It's not worth the expense for many reasons. Examples: Traffic-generated revenue does not exceed advertising expenditure. People reached don't stay.
Again, people STAYING is not an advertising issue. If they are getting 1000 downloads a day the advertising is working fine.
We are getting enough initial interest WITHOUT those dollars being spent on advertising. Thus it isn't worth the effort according to internal data. It doesn't matter where you spend it if the people don't stay.
Im sorry, I didnt know you were privy to HTC's data. What happened last year as no bearing on what is happing now. We dont know how many people are trying out the game these days. I dont fly as much as I use to, but Friday and Saturday nights I dont see a heck of a lot of names on the roster with no rank, or no stars, or no squad affiliation. These would be the "new" guys for the most part.
I dont know what HTCs numbers are, I dont think they are getting the hits like they did after the Steam release. I hope they are getting a bunch, but I dont see THAT many new people trying out the game.
As I have said many times, game play has got to change because obviously what we have now isnt enough to KEEP these new players.