Hi friends,
Your feedback is extremely important to me and this community has been so supportive of my past game launches. I want to make sure I do right by you guys while also hopefully building a successful game that can bring me one step closer to pursuing this dream of becoming a full time indie developer. As such, I want to implement monetization that's both fair, but also equitable enough that I can hopefully one day get to my goal of being a full time game developer.
What I've done wrong in the past
In the past I have tried to release full length titles for a fixed dollar amount, and I haven't had much success going this route. I did happen to break even on my last game, but after expenses, I estimate that revenue vs time invested, I was making about $0.25 per hour. John On Fire took about 500 hours to make, has made $600 to date, but I invested about $500 into it, so its come out to about $100 revenue for 500 hours of work. I don't mean to complain about this, I'm actually quite happy with the result, as this is the first game I've built that has actually made money vs lost money. I view it as a stepping stone in my career. However, I know I can do better, and can build better games. I'm still chasing my masterpiece, and I think tweaking my business strategy for the next game will help me get there.
For reference, here is John on Fire : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xksoftware.johnonfire
How I'd like to approach my next game
Goal 1 : Build a better game
My next game is quite a bit better than John On Fire in terms of quality, and I already felt like John on Fire was a descent game (to date, John on Fire is rated 4.68 / 5 on Google Play). My goal is to make every game better than the last, and I think my newest game "Defenders of the Universe" is, to be honest, a much better game than John on Fire was in terms of graphics, general gameplay, and execution.
Goal 2 : Provide Better Value to my Players
John On Fire was a linear game and I think this was a major problem. I do think it provided a lot of value (especially for the price point, as the game had lots of unlockable content (30+ unique guns and armor, 40+ story missions, 20 + side missions, multiple bonus survival modes) and some unique features that most games don't have (full controller support).
If I had to put my thumb on it, a major problem was the lack of polish and execution. When I first released, the game had a huge amount of beta testers (1,300). To date, the game has a total of 2.37k players. The majority of my downloads were in the beta testing phase when I first announced the game. I launched the game incomplete and didn't fully polish the game until maybe 3 months after the beta launch. I do feel like the game looks and plays really well today, but by launching early, I think I missed out on opportunities to keep those original 1300 very engage. Launching early was a bad move. I was excited to get the thing out there, I should have kept it in the alpha test mode until it was truly ready to launch.
John On Fire Downloads for July Slowly decreasing
I also thought I was doing mobile audiences justice by keeping gameplay times down for each mission to 2-3 minutes. Although the game was fun, I don't think I was providing enough value to customers in that the game didn't have much replay-ability or variation. Simply put, and I think it's evident in the ratings, the game is fun, the story was funny, but realistically it's over all forgettable. I'm not convinced that I got any word of mouth downloads, and I think that's why user acquisition hasn't been great and the game appears to be dying as far as new players are concerned (its dropped to about 2-3 downloads per day).
Defenders of the Universe will be better in that it basically takes the most fun part of John On Fire (which was the survival mode) and expands on that content.
The new game will feature:
- Third person shooter instead of top down
- 200+ Unlockable weapons (plus more after launch)
- 150 + different types of armor, helmets, and accessories
- 20 + unlockable and playable characters
- customization of characters
- A much wider variety of enemies and play modes (where John on Fire only focused on bad guys with guns, Defenders of the Universe will pit players against gangsters, apocalyptic warriors, vikings, skeletons, cyberpunks, aliens, mechs, androids, orks, goblins, dark elves, mummies, zombies, basically everything bad in the universe)
- Greatly reduced length cut scenes
The game will also take the best parts of John On Fire and improve on them
- Funnier jokes and better writing
- Better combat mechanics, still a huge focus on great gun play (but also melee weapons and explosives)
- Full blue tooth controller support as always
- Taking the best game play mode in John on Fire (Survival mode) and building an entire game around that concept
Goal 3 : New more long term, fair, monetization strategy
I am still adamently against P2W. John on Fire basically, after the full game was unlocked, allowed players to unlock extra guns by playing very short side missions. It was basically giving the guns away without any feeling of progression. I think this was the nail in the coffin for the game, it didn't feel like there was progression in playing from start to finish outside of the main story progression.
Defenders of the Universe will have an micro and macro economy system
The Micro Store System
- Players will be able to customize the loadout of their characters upon entering a mission
- Players gain in game currency for killing enemies ($25) or every hit on an enemy ($1)
- The player always starts with $0 in every round
- When the player runs out of ammo for their starting weapons (and / or their armor is destroyed), kiosks are spread out throughout every map that randomly dispense armor and weapons for a fee.
Character looking at Murica Munitions
Kiosk Store System for changing out weapons for a Random Weapon
- A bank is available in game where customers can deposit extra cash that they make in game which keeps the money safe in case the player loses the mission. Any deposited money is saved, but is not usable in the current round once deposited.
- If the player loses the mission, they will not receive any rewards (outside of the money that they deposited).
- If the player beats the mission, whatever money they have left over that hasn't been deposited will also be multiplied by certain bonuses (accomplishing objectives and bonuses for higher difficulty settings on the level)
The Macro Economy
- Money gained in every mission will then be available to use to unlock more content
- A gacha option will be available for any type of weapon, armor, or bonus characters, but it will be purchasable with in game currency
- Duplicates will not be possible except for with characters (see character leveling system), the purchase options will remove themselves if they've already been unlocked (meaning yes, you can empty the store if you play the game long enough). Characters will all have the same rarity and drop rates though.
- The gacha however will be fair, all drops have an exactly equal chance of dropping, regardless of quality or rarity
- Fixed daily options will also be available for purchase, and they will change daily
- All prices will be reasonable (I want to target the random option to be accessible for every, money gained from 50 enemy kills)
Character Unlocks (Still early in implementation, still trying to figure this part out)
Character Leveling System:
Characters will be able to level up to a max capacity. Duplicates of characters can be used to prestige a given character up another set of ranks. No screenshot of this system yet as it isn't finalized (and i haven't even started implementing it yet).
Optional IAPs for More "Freedom Bucks" (completely non essential) or XP upgrades
If people want to whale, I'm not going to stop them, but all of the IAPs will be extremely reasonably priced. None of this $99 crap. I'm also toying with a permanent double cash power up for those that are more mindful of economy (I want it to be like a "no brainer" purchase option). Still playing around with that idea and really looking for feedback there.
Additional Maps as DLC
Additional map packs (which may contain additional characters, weapons, maps, enemies, etc) will be available for purchase. I want these to be really cheap (probably $0.99 per map pack, each with a different them) and maybe an option like an "founding father" option for early supporters where all future packs and current packs are available for a low price (say $4.99).
DLC Example, Right box will open up Cyber Punk Map Pack
I'm definitely looking for feedback. Please let me know what you guys like or don't like. I appreciate the feedback from this community overall and I look forward to continuing making great and fair, non P2W type games moving forward
Submitted August 10, 2019 at 12:33AM by eboxrocks https://ift.tt/2KrX0uN
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