A realist who's also respectfully showing developers what's acceptable and what isn't when it comes to monetisation. Someone (much like yourself) who vocally steps up and says "Nah, sorry, that isn't ok with me", and to me that makes him a pioneer for the future of iOS gaming. I'd prefer everything premium, but if it simply HAS to be this way then people like Billy are paving the way to make the absolute best of a bad situation, a reality.
Yes we understand that most hardcore players don't like free games with IAP, they like to pay for once and own the game totally. As in the old days a game on NDS can sell for $60 or more, but there is a big problem that when the game doesn't fit their taste, they wasted $60 and no way for a money back. so when the mobile market rises, players just abandoned it and pick up their phones. As for now in the mobile market, the competition is much more and people have so many to choose from, in order to fix the problem mentioned above, games have to change to be free, so player can play for quite a long time and then decide whether they'd like to pay or not, that's why free game is now so popular, paid games are dying on mobile market. It took much more energy and money to design a free game than a paid game in which you only have to find the way to entertain, companies are not so stupid to spend more to design something that most people hate, people like to try for free, but most people do not speak on forum or anywhere, they just play. they even don't visit sites or forums, that's why you can find a thread that touchacarde is asking for help on the front page, We saw some free games which walked too far on the way to milk, such as: 1, When you reach a level, you just can't proceed unless you pay for a ticket, or ask 5+ friends to help so the game is promoted for free. the game uses you as a free broadcaster. 2, You just can't beat some enemies unless you pay. 3, The game add some thing whose duty is just driving you mad unless you pay. and many more ways to milk, but we didn't add anything like that to compel, many testers tested the game, they can beat the game for free. So as a whole, this is a common question whether games should be free with IAP or just a paid once version, people with a phone are most casual players, most of them like free games, and people on steam are hardcores, they like paid version, we are going to build a paid version on steam. Thanks to toucharcade being the first site reporting us, we get about 800+ players right now, although now we didn't make much money, we'd like to support toucharcade as we are much appreciated, and we are going to support toucharcade more in the future because we just like sites with justice. Please let me know what you think.
I worked at Sony and saw how much effort it takes to develop AAA title. We're talking about 2-5 years of design, coding, art, ... Where several hundred people get involved and tens of them work on the project from beginning to end, without seeing any profit until release. I doubt your game or any other game like Candy Crush, Crossy Road or other games on iOS took that much of effort. Yet to enjoy it I'd need to spend hundreds of dollars. Thanks.
Sure mobile games took much less effort than AAA titles, some times i can say it's about 1/100, my love is God of War, you Sony mates have done so many great titles. and cookietroll, bro, you misunderstood what i mean, i am comparing an Free Armor Rider&IAP with an Armor Riders paid version without any IAP. As you mentioned, "Where several hundred people get involved and tens of them work on the project from beginning to end, without seeing any profit until release", what a huge risk if the title is not so popular. that's why AAA titles are getting less and less nowadays. companies not as rich as Sony can't afford the loss.
Your friends and you won't get a piece of bread if you make your f2p game that brutal,consumables just won't do the trick,not only hardcore players but casual players are not willing to spend hundreds of bucks just to realize that they ran out of energy "once again" in 2-3 hours of "non-stop hardcore gameplay",if the genre of your game is not so original (side scrolling shooter) , don't expect whales and other idiots with tons of cash to spend hundreds of bucks on your game.That is not really what people want these days... You could have put "remove energy" option for 15$ at least and keep all that "endless grinding" and frustration in the game,believe me,NOBODY EVER is going to spend a single dollar on a CONSUMABLE energy revival that will be wasted within a few minutes of gameplay. Slow the progression?Fine!These who truly love the game will spend some cash on the game and grind as much as they can. But don't put limits,borders that stop me from enjoying your product,if I truly enjoy it,I will shell out some cash just to show my love and dedication to the work of art that you have created..
For this game I'd pay $10 for energy removal and $5 for unlimited ammo. You could leave the opt in ads for the currency. I'd do that. That would be fair to me. Billy
Thanks to everyone for your suggestion, we are going to add some non consumable things like this for hardcore players. and we'd like to heard from you, any advice will be appreciated, thank you.
After hard working for a month, we just released V1.0.4, and added many new features. 1, Reduce the energy system time from 45 mins to 20 mins. very short time now. 2, Ability to expand the top limit of the Recharge Box. 3, Difficulty balanced. 4, Players can summon allies in the battle. 5, Armor Broken system. 6, Facebook Leaderboard. 7, Youtube channel for the game. 8, More human voice in the game. and many more optimized. So in this version the only use of energy system is letting people not to play a game for too long and then get bored of it. Game video: Click To Watch Game Artwork: Click To Watch Previews:
I get so bored of a game when it literally forces me to stop and play a different game. You should make me want to come back and play, not have to come back to get to play later. Or I'll just play those games that continue to function, since that's what I'm having to do anyway. In others words, the usual, timers are stupid and paradoxical. I don't like it. # If someone wants to take a break, there's a built-in timer app on their device... Which, it turns out, I'm not using! You're forcing me not to do the very thing a game is designed for, playing it. #### Why is this still, or ever, a thing? #
thank you for your reply. in fact in this version, people can play the game for hours, and if they expand the top limit of the recharge box, they can play for a whole afternoon, for less than $10. well, if this is still not acceptable, we have to remove the timer, remove the whole economy system, and change it to a paid version. or just a free app with popup ads ?
Pay for just making the timer shorter? It shouldn't be there. People who hate timers (everyone?) aren't going to want to throw money at a timer to make it shorter, are they? Why is the timer still there? And paying for temporarily shortening a timer is an even bigger waste of money and time (I can't believe timers are a thing, and somehow even temporary timer shorteners are a thing, because why would someone actually constantly throw money at it instead of doing something like quitting entirely and playing a functioning game? It just doesn't make sense.) Can't free games just not have timers? The existence of many successful ones without timers says "yes." Timers are just a big waste of time. They are the opposite of fun. Fun causes profit. Honestly, this game seemed fun... and then the timers literally stopped my fun, and I haven't gotten back. I'll just be forced to stop again, and again, so what's the point?
You are right bro, sometimes it would take a while for us to understand a simple question, we should never stop player when they want to play, thank you for your advice, we will modify the system and release a new version.
After 2 months hardworking, we released v1.0.5 today and removed all those features people dislike and mentioned above (thanks for all your advices) whats new: 1, a whole new design for every level. 2, 3x more boss levels 3, 3x more monster car levels 4, supply full-filled from the beginning of a level 5, giant gold coin / block added. 6, small flying guns / canons on the way to pick up. 7, for now you can buy new equips using Platinum. and many more cool features. and new advice will be appreciated, thanks.
