email to John Smedley

[super pretendo]

Dear Mr. Smedley,
My name is -me-, and I am a person who is eagerly awaiting the release of PlanetSide 2. More than that, I am someone who is interested in and studies economics, business and math, and I'd like to help offer some of what I think is insight to SOE.
Allow me to define what I think is two ends of the spectrum of general style of games. On one end of the spectrum is purely abstracted games; every aspect of the game is a designed for ease of access and instant gratification, not for metagame goals, not persistent world immersion or not coherent and consistent representation of something. These games would be described as "casual games" or on the extreme end, "social games". On the other end of the spectrum are games with comparatively low levels of abstraction; the game elements exist for more than just instant gratification, often to provide consistent representation of the game's reality. Games on this end are called "hardcore", but I think that term carries much unwanted baggage.
I am bringing this up because it's an important aspect to consider as far as the bottom line of SOE's revenue from PS2 goes. Now, since you are with SOE, I am sure you know the precise F2P numbers, and I do not presume to know more than you and your experts, but this is what I have seen. With all games, especially FPS, there is an urge to go for the "CoD audience" and try to take the easy way out, that is, pushing the design towards the abstraction side of things to make it more accessible. While this may make sense in buy-the-box and even subscription models, the argument to make a persistent game such as PlanetSide 2 avoid the clichés of common shooters is overwhelming. Even though firms tend to be very secretive about their F2P numbers, let's look at the ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) of social games with microtransactions: Puzzle Pirates has an ARPU of one to two dollars, and it is safe to say this is average for. Riot describes League of Legends ARPU in a Gamasutra interview:
"What kind of average revenue per user do you see?
MM: I haven't announced that stuff yet, but it's north of what you see in the industry averages. When compared to social games, we're many multiples higher in terms of percentage of users who do spend money, and our monetization is deeper. That's because users are more engaged with these games. But the trends are still similar to what you'd see in a Zynga title or things like that."
LoL's ARPU is described as higher because of the increased depth in the gameplay than compared to social games, and LoL itself is widely considered to be a very casual game by gamers.
Riot also described most of League of Legends' revenue coming from a minority of hardcore players that drop a large amount of money per month on it. This would mean their ARPPU (Average Revenue Per Paying User) is very high. And here we begin to see the fallacy of trying to attract the "CoD audience." F2P games have a large amount of fly-by-night players and light players, that will play the game casually regardless of whether the game itself is casual or not. From a business standpoint, non-paying players only exist statistically to bring in paying users for every certain number of non-paying user. From all the intelligence I have been able to gather, increasing a game's depth, "hardcoreness" and anything that makes a player care more about it over more time will increase APRU. But, of course, that's one side of the equation. The other side is the total number of users.
What do we know about paying users that the ARPPU derives from? They are the most hardcore bunch that the persistence, depth, complexity challenge, thrill of victory and meta-game of the game matters to the most. What do we about non-paying uses? They tend to be the ones who care the least about the nuances of the game and have no emotional stake in it. Their numbers may very well wax and wane depending on the game being casual or deep, but for the purpose of this quantifying, I will assume that the game being deep will turn some casual and non-paying users into players that care, which is a fair assumption. This can be abstracted into the increase in the number of paying user. Now, intelligence I do not have is variable costs that scale with the number of users. I will assign the number of 10 cents per month as a cost for each user to take into the cost of their connections, customer service and other overhead, which I think is fair. Next, we have the cost of future content creation. It's a well known fact that deep, hardcore sandbox type games require less development over time because much for the engagement is the players finding and creating fun for themselves. Look at WoW, that relies on a content treadmill that is more expensive, and look at EVE online, where patches are mainly tweaking things to better facilitate a deep player experience. While there is of course development demanded for both hardcore and casual players, constantly building new casual themeparks is of course more expensive.
So what can we axiomatize? In the very simplest way
x = lack of depth and "casualness" of the game, s = ARPU of hardcore users, accounting for variable costs c = players to play, j=ARPU of casual users, accounting for variable costs g = development cost, f = fixed costs and P= total profit.
P = ((1/3cx)s/x) + (cx(j) - g(x)- f, {x > = 1}
(I took the liberty of hand waving that the number of hardcore players will be equal to one-third the number of players, because this is of course very simplified, but I have precious little information to use)
The startling implication is that ARPU-plus-costs of casual users, depending on where the line is drawn, may be zero or negative. Perhaps even casual players that join for a quick gunshootin' will be more inclined to spend money if they feel something is at stake, this would represented by the casual-only ARPU of j(1/x) and replace j. In any case it's evident that profit strictly increases as casualness decreases.
So assuming this admittedly simple model has even a splinter of truth, you now have an a clear cut cash shop strategy with hardcore players that want "hardcore" sidegrades. There is every reason to believe that ARPPU is highly elastic with respect to casualness, and is obviously maximized by keeping the non-customized system that currently exists and is arguably casual, and filling the cash shop with nuanced sidegrades that appeal overwhelmingly to the sensibilities of hardcore players that crave strategy and tactics. Right now a lot of the changes from PS1 look on the casual end, which you can easily turn into a great boon, from both a normal standpoint and even a "pure hardcore" standpoint. Off the top of my head, the liberator's cannon replacing its carpet bombs. Veterans are already lamenting its loss. That alone is a goldmine waiting to be tapped and can surely be priced rather highly. But hardcore players, who already have a high ARPU:hardcoreness ratio, will gladly pay, which not only creates revenue, but lowers the game's overall casualness or 'x', which further increases revenue without alienating casuals who would like the default changes.
Grand-strategy decisions, impacts and goals need to be in game. Every outfit on a faction cooperating to expand should have marginal effectiveness beyond just simultaneously striking hexes. Let bases have points and nodes useful beyond actual capturing, so invading forces can come with intention to incapacitate a hex's production or strategic importance. Radar systems? Logistic bonus to give speed bonuses to vehicles within a few hexes? Bridges that give important connections over gorges? That's just off the top of my head, for the developers, the possibilities are endless! Interesting command choices that have great benefits if successful and big costs if not successful are necessary. Removing these considerations will make the game shallow and will hurt your bottom line. The casual players lose nothing from a deep game except perhaps familiarity, and even if they did lose anything, the bottom line remains unscathed in the end. You have the advantage of being the pioneers of a mother lode of a video game genre and being free to play, a great boon to accessibility, that you don't need to CoDify a game with great substance at all to let it succeed.
Thanks a lot for reading, I sure hope I didn't bore you. I have done some analyses with way more detailed and more advanced mathematics that I omitted, so if you actually would like see them I would love to share. I really look forward to playing PS2, and because it looks so perfect, I'd like to see it not stray away from a great vision.

Sincerely,

-me-
Hopefully he responds and expresses interest in seeing the non-basic stuff I am putting together. I really hope they put in varied and nuanced strategic objectives that don't involve just capturing. What about you guys?

[Bags]

Spacing!

[super pretendo]

It didn't format like that in the email, it's just the board's formatting and I don't care enough to respace

[Bags]

Then how can you expect us to care enough to read it?

[super pretendo]

I don't expect anyone to care, that will be shown by replies or lack thereof

[Bags]

Then why post it?

[Zekeen]

I stopped reading at "economics", there's only so much my brain can handle. I can tell you put a lot of time and work into it, and not just brainless effort but solid thinking. At the very least I hope he responds to you for being that devoted to PS2 and feels the appreciation you've presented.

Also, your equations scare me.

[Snipefrag]

You really expect a response to that wall of text? Hes a responsive guy but his entire job doesn't revolve around answering 2000 word brain dumps, If it did he would never get anything done. If you want a response stick to a few key points so he doesn't just read the first 'paragraph' and then stop. Like 95% of us here did.

[kunzadar]

Wouldn't selling something like carpet bombing exclusively for station cash alienate players? Part of the success of F2P games is how seductive they can be. The games require no up front costs from the player which gives the player a feeling of security. They can enjoy the game without any cost, even if the are not opposed to buying things. However if the player feels that they must "pay to win" and that without paying they won't enjoy the game it turns the it into something like a box game with a free demo.

In other words the whole purpose of F2P is to make the entire game experience available to every one. Not necessarily all the content in the game, but the core of the game itself.

[Synapse]

Sooo, basically you think shooter fans won't pay up the way league of legends fans do, and that instead if you bring in Pay2win everyone will just be happy because casuals don't care about it?

This is actually fantastically wrong. Writing a TL/DR for people.


TL/DR for the lazy people
-----------------------------
There are casual games with little strategy, and complex games with lots of strategy. In the former you have casual players who will buy stuff that has no strategy like camo. In the latter you have people who want more strategy.

Since you should sell to the people who care most about the game, you should sell strategy enhancing benefits that the PS2 core fanbase will care about. This equation I have here prooves that people who don't pay are the ones who won't care about it, and therefore will keep playing even though disadvantaged.

In short, if you want to make money off ps2, you should sell special bombs that do more damage, radar to see your enemies coming, bridges to go where other people cant go, etc.
------------------------------

Personally, I hope smed doesn't even grace you with a "no." It all goes really horribly sideways in the middle where your :equation: tells you that people who care about PS2 will all pay for it. Those are two distinct groups. People who care and people who can pay. In short you're wrong on 3 accounts: 1) people who want strategy dont want to buy an advantage 2) people who can pay and people who care about the game are not equal groups, and 3) casual players won't just ignore pay to win, they will leave instead and 4) you're just wrong why am I even writing this.

[Sabot]

I think he implys that casual players wont pay up the way "hardcore" players do, and that the majority of the CoD crowd consists of casual players. Therefor, attracting said crowd to PS2 will not be a profitable goal, and designing the game for more hardcore players would be.

Then there's a lot of math stuff going on and my brain tried to rip itself from my body in agony over it.

[Trafalgar]

The equation makes no sense. You're using variables as functions, e.g. g(x), and I can't tell what you mean by (1/3cx)s/x, although I would guess you actually meant cs/3 (from (1/3)(cx)(s/x) = (cx/3)(s/x) = cxs/3x = cs/3), but perhaps you meant (1/(3cx))(s/x)... I think that's what it would actually be according to order of operations?

Of course, perhaps you are using some superior math which allows you do things which appear insane and still be correct. :V

Also, it's difficult to read due to lack of paragraph spacing, etc.

[Synapse]

I'm thinking elaborate troll.

[Stew]

I think he implys that casual players wont pay up the way "hardcore" players do, and that the majority of the CoD crowd consists of casual players. Therefor, attracting said crowd to PS2 will not be a profitable goal, and designing the game for more hardcore players would be.

Then there's a lot of math stuff going on and my brain tried to rip itself from my body in agony over it.

whiout casual player this game will die soon and servers will all be merge in a LAG fest cluster fuck !

Casual and hardcore gamer can populated the servers without any problem and on the financial stand point they need casual gamer !

and the more laughable is how sometime those who claim to be hardcore player are worst player than casual ! and will maybe dont spend a single $ in the game since they play enough to get ressource to buy pretty much anything !

Casual gammers are the one who gonna spend the most money in planetside iam pretty sure of that !

And casual gamers arent COD players In facts their is Much more HARD CORE dedictated COD players than any others game !

Hardcore player dont mean GOOD players or players who play good games or the game you found interesting !

HALO and COD are noobs friendly but these game are also HARDCORE for undreads thousans of players !

[Synapse]

ahhh stew. This thread gets better and better.

[QuantumMechanic]

To be honest this guy struck me as fishy when he started a thread the other week stating "I am a business economics major and HAVE IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO IMPART TO JOHN SMEDLEY ABOUT HOW TO PROFIT FROM A GAME. Give me SOE's address!" (something basically to that effect).

[Sabot]

Nope, he got me in one thread already today, I won't take the bait again... no sir.

[Trafalgar]

whiout casual player this game will die soon and servers will all be merge in a LAG fest cluster fuck !

So most of the player base will leave, the game will die, the servers will be merged, and then anyone who didn't leave will be playing in a "LAG fest cluster fuck?" In that order?

Dalek - Explain! - YouTube

[Stew]

So most of the player base will leave, the game will die, the servers will be merged, and then anyone who didn't leave will be playing in a "LAG fest cluster fuck?" In that order?

Dalek - Explain! - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqjcHYTQgQ)

pretty much lol people here need to understand that we need 6000 players in each servers to have a full 2000 players population in a continents and to have a decent level of action !

So the game need massive audiance casual hardcore softcore what so ever !

This isnt a 300 players game !

its designed around 2000 players This is hugeeeeee !

[Trafalgar]

So the game need massive audiance casual hardcore softcore what so ever !

Like Game of Thrones?

[Traenor]

You are wrong. There is a couple of things you have misunderstood completely, probably because you only see it from a business perspective and not game design perspective.
1: Alienating the F2P by selling "hardcore" sidegrades. You do not think that it will trouble F2P beginners that P2P users have a larger arsenal? It will.
2: Elegance. This is game design, and means that you try to create as compelling content with as few variables and special cases. As of now, PS2 is elegant, with relatively few variables. This is good, as it makes the game easy to pick up. You will add a giant wall of entry, which will hurt beginners, believe me.
3: You say that LoL is a success contrary to its "casualness". That is wrong. It is a success because it is like facebook. Easy to pick up, and everybody else uses it. If you add your kinds of monetization, fewer wil use it.
4: Sources. I would like to see where you got your different facts, and why you think the equation work out that way.

[ChipMHazard]

I find it somewhat puzzeling that you made yourself write a letter to the president of SOE with regards to "lecturing", not ment in a negative way, him about F2P sales models and how to better design the game to convert more players. I'm rather certain SOE has a fair bit of experience when it comes to converting players to the shop.
I'm sorry but I really don't see the point of writing that letter.
Your suggestion seem like they would be more at home in a beta forum than in a letter to Mr. Smedley.

Oh and I don't think you need to explain what ARPU means in the letter. I'm pretty sure he already knows about KPIs.

[Pella]

For those that cba to read the whole email.

He is basically telling a CEO of Multi million dollar company how to do his job. Totally Based on the obvious ideas from current successful FTP game models.

And to even add to insult, This is backed up by a stupid math formula to blow his mind some more.

This guy needs some social skills first.

[Immigrant]

Ok, in a nutshell I agree that some people (myself included) will be more willing to spend cash if game has more depth (and I believe PS2 will have it), and doesn't concentrate only on instant gratification .. others like instant gratification and devs need to find a good balance. What i dont understand what do you mean by CoDifying the game? This word is thrown a lot and for everybody it means something different... I'm not against modernizing and stepping up the game pace in comparison to PS1.

[AThreatToYou]

@OP:

I am fully invested in the success in PS2, and would like to marginally agree on the point that the depth of a game has little effect on casual players. I can find safety in your math and logic.

However, you appear to be too heavily invested in the economics and not the game design. Running off of examples of titles in specific categories prays on them as total successes or total failures, which is something you do not want to do. World of Warcraft, a financially successful title, has horribly outdated design and its success was created by superior production quality, not on the fact that the game was well-designed; World of Warcraft is honestly a "failure" or "moot point" of a game. League of Legends, on the other hand, runs with intentional design where unintentional elements are squashed or ineffective. Though it is the mark of an amateur, Riot Games has forged a game wrought from iron that does what they want it to, how they want it to, with little options for deviations from what they designed to be effective or ineffective. League of Legends has also been procedurally designed to accommodate less dedicated players, so that the more dedicated players may be accommodated in the absence of less dedicated players. In short, Riot intentionally distinguishes between Casual and Hardcore players. In World of Warcraft, this (was) is not done by design; Casual and Hardcore players can and do run past each other on the way to the Stormwind auction house, and they could, conceivably, intermingle and play together with so much as a "Hello".

PlanetSide 2 is sporting a large open world where Casual and Hardcore players are going to be competing for the same reasons on the same places. It's mechanics are thus far structured to where both Casual and Hardcore players will also be competing with the same tools that express the same amount of power. They are all considered players. These players will pay for the game if they want to; and the reasons for which they would/will/may pay might just be because an Angel told them to. It is evident in the design of Planetside 2 that, when that base is taken or held, it will not matter if anyone payed a single cent. This point signals that the difference between Casual and Hardcore players is not how much money they pay, it is how much and consequently how well they play. Since they are all players, they must all be treated with the same amount of respect or attention (read: content). This is further reinforced by the point that they will all be competing in the same world, and will most definitely be shooting at or aside one another. Separating a design parameter between Casual and Hardcore is extremely redundant when you already have a bunch of players. My experience in large-scale multilayer titles as a player reinforces a truth about casual and hardcore players needing to be functionally identical.

For example, in Tribes 2, "casual" players (read: noobs) would often be relegated to defending the generator, deploying turrets, or repairing things. They do this not because it is wasteful for "hardcore" players to commit to these tasks, but because it's almost all they can successfully do. These are still players, which took up a slot on the server, and contributed to their team. However, Tribes 2 was a financial failure. It just didn't make it. The aforementioned distinguished quality of a casual players experience is why: they were restricted from certain content by player skill. The players were being disrespected by the design of the game, even though it cost absolutely nothing to switch to a Light and start chasing the flag carrier. The content was available, but they couldn't use it. The game had wasted content, and thus, it failed. Sorry, Tribes 2. You were a wonderful game, and you still are, but you made very little money.

My point is that it is absolutely absurd to point content within the existing design of PlanetSide 2 at either Casual or Hardcore players. You, the end user, and SOE, the developer, want PlanetSide 2 to design all content for the player. The player is anonymous. The player just wants to have fun. As far as I understand, you intend to be a player of PlanetSide 2, and thus, you want to have fun playing PlanetSide 2. Your opinion is surely valued regarding how the game ought to be designed toward you, but you forgot! You are just a player; you are anonymous and you just want to have fun. In a video game, content is commonly associated with fun. If the player is not skilled enough to use a particular item effectively, then it is realistically not available to the player. This is flawed design because it wastes content; it wastes fun.

[I SandRock]

Have spambots gained consciousness and are debating each other now? What is this madness?

[Grimster]

Wow, I consider myself fairly smart and no trouble reading wall of texts.

But my brain started melting halfway through that email. :)

Now I am reduced to a mindless zombie who will spend a eternity eating other peoples brain. :)

[ChipMHazard]

Wow, I consider myself fairly smart and no trouble reading wall of texts.

But my brain started melting halfway through that email. :)

Now I am reduced to a mindless zombie who will spend a eternity eating other peoples brain. :)

Could be worse. Could have ended up a Vanu:p

[Vanath]

Why share this with us? I might understand sharing the reply but why tell us you sent him an e-mail?

[Sledgecrushr]

That wall'o text hurt my eyes.

[I SandRock]

Why share this with us? I might understand sharing the reply but why tell us you sent him an e-mail?

/puts on freudhat

He got into university and probably finished his first or second year and now feels like he's quite the economist. Also playing video games he feels he has a 'special' insight into things due to his study and his acquired certain 'intelligence' on the game industery. An insight that none other could figure out. An insight, which he expects, will blow away the mind of Smed who will subsequently hire him for his great intelligence. Not only that, but it will blow away the mind of anyone reading it, especially on an internet forum, so he felt the need to share it with us so we could tell him how amazing and right he is. And how surely Smed will find this a revolutionary new insight which will make him change the business model and game approach immediately.

It's like when a 5 year old figures out how to whistle or snap their fingers and they want to show the entire world because surely it is the most amazing thing. Until they realize they're really not the unique little butterfly they thought they were ;)


/end psychoanalysis.

The OP and the reply from this other guy have something strange about them. Almost as if it's google translated. I was kind of expecting an advertisement spam bot link in there somewhere :P

[Trafalgar]

If the player is not skilled enough to use a particular item effectively, then it is realistically not available to the player. This is flawed design because it wastes content; it wastes fun.

Oh my gods, if every weapon isn't "point, click, and instagib" it'll be a FLAWED DESIGN because someone won't be able to figure out how to hit anyone with it! It takes TOO MUCH SKILL to hit anyone with a mortar-type weapon, can't have any of those.

I propose the opposite argument, that it is entirely proper to include weapons which require more skill than point and shoot to use effectively, e.g. mortars, or skill-requiring but effective vehicles such as Scythes. (Although one would expect another less difficult combat vehicle for the Vanu as well)

Have spambots gained consciousness and are debating each other now? What is this madness?

Yes. Yes, they have.
Doctor Steel***39;s "Build the Robots" - YouTube

[kertvon]

I think some of your points are valid, but to be honest I think the ace up the sleeve PS2 has is that it is going to be PC exclusive. Not knocking console players or anything because I know plenty of solid gamers that play console, but PC players tend to be hardcore by nature. Look at the numerous threads about people prepping to upgrade their rigs. Most people on this board would eat ramen for a week to get a new video card, sidegrades, and camos if need be. I am married with a baby son on the way, and while my family is my priority, I am still making some personal sacrifices to make sure I am able to play PS2.

I do strongly agree that making titles with a target group in mind is dangerous practice in itself though. While PS1 was not as successful as it could have been, it was mainly due to hardware constraints much less than it was popularity. The world was, from all objective perspectives, not ready for Planetside. Hopefully SOE focused on what they already knew how to do which is make a killer MMOFPS. If anything the main target should be the veteran PS1 players because if you flop with the vets and the target market doesn't catch on then you are left with a pretty looking world with nobody to fight in. Thus far, I think most of these are moot points though; PS2 has already proven itself as a force to be reckoned with when they swept the E3 showroom floors with awards.

Good read though.

[Brusi]

http://i.imgur.com/oklUq.jpg

[JHendy]

If the player is not skilled enough to use a particular item effectively, then it is realistically not available to the player. This is flawed design because it wastes content; it wastes fun.

Your views frustrate me deeply, sir.

I propose that learning how to make proper, effective use of that item is fun, due to the fact that it is challenging.

[Baron]

Yea ....first critique


white

space


otherwise great effort.

[Hamma]

Guys..

as super mentioned in his second or third post if you dont care about this don't respond then it goes away..

If you can't be constructive then just don't reply. ;)

[Baneblade]

Combat Arms would like a word with your assertions. FPS players spend plenty.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

http://i.imgur.com/oklUq.jpg

You so funny...

[Graywolves]

I only read halfway because my eyes started bleeding.



But from what I read I liked where you were going. I didn't get the impression of selling power, if that's where you ended up I strongly disagree but I don't understand why you would bring up LoL if you decided to go that way.


I do think it's important to stress the importance of depth and strategy though over instant-satisfaction for a game that strongly relies on high players numbers over a period of years. Other FPS games don't need to worry about player retention or sustaining longer gaming sessions because their games aren't set up for that kind of gameplay and they already made their money before you even took the disc out of the box.

So I felt like you definitely had some important things to say in there. I just don't know what your bottom line is.

[Zulthus]

http://www.igorwaver.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/That-might-just-be-crazy-enough-to-be-potato.jpg


I read the TL;DR though, and once I saw you wanted selling power, you immediately lost any credibility you might have had.

[The Kush]

If you are saying the game should be pay2win like the above posts are claiming (I stopped reading at that made up equation that is complete BS), then I am going to go ahead and ask a mod to please close this. These threads keep on amazing me at how stupid this forum is getting. I mean seriously a few months ago there was only very productive well thought out post being made. Now it's the exact opposite. I know there is a lot of great people on this forum, but threads like this I can only shake my head in sadness..

[Synapse]

If you are saying the game should be pay2win like the above posts are claiming (I stopped reading at that made up equation that is complete BS), then I am going to go ahead and ask a mod to please close this. These threads keep on amazing me at how stupid this forum is getting. I mean seriously a few months ago there was only very productive well thought out post being made. Now it's the exact opposite. I know there is a lot of great people on this forum, but threads like this I can only shake my head in sadness..

First come the people you will shoot with, then come the people you will shoot at. :)

Now lets hope beta comes soon because I want to unload on these guys.

[The Kush]

First come the people you will shoot with, then come the people you will shoot at. :)

Now lets hope beta comes soon because I want to unload on these guys.

Hahaha so true Synapse :)

[Brusi]

Guys..

as super mentioned in his second or third post if you dont care about this don't respond then it goes away..

If you can't be constructive then just don't reply. ;)

Sry if my critique seemed at all unconstructive hamma...

Honestly, my first reaction aside... the limits of my masochistic PS2 obsession know no bounds. So i read the whole thing. It really didn't take that long as i was saved the reading time of all those spaces and paragraphs omited by the OP.

My response stands...

It was hard to get the point that super was trying to make, really. My take was that monetizing the cash shop in a way that raises the learning curve of the game will increase the revenue of the cash shop somewhat linearly, due to the fact that the minority of dedicated players primarily provide the majority of the revenue. Was i close?

Sorry, but i don't buy it... (sorry for the pun)

[Eyeklops]

FFS, wall-o-text. That REALLY needs a TLDR on it.

[Graywolves]

The game loses its competitiveness when you give people an advantage for an out-of-game currency.

[Trafalgar]

Oh, he wrote a TL;DR in it. He just put it at the very end of the post, so that you wouldn't realize it was there unless you had already read the entire post (or skimmed it).

[Synapse]

FFS, wall-o-text. That REALLY needs a TLDR on it.

there are several in the thread you refused to read before posting. Next time please make a positive contribution to the thread, k?

[Synapse]

Your email of self-importance moved me. You are welcome into the Vanu Sovereignty.

No, No he isnt, tyvm.

[WNxThentar]

Hopefully he responds and expresses interest in seeing the non-basic stuff I am putting together. I really hope they put in varied and nuanced strategic objectives that don't involve just capturing. What about you guys?

You should have proof read that a bit more. You should also listen to why they, and many of us, don't want people to be able to buy power which is why they are going for side grades.

You really under estimate how quickly casual gamers and vets will log off when they get owned over and over by someone that had a lot of disposable income to throw at their character to make them uber. Then you see the number of players drop and for a MMO like PS2 that becomes a killer in itself. Why spend lots of money making yourself uber if people just end up logging off because you basically bought your K/D ratio.

You also assume that "casual gamers" don't care about the meta game it seems and just want stuff to shoot at. I personally don't want to think that I have to sink money into certain items to unlock the full benefit of the game. I don't mind paying money for things that are cosmetic or I could obtain in game anyway and aren't over powering.

From what I've read you want to make this a Us/Them game where power players can buy their power and the causal gamers are there as meat to use as shields or shoot at. I'm glad Smedley and his team have determined that buying power is the wrong thing to do. All you have to do is look at the back lash from players in other games that went down that road.

Honestly it is like listening to Mitt Romney supporters claim that he'll bring the USA out of a recession by further lowering the taxes of the rich, firing more public servants like teachers, firemen and police men when you can see that those policies have failed over the last 20 years in the USA and even overseas like in Ireland that model is clearly a failed economic model.

Just my 2 cents worth.
WNxThentar

[Arovien]

Your email of self-importance moved me. You are welcome into the Vanu Sovereignty.
No, No he isnt, tyvm.

Classic!

Is this thread real life?:confused:

[Mr DeCastellac]

If I was the president of SOE and opened this email, I would immediately close it and delete it.

[OnexBigxHebrew]

I have a business degree, and I can tell you this - the very first thing we learn in business communication is that you keep things brief and to the point until you're granted an opportunity for presentation.

You called yourself a 'student of business' but I think you're missing some integral business communication skills. Good luck in the future, though, and I'm glad to see someone on here attempting to talk about something interesting besides premature gameplay opinions :D. You obviously have a lot of passion for this, and that's always a great start!

[The Degenatron]

Sooo, basically you think shooter fans won't pay up the way league of legends fans do, and that instead if you bring in Pay2win everyone will just be happy because casuals don't care about it?

This is actually fantastically wrong. Writing a TL/DR for people.


TL/DR for the lazy people
-----------------------------
There are casual games with little strategy, and complex games with lots of strategy. In the former you have casual players who will buy stuff that has no strategy like camo. In the latter you have people who want more strategy.

Since you should sell to the people who care most about the game, you should sell strategy enhancing benefits that the PS2 core fanbase will care about. This equation I have here prooves that people who don't pay are the ones who won't care about it, and therefore will keep playing even though disadvantaged.

In short, if you want to make money off ps2, you should sell special bombs that do more damage, radar to see your enemies coming, bridges to go where other people cant go, etc.
------------------------------

Personally, I hope smed doesn't even grace you with a "no." It all goes really horribly sideways in the middle where your :equation: tells you that people who care about PS2 will all pay for it. Those are two distinct groups. People who care and people who can pay. In short you're wrong on 3 accounts: 1) people who want strategy dont want to buy an advantage 2) people who can pay and people who care about the game are not equal groups, and 3) casual players won't just ignore pay to win, they will leave instead and 4) you're just wrong why am I even writing this.

I have to say that this an excellent analysis of the "paper".

The only thing that I would add is that Super Pretendo (the author) also makes the staggering assumption that putting bait on a hook deincentives fish from being caught.

Put another way, the game MUST be casual enough to be inviting. "Great! Microsoft Flight is free to play, but you have to read and understand a 400 page flight manual before you can get in the air (you don't, it's just hypothetical), then this will surely bring in MILLIONS of dollars!" Nope. Sorry, a certain level of "casualness" is absolutely required to get the fish to nibble at the hook long enough to catch them.

You might be a business and math major, but maybe you should minor in Psychology.

[Brusi]

If I was the president of SOE and opened this email, I would immediately close it and delete it.

I would delete myself!

[OutlawDr]

this is either the worst thread ever made (in the history of time) or the best troll thread ever made in the last day or so

[WNxThentar]

Why share this with us? I might understand sharing the reply but why tell us you sent him an e-mail?

For the same reason the first 2 people to talk in the Q&A portion of the lecture I went to last night didn't actually have a Question for the Lecturer to Answer but wanted 5+ minutes of time to convince the everyone the Lecturer is wrong. They are full of themselves and can't understand why people don't want to listen to them more then the experts. :P

[The Degenatron]

Lets never forget this letter and the impact it had on the game.

DJ, I'm really starting to look forward to your posts. I get a chuckle every time.

[Trolltaxi]

Could someone pls sum up in 3 sentences?

[basti]

Could someone pls sum up in 3 sentences?

Maybe, but i can do better: I sum it up in 3 Words:

Troll or Stupid.



And before this derails into madness (it will):

/end