New funding model?

[Babalonian]

I believe that the new achievement system is a precursor for a new funding model for Aces high.

The most serious problem for hitech or in fact any business is how to increase profits and increase the customer base.  The way Aces is set up at the moment, it has and will prove difficult to achieve these goals.  At the moment there are about 5000 subscriptions. How do you maintain your customer base and increase those numbers? Under the present subscription model, advertising is the only possible solution, however even if the advertising is successful, and say for instance attracts 1000 new players to a two week free trial, how does AH convert any of those new players to the subscription model? The huge learning curve the game requires IN combination with the current scoring and rank system is not conducive to new players staying. I see some noobies flying 10s if not hundreds of sorties to get a kill. This is obviously discouraging and sends many potential customers away. The new "achievements" solve this problem nicely. Humans are hard wired to become addicted to tasks that provide small and continuous rewards. Poker machines are designed to exploit this fact very effectively. Lots of bells and whistles even for little payouts compel the player to continue under the false assumption they are gaining something.  The parallel with the new achievement system is obvious, getting 3 secs of airtime in a jeep is totally unrelated to any part of AH, but is a fun and achievable reward for a player. Other achievements are obviously designed to improve game play, getting a kill in every plane, or killing 1 of every type of plane, encourages the use of of many of the wonderful older planes that at the moment are just a waste of space. How many spit1s do u see in the LW arena? The new model will see a plethora of new planes and gvs in use.  This will spell the end of the current scoring system.  Rank will be in the future based on the number of achievement goals that are met.  Why do this?

The basic idea behind this new system is i believe the beta test for removing subs altogether. Most games on the net do not follow the antiquated subscription model or even buy the CD model.  Gaming on the net has evolved to  "free to play, pay for upgrades".  So for instance, as a noobie you have access to say a P51b, after gaining perks or "gold" or some such counter from either ticking off of achievements or and here is the important bit, you can buy the plane straight up!! might cost a dollar say to have access to P51D, an extra dollar if you want 1000lb bomb load out etc, might be $15.00 for a 262, not every time u up one but just to get access to the model.  When plane is lost or damaged it will cost a certain amount of achievment "gold" or cash for repair/ replacement.

The advantage of this scoring/revenue stream is that the potential market is now HUGE. Many games i play online follow this model and have 100s of thousands if not millions of players!!!  Makes the 5000 subs look like a waste of time.  1 game i play on facebook, had a special event this week (they usually run 1-2 times a month) the prizes would be similar to gaining a 262 or a tempest for your hanger, I couldn't believe the number of players talking about how much they spent, some more than $200 over a weekend, and for what? A stupid fairly cheesy simple flash game that provides those same rewards for free if you spend the time and effort to get them. This game has 1.8 million players!!!! If only 0.5 % of those players spent $15.00 per month that's twice the turnover of Aces high, and trust me a lot more than 0.5% spend money!

Another advantage for Hitech, a critical mass of players can be reached where advertising becomes more profitable and less necessary, and word of mouth or should i say the social network does all the advertising you need.  Moderating the game becomes far less of a headache.  At the moment hitech must moderate chat and player behavior closely so as not to offend its present customer base, a stalwart group that have well entrenched ideas and attitudes toward the game that makes any changes subject to intensive lobbying from the regular players.  If the customer base numbers in the 100k plus range, it becomes of a bit of who cares what you say. A simple text filter and a watch for hacks is as far as moderating will go.

How will it affect the top raters and present players? Well for a start no subs. We should be at a skill level where most achievements will be easy for us, still hard for noobies.  We wont have to spend any where near the amount of new players or I'm sure Hitech can organize it so that we end up spending about the same money per month. At least it will be our choice on how to spend those dollars, if we are not interested in a new Me410 then we just wont buy one, and market forces will determine where AH spends its R and D. At the moment they have to guess what we want then cop the complaints when they don't get it right. The new funding model will point Hitech in the right direction, if most peeps are spending money on P51ds, then that's the plane that should be upgraded first.  New income will lead to improvements in quality of graphics etc.  How could Hitech justify spending$ on graphic improvements now, if it really does not increase customer base enough to make it worth while. At the moment they are chasing their own tail, trying to keep the present players happy and yet spend money they probably don't have to advertise to customers who probably wont stay because the scoring rank reward system is designed to work against them.  The scoring/rank system also creates many problems within the game, peeps getting angry cause a single death destroys their score for the month, that death may come at the hands of a noobie HO or collide and the noobie suffers the berating on chat and thinks why bother? If on the other hand that single death makes far less impact on a players overall achievements met or overall ranking, then less angst will be generated.  This new model wont solve all the problems but will go a long way to ensuring AH continues in the future. Personally I love the new feature. Perhaps because i am used to playing other games under this model, they certainly cause me far less frustration than this game does.

What do you think?
Will it matter what you think?
5000 subs versus the potential millions of players is a no brainier.
If I am totally wrong sry Hitech.
If I am right would love to work for you and with you in the future Aces high!!!

You assume HTCs generates under a million US dollars in raw revenue a year with just AH, but is also thinking about changing the entire AH-world as we know it?        

[Mace2004]

I think everyone's missing the big picture and aren't thinking outside of the box!  I introduce AcesHiVille!

AH stays the same high quality, subscription based game but instead of flying over sterile terrain there are thousands of farms and fields of crops and horses and, yes, sheep.  These farms are built by earth-bound F2P "citizens" (we will call them "The French") who not only get to build their farms and houses but also get to repair them when we drive tanks through or toss the occasional bomb the wrong direction.  They'll have their own chess piece (a Pawn naturally) and get their bubblegumforthemind thrills with the added benefits of the "repair" and "rebuild" achievements.  They get to sit on their porches and watch the air battle all while trying to survive in warzone. Heck, they can even bury the occasional neighbor or family member.  HiTech will get his millions and AH will be subsidized by people that don't know the difference between a left and right click.  We would also get to add "collateral damage" to our achievements list!

I see this as a "win-win."

Discuss.

 

[mechanic]

To the original post:

The fact that you assume that simply changing the payment system is going to increase the global interest in vintage flight simming by a factor of millions is totaly beyond my comprehension

[Zoney]

The achievement system is simply to give players something different to do when they feel like something different. No more no less. It has absolutely nothing to do with any type of a different payment system/business model.

If I was ever to do a WOT type payment system, I sure would not choose a realism base WWII aircraft to do it with.

HiTech

Well, there ya go Hawker.

If this was a desperate cry for attention, you did well.
Either way this is the time where you say, "Well I can see I was completely wrong in my assumptions".

My expectations are very low on that happening based on your contrary statement to everyone that disagreed with you, who by the way seemed to be right in their assumptions.

I am not amused.  I shall not assume what Hitech feels about your post.

[ink]

I believe Lusche has generated player reports that show the number of active accounts. I believe the number was around 4k-5k.

But I don't that the achievements will be part of a new funding system. I do think that dispite everyone claiming no one plays for score, many who play like to have goals, or set goals for themselves to keep the game interesting. This formalizes that, and socializes it so as to get more players involved in it. I think it will remind players of other aspects of the game and create more mission diversity for each player. I think that can only be a benefitial impact on gameplay. Also, I do believe that the newer genration of gamers are used to the achievement model and this has the potential to help them connect with the game a little faster, also a good thing.

But it's also just fun. And I think HTC is always lookin for ways to make the game more fun. In fact just a couple of days ago, someone joked about how there should be an achievement for landing a Lanc on a carrier. Withina few hours BatFink posted a film of himslef landing a Lanc on a carrier, re-arming it and taking back off. I watched the vid with stunned amusement, and then laughed my butt of for ten minutes. For me, that already made the achievement system worth it! they are also a chance to learn a lot about history. Many are modelled after many of the great feats accomplished by the great flyers of the war. This keeps their accomplishments alive, and in rememberence, and sends me scrambling to the internet to look up who many of them are. While a fan of the era and machines, I am not the historian that many who play here are, and it's nice to see this history play a bigger part in the game. I think this is an overlooked aspect of what the achievement system can bring to the community. 

I was thinking that when you click on a "history" achievement IE "down 352 in German iron"  it will have a short summery of Hartmans story.....was gonna mention it....but figure everyone would say that's what school is for

[vHACKv]

Got to love armchair business people. A huge reason people start their own private companies is so they can do it their way. Sure it might seem tyrannical to tell a perfectly good, money paying customer to "shove off", for not bending to their every demand. This is called the free market, if there are not enough customers then it won't succeed. However, in this case going to a trendy micro purchase model would kill the game. I encourage everyone to read the "About Us" section here:

http://www.hitechcreations.com/company-info/support-contactus

Speculating about a private companies revenue, and telling them how to spend it on marketing, assets, personnel etc. Is the internet equivalent of holding another mans unit and aiming it for him, while he relieves himself. I cringe every time I see it on the forum.

There is only one word to describe why Aces High exists... Passion. If you want the Zuckerberg, style model go play a game. To me this is a M.M.O.W.W.2.C.F.S.w.T.a.B. (Massive Multiplayer Online World War Two Combat Flight Sim with Tanks and Boats). So if you want to define success of AH with terms like venture capitalist, stock options and quarterly earnings. Why don't you go get your skinny jeans, put on your sneakers and ironically worn down looking blazer, head to Silicon Valley. Then, get you a venture capitalist, and see how much you get to run your "own" company. Don't forget to use the term "change the world", this is a must in Silicon Valley for start-ups.

On a side note EA is a terrible company, on many levels. Here is just the first thing that comes to mind:

http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/04/game-publisher-electronic-arts-is-voted-the-worst-company-in-america/

Skuzzy you like your job?

The forums are for many things, but for telling HiTech how to run his company is not one of them. What if he is just some random independently wealthy guy, who wanted his own virtual WWII battleground that he could share with people, and allowed them input to the evolution of the experience? While employing other people and giving them stable lives, doing what they love, with minimal government regulation due to its small business classification.

Quit talking about HiTech's wallet, didn't your mother teach you manors?

HACK
<S>

P.S. Quarterly rant over... seems like this is becoming a habit
P.P.S. Just read mace2004's comment after posting this ROTFL 

[Lusche]

Quit talking about HiTech's wallet, didn't your mother teach you manors?

This particular talk did end almost two years ago. You just revived an old thread just to say that it should stop?  

[Skuzzy]

Locked for violation of forum posting rule #10.