Monetize Your Game Better

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by KrakenReality, Oct 20, 2020.

  1. KrakenReality Augur

    You should be following the Blizzard model and offer 6 month subscription promotions around expansion and anniversary times. Everybody knows the numbers peak for 3 months around an expansion window. DPG needs to lure those people to buy 6 or 12 month blocks of subscription time. People can’t resist sales.
  2. Maedhros High King

    Thats a great idea.
    Now if we could just get you to have a tiny bit of decorum and make this post without immediately setting the intended target on the defensive and mentioning how their rivals do it better you'd be on to something.
    Mintalie, code-zero, minimind and 8 others like this.
  3. KrakenReality Augur

    Thanks, they might as well copy the business that copied them. Blizzard has hit the milk as much money as they can phase the past few years.

    They need to bump their timelines. Expansion announcement in August, followed by 6 month sub promo sale in September. Which, conveniently lines up with Anniversary and new TLP announcement. Run another 6 month sub promo with some pretty pixels in March, so people don’t realize that they weren’t going to play during the summer months anyways. Rinse and repeat with 6 month sales coupled with pretty pixels that people can’t resist.

    Edit: You’re right though, if I had made my post in all CAPS I could probably win them over.
  4. lagkills Slain by Fippy while guards stood and watched.

    Look everybody, we finally found that one casual with no lifetime sub.
    code-zero and Lisard like this.
  5. KermittheFroglok Augur


    You do understand the EQ is bundled in AllAccess with other games, right? So tagging it to one game's major content releases really doesn't make sense. Also the numbers in EQ tend to jump with a TLP launch, not just expansion launches.

    Also DBG does every once in awhile do membership promotions.

    2016: $72 for 12 months (40% off), was recurring too!
    2017: Krono sale (I think it was 2017, need to find the article)
    2018: $300 for Lifetime

    2019 didn't see one probably because 2018's was near the end of the year, and frankly 2020's subs have been so high from current events that we're not likely to see a sale.

    2016 & 2018's sales were huge. They come around every once and awhile, but I suspect they aren't really as popular anymore given how many people already have either the Lifetime sub, the $72 rate, fund EQ with Krono, & how much DBG monetization has moving from subs and into other transactions like content releases (e.g. expansions).

    In brief, another promo is bound to happen eventually, you just happened to join too late for the most recent once.

    On that note, welcome to the community!

    Edit: Fixed a couple typos.
  6. KermittheFroglok Augur


    Also, you do realize that Blizzard recently poached EQ's Executive Producer, not the other way around... so there's also that fact that Blizzard is still trying to figure out how to emulate some of EQ's business model, in this case the nostalgia niche. With that in mind, I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard did fewer sales and aligned more with EQ, instead of EQ offering more sales.
  7. Zinth Augur

    well they could also get the finger out and put each expansions collector items on the DB store so we can actually buy them, many in my guild wanted em as we passed through the expansions when they saw what "some of their guildies" had from the collector editions... most haven't been around for ALL expansions... so that is a huge income potential * the times ppl play TLP servers...
  8. Sobmre Augur

    makes sense since most of the EQ team now works at blizzard
    Fenthen likes this.
  9. HeatherPurrs Augur

    The reality is EQ is being set to die. There's at the present ~5 people handling the content and promotion of EQ. The current "owners" of EQ will not provide the resources to do much of anything other than rehashing content and hope the current lack of promotion won't kill the game before the next rehashed and cobbled together expansion.

    The game is so broken currently that content is literally old broken and rejected content being presented as "new" and old zones being "upreved" for toon levels.

    If you haven't noticed that mobs no long have healers in 99.9% of mob sets post 105. The current content is just fish in a barrel content and the mobs you'll face will be nothing more than "test dummies" with no support or utility mobs anywhere near them. Nothing like wandering in to a camp of mobs consisting of nothing but pure melee in groups of five... /sigh
  10. Sagarmatha Augur

    *sniff*

    I miss Holly.
  11. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    WHEEEE!!!! I don't !!! lmao So glad we probably won't have any more "sexual preference correct" rabbits

    And most of EQ original staff that built the game before Holly came along is over at Intrepid working on Ashes of Creation.

    And to Heatherpurrs:
    "31 December 2004
    Is Everquest Dying?
    This question seems to flood every EQ-based message forum since the release of EQ2 and Worlds of Warcraft. Is our beloved Norrath crashing to the ground? Are the city streets empty? Do lone adventurers stare over the empty wastelands of a once rich and populated land?"


    2020 - EQ releases 27th expansion.
  12. Qelil Augur

    I believe UO and DAOC are both still running. Somebody please correct me if I am wrong about that. I think EA owns them both which makes that even more significant since I would expect them to jettison anything that isn't turning enough profit to justify its existence.

    I don't think EverQuest is going anywhere anytime soon, for so long as it turns enough profit to justify its existence. There is plenty of room for smaller businesses to thrive along with big ones in this world.

    Having retired myself from a senior level position in software development I am impressed by and grateful for the good work that is done by the people working on EverQuest. They accomplish a great deal with limited resources now and a little appreciation means a lot to people who work as hard as they do on what is I'm sure a labor of love.

    As for those who've moved to Blizzard or elsewhere by their own choice... Burn the heretics!
  13. Nadisia Augur

    Do it better? rofl :D
    I won't trade my cup of Ngreth, Aristo or Absor for 10, 20, even 100 cups of Watcher (Hazzikostas) :p

    I have played WoW, a lot, but from my point of view, its actual development is just terrible, a total nonsense.
    Qelil likes this.
  14. Qelil Augur

    Considering I have no excuse not to do a simple search on UO and DAOC since I cannot play EQ at the moment old lazybones here just checked on them. Both games are still up and running.
  15. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    So you have a truly tenuous & fragile grip on your own orientation that leads to it feeling terribly threatened by digital LGBT bunnies in bright friendly colours that you don't even have to own?
    You poor dear, this is quite a candid admission to make, albeit unintentionally, you should get some help for that insecurity eating away at you or get out of the closet already.

    So please, Darkpaw, more colourful bunnies thanks, they are awesome & I like them even more now that I know they upset certain folks that really need to get a freaking grip & become members of the 21st century instead of languishing in the puritan mindset of the 17th century and frankly their tears amuse me immensely.

    Good few there, not really the "original crew" but certainly from the earlier era of EQ development, which bodes well for their game. EverQuest was the game that got a large number of very talented people their start in the industry, a fantastic legacy of this game worth celebrating.

    Well pointed out, lots of EQ detractors have been saying this game is dead or dying since the game first opened for business, it has lost a lot more players than currently play the game right now but it;s still plugging along & still putting out new (or at least rehashed) content after 21 years.

    There's still life in the old girl yet.
    Zunnoab, Jondalar and Nadisia like this.
  16. Joules_Bianchi A certain gnome

    Pretty much everyone who was Blizzard before Activision has jumped ship and offloaded their stock.
    Activision has done MANY stock buybacks to prop up their value, a practice that used to be illegal because it's essentially defrauding investors by overvaluing a stock.

    Also on WoW:

    We bought WoW on a $12.99 sale just prior to Legion release. We played through lLegion, collected something like THIRTEEN TRILLION (Not exaggerating) Artifact Points to unlock traits in a weapon. At the release of the next expansion, a "stat squish" and an unhooking of that weapon (and also devaluation of all legendary items)

    It was basically starting a whole new game all over.

    Zero continuity.

    I never even logged back in. My WoW characters are still at Legion benchmarks in armory.

    Meanwhile, In Everquest, a Spiked Seahorse Hide Belt still has value and sells well, regardless if I looted it today or 17 years ago.

    Oh and "Do you not have phones?"
  17. Joules_Bianchi A certain gnome

    I should also add:

    During the time we played WoW, I also kept NINE EQ acounts all access to support the game.

    The reason we ventured into WoW to begin with was:

    EQ Opening a new TLP with a previously unannounced XP reduction to try to force more XP potion sales on TLP. A shamelss cash grab. When people started PLing with bone chips and such to bypass this restricted XP, they nerfed that too.

    If anything would break 20+ years of loyatly to EQ, this s4it will be it.

    Be anything EQ, just DON'T be more like WoW.
  18. Sikkun Augur

    That 6-8 Billion in net revenue, Blizzard is dying!!!

    But hey EQ fans have been screaming it since 2004, guess Blizzard fans can have fun screaming how they are dying for the next 20 years.
  19. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    You don't like LGBT bunnies but it in no way indicates your own preferences? - Yeah I'm not buying that one sorry.

    Mmm Hmm sure you are, yep, very convincing.......not.

    Many studios celebrtae pride in their own games, Daybreak doing so was nothing new & I am extremeley sceptical of your rationale that it was done to make her CV more attractive to Blizzard. What Blizzard are interested in is how much Holly helped EverQuest to grow after years of losing players, you know, money, not bunnies, honey.

    So I think this applies:

    [IMG]

    I've been around the internet for long enough to know that people who say things like

    Are always bigots, OH HAI homophobe, thank you for outing yourself.
    Zunnoab likes this.
  20. Joules_Bianchi A certain gnome

    Buying King (phone games) to offset losses was a net gain on paper, sure. 8 stock buybacks in 7 years also had something to do with it.


    Compressing 6 1/2 months Battle for Azeroth of preorders into a press release of "Day one sales" figures was an outright lie.

    Just because people fall for smoke and mirrors does not make a better game, however many Learjets Bobby K can buy. (Neither does crap zone design, specifically terrain puzzles / mazes / targets on top of mountains you can't get to specifically to spoof MUA statistics to your shareholders).

    My time /played in EQ is ridiculously high because:


    Content.

    Content.

    Content.

    Not because it takes 15 minutes to sort out the useless ambiguous (on purpose) map to get to an NPC.
    Nadisia and Skuz like this.