Marketing, Money Making, keeping the game alive

Prelude

My fellow Auraxians, Planetside 2 needs your help, I'm asking you a very important question that must be answered at all costs:

What would make you spend money?

It's an easy questions, but let me clarify, I'm talking about marketing trick that make you spend money, or will make you increase the amount of money you pour into something.

We all know how steam does it, will discounts make spending money more appealing to you?

Maybe an in-game marketplace? or will you spend money for a friend?

And more importantly, what makes you keep playing? what will make other people join and become loyal players?

The Background

There are very successful money making MMOs out there, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Team Fortress 2, DOTA 2, Counter Strike Global offensive, EVE online, Star Trek online, World of Tanks/Warplanes
How do they do it? how do they keep a loyal player base? and more importantly, how do they make them spend money?

As we all know, microtransactions are an important part of most MMOs, even those with monthly memberships like WOW or EVE, statistics found people tend to spend more if the game has microtransactions, more than their usual onetime payment or a the monthly membership.

Why? Psychology of course, 1 dollar doesn't look like much, but you keep paying and buying and you end up spending a lot, people are more likely to buy ten 5 dollar games than one 50 dollar game, even if the playtime is the same, just because it looks like you spend less money to get more stuff, it's an small psychological lie we tell ourselves.

Well then, what makes games as popular as those I named make so much money and keep people playing?
First of all there is a fanbase component, WOW, DOTA 2, LOL, CS:GO, STO, all those games has some previous fanbase from other games, be the original DOTA, warcraft series, star trek series, etc.

Planetside 2 has that fanbase, Planetside 1 veterans, so that's one condition Planetside 2 achieves.

Money Making 101

MMOs rely on atleast one of 3 different ways of keeping players and making money:

1- A Dual Market system:

There is one market where you buy stuff from the game, an in-game store, and a secondary market where you can exchange that stuff for other stuff and/or money.

TF2 and EVE heavily rely on this system, and they are quite successful, WOW also does this to an extent, same as DOTA 2, CS:GO, STO, this is one of the best money making ways.

2- Daily incentives:

This is a method used primarily to keep people playing, good if you rely on memberships, but also great if you rely on microtransactions or your game is very big in scale, like EVE, WOW or Planetside 2, WOT/Warplanes also rely on this.

Basically incentives are XP boosts, daily cooldowns or daily quests, PS2 has daily ribbons and used to have daily certs, daily certs were meaningless, their number was almost insignificant, but thay made people log in daily to get them because they were free, and that made them play for a bit, removing them was a bad move marketing wise.

3-Serious E-Sports:

DOTA 2, LOL and WoT heavily rely on these, they are expensive, and not all games are designed for them, plus it's very hard to host successful E-Sports, but they really pay off, possibly the best way to make money, but hard to achieve.

Personally I don't think PS2 is fit for E-Sports, asymmetrical balance, large scale, slow paced, force multipliers, too many players, those are liabilities for E-Sports.

Conclusion:

Planetside 2 relies on 1 of those methods to keep people playing and spending money, and it's not well designed or executed.

How to fix the economy:

First of all, PS2 needs the dual market system, it's simple, allow people to exchange SC with other players for certs and stuff, then create an artificial demand for stuff.

TF2 brilliantly executes this technique, promo items, limited items, unusual items, PS2 can do this too, weapon variants, limited cosmetics, event rewards.

For example, with the upcoming 2 year anniversary you can add limited time items, those items will increase in value over time, eventually creating a supply/demand market on their own.

Discounts:

Everyone loves discounts, flash discounts, weekly discounts, daily discounts, discount vouchers, they make people spend money in an illogical way, steam really knows how to exploit this.

This, coupled with the dual market can create an active economy.

Gifts:

Some people just love giving stuff to other people, let it be friends or random strangers, so why not add both options.

If you buy something for a friend you get an small discount (10%) the next time you buy something for yourself, and add an option to return the favour, if you got a gift you get a discount next time you gift something to that guy.

Secret Auraxian: you can buy something, on a heavy discount, but it goes to a random player currently on-line, who knows, maybe you make new friends this way.

Tipping:


Ever found that special guy who cares about everyone and makes the game better just with his aptitude and his helpful nature? ever wanted to give him something in return? Well, this feature is for you, tipping allows you to give some certs or SC (limited) to that guy who truly earned it.

How to fix population:

Improve daily incentive rewards, first of all, bring daily certs back, and improve those daily certs for premium users.

Let's say they keep gaining the same amount of certs as they do now, but make them cumulative, so you don't miss certs if one day you can't log-in.

Daily XP boost: 25% XP boost for 30 minutes on your first daily log-in, 50% XP boost for premium users.

Daily quests:

Every character can complete 3 daily quests, which are reset every day with new random quests, F2Pers can decline one daily quest (similar to Hearthsone) and get a new random quest once a day, meanwhile premiums can decline up to 3 per day.

Those random quests can be something like:

• Overload 3 generators
• Cap one Biolab/Amp station/techplant
• Cap 3 bases
• Kill 20 infantry
• Destroy 3 tanks
• Etc.

They award some xp, and an small discount voucher (10-25%) for premium stuff if you complete all daily quests, for example:

• 10% discount voucher for medic items
• 15% discount voucher for cammos
• 25% discount voucher for weapons bought with SC
• Etc.

Premium days

WoTs does this, they add some quests that take about a week of gameplay to complete, and reward a premium day to the user.

Planetside 2 can also have premium weekends every once in a while, so everyone gets a taste of what membership is like, and that might influence people to buy it.

Loyalty Rewards

Another classic, many MMOs reward veterans with some stuff every once in a while, for example, WoTs gifts premium tanks, PS2 can gift custom decals or cammos.

PS2 has too many players for e-sport? *looks at LoL and CoD*

Once the bugs are fixed.. then you can ask me for money.

Until then, this game is still in development.....

The most true E-Sport is Starcraft, a game which entirely revolves around 1v1


Other games like DOTA and LOL are popular because they're easy, but they manage to display a mockery of "E-Sports"; and they're able to do this because those games both have 5 player teams against another 5 player team (10 players total). FPSs like Halo have been popular E-Sports, because they are high skill shooters, and they also have pretty small team sizes


Planetside 2 has literally hundreds of people in large battles. The game would be impossible to follow as an E-Sport, especially for your average 70 IQ reddit user who clicks his twitch.tv tab to watch someone else play a video game. This game also has 3 teams, and no clear objective half of the time. Massive overhauls (including the complete removal of at least 1 faction) would be needed to make this game presentable as an E-Sport


Spawning an VS MAX unit, is like bringing an M4 to a basketball game, and "winning" by killing the other team's players as they enter the court. This game is pretty much the opposite of a sport

I'm assuming he means in a single "match"? (Continent?)

5v5 lends it's self well to competitive play, a 2000 man three way not so much.

Then again, sever smashes have proved to be very entertaining and surprisingly easy to squeeze into a twitch stream...

What would make me spend money?
*Hmmm*
Owning a debit card.

There are not enough items to promote player trading or any kind of economy.

Just add some fluff items to membership to better promote that.

Yeah, some thing cool shiny Armour for long term members would be nice.

I have been a member for 2 years and I am just getting to the point where I don't need it anymore. I have more certs then I know what to do with. Having a reason to keep it would help give me a reason not to stop it when this year ends

If they would have went with the Costco/Aldi approach to pricing instead of the Whole Foods/Marianos, they would have made more money. They didn't take the "micro" part of microtransactions seriously. If prices would have been lower, people in the long run would have actually spent more; what's a buck or two here and there? But instead it's more like..."do I really want to throw $5?, etc, I'll just wait for a sale or nah, I don't really want it that bad". I know I would have spent more (over $60 so far). Not to mention if the game didn't have the Soon™ disease, I'd still be supporting it with my money but I'm done with that.

No amount of marketing will make me play a broken game. I'm not paying because I don't enjoy playing this game. PS2 just isn't fun for me. It has some good sides, but to enjoy them I'm forced to tolerate bad sides, and I just can't take it anymore.

Call it catering to infantryside or whatever, but I'm tired of dealing with MAXes and vehicles, and I don't see me logging in until I have the option of playing without them. I like the infantry part of this game, and I don't get why I can't just enjoy that part without cheesy oneshots shoved in my face.

People often tell me "go play other games, PS2 isn't about just infantry". And I will. And so will other people. And your game will die without players. Is that what you want?

I just wish there was an additional competitive ladder matchmaking mode, with instanced combat, with optional vehicles and MAXes. This way nothing is removed from the game, but people can enjoy playing the game the way they want.

But if we're talking marketing - everything is just too expensive. 5-10 dollars for camo, 5-7 dollars for a gun, which is often just a reskin? Outrageous. I spent a boatload of money on PS2, and now I regret it, because it wasn't worth it. Prices need to be at least half of what they are. Then people will be much more likely to spend money.

At this point I don't think anything can save this game. It is slowly dying, and will continue to do so. Some people will still play this game, but it will be but a fraction of what this game could achieve had it not waste two years indecisively fiddling around.

Even if the desired by me "matchmaking mode" gets announced today, by the time it gets done it will be too late.

I like the gifting part. As long as it's under BR20 and 1000 certs/700 SC. Maybe just a way to help a friend get started playing the game you like.

Well to be fair there are sales. Daily sales give you 50% off. Holiday sales give you really good discounts, as much as 90% off.

And that's not including SC sales, either from retailers (sorry I don't think they have these programs for Russia) or from SOE directly.

So smart shoppers can turn a $10 item into a $5 item easily, or $1-2 if they're more patient.

The winter holidays are of course only one or two months away! Hopefully we'll see some more 99 SC category-wide sales.

I like that daily quest part
It reminds me of Daily assignment in Halo reach

Add meta content, problem solved.

Hail fellow warriors, I return from the mystical land of Mechwarrior Online (MWO) and have wonderful news! Planetside 2 is a fantastic game!

But in all seriousness, this game does so many things right that it is scary, and it stems from putting the game content and quality above sales. The marketing model in this game is generous, with daily sales that make purchases go farther and great bundles that reward smart purchases. The game does not force membership to progress at a reasonable clip and even refunds the price of membership in small part. All in all, this game is the best model that a large world F2P MMO can strive to be.

Compare this to the aforementioned MWO, with 50 dollar single mechs being normal, a hard cap of 4 mechs for free players, no meaningful content in nearly two years. And all with the same or more bugs than PS2. It is shocking to explore the modern F2P scene.

But there are problems. The game is extremely high maintenance, with large internet pipelines and multiple data centers eating into revenue that was scarce to begin with. Value in this game is so-so, with camo being somewhat expensive, but a majority being account wide, mitigating the sticker shock. Membership is seen as too undervalued to be considered. These things and more gnaw at the company and could shorten the life span of this game.

So what are we to do about it? No idea.
Really, anything that can be sold at this point is being sold, with more customization and some new weapons on the way.

They are cutting costs with player studio and have a small, moderately efficient team.
So it comes down to the customer, and his/her choices. Perhaps a break and a realization that this company values its game more than the cash cows will drive more sales, perhaps just an uptick in the economy and some of us who are unemployed getting jobs will be a more permanent patch to the maybe-money-leak?

Who knows? We'll have to wait and see.

Sorry about the lack of replies, I created this thread and then went to sleep, but i'm back to reply and answer your questions.

I mean it has too many players per battle, unlike other e-Sports which usually have small teams.

I partially agree with you, the game was released too early, but I feel it's finished but under constant development, same as TF2, game keeps getting content and expansions, there are always bugs, some of them gamebreaking, but that happens to all games.

Maybe I'm lucky, but I don't find bugs very often, I once got ejected from my lightning and nearly died, sometimes I spawn in random places, but never found something truly gamebreaking.

Let's pretend the game is complete, without bugs and perfectly optimized, then, what will make you spend money? discounts? gifts? an in-game player created economy?

Well, I have to agree, as I mentioned, PS2 is not (and I think it will never be) fit for E-Sports, the scale is too large, maybe it can be adapted to small 6vs6 infantry matches with some restrictions (for example, no revives), but that will be too restrictive, leaving out nearly 80% of the game's content.

There are hundreds of guns, cosmetics and cammos, I guess more content can be added, and some content can be removed from the store to create an artificial demand and a player created economy.

As I mentioned I think loyalty rewards should be a thing, and some exclusive items for premium members will promote buying memberships.

Cash prices are a bit high, I mean, 5-7$ for a weapon/cosmetic? that's insane, look at TF2 it has reasonable prizes, and you can get cosmetics fro free also, so this game needs some economy stimulant, I think discount vouchers as a reward for playing will encourage players to buy more stuff.

your idea is pretty good, currently battle islands are complete, they are small and more infantry focused, so why aren't they adding battle islands for infantry exclusive combat? I mean, they could add that in less than a week, they use them for MLG games.

I also mentioned in other threads that a virtual reality (no resource costs spawns) for dogfighting is also needed, of course you don't get everything unlocked, because that will remove the sense of progression and dumb down the learning curve, but an air exclusive area to practice piloting and dogfighting would be beneficial for the game.

Of course, that was the main reason behind the suggestion, attracting friends, helping beginners.

they should expand playerstudio, make it a bit more like steam workshop, allow people to see submitted items, rate them, and vote for them, so developers get the idea of what players want added.

i want new smg's and bolt sniper rifles with 1x to 4x scope

It's too late for all of this.

If the PS4 version does well, you may see a bone or two thrown our way.

If it doesn't, you won't see anything here.

This will never happen with any game, it may get a little better, but not completely fixed. It is what it is...find the things that brings you enjoyment about the game and have fun because there are more enjoyable things in PS2 than bugs...

Personally, I spent a fortune on beautiful camos (because of appreciation, not necessarily because of usefullness).

Also, I could not resist getting the Zealot and Cylon voice packs