Gameloft is one of the last companies making high production value, original console/PC games. The ideas may not be original but they are not doing cheap indie games with SNES graphics or 10 year old console ports. As a result, they are a penny stock, lost 50% of their market value last year. Because PC/console style, virtual control mobile games are dying, and Gameloft is the "Last Samurai". I don't know if they will even be around in a couple of years. Dungeon Hunter 5 is the greatest game Gameloft ever made, and far and away the richest, deepest hack and slash on mobile, because they finally went out of box and made a truly great hack and slash with COC style base building/raid, Puzzles and Dragons style lottery/evolve, and the core Diablo-lite game play. It may or may not be able to salvage the genre on mobile, but they definitely went all out on this one. Nothing in this genre has anywhere near the feature set and addiction. Taking core elements from the #1 and #2 most successful mobile games of all time was a great, great move. But will it be enough to save the company and get mobile gamers to embrace virtual controls like how it was in 2012 It may be too late. It took Gameloft three years to realize players do not care for COD/GTA games on mobile. They copied the wrong companies. http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=GFT.PA+Interactive# Look at the 1 year chart, this is how competitive mobile space is. Making high budget, original paid games like Modern Combat 5 doomed the company. Does their leadership have what it takes to completely revamp the product pipeline?
What's wrong with price drop? Managing your wallet is key. There are games I do not regrets paying full price, however some of them are not worth the money. If game loft want my money they better work for it. And the only way they gonna get my money in dh5 is if it's playable offline.
I am not going to pay a dev, just because I like them, but because they have deserved it. I am very sad about gameloft, but if it wasn't for promo codes i would not play there premium game with online restriction. I just want to play my games with no problems or fear of the server going down.
There are millions of other people willing to pay with the restrictions they have placed. You are literally a drop in the bucket. The TA community as a whole represents a niche in the mobile gaming world, and does not have enough power to persuade major developers. This is digital content, you are purchasing a lease to the license, not buying the rights to the game. So the distributor can do whatever the please with the license and you'll have to play by their rules, and there is always a vast majority that is willing to.
It's not because every body is praising gameloft, that I have to. It's my opinion. Not an order, and pleasssssssssssssse, if gameloft is gone another dev team will replace them. I like gameloft, but not to point of kissing there a$$. It's my final answer.
Freemium isn't evil implementaion is Freemium can be successful and unobtrusive if done well. The sad fact is that if burning users the way some of these freemium titles do didn't increase revenue then the developers wouldn't do it. Take a look at the top titles in freemium last year, Clash of Clans and Candy Crush were huge hits and they are super intrusive. Candy Crush made $1.3Billion on inapps in 2014. Compare that to a game like Monument Valley, in apples game of the year list at $5.8million in sales. Gameloft is just moving with the market, they'd be crazy not to. On the up side with the freemium lists flooded with the big companies games, the premium lists are a little less competitive for indie developers. These large studios have serious overheads to cover, you can't blame them for wanting to maximise their revenue from each title. Lets them stay in business and make better games. Just wish the balance didn't have to be so intrusive to game play.
Totally agree, look at Crossy Road, thats 'freemium' but its not in your face and has made a lot of money for the devs. The trick is to make a freemium game hit the 'mainstream', the casual players. I have friends with iphones and the only games they have are Flappy Bird and Angry Birds (depressing !). They'll see adverts for clash of clans and may try them as theyre 'free' but arent interested in delving deeper and finding great games like Leos Fortune etc. But i do laugh when people think all because Clash of Clans makes the most money its simply the best ! You just cant think like that. Clever company and clever devs but a dire game in my view (i'm sure on sites which are more pro-freemium they love it) Used to love Gameloft games until they ruined Dungeon Hunter with that dire third version which was basically arena based. If Gameloft disappear (lets be honest they made their money copying game ideas) i wont shed a tear, there'll be another company taking their place.
When struggling indie devs cant sell enough copies of their game and then quit (or go freemium) it messes it up for all of us When a quality indie game comes out i'll pay for it on launch rather than wait a month to save a mighty dollar. We all moan about freemium, well lets support premium priced games. Waiting for price drops for these games doesnt help
So frustrating. It's a catch-22; if you make your game premium less people will buy it because for some reason people who play mobile games flatly refuse to spend money on them, even though they spend equivalent amounts of money on other things every day. If you make your game free-to-play you will incur the wrath of many gamers who (sometimes reasonably) hate the system. So in the current ecosystem it seems like a lot of developers have to choose between being hated and actually making some money. Unfortunately free-to-play is a product of the race to the bottom in mobile games, and in a way we're all responsible for that to some degree.
I'm not sure what I can say publicly without getting people in trouble. But, Gameloft wouldn't be reducing the price of their game to $0 if people were happily paying $7 for it.
Of course. The premium model cannot sustain a game for a longer period of time, especially a multiplayer one. A company like Gameloft surely knew that. I'm just wondering if this has now become a viable business tactic now. Collect as much as soon as possible, and after the wave of sales ends go free to play. Hm, similar to what Zenimax did with ESO. Perhaps it is a viable business strategy.
What makes me hate it is that I paid for it, and didn't get any reward or such. What I did get was a message to pay credits when I die instead of the one free revive. I was saving the game for later because I have no space left(I keep 1gb open) and this is what happens. THIS IS THE THIRD DAMN TIME! No warning either!
That's my guess, too. Give they paying customers a premium experience, and when the interest/purchases sink/s, make it free to reach everyone else interested but not willing to pay. Reward the early adopters and done.
You got the reward of playing it 238 days before people who are getting it for free. That's 0.03 cents a day.
The only reason I didn't buy it was because it was online only not because it was a fiver. I'd've happily parted with money if I really could have played it anywhere.
