Income Pathways to Support Warbarons.com - Suggestions?

[vallarphoros]

Hi,

I've been playing Warbarons for less than two months, so I don't know what has been discussed previously. The launch of the Premium Features seems like a good time to review the goals of the developers in addition to the goals of the community.

There seems to be a portion of the community that feels they are entitled to enjoy the fruits of other people's labors at no cost to themselves. Perhaps that has been the stated intention of the developers, that they would devote countless hours creating and improving this web application (game) simply for the satisfaction of knowing that other people enjoy playing it.

If that's the case, then people should feel free to continue to complain about the free things they don't like, but use anyway. Although some would consider that to be ungrateful.

My suggestion is that rather than complaining about the structure of the Premium Features (or anything else), people try to contribute by spending some time thinking about and suggesting ways to improve the game, the community, and the finances of the developers who make your enjoyment possible.

It's clear from reading through the forums and the chat that many people already contribute to the health and improvement of both the game and the community.

That being said, I've seen little discussion about the fact that creating, maintaining, and improving an application like this takes a huge amount of time and effort (I know because I work as a web developer).

Contibuting ideas and discussion about improving the game and the community are certainly worthwhile, but keep in mind that doing so benefits the contributer by improving the game they enjoy playing and the community in which they are participating. It is, as are most things people do, done in one's own self interest.

As for simply complaining or not participating at all, I say NUTS.

To come to my point:
Little in life is free. Unless the developers are independently wealthy, with no need for income, they need to be compensated for the years they've devoted to making this entertainment available to us. They have bills to pay, possibly family or friends they support, entertainment that they would like to enjoy. It would actually be in everyone's self interest that the developers be compensated for their time so that they will continue to have the time to improve and provide access to the game.

It would be great if everyone in the community took some time to think about reasonable ways for the developers to be compensated for their time:
What features would you be willing to pay a premium for?
Can you think of any others ways for the site to generate income?

There is an understandable concern that the quality and fairness of gameplay could be affected by the purchase of items or memberships. If this concerns you, do something about it (I don't mean complain), offer alternative ways for the developers to earn a living from their work.

Some things I've thought about:
Why aren't there any Ads on the site?
Are the developers waiting to reach a certain level of members?
Is there any valid reason not to have ads on the site to generate income?
Is there any valid reason that people with FREE memberships should not have ads displayed on the pages they view?

Would people be interested in paying for Warbaron branded or themed items:
Wallpapers for your monitor
Tee Shirts
Mugs
Any Suggestions?

I've seen discussion about saving a record of a game so that you can review it turn by turn, would that be an unfair advantage?
I don't think so, anyone can take screenshots of their maps and battle screens each turn, it's simply a time saving convenience.
It could be priced based on the amount of disk space you want available for your saves.

How about an odds widget that let's you check the odds that one unit type will beat another unit type?
Anyone can find a web page that let's you determine your odds based on the number of sides on the dice, the formula used in the game is posted on the wiki, so the information is available to everyone, it's just convenient to have a widget within the game, not an unfair advantage.

Be Well,
VP

[hatchfactory]

I've suggested ad revenue before for the free accounts. I imagine it would be quite successful bringing in revenue compared with other sites that just bring in browsing traffic. I would post ads in-game so that each turn in each game you'd have a new ad ran. I know some app developers pull it off nicely in there free versions and make a good living off of it.

[KGB]

This battle brought to you by Bud Light. Followed by a 15 second commercial video before seeing the battle results. That should drive players crazy enough to get a real membership

If it was me, what I'd do is something far more devious. I'd remove the 10% rule. Then before any battle allow a player to buy 'insurance' for 1 cent. The insurance takes the form of applying the 10% rule to that battle. For a defender, the insurance lasts on your stack until your next turn. $1 = 100 insurance buys. That ought to generate a lot of revenue

KGB

[LPhillips]

Now that is buying an in-game advantage!

I imagine the developers have the welfare of their project in mind just as much as the welfare of the community. They want to draw players in, and provide income for the project (and hopefully themselves to compensate their time), without turning people off with the revenue effort. It's counter-productive to run ads if they drive people away who might be potential contributors.

[hatchfactory]

Freemium marketing has vastly proven itself if done right, if your up to current trends in economics I shouldn't have to explain. The amount of users has been growing but you can bet your bottom now that it's going to drop like a rock. (I'm in favor of memberships too.) Is that going to bring in more members? Yeah some people complain about how much they hate ads blah blah blah, but why do they hate them??? Because they still use the flippin program is why. They still have it on there phone, or they still listen to Pandora, or they still watch the game on TV. They don't stop viewing the ads. The something for nothing crowd, these are the people too cheap to buy the Pandora memberships, full versions of the apps or whatever premium sports channel. (I'm certain I fall into that category somewhere.)
Free with ads vs. Limiting gameplay? which is going to attract more customers...? hmmm is it that hard to see how that works out?
Honestly Warbarons can't compete with the boxed game market and there 20+ full time game developer teams and therefor can't have a similar price tag. I'm sure the developers are aware of who there market is and what they are willing to pay.
The "sumthin fer nuthins" (me included) can under a freeium model can each become useful and helpful contributors by viewing ads and who will even help market the game by getting there buddies in on it. They also vastly improve the gameplay experience by providing a broader pool of capable players, and keep turn-based strategy alive.

[bengute]

One income path possible would be viewing adds for credits. If you watch x number of adds you get x number of credits.

This way the developer still makes, and cheap people or people without access to a credit or debit card (like me) could still 'purchase' credits. They just need to pay with their time rather then their wallet.

[Maze]

Good inititiative! I am willing to contribute, not as a "webdeveloper who knows how much it costs to develop a game", but as a "marketeer/commercial consultant who knows about making a project a commercial success throughout its stages".

Let me give it a try and shoot a couple of (maybe far-fetched) ideas, just as a broaden the horizons and hopefully come to some nice ways to make this game a success:

What about limiting not only the number of games one can play simultaneously but also the maps? E.g. a new/free player can play 3 small maps, 1 medium sized map and 1 large map.
Access to all maps only with gold membership. I would scrap the silver membership, just have one premium membership or you can keep the silver membership for new players who get the first month premium membership for free (comparable to the silver membership that one can buy with the 400 free credits now).

Then ladder games only for premium members: "You want to show off and appear on the wall of warfame, you have to be a premium member."

Also works well for other games: There is already "the" ladder where the top 3 of every season win credits. Why not organize tournaments (like in soccer with pools and later 1vs1 quarter/half/finals or tennis with direct knock-out) with a participation fee and e.g. 50% of the fees is for the developers and 50% goes to the top 3 or so. I am aware this is time-consuming either in organizing the schedule of who against who or in developing a tool that can organize this. The first one can be handled by some "special members" though like the ones who are already now special gold members. "The lonely isle tour" or a tournament with a couple of random maps or so.

Or in a third-party payers' mindset: How many players are needed (to have a critical mass) before we can start talking about "Coca-Cola buildings" on the map, providing refreshment (+2 move, +2 battle) to the armies?
Or a "Google Streetview" feature: when drawing a path to unknown (FOW) location, you have 5% chance that Google Streetview comes to the help: normally you don't see the path behind the FOW, but in 5% of the occasions the path will become visible, with all enemy units etc on your way.
Or a wizard, living in a fantasy world but with magic powers to travel to the future, can after winning a couple of battles get "powers from the future": learns flying with the Ryanair potion, gets 20% discount for new production for city X when present in this city with his Mastercard.

Now, back to the business model and marketing this fantastic game:
The game is imho still in an early adopters' or even test phase (removing the "beta" doesn't change this), let's not judge people who are in general not early adopters and are not willing to pay (yet) for the game. If this is a strategy game, then strategy is what is needed to make the game as a project a success. Begging for money and claiming the costs to develop or maintain something has never proven to be the right way to make a success. Also, beta or not, "critical mass" is the keyword. With only 700 active players you can't possibly have a solid basis for premium memberships. Warbarons has a small elite of great fans, contributing financially and by testing and commenting the game; at this stage of the game financing like the kickstarter campaign, business angels, ... is much more effective, both for funding AND in preventing to scare people off and have the opposite effect of what you need. You need these extra people more for their presence than for their financial contribution. (Just one other example that comes to mind: how much did you pay for your mobile phone conversations during the first 3-6-12 months when you just became a customer 10-15 years ago? Right, zero, you didn't pay and actually cost them money and they probably even gave you nice extra's because they nee-ded cri-ti-cal mass.)

[Chazar]

It is beneficial for the community to grow. You can only keep the gold members if there are enough overall players. Thus the game should remain attractive for new players that just try it out without paying and getting them hooked.

Examples:
good: having the maximum numbers of simultaneous games reduced
bad: not seeing how many turns it takes to arrive a certain location

The first is good, since it does not diminish gaming experience. The latter makes the game confusing to new player (e.g. clicking somewhere with nothing happening), driving them away. The problem is that the feature is hard to understand, unless you have used it before. A bit better are features like the ship/temple pop ups - these are annoying, but not annoying enough to drive someone away. So whatever is done, it should be easy to understand, mildly annoying, but without making the game annoying or boring.

[voster]

One thing really drives me crazy - attacking with a hero and leaving the stack behind.
Happened 3 times in my first game alone. Remember Warlords 2 suffering the same pain

Undo-Buttons or Reload options do affect the game balance by adding an exploit.
Warlords 2 had configurable key settings and buttons. This did offset the lack of an undo.

There is something that sure as hell makes me buy premium after just one game:
A set of additional settings options for

- getting a warning moving one unit out of a stack

- on initiating combat
- on ungrouping flying armies and heroes over water
- removing armies from a stack with movement boni

- disable mouse-click ungrouping
- a safe Alt-Key track preview
- a no training selected warning on leaving the city
- configurable double-click delay
- stopped units being not called by the unit cycle

Constantly loosing valuable hero assets to the overintuitive GUI repeatedly does frustrate me instead of enjoying the game. Actually I would not enjoy it myself for long and get back to good old Warlords 2. Learned to avoid that, save more and reload. Ended up in spoiling by reloading Astonishing that writing a server myself to host this does look attractive with such a beautiful multiplayer remake at hand.

To unlock such setting options would encourage many users to get premium after checking out the game

And I would pay double for a load button

[voster]

One income path possible would be viewing adds for credits. If you watch x number of adds you get x number of credits.

This way the developer still makes, and cheap people or people without access to a credit or debit card (like me) could still 'purchase' credits. They just need to pay with their time rather then their wallet.

Until the ad company finds out they only target people who have no money...

An ad sidebar on entry, login and community pages hurts no one - Premium or not.
complaining doesn't cost anything and you can put someone else down for free.
Servers don't run for free and everbody in his right mind does accept that ads bring in funds.
Much better done lightly than offensive in-game product placement.

You can precisely name the geeky audience preferring computer games, board games and such stuff - perfect deal for the ad company. Some ads I do find creative and a they actually ad new stuff to the site.

There is always people who find the toilet paper not smooth enough
Super premium to turn all ads off - maybe that is another deal.
Make sure you don't spend much dev time on that. Those who complain are typically those who won't enter the deal once it is up and running. They move on to other topics for complaints. That is a known pitfall with user wishlists

Alternatively a flat membership with unlimited credits could work.
A Donate button via paypal at the end of a each game doesn't hurt too.

One likely hotseller candidate
- your own in-game fraction, flags, colours, shields and city skins/designs