Money Extraction - Brainstorming

(ailmanki) #1

Some brainstorming, also typing out the potential stupid stuff.

Premium maps
Maps which are out of beta phase, ready to be deployed. For some time only premium players can play them - a month or so.I thought about premium servers, but that would probably split the players up.

Eco system
The hole game has a money system. You can apply for a contract, and thus earn money by playing a map. You do get better, and as such you can get more money.
This would only work, with a accurate matchmaking. Even if the accuracy is - to know that we do not know yet a players skill.
As an example, my skill is 20/100 - I start the game, get the serverlist, and it shows me all servers with a higher skill in red - if I play there I get extra bonus for each thing done. Those with a lower skill are marked white, and I will get no Bonus.
The contract I talked about is done automatically. Its not like I have to sign up a contract, and wait for the game to start.
The prob I see here is the competition - but more on that later.

Skins
Are kinda obvious a selling point. But it has the potential to make the game unbalanced. Since we need to be able to recognize a merc.

Weapons
Uhrm no idea… the more that is being tried to monetize the more I guess its unbalanced. Proof me wrong please :slight_smile:

Competition
For competition you get a “virtual” sponsor from that Eco system mentioned above. Thanks to that sponsor you can get any merc type or weapon upgrade. At best some real companies would play the sponsor role - at least skin wise (advertisements=).
Second sponsor type is a clan, which can act also as that. And they can on plus have multiple sponsors, else they have to “pay” themself - either real or ingame money.

Bets
With the ingame money bets can be placed on competition matches.
(I guess as long as the ingame money cannot be transfered back to real money - it should be legal everywhere?)

Statistics
Premium members can keep them forever. Going from that, one which does not pay anything gets also stats but not as detailed after 7days or something like that.

So whats the deal with premium, lets say you pay every month 10$ for premium account. That would give SD a stable income, which they can more or less guess where its going too. Basically I saw that “premium” on battlefield I guess, and I think its a title wished by many.

Now everything should be payable with ingame money. So that if somebody is unemployed he can pay with ingame money that premium account and so on. But then he really has to play a lot.

(Protekt1) #2

Sounds like the game is extracting money from people’s bank account with the new name.

Anything that affects game play absolutely cannot be locked behind a paywall. If new mercs are going to 100% reliably be added every month, I could see a subscription that provides a discount and some bonus things perhaps being viable. 5-10 bucks a month and you get a new merc each month plus a few dollars in cash shop credit could do well and there could be multiple tiers (5 dollars for just the merc, 10 for the merc plus more).

I don’t think new content, whether it’s a map or weapon should ever be timed exclusive for payment only. However, if it is absolutely necessary make it known precisely when it will be available for free. Customers hate playing the guessing game. Maps should never ever be behind a paywall.

(Tankey) #3

Keep the amount of using money to gain things as low as possible. Many people including me are not waiting for such additions in this game.

(Erkin31) #4

With the class system, skins can really hurt the gameplay (unable to recognize specific class).

A system that I like is the VIP system:

  • No purchase ? XP and credit progression are very low.
  • You made one purchase ? You gain a permanent boost of XP and credit.
(Rex) #5

[QUOTE=ailmanki;467407]
So whats the deal with premium, lets say you pay every month 10$ for premium account. That would give SD a stable income, which they can more or less guess where its going too. Basically I saw that “premium” on battlefield I guess, and I think its a title wished by many.[/QUOTE]

PREMIUM? :eek: That you even dare to mention this. Hell, NO please!

(Premium in BF is also sh!t)

[QUOTE=ailmanki;467407]
Weapons
Uhrm no idea… the more that is being tried to monetize the more I guess its unbalanced. Proof me wrong please :)[/QUOTE]

What about the weapons you can buy do 50% more damage?

(attack) #6

rly nice would be to pay one time 60 euro and get than in future all stuff free directly

(Dragonji) #7

http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/33377-Dirty-Bomb-Philosophy-amp-Business-Model-Your-Thoughts?highlight=free+play
http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/33243-Free-to-play-model-your-opinions?highlight=free+play

(Tankey) #8

[QUOTE=Erkin31;467414]With the class system, skins can really hurt the gameplay (unable to recognize specific class).

A system that I like is the VIP system:

  • No purchase ? XP and credit progression are very low.
  • You made one purchase ? You gain a permanent boost of XP and credit.[/QUOTE]

That’s a nasty descent from p2w. Please don’t.

(Erkin31) #9

They need to earn money. To do that, the progression needs to be slow, otherwise nobody will pay the new mercs. Player should be pushed to buy.

You have a false opinion on the pay2win. A pay2win, is when you bought something that give you an advantage.
If the new mercs are well balanced, and that the mercs delivred for free do their job, it’s not a pay2win, because the new mercs do not have advantages over free mercs, they offers only some new kinds of experience.

We can look Tribes Ascend for that, which is not pay2win. They released a lot of new weapons but which are not OP, just with a new kind of gameplay for some weapons. Finally in competition, the majority of players was with the free weapons.

(INF3RN0) #10

Sell;

-Mercs (individually/combo packs)
-Character outfits
-Weapon skins
-XP boosters
-Unique aesthetic weapon models/attachments/etc
-Alternative ability models (maybe your med packs look like cakes or your airstrike drops kittens idk…)
-Unique Tbag and victory screen emotes/animations (would have to show characters)
-Unique clan customization options (emblem on clothing? color scheme? idk)
-Private servers
-Clan advertisements (launcher/home page)
-Lottery system
-Gifting system
-Alpha testing new content
-Having your personal demos used in a LoL style “Character Spotlight” (introduces a characters playstyle/abilities)

Also if the tier unlocks system becomes part of the game and works well… maybe allow you to choose your first set immediately (one per class) and then multiple variations for each class that you need to spend XP/cash on to unlock. Example; maybe I want a “mortar strike ultimate” (theoretical) for one of my FOPS characters, but I want a “supply drop ultimate” for another FOPS character.

(stealth6) #11

I think the most interesting and least intrusive way to get money is to target the server admins / clan admins. Stuff like charging a certain amount to host a server per month or have clans / platoons / community support in the game and per 50 more slots in your group you have to pay a price. Or pay to have your own emblem in the game etc… Then anybody in the clan can buy it for their clan and if it’s not the clan leader they will probably get some praise from the other clan members so there’s that too.

(rookie1) #12
  • gaming gear & toys like headphone,mouse,mouse pad,action figures ,t shirts,posters …etc
(chippy) #13

Would love to see a in-game currency betting system, as long as it’s just that, in-game currency, no real money.

Betting on matches within the game, follow “registered” teams and players, get notified when their next game is and everything in between would be pretty awesome. Just to get some compettiive community action going, a little prestigious bragging rights the more bets you win. Maybe reaching X winning bets in a row get you a server for X hours/days/months/etc.

(Volcano) #14

buyable voices ^.^

(Protekt1) #15

[QUOTE=Erkin31;467419]They need to earn money. To do that, the progression needs to be slow, otherwise nobody will pay the new mercs. Player should be pushed to buy.

You have a false opinion on the pay2win. A pay2win, is when you bought something that give you an advantage.
If the new mercs are well balanced, and that the mercs delivred for free do their job, it’s not a pay2win, because the new mercs do not have advantages over free mercs, they offers only some new kinds of experience.

We can look Tribes Ascend for that, which is not pay2win. They released a lot of new weapons but which are not OP, just with a new kind of gameplay for some weapons. Finally in competition, the majority of players was with the free weapons.[/QUOTE]

Pay2win is when you can buy upgrades, whether or not they are locked behind a paywall. This does not include sidegrades which are a change in playstyle, not strength. So you’re pretty much right regarding that.

However, tbh there is another view that even sidegrades can be seen as p2w sometimes, like in the instance of tribes where it takes quite long to unlock things that are reasonably necessary to perform a role. I haven’t played tribes in a long time but when I did play it you started off with 1 class? I don’t remember. But that created a situation where you cannot fill roles because you lacked the power of choice that could be purchased with cash. In that situation, choice was necessary, therefore having the ability to buy that is p2w or very borderline, especially when you take into account how long it took to earn things (could be different now).

It wasn’t as bad as PS2 but imo it was pretty bad.

(Ashog) #16

[QUOTE=INF3RN0;467422]Sell;

-Unique Tbag and victory screen emotes/animations (would have to show characters)
[/QUOTE]

Hell yeah! Instant buy.

-Having your personal demos used in a LoL style “Character Spotlight” (introduces a characters playstyle/abilities)

In addition, access to server demos and ability to save/store/access personal demos (if implemented)

(Ashog) #17

[QUOTE=ailmanki;467407]Premium maps
Maps which are out of beta phase, ready to be deployed. For some time only premium players can play them - a month or so.I thought about premium servers, but that would probably split the players up.
[/quote]

The maps should nevar NEVAR be monetized in F2P! Maps are the game basics and monetizing new maps will split the community.
Especially beta maps - they should be available to VIPs for testing long before open release.

Competition
For competition you get a “virtual” sponsor from that Eco system mentioned above. Thanks to that sponsor you can get any merc type or weapon upgrade. At best some real companies would play the sponsor role - at least skin wise (advertisements=).
Second sponsor type is a clan, which can act also as that. And they can on plus have multiple sponsors, else they have to “pay” themself - either real or ingame money.

I think actually that access to/registration in certain comp ladders (provided this ladder service is of good quality) could be monetized for those who want to compete.

Bets
With the ingame money bets can be placed on competition matches.
(I guess as long as the ingame money cannot be transfered back to real money - it should be legal everywhere?)

I think they toyed with this idea but in the end it was decided that this would create too many ethical/legal/logistical issues, therefore I doubt that they thought it would be worth it.

(Protekt1) #18

They should probably have a way to test a merc before purchase. Maybe have one random merc free to use every weekend.

(Kl3ppy) #19

As Ashog said, Maps should always be free.

What I can imagine what SD can sell:

  • Season Pass which gives you the next 5 Mercs for a total which is 20% lower than the total if you buy the mercs seperate. If 5 Mercs cost 20$ you just pay 15 $. But you have to pay in advance
  • Mercs (after a balancing periode ofc so no p2w stuff is introduced)
  • Merc Outfits
  • Gun Outfits
  • New Guns (after a balancing periode ofc so no p2w stuff is introduced)
  • Vsays
  • Betting money for the ingame betting system (which I would love to see :wink: )

What do you think about selling new game modes later on? I have some mixed feelings about it because it could split the community like selling maps would do.
I would love to see more than the SD usual game modes, lately I’m a fan of BF3’s Conquest and Conquest Assault modes.

Besides of the ingame stuff, SD should get some money from Server hosting. Maybe SD can introduce some advertisment like it was in ETQW. I dont talk about pop ups and stuff but there are some ad spaces on walls etc. Shouldnt be too annyoing and should fit into the theme. Mainly I’m thinking about movie ads.

(chippy) #20

Or, put up a “Try it” button. Click it, and you can run around on a very small map, maybe even half the size of the current duel map with 1 or 2 static “bots” to shoot/heal/support/whatever.

Everyone can try it whenever they want, how long they want but not against other human players. Only in a “static” environment.