RE: DrugWars - News, referrals, sunday event, and some other updates!
At this points the game was released too early and lacks any of the usual “pride in achieving/leveling up” and subsequent “butthurt when attacked which pushes to invest” psychology.
Good thing: first such game on Steem
Possibly bad thing: people may have moved on by the time the curve (and safety levels) is focused more on staying in game for weeks and months.
I’m five days in and next drug production upgrade will take me 2-3 weeks. Mostly because I first need to upgrade storage levels and then booze and weapons. But at no time will I ever be able to “sleep well” because I will need x5 possible safe storage. By the time I can finally get that upgrade... daily production is at least x2.5-3 already so at best I will maintain my actual level. At best.
I even can’t afford one troop. And why would I? First visit of a bigger stakeholder and they’re all dead and I stay with very small amount of resources which were protected. Can’t heal troops and rumored next resources protection will cost only more and set my drug production upgrade back another few weeks.
I get it... the cartels are brutal. But the psychology of achieving progress is not there and as a small “bottom base the big drug lords need to justify their continued spend” I’m already at 8.5STEEM for that next upgrade.
I don’t care making pennies a day, if at least I can see that I can level up and make progress.
Too early with IAP, IAP too expensive, levelling up too slow... hasta la pasta?
Not sure what you are talking about.
Battles are disabled.
I'm running six accounts with zero defense.
It takes around $2.20 - $7.70 to get a good running start per account.
Playing the game for free was never meant to be viable.
That is the hook. Pay-To-Win.
To assume that this game isn't going to alter its mechanics drastically over the next few months seems incredibly short sighted to me. Development chugs on.
DrugWars Early Access V0.1.5
Not sure why your answer seems that drastically on the now when I say the game lacks the psychology to keep people.
Yes, I spent close to $50k on GoW. For $0 return but few hundred million kills. I understand P2W.
To assume that people will stick around if they can’t grow, i.e. 0 sense of achievement is ludicrous. Yet it I still the bottom level players you need to constantly go attack for resources.
The game is based in mathematics. It does not matter what level you are, if you defend your resources with more troops than the resources you are banking are worth, it is not financially viable to attack that account. It's people that are greedy that get attacked, no matter what level. This, of course, assumes that the motivation for attacking is based on pure greed and accumulation of wealth. There will be plenty of people that attack for other reasons.
That all depends on the pitch.
If the pitch is “earn from” it becomes a math game. That will implode. Because that will shift the focus to user acquisition to maintain sufficient investment every day to keep the top players vested enough to keep spending on those expensive high levels. People will do math and with ever growing total production and thus lower daily rewards, that also due to the evergreen rewards, they will become disinterested very quickly. Because math = “too long for ROI”.
If you make it a MMO, then you have a longer chance of survival if the achievement curve is more satisfying. People will he more vested in their empire. Emotionally, beyond the actual spend.
User acqui still becomes an issue and most similar games have been “reskinned with slightly changed mechanics” at some point to start all over again. Operating 3-8 similar games simultaneously.
Check out Gabe Leydon. He’s been at it since before Mafia wars. Nobody understands the MMO psychology model as well as he does.
After less than 3 years, MachineZone had received 4x in funding what’s currently STEEM marketcap.
He never published many insights but he’s spoken at many a gaming conference. His insights are liquid gold.
PS: I’m not complaining about returns. Early to the game and spotted the attractively priced LaCocina. I’m rolling in the profits. But at this point any curve is too long and because the game pitches earnings... I do my math differently than I would if the game pitched a differently play. If the devs want to achieve longevity... they need to fix the achievement psychology.
Otherwise... early release can also massively backfire and many may have long left before the game reached close to what it wants to be.
What businesses do you want to see on steem? 5 Minutes of fame models, until newest shiniest thing or developers/entrepreneurs who can say they bought a car, house, and one for their mom too from Steem?
PS: Fixed some horrible typoes. Low battery not too powerful iPhone, mix of Siri autocorrect and autosaving editor does horrible things if in power savings mode. Apologies.