I'm willing to bet 2-3 years from now there will be bigger and better games and you'll forget all about Eliminate. That aside I bet no one else will be play either. ALSO, it doesn't take much to serve that game, as ngmoco grows they will probably add servers instead of replacing old ones.
Yes, but I still want the option to go back to it anytime I want. I still have my old games from my old ngage taco and I play Pathway to glory from time to time. I should be my option to forget about games not theirs.
true, but i doubt that will happen. Why cant people see that ngmoco can refine this freemium model to be good for everyone instead of most people lol
Honestly I'm not surprised by this.............. -microtransaction based games like farmville are making TONS of revenue ($$$$$$) off of what is essentially a "free" product -MMO's are making bank too, leveraging similar pay to play models, or a combination of models a la microtranscation + subscription + sales (talk about greedy huh?) -who wouldnt want to try to tap into that? especially if you have investors to satisfy.... from a gamer perspective (hardcore gamer; to be exact) these models are insulting, how dare they have the audacity to nickel and dime me? then theres the fear that all games will eventually become "fremium" or a similar pay to play model in some way. I dont think that will be the case any time soon. AAA tittles still sell millions of units, and as long as there is hardcore gamers wanting hardcore games and willing to pay 50-60$ for a full retail product, then there will be a demand and thus a market to satisfy that demand but to be fair Ngmoco is targeting a entirely different kind of gamer here, a casual gamer, a HUGE market (wii/ds, online, facebook, idevices) that is completely different from the hardcore AAA titles you see being launched on the consoles. The results dont lie this demo-graph of casual gamers dont really mind spending a little extra $$$ to save them some time also i wouldn't be surprised to see data that shows the casual demographics for the idevices to outnumber the hardcore gamers by a large margin but the question is....... will they embrace freemium and never look back? and if they were to generate a lot of revenue with this new approach (chances are good that they will), and assuming they would make enough revenue to give them the opportunity to invest in hardcore games again; do you think they would?
Ngmoco is being inspired by social networking games that generate tons of revenue like farmville, zynga's poker and mafia wars, pet society etc. , yes Money is still the keyword here! And did their execs say that they leave their previous 'big' companies for being too moneycentric? If they did then they are one hell of a hypocrite.
That's good to hear. Still looking forward to Warpgate. Just one suggestion, to you and everyone who's now part of Ngmoco: please SERIOUSLY think through your use of "freemium" pricing for their games, especially any plans to use it as an anti-piracy tactic (going by what I read in an interview a few days back) I can actually understand what they did with Eliminate, since the power cell system served to limit the number of simultaneous players on the server, as well as offsetting bandwidth costs for people who played more often and for longer. I have no problems with that. However, single-player games like Touch Pets and - worse - We Rule, which use the same model as an anti-piracy measure and require an Internet connection at all times just to play, are an extremely bad business move that will end up backfiring on you, no matter how appealing it might seem at the time. The problem is this. Every time someone wants a game, they have two choices. They can either, a) Buy the game and pay the developers for their efforts, or b) Download a cracked version for free. Most people with a conscience will opt for the first option, out of morality and possibly fear of getting fined if they're found out. By imposing an Eliminate-style system on a single-player game, you are effectively turning this choice into a choice of either, a) Buying the game and not, for any price, being able to play their game for as long as they like, or to play it at all offline. Or... b) Downloading a cracked version, and being able to play it without an Internet connection, and as many times as they like. Now, the proportion of your potential userbase for whom offline gaming is important is left with no choice but to download the cracked version, as is anyone who would like to be able to play a game they've bought as many times as they like without a (theoretically) infinite pricetag; either that or they'll skip it altogether. Either way, you've lost those customers, and skewed potential customers' decision in favor of piracy - the exact opposite of what you set out to achieve. Ouch. Determined pirates will always pirate - the most your anti-piracy system will do is make it so that it's 2 days before your game is cracked instead of 1, but those who are going to pirate it will simply wait those extra 24 hours rather than part with their cash. Unfortunately there's not much you can do about that - these people are a "lost cause", they were never going to give you their money in the first place. Everyone else on the other hand (including many casual would-be-pirates) is a potential customer, and the very WORST thing you can do as a developer is give legitimate customers valid reasons to turn to piracy. Mark my words, if Rolando 3 uses a system similar to Touch Pets, it will just end up becoming THE most pirated app of 2010, and you'll have shot yourself in the foot worse than any iPhone developer yet. But again, you needn't take my word for it, just look at what happened with Spore back in 2007 (also, Ubisoft will be getting an extremely unpleasant surprise this year if they carry on as they're planning, so you might want to sit back and watch. ) EDIT: To clarify, I'm not anti-freemium (it's a very good business strategy for some types of games), or even anti-DRM. It's just that DRM done wrong (which sadly is the majority these days) has a strong negative effect on both sides. And for the record, I don't hate Ngmoco (if I did I wouldn't care enough to type out this post), and don't think they really deserve half the hate they get on here.
now you're just making random crap up. Maybe they said they would never start a company that ended in the letter "o". Look at what hypocrites they are! arn
fyi, Ngmoco's pretty active in these forums actually. It's apparently not an anti-piracy tactic. http://toucharcade.com/2010/02/22/ngmoco-ceo-neil-young-on-the-freeverse-acquisition-and-freemium-model/
Yes, Spore is an example of a co. attempting to 'punish' loyal customers to get to the pirates. Too bad Spore could have been a hit but the backlash didn't allow them to recover.
*carefully equips flamesuit* ok now that that's done... I think it's a great move for both companies. Freeverse now has recources they MAY have lacked and can now put out games possibly faster with greater support from a well established company. Call it what you want but I don't think Freeverse would have sold their company to a company that would possiby tarnish there well established name. I love ngmoco(yes I am a fan and yeah I said it!) because when they put out a game, I can try it for free; if I don't like it...I delete it and it doesn't cost me a dime. Now if I do like it...I have the ability to invest as much as I please with no regrets because I know exactly what I'm paying for at that point. One more good thing about the "freemium" model I have come to love from ngmoco is...the more people invest into the specific game (i.e. ELIMINATE), the more likely the Dev(s) will continue to add content(i.e. Real-time promos for credit/energy, weapons, armor, skins, co-op.) to that game based off there ideas as well as community feedback...this brings longivity that your average "set it and forget" games don't do(for the most part and with the exception to some) as well as real time monitoring of decline in sales(when/if it starts to happen) to start on plugging a sequel and/or expansion to get fans intrigued ahead of time while the Dev(s) have a head start to start working on it to keep the given game alive. That can result in even more longivity. This is solely my view on it, call it what you want but that's how I feel. I hope some can see it from this point of view without the need to bash. Thank you.
So when they mean freemium, does that include what they did with Rolando 2, and made you just buy the levels from DLC? Or do they intend to make all games have the whole Eliminate energy thing as a way to play.
As long as they don't alter Freeverse's currently released games with the whole pay to play thing, and instead make them basically lite versions with DLC as an option, I'm perfectly fine with that. But if they decide to make Skeeball for example force you to pay a buck every 100 balls or something, then shoot me now.
It's all good I guess we just have to wait and see how it turns out right now. And i'm quite reassured after reading that Warp Gate will not be free to play.
It seems like The LARGE majority of us agree this SUCKS !!!! I laughed so hard at the begining posts in this thread talking about having to buy each set of balls in HotShot. But seriously, while we laugh at this, this is EXACTLY what is going to happen. NgMoco must have made a fortune with Eliminate. And they will continue this model. I think whoever doesnt like it which seems like the majority of the people should boycott their games. They wont keep going this route if its not profitable. I also much rather play a flat fee for a game and play as much as a like rather than a pay as u go model with inflated ridiculous prices. This will be the norm if companies like NgMoco are successful.
