My thoughts on bringing in new players.

I like posts like this. They're thoughtful and provide insights developers and planet partners can use. Thats not to say they're perfect, but things like this help gauge demand and what the community may be willing to accept and even embrace.

There's some good meat in this particular idea, my question is how a retailer would view the prospect of taking up shelf space (or warehouse space) for this particular product right now when sales are dubious due to two things: 1) the ability to download the game for free 2) the strained and rather clumsy marketing campaigns MindArk has undertaken in the past.

Both seem to me to damage the games retail credibility. Without a greater variety of free or low cost social tools and events this particular platform unfortunately has limited appeal, and limited ability to overcome the stigma that's been attached to it.

I wish it were different. I'm a fan of this platform and see a future with it as it continues to develop. But at the moment it is what it is. My hope is that the planet partners, by virtue of them infusing players and cash into the platform through aggressive and thoughtful advertising campaigns do not appeal to greed in the same way MindArk has. This may provide a much needed monetary push that is necessary in order to facilitate development of ideas within the platform, rather than churning out planet after planet of potentially reskinned content.

The Planet Partners need to pay attention to the simple social truth that MindArk narrowly missed during their advertising campaigns and development tactics. A person doesn't want to be told they have to spend their money (that makes a person defensive), but they love being given many reasons and personal appeals as to why they should.

 

I haven't even played this yet, I'm downloading as I look through this forum. A good starter point to the problem of people importing money into the game may be to have cards at retailers that work on the bases of a pin number or something along those lines. The cards could be at fixed or loadable amounts and as a bonus if a person spends beyond a certain predetermined amount they are rewarded with a ped bonus or equipment or somthing. I don't know how this sounds but it would alleviate the problems of credit card theft and retailers would lose no real counter/shelf space.

 

Thats not a bad thought. Being able to purchase cash cards and having those cards waive the transaction fee MA tacks on to every deposit would be a nice incentive.

 

I have a lot of good players I can bring to this game.

Former residents of the Matrix region on SL (it was mine), hippies I know who are a bit lost on the big cities they live on nowadays, artists, entertainers, friends...

...however in order to do this first I need at least a region in here AND I need the bugs fixed.

It is no fun for a new player to be massacred non stop by raging monkeys and ugly boars, except perhaps if they happen to be masochists, which is not the case.

 

About 5 years ago MA had a version of the prepaid ped card I purchased from a gaming site but they discontinued it. They even had a way to use Paypal but that also didn't last. I love the idea of prepaid card but I really doubt MA would ever go that route again.

 

An alternative to a prepaid game card is a pre paid credit card. That's what I use to make deposits into this game. Keeps my spending in check :) Also since it takes 1 buisness day to tranfer funds from my bank account to the card it gives me time to think about that "impulse" deposit. Also since it's prepaid I don't have to worry about security :)
The fee's on my card are 10$ for 3 years.
2% on currency exchange
25$ overdraft fee(don't know how you can over draw a pre paid card)
0.2% load fee(that's 20 cents for every $100 I put on)
Plus the normal MA fee on credit card deposits

It's a pretty good deal if you think about it :)

 

After reading this post and thinking of the latest follies MA is involved in, namely charging people to talk to each other ingame when free clients like Skype, Teamspeak, and Ventrilo are available, I have to wonder how many other games the developers in MindArk currently play. Developing an MMO should require a certain amount of extracurricular time playing competing products and finding out what is commonly used in the industry, so that development time isnt wasted reinventing the wheel or involving yourself in non-profitable ventures. In educational institutions they pay their employees to do this, and call it sabbatical leave. Basically its research time. Something tells me the MA developers are living in their own shell, telling themselves that they are a unique product with their own audience.

They are not creating a unique product (just a unique outlook on payment models). But they have in the past created their own audience... through alienating potential players with stupid policies.

 

My bank gives me one free prepaid gift card a month that I can put money on and I had done this for the past 4 years, but when MA implimented the 3d secure my card stopped working and you can't put a password on prepaid gift card. I will have to look into the prepaid credit card.

 

When I get in moods like the one I am in right now I sometimes think strange thoughts.

Like what if the best thing we can do to bring in new players is simply be 100% honest and forthright about how Entropia currently works. Its obviously fun and we obviously like playing it. Let them know that. But also let them know that sweating isnt all its cracked up to be. That sometimes the best thing you can do is play on a budget and expect to pay. That most people ingame who tell you theyve been withdrawing thousands of dollars and are virtual millionaires are probably lying to you.

It sounds negative, but its not intended to be that way. Lots of players in EU leave frustrated, feeling misled. Why not collectively stop embellishing away the negative sides of the product, and let them know that despite these negatives there are still alot of redeeming factors. That the world itself is unparallelled in size. That the scope of the game is huge. That if you like the game, youll be playing it longer than 2 months, and you will actually need to plan your development out for years. And that theres a psychological and analytical challenge to this game not present anywhere else.

In short, stop telling them they can make it by sweating, and start telling them they can make it by being honest to themselves when establishing their expectations about money and fame.

 

I knew coming into this game I wouldn't be making money. I knew I would be spending it. I came into this because I love gaming in general and CryEngine is incredible. The sweating thing is misleading, lots of effort with no apparent reward. I think that unless more people start playing with the foreknowledge that they are not going to get wealthy overnight playing this is game going to continue to dampin all attempts at making it easier to transfer funds to or from the game. If it was easier more people would play.
By the way, I played for a couple of hours monday night for the first time and can honestly say that I HATE monkies! Thanks to everyone that was so helpful and helped me get to the teleporter, I was so panicky I didn't catch my helpers name, lol.