Bottom line, give ppl options. It's a given and well understood that you need to make your income. There's a fine line between attracting players and alienating them. Someone needs to write a f2p general practice manual for mobile devs who can't put themselves in the gamers' shoes. As mobile moves far beyond its infancy gamers are becoming wise to the monetization practices and realize bs when they see it, hear it and are asked to pay for it. As a dev, you get generally one opportunity to make your impression on potential buyers. Personally, I don't read app store reviews, but apparently they carry some weight.
Personnally it's more or less the same for me. I'm what you can call a "gamer" who like to pay a defined price for a game. Energy timers is not my thing as a player, but it's necessary if I want to have a chance to convince our partners and publishers (we have some local publishers for the game in few countries) to help us with the game. So we choose to have quicker fuel restoration than most other games like this one as it's not our thing and we think it must be not too restrictive.(and believe me, we cancelled a deal with an asian publisher who wanted us to make the game even more "harder" on this point.). But let's be honest, it's not just a partners choice as we also decided it for the reasons I mentionned in a previous post. We also added the video thing to restore fuel as even as gamers we think it's not that annoying and it's fairly quick to restore full jauge. (but that's just our opinion. Lots of players don't seems to think the same ...) Some people also say that the game should have been premium ... But it wouldn't have been viable for us as most partners, distributors and publishers don't want to heard about premium. This industry is a bit mad I think (and it's getting even worse as time goes by ...)... Mobile premium games are cool and I hope to be lucky enough one day to make a premium mobile game, but I really think it shouldn't had suit EGDA in its current version as it should have needed better single player progression with career mode and this kind of things. That's exactly the point. iOS reviews are quite bad on our game in some countries (It's a bit depressing if we compare our game to other demolition derby games in US and German stores ...) and so it "destroyed" our launch in these countries without any option to answer people who rated us badly. But let's face it : if the game had been better at release, maybe we also had better average rating. We don't have this problem on Android as the game is very well-received and feedbacks are very good, so it's a bit disappointing for us. Our best hope is to continue to work on the game to reverse the curve of rates.
Personally, I don't give any credence to the iOS App Store reviews. Most of the 1 star reviews are because the game won't play on a iPhone 3. And most of the 5 star reviews are fake and paid for by the publisher. That's why I turn to sites such as this one. I may make a mobile game someday. I'm not sure exactly what the game will be. But I know how I will handle the monetization. Free to download and play. A reasonably priced IAP to remove all ads, and / or get a coin doubler.
As non-English native speaker, I'm not sure to understand everything but ... I think that player's alienation is a "big company concept" : Gameloft, Supercell, King, etc ... Smaller devs team (like us) are imitating them because those big companies created new rules and now lot of people in the industry think that you must do the same to have same success, forgetting those big companies have big marketing budget to support this monetization model. But despite all of this, like I said earlier, having EGDA free was an idea we had since the beginning of development as we wanted it widely accessible to all audiences. We really think this kind of games could also be for more casual gamers as creating big crashes is easy (I know a 82 YO grandma who's level 22 in the game and have a lot of fun with it. And I'm pretty sure she shouldn't have buy the game if premium. So I think we were a bit right about this). But for sure our monetization model needs to be more balanced as today it's one of the weakest point of the game (and unfortunately not the only one !). Yeah ... When I see a demolition derby game without any press coverage having +100K download within a week with +200 5 stars rating, I wonder why they do this ... I'm not that sure that's viable ... Yeah it should be the best way. But you can't hardly access some parts of the world without a publisher (for many reasons, but translations and local deals are the most common.). Most of them will want to make monetization as they want, whatever what you want to do. That's OK when you're a one man development studio. But you can't say no when you have a team with you (Although we did it for 3 publishers ... But that's often a bad move ...)
Well I just gave you your first five star review, go check it out. I didn't realize you needed publishers. See I don't know that part of the business. I only do alpha and beta testing. Why can't you publish to the AppStore on your own? Or what these publishers give you capital? Billy
Thanks for the rating, that's very nice of you !! We have publishers only for some selected regions. For example, the game isn't available in Middle East as it will be re-branded by a local publisher. (Same game with different name.) Games in some areas needs to be translated (even the name) and have special features due to local specificities (for example, Facebook is not available or not popular in some countries, special advertising provider is necessary, etc...). If we launch the game for example tomorrow in this area without publisher changes, it will have no more than 100 or 200 downloads at best. (maybe 500 if we are lucky ...) and we need far more than that ! The only problem is that most publishers force developers to add or change things initially not planned. (For example, when they want higher IAP prices ...) We had for example possibilities to have a publisher for South Asia area, but we finally cancelled it as they wanted changes which were against our policies. The problem now is that the game made 6 downloads in this area as we needed a lot of things only a local publisher can provide. Publishers never give you money (or it's very rare ...), but sometimes they can help you to save money that could be used in other crucial development fields and some of them can guarantee you a minimal download number thanks to their agreements with local stores. For EGDA, the game have been released in 80% of the world without publisher (or self-publishing if you prefer ... At least we try to do our best doing this ...). Other remaining areas (or platforms) will have their own versions of the game in the following months.
Wow. I really had no idea. I thought with the AppStore you'd just release it and bam there you go. I had no idea all the political BS involved. Just wow. Thank you for the incite. Billy
After playing and playing in going to say I'm getting frustrated. Gold simply is not given out nearly enough. I've gotten 2 gold. That's it. After all of this playing. Just 2 whole pieces of gold. It's not right. You require it to upgrade my car so I'm screwed upgrading my cars. I want to upgrade my cars. I have spent money in the game and plan to spend more on the unlimited fuel but you guys need to give out gold while playing. I'm not saying crazy amounts. I get you need people to make purchases but why can't we watch three ads for 1 gold or something like that? Or get gold while playing. Something to earn. Right now I can't upgrade my cars. It's disappointing and frankly frustrating. I've watched the ads for the cash and have purchased cash. I'm not double dipping for gold too. Especially when I haven't paid for the unlimited fuel yet. Billy
Yes, right now gold could be earn only with XP and daily rewards (2 Golds each week). That's why we're working on achievements and special missions that will give to player extra credits/XP/gold. But it will not be in next update (1.1), but in 1.2 or 1.3. We're aware of this since release. I don't think that earning gold by watching videos is a great idea, but earning it when playing and doing some cool or crazy stuff is definitely something that will be in the game. 1.1 will be available Monday. It will contain : - Lot of bugfixes - Better server synchronization - New car - Lower prices for in-apps - New in-apps (while some others will disappear as they were useless) - Russian & French Localization And 1.2 will come quite fast as we already done a lot of things. (New Arena is 90% finished, and more translations have been done.) Our main tasks for the next updates are related to the achievement/mission system (to win more credits and golds ...), Control customization (so Ipad owners will be happy), Sound FX improvements (We have the crash FX ! Now we need to find time to implement them) and a new game mode (Survival). All those things we come between 1.2 and 1.4 updates.
Ok sounds good. In glad you have things planned out so nicely. I can't wait until Monday. Get me some unlimited fuel hehe. Billy
First update have been released ! Now you can play with a new car inspired by original Destruction Derby game. We also added Russian and French translations. We fixed many things (including the rating bug. Now you can win few credits by rating the game from the app.), and we added the infinite fuel in-app, and credits / gold in-apps are less expensive. (XP and Fuel in-apps will also have lower prices soon.). Now we're working on 1.2, aiming to improve more things and add a new arena.
I'm a man of my word. I purchased the unlimited fuel and no ads for $7.99. Thank you for listening to your players and adding this. I encourage everyone to please buy this option. It's worth it and these are the devs we need to support. Just so you know, as soon as I completed the purchase, all sounds in the game died. I mean everything. It's complete silence. Ads have sounds. But everything else is dead. EDIT- after rebooting the game all sounds came back. Also I was hoping you'd made that 3 gold for $1.99 4 gold since there are 4 upgrades on a vehicle. It's still 3 and so it's not worth the purchase. Just letting you know. I don't need 5 gold and it's too expensive for the 5 gold since I've already purchased 3 cash packs and now the unlimited fuel. But I would have purchased the 4 gold for $1.99 if that were an option to upgrade my car. Also is there a way to move the steering to the outer edges of the screen or did that not make it into this update? I can't find it anywhere. I thought that was on the list for this update. I really need to move the steering wheel to the outer edge it's too far inward. Billy
Thank you very much !! That's one of the weirdest bug I've heard of since a long time !! I will follow this to dev. We're constantly trying to improve this. From now, we just lowered some in app prices as changing in apps (and deleting the most useless) needs a new update and a bit more work than expected. (not that much, but we already have many things to do and improve). But you can expect the changes for next update. It will be done for 1.3 or 1.4 (1.3 I think ...). We know it must be done as quick as possible because a lot of iPad owners complain about this, but we need first to fix some bugs in 1.2 and implement a lot of nearly done things.
Ok. Yea even on my iPhone 6 I have to reach in pretty far to use the wheel bar. I look forward to this being updated. Thank you for such a fast reply! Billy
Oh ... And another news, we're also working on a Portuguese/Brazilian translation ! (As Brazil is the only country where the game had some success ! ^^)
Hi all ! We have few people since last update that complain it's impossible to buy the new car. We never had this issue during tests and no datas about it, so if you have this problem, don't hesitate to come back to us so we'll be able to understand what's wrong and then fix it. Thank you very much
I'm not even CLOSE to that level yet lol. But I'm working on it. Thank you for telling us. I'm REALLY enjoying the unlimited fuel. I really am. I just wanted to say thank you again for adding this option. Honestly it was worth the money to me. It really does mean a lot to me that you listened to our feedback. You guys really are top notch in my book and you've definitely made a fan out of me. I made sure I updated my 5 star review on the AppStore today so it should show up by tomorrow. I added a section about the unlimited fuel and all that. Billy
Datas show that some people are already level 100 without buying any in apps (we got few people playing the game +3 hours each day, which is crazy !!). That's big surprise for us and so few people could already buy the Classic car. That's very cool to heard for us Thank you very very much
I just made level 13 and I thought I was doing awesome lol. Level 100 without paying anything at all? How the hell are they doing that with the energy system? I'd actually feel guilty if I played that much and didn't pay anything. For that much entertainment someone deserves some money. How is the next update coming along? Any timeframe update? I've almost got enough cash to buy the next car. Which I'm excited about. Upgrading it is another story though lol. Also I just need to say I'm a bit disappointed. I've been unlocking the levels. I got to the warship. I don't understand why you are requiring so much gold to unlock levels when the game virtually gives out no gold. I've already spent $15 in the game plus watched countless opt in ads. I can't afford to keep buying gold just to unlock levels and again I cannot even upgrade my cars. It's just disappointing. I just need to say it so you hear it from a player who actually pays, plays, and cares. This situation really needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. It makes me so disappointed that I don't want to play. I can't even upgrade my cars at all. Now I can't even unlock levels. Billy
Yes we understand the situation. We're definitely working to resolve this and this is our short-term plans : - Achievement system that will increase credits, gold and WP won (that's heavy task as we want something really cool) - More golds when leveling up (and extra bonuses when liking the game on fb/rating it) - Even cheaper golds with more golds in each pack. I can't give you an exact release date as there's really a lot of work, but don't worry too much, it will not be in 3 months We hope next update to be available in two/three weeks. But the achievement system will be finished for 1.3 update, not 1.2. (as 1.2 is nearly finished and we are implementing new arena and server synch). Bad balance into our leveling system would be an honest answer. Despite a long period of beta testing, I think that most testers just spent golds into very particular cars or arenas they wanted to buy. So they didn't need as much golds as traditionnal players and we made a mistake.
