What changed
0 fixes1 addition0 changes0 removals
addedThis post will talk about the game avalable for the 9 months prior to the split. If the game you are playing is AirMech Strike, then this references an old version. I had never imagined AirMech as a F2P game way back when it was just an idea and we hadn't started creating it. Take one part Herzog Zwei, add 20 years of game mechanics evolution, toss in a bit of C&C Red Alert and Advance Wars, and a big dose of WH40K miniatures aesthetic and we're done--right? As I touched on in Part 1, F2P didn't really exist on PC back when we started. I hated F2P on mobile, and felt that there was probably some formula we could tap into that would work well for an indie dev of our size. After all, we knew we could make a game, so even Kickstarter seemed like a strange approch--why not just put the game in player's hands and let them support us if they like what they see? While we knew nothing about F2P when we started, we quickly learned. Having 5% of your players pay something was normal it turns out--and even part of the "game" can be not paying. This doesn't mean the players are being unsupportive or anything, but it's a tricky chicken and egg thing. We struggled for years trying to balance the line between rewarding the paying players with lots of excellent bonuses and keeping the game fair for free players. It was a problem I didn't expect--we wanted all players who gave even a small amount to be rewarded handsomely, so we started the VIP system. Make a purchase, become Silver VIP for life, simple. XP, currency bonuses, exclusive cosmetics, we experimented with lots of things but the better we made VIP (even if it was cheap) the more we got called "pay to win". This was very frustrating to say the least. It seemed no matter what changes we made, or how many features we added to the game, revenue seemed incredibly consistent. Retention was never great, but steady. The playerbase wouldn't grow much--or shrink. It was strange. We always thought "this is the feature players have been asking for, this will make the game take off". But it might be we were building the game for the already dedicated players, which did make the game better, but did nothing to bring in new players or help them early on. And again, most of these features benefited the paying users, furthering the divide. Around 2 years ago, we were experimenting in VR. This got us a lot of attention, and Oculus in particular was very interested in us doing a full game in the AirMech universe for them. We were very interested in VR, but saw designing the game for motion controllers to be too much at the time. With Rift launching with a gamepad it was perfect--we knew we could add motion controller support later on. We focused the core team on AirMech Command (the VR version) but also wanted to improve F2P AirMech. So we brought in some outside help from someone who worked in F2P games. He had some quite different ideas on what types of content to give players for what to play (Warzone, Tutorial Campaign) and a plan for how to make it. It was hard for me to give up creative control of AirMech as it was my baby, but for financial and business reasons I felt it was the right decision. After all, after many attempts I was
AirMech changes
addedThis post will talk about the game avalable for the 9 months prior to the split. If the game you are playing is AirMech Strike, then this references an old version. I had never imagined AirMech as a F2P game way back when it was just an idea and we hadn't started creating it. Take one part Herzog Zwei, add 20 years of game mechanics evolution, toss in a bit of C&C Red Alert and Advance Wars, and a big dose of WH40K miniatures aesthetic and we're done--right? As I touched on in Part 1, F2P didn't really exist on PC back when we started. I hated F2P on mobile, and felt that there was probably some formula we could tap into that would work well for an indie dev of our size. After all, we knew we could make a game, so even Kickstarter seemed like a strange approch--why not just put the game in player's hands and let them support us if they like what they see? While we knew nothing about F2P when we started, we quickly learned. Having 5% of your players pay something was normal it turns out--and even part of the "game" can be not paying. This doesn't mean the players are being unsupportive or anything, but it's a tricky chicken and egg thing. We struggled for years trying to balance the line between rewarding the paying players with lots of excellent bonuses and keeping the game fair for free players. It was a problem I didn't expect--we wanted all players who gave even a small amount to be rewarded handsomely, so we started the VIP system. Make a purchase, become Silver VIP for life, simple. XP, currency bonuses, exclusive cosmetics, we experimented with lots of things but the better we made VIP (even if it was cheap) the more we got called "pay to win". This was very frustrating to say the least. It seemed no matter what changes we made, or how many features we added to the game, revenue seemed incredibly consistent. Retention was never great, but steady. The playerbase wouldn't grow much--or shrink. It was strange. We always thought "this is the feature players have been asking for, this will make the game take off". But it might be we were building the game for the already dedicated players, which did make the game better, but did nothing to bring in new players or help them early on. And again, most of these features benefited the paying users, furthering the divide. Around 2 years ago, we were experimenting in VR. This got us a lot of attention, and Oculus in particular was very interested in us doing a full game in the AirMech universe for them. We were very interested in VR, but saw designing the game for motion controllers to be too much at the time. With Rift launching with a gamepad it was perfect--we knew we could add motion controller support later on. We focused the core team on AirMech Command (the VR version) but also wanted to improve F2P AirMech. So we brought in some outside help from someone who worked in F2P games. He had some quite different ideas on what types of content to give players for what to play (Warzone, Tutorial Campaign) and a plan for how to make it. It was hard for me to give up creative control of AirMech as it was my baby, but for financial and business reasons I felt it was the right decision. After all, after many attempts I was
This post will talk about the game avalable for the 9 months prior to the split. If the game you are playing is AirMech Strike, then this references an old version. I had never imagined AirMech as a F2P game way back when it was just an idea and we hadn't started creating it. Take one part Herzog Zwei, add 20 years of game mechanics evolution, toss in a bit of C&C Red Alert and Advance Wars, and a big dose of WH40K miniatures aesthetic and we're done--right? As I touched on in Part 1, F2P didn't really exist on PC back when we started. I hated F2P on mobile, and felt that there was probably some formula we could tap into that would work well for an indie dev of our size. After all, we knew we could make a game, so even Kickstarter seemed like a strange approch--why not just put the game in player's hands and let them support us if they like what they see? While we knew nothing about F2P when we started, we quickly learned. Having 5% of your players pay something was normal it turns out--and even part of the "game" can be not paying. This doesn't mean the players are being unsupportive or anything, but it's a tricky chicken and egg thing. We struggled for years trying to balance the line between rewarding the paying players with lots of excellent bonuses and keeping the game fair for free players. It was a problem I didn't expect--we wanted all players who gave even a small amount to be rewarded handsomely, so we started the VIP system. Make a purchase, become Silver VIP for life, simple. XP, currency bonuses, exclusive cosmetics, we experimented with lots of things but the better we made VIP (even if it was cheap) the more we got called "pay to win". This was very frustrating to say the least. It seemed no matter what changes we made, or how many features we added to the game, revenue seemed incredibly consistent. Retention was never great, but steady. The playerbase wouldn't grow much--or shrink. It was strange. We always thought "this is the feature players have been asking for, this will make the game take off". But it might be we were building the game for the already dedicated players, which did make the game better, but did nothing to bring in new players or help them early on. And again, most of these features benefited the paying users, furthering the divide. Around 2 years ago, we were experimenting in VR. This got us a lot of attention, and Oculus in particular was very interested in us doing a full game in the AirMech universe for them. We were very interested in VR, but saw designing the game for motion controllers to be too much at the time. With Rift launching with a gamepad it was perfect--we knew we could add motion controller support later on. We focused the core team on AirMech Command (the VR version) but also wanted to improve F2P AirMech. So we brought in some outside help from someone who worked in F2P games. He had some quite different ideas on what types of content to give players for what to play (Warzone, Tutorial Campaign) and a plan for how to make it. It was hard for me to give up creative control of AirMech as it was my baby, but for financial and business reasons I felt it was the right decision. After all, after many attempts I was
