A major flaw in the businessmodel

@Sokolov

I knew you'd bring up the big vs small game thing, I should have anticipated.

The reason why I think cosmetics or extras like namechanges would work for Pox is that you've got a dedicated playerbase.

I mean, in an ideal world everyone has every rune and all revenue is made of extras. That way I believe your playerbase would increase (at this point the few collectors left dont outweigh the entry barrier for new players). The problem is that full free to play will never work for Pox and its difficult to implement the sort of "pay X and get all runes of a faction for Y time" in the current model.

I truly believe that the collectors aspect is holding Pox back in terms of growth and player activity. I'm not saying go full free to play, I'm saying introduce some pretty things and watch the community react. At the very least you should make some money off it. If it takes off, decrease rune prices or throw some packs our way. If you can somehow make some money off non-runes, you're well on the way of improving this game.

 

@Sokolov

I see your point, thanks for illustrating. It was most helpful.

What would your stance be on the likes of namechanges, ingame incons, taunts etc. Just extras that tickle peoples fancy AND can/will be purchased multiple times by the same people. Would you not get more out of it even though you have smaller nulbers to work with?

 

@Sokolov

Do you not think that it would fair to speculate that the ARPU in Pox would be a lot higher? I don't know the numbers and you probably have a lot more info regarding this, but as a huge portion of people who are playing the game (save PvE players, but do they spend much/contribute anyway?) are people who are investing quite a bit in this game. The big question would be: though they spend much on runes, how much would they spend on cosmetics or extras? Do you reckon a sort of poll would be useful?

 

Got to say, thanks for BP bringing this up and Sok for the detailed replies, very interesting thread.

Just a side note, I am sucker for cosmetics in general (I know I am only one person) but the fact I have 250+ skins on League means I am a chump for this stuff, take advantage of me please Owls <3

 

I guess I must be tired but I interpret all of that as 'it's hard to get new users so we have to gouge the old ones'. I'll go have coffee then give it another read.

 

Good point here being - with a low playerbase it will not be hard to reach higher %s of increase. @Sokolov I have a question: Would it help you in any way if the players did a focused research? I have some friends that are strategy afficcionados and I would gladly for the sake of PN force them... uh... convince them to play or at least watch me play, and ask them why would/wouldn't they consider playing PN.

 

Lets say you want a meta bg or a theme bg for a faction you like and you are a new player.
To make it work,you are looking to get 4 legs,about 6 expensive exos and the rest are cheap commons/uncommon/rares.
The amount of money you need to spend to get that is not worth it because you can buy a actual proper game for the same amount of money.
The fact that everything you buy is more or less random and that you need to use either trade sharks or shark sites which take about 20 percent of the value of any trade from you just makes it worse.
Also even if you do spend that money,you just got one bg from one faction,there are literally thousands of other runes which you dont have and need to invest again and again and again to get.
You could spend thousands of dollars and still not have every rune.
This is a game with business model for collectors.No matter how many balancing patches,quality of life changes,events,fixes and polish you add,the core issue is still there.
This game is kept on life support because of remaining collectors,addicts and people with too much hope and enthusiasm.
I have no idea how the people in charge of this think they can make it work,or even grow the game(while there have been improvments,the game is still ghost town and has a tiny playerbase).

TL;DR: poxnora is a failed project of the canadian devil

 

I've leaned in swtor that people are willing to spend money on completely unrelated inane things. Lots of money.

People spend millions of credits (game currency) on strongholds (houses), outfits, pets and mounts which all have zero direct bearing on the game.

So, yes, sell some fluff.

 

I'd personally invest in name change tokens for my units at something around a dollar a pop. It seems like something that'd be simple to implement and definitely makes your decks a lot more personalized. I could see something like this taking off quickly with the players we do have.

 

I doubt selling cosmetics at this point would have such an impact that it would outcome major flaws at the game atm.
I mean, sure Pox playerbase is loyal, as BP stated, but it is composed atm of what, 50 people?
Honestly, just think about it - do you guys KNOW for sure 50 players that have been buying expansions/packs and are overall active enough that you would expect them to buy cosmetic stuff? I don't, but I could be off.
Either way, my vote is for a Pox 2.0.

 

even if the game could survive selling bling to the existing playerbase, that's only a solution for the devs (it keeps them in business). It is NOT a solution for the players who want/need a larger playerbase

that's assuming of course that a larger playerbase IS what these guys want. honestly I cant be sure. some days it seems like they are just fine being a tiny niche group with a dev team that sells them the same crap over and over.

I guess that's your market. well keep up the walls of text and promises for the future Sok. it seems to be all these guys need.

 

I agree with this 100%, even though I think that if it was up to Sok there would be no "promises for the future". Sok is a "get things done" type of guy, empty promises and whatnot are probably coming from Gedden and the heads of the company.

 

Sok's hands are tied by this business model which in turn is justified by the spending behavior of this playerbase. both sides need to change or they will just keep feeding off each other.

 

as far as new players and keeping them, I would suggest setting up rooms with rarity limits,
for instance .....
novice rooms =com through rare,
experienced=com through exo, etc
,, each room giving better rewards, ,exp,rank, etc.
this would allow new/"novice" players to gain cards without breaking there bank and a reasonable grind, since they would be in a novice room which only allows upto rares, they can feel as if they have all the cards available within this parameter to build any bg they want without saying I need more $$$ to be better, as far as vets (im here 7yrs, medicore at best, but I love PN) , I would be more then willing to play "down" in these rooms, having to make new bg for such parameters, ,.that would be interesting, ,,
so while a "novice" player is playing ranked, pve, ,tourney etc he/she is gaining gold, cards,shards, rank and personal experience.
getting them ready for the scary exotic rooms where your opponents are vicious and clever, or maybe even legendary room , ooooh, where bosses named devilswrath and the tiniest of dragons lurk!!
and of course the prizes would be much higher in these rooms (reletaive to novice rewards of course)...this way people can play within there budget and not feel at a disadvantage. ..

as far as all the skins convo,, I guess its time to feel a little dumb,, good post
,,, sok is good..period...
if this stuff was so easy ,, it would be done..

 

@Sokolov, as always you put the points into very logical analysis; and having worked on Pox in the past can definitely agree with your analysis regarding profit/loss ARPU.

However, the issue I have is with your breakdown of the content example. Your example breaks down significantly when you breakdown where the costs are incurred (you present a very drastic loss when that can be mitigated greatly). To continue with your new example lets say that it does cost 500 dollars to add a piece of content. From scratch your cost breaks down to something roughly on par with this:

• 350 dollars to get the art made.
• 75 dollars for the designer to spend the time describing and designing the rune.
• 50 dollars for the programmer to implement said rune.
• 25 dollars for covering the time to test and evaluate the rune in terms of the expansion.

There are other costs associated but on a per rune basis they are likey negligible (server costs, database entry/maintenance costs, etc). However, when you have a recolor/reskin your costs are significantly less:

• 50 dollars for that art to be modified (maybe a hundred if you need a new visual sprite) <-- this is likely a lot less since a recolor can be usually be done in an hour if that.
• 10 dollars for the designer to come up with slightly different ability tree/defined color and rarity values.
• 10 dollars for the programmer to implement (most work is done might need an ability).
• 15 dollars to test it for evaluation for release.

So your 500 dollar investment for a single content becomes 5 new distinct ways to sell. Now your numbers aren't as significant, because 500 items at 2.5 is 14,500. I am going on the conservative side of things. The more you can decrease the art cost, the more you gain on the number of pieces that you can create per cycle.

The biggest problem though with this example is that it presumes an intention to build and sell all of this in a single return. The real way you would do this is to make the recolor/reskins as part of the core 500 dollar asset process; so that it is inherent into the cost of the expansion. Then you roll out the recolor/reskins on a regular basis with various releases or as specials. This allows you to recoup the costs that you initially lose (although minimized by the return of investment from the expansion) while also decreasing costs across the expansions.

Time however is the biggest hurdle, and every hour given to one thing means less time on another.

EDIT: Sorry meant to add this as well.
The advantage to cosmetics is the ROI. Your expansion main money is made in generally a very specific time period. You recoup no real additional costs past the next expansion. However with reskin/recolors there is no need for them to continue making money between expansions. They are speciality and those who want them will spend the money to get them.