A perspective from a new player on payment/player numbers

[Ack-Ack]

but if I would make a game I know I would distribute it on steam because it's the place where you make money from games today.

Correction, Steam is the place where Valve makes money.  If I was a small developer, I would be hesitant to jump into Steam.  While it is probably the most popular form of digital distribution for games, Steam is not very friendly towards small, indie developers.  More small, indie developers fail even though they went to Steam than those that succeed. 

There is a crowd on steam who just collects games for the sake of collecting, because they need to have all the games in their library, and then are the trading cards, where people trade cards with each other for real money and the developers and steam get a cut from the sales.

Steam uses a proprietary algorithm to rank their games, and developers have found out ways to exploit it to artificially raise their "ranking" and increase monetary revenue.  Just look how some developers are using the trading cards to exploit the algorithm for their games that don't exist and still generate revenue.     

[nugetx]

Correction, Steam is the place where Valve makes money.

Sure, but for that 30% you get massive exposure.....  One would have to do math on how much would a TV commercial cost in this day and age and towards whom it is centralised and then compare it to steam where it's directly marketed towards gamers from the whole world

[Skuzzy]

That Paysafe option is not an option.  The merchant rates are ridiculous.  I thought American Express was bad. but these guys make AMEX look really good.

[bustr]

He is not making steam out to be pro HTC in terms of profit as much as his personal desire to not pay HTC directly. And he's being obtuse and does not want to loose an argument because he is pro steam knowing Hitech will not make the move. He is not representing steam very well if he is an employee if they are trying to include Hitech as a subscriber.

[Skuzzy]

I doubt it bustr.  Anyone working in this industry would know those merchant rates are absurd.

[bustr]

See Rule #4

[Skuzzy]

Calm down bustr.

[nugetx]

He is not making steam out to be pro HTC in terms of profit.

Actualy I am.

Younger crowd who don't own a credit card, can't make money transfer, can't own paypal for the same reason(or people who just don't use them for various reasons),  CAN purchase a paysafecard voucher because you buy it like candy at a local shop.

Now, lets say 1000 people for example will get the game on steam,,,, otherwise those 1000 would not play at all for the reason stated above.  That is 1000 x 15$ ...... Even with that 30% ..... that is 1000 more players in the game vs 0, how is that not pro HTC ?

[nrshida]

that is 1000 more players in the game vs 0, how is that not pro HTC ?

How many additional arenas would be needed to accomodate an additional 1000 players? How would you delineate and manage them fairly and for the long-term health of the game? What do propose HTC does with the large cash injection? In what direction do you propose they develop? Do you suggest HTC becomes more volume-based in philosophy? What percentage of existing, long-term players would be alienated? How do you propose to convert instant gratification, competitive-focussed newcomers to become long-term players? Do you alternatively support a simplification of the simulation to compress the learning curve? Is there a set of conventions all things must converge towards in order to remain successful? 

[Skuzzy]

Actualy I am.

Younger crowd who don't own a credit card, can't make money transfer, can't own paypal for the same reason(or people who just don't use them for various reasons),  CAN purchase a paysafecard voucher because you buy it like candy at a local shop.

Now, lets say 1000 people for example will get the game on steam,,,, otherwise those 1000 would not play at all for the reason stated above.  That is 1000 x 15$ ...... Even with that 30% ..... that is 1000 more players in the game vs 0, how is that not pro HTC ?

This presumes each player does not incur any cost to HTC.  That is not realistic.

Again, there is no way we are going to use Paysafe and pay those absurd merchant transaction fees.

[nugetx]

Wow those are a lot of questions, which i'm not knowledgeable enough to answer, so i'll only adress a few in my amateurish way as i have nothing to do with the industry, it's just a player perspective!

How many additional arenas would be needed to accomodate an additional 1000 players?

I can't realy know how many players would there be, if 100 or 10,000, but they wouldn't play all at the same time, people are from different time zones etc, so everyone could get a share time of play with people from their time zone.Player numbers at the same time in-game would balance themselves out naturaly.

Ofcourse if it would be a big hit there would be a need to increase the capacity.

What do propose HTC does with the large cash injection?

Expand the server capacity if there would be a need to accomodate extra players? Further the development of the game ?

In what direction do you propose they develop?

Actualy I had this idea for a fun and historic arena flight sim which I consider to be my 'dream' game, don't know if anyone will agree with me but here it goes:

Main arena Axis vs Allies,  1 map (a replica of Europe for example). Why 1 map? because people enjoy what they are familiar with, and having 1 map would allow everyone to learn everything by heart. All game mechanics as they are now, but have a war that starts in 1939 and ends in 1945.  According to the year planes are introduced.
For example:

Spitfire I - 1939
109 E4 - 1939 
190 A4 - 1942

etc according to logic.

If a side wins the war before the end of 1945, the front is being reset and the fun begins again !

I will illustrate this with a random picture which i loosely found on the internet just to get the point across.



Capturing the fields would move the front line in one way or the other.

That would require the game to have more planes to accomodate different years.


I believe this would make the game more fun AND historic ! Because it would make you feel like you are a part of a real war and not only  furballing in a p51d vs spit 1 over a crater  which no offense is not historicaly accurate at all. Instead you would fight in a 109 E4 vs Spit 1 over england or parts of france or germany.
Don't get me wrong, the game is good, I love it ! But I believe it can be even better ! HTC can make this game into something wonderfull because no other developer is even trying to do something like this.

What percentage of existing, long-term players would be alienated?

None! Everyone would play together, they already know the game.

How do you propose to convert instant gratification, competitive-focussed newcomers to become long-term players?

Hehe, this is a nice question and the answer is more of a philosophical one, usualy when people grow up they become more patient, but I believe the flight sim crowd is already more patient than the Call of Duty crowd, a good product defends by itself and people would remain for long term.

Hell, if this was on steam and had this Axis vs Allies MA which I hinted at previously, i would get all of my friends to play this and would advertise this everywhere.

Do you alternatively support a simplification of the simulation to compress the learning curve?

Nope, however some people do not have a joystick and as I understand this game can be played with a mouse, it could be elaborated further that the game can be played only with a mouse. It works as a mouse-joystick as i understand ?


 

Is there a set of conventions all things must converge towards in order to remain successful?

Well, I will reply to this with:

Aces High is a good product, but to make it fantastic it needs some changes. Changes are sometimes necessary for growth.


But why i even write this? Because i always liked to play flight sims, and today there are virtualy none, Aces High is probably one of few last arena sims that is still alive, why not breath a breath of fresh life into the o'l gal, make it available to wider community and then some ?

This presumes each player does not incur any cost to HTC.  That is not realistic.

Again, there is no way we are going to use Paysafe and pay those absurd merchant transaction fees.

Thanks for reading anyway.

[FLOOB]

Now I don't know wtf is going on. Should I be scared?

[nrshida]

Should I be scared?

If you think it will help! 

Wow those are a lot of questions,

An impressive amount of work Nuget, however on a metalevel I was trying to question if you thought perhaps there is also an upper limit to AH player numbers before it loses its character, individuality and distinctiveness. Sure player numbers are slightly low at present, but this game has outlasted an awful lot of competitors.

Have you heard of a motorcar company called Morgan? Interesting parallel.

[NatCigg]

the server would crash before the fun would. 
I would play in the 4th arena.  like when we had two arenas, they would filter out the zombie fish leaving a nice pond for my shark to feed. 

 

 

 

[Hungry]

Nugetx I like your concept but my first impression is it would be hard to manage and administrate (code wise)