not in jail or prison.

I see where you are coming from, I started gaming in ~88 and I appear for the first time on the AH scoreboard on tour 21. I still check the AH BBS daily because there is no real MMO air combat alternatives out there, and wish to play AH in all its glory, but numbers at euro prime time prevent me from doing and I see no clear sign from HTC to improve on that which saddens me. So I deleted my accounts and spend my game money on other games like CS:GO and rocket league. World of warships is decent fun aswell.

My specific post was strictly relative to the steam discussion at hand, I am a enthusiast steam user and looking at all the payment options available for the games I believe that AH could gain the players I need for my own little fun to start again, while keeping a tight community. I don't know the financial implications for HTC's business, my guess is that Aces High should be a proud pay-to-win game, where non subscribers only have access to a limited number of roles/planes/arenas.

Note that I was salty when I typed this, looking at people dismissing the steam option without ever using it once and looking down on the newb plebs that could come from steam (snobbery?). I also believe Aces High is a great game and would shine from its qualities on steam, bringing a new crowd for Aces High III, giving it all it's glory back.