Wow, I'm not even sure what to say... Came by to say that despite my initial concerns regarding IAPs, I'm actually liking the game, and it seems pretty balanced. So now we're asking developers to give us stuff when they put the games on SALE? DBC
I don't view it that way at all. We are asking for early adopters not to get shafted. And odds are this is a freemium convert soon, whether now which it may well be, or later. If you want, let's bet a buck on whether it goes constant free or freemium this year. Even the developer says he will reanalyze the situtation on Sunday. What that means, is up to your discretion.
I think he'll probably settle on $0.99 and go from there. I'm not a betting man though. It's gotta be hard trying to do app development for a living and dealing with investors and stuff.
We went back to full price to see how sales would fare for a week whilst we waited for the 1.0.2 build to go live. Sales were awful, not even into triple figures each day. So, we switched back to free and the numbers picked up again. At the time of this post we've now had over 275,000 downloads, approx. 1% of those are paid. We've submitted 1.0.3 into Apple and going by current submission times that should be live in the latter part of next week, notes on the 1.0.3 update follow: Early adopter bucks reward for those that bought the game whilst it was a paid app. New weapon select GUI added, players can switch weapons in game whenever they want, without having to find the right weapon crate. Weapon crates now let you try out weapons you haven't unlocked yet, with limited ammo. New 'Medal' pickups added to the oil rig levels, protected by mini-boss vehicles. Moved the survivor levels into a new 'dossier' select screen. Tracked down and fixed a major bug that was the cause of a lot of earlier crashes. Reduced the grind further for some of the later Challenges and operations in the game. Added Tank and Smart Bomb killstreak pickups which will occasionally spawn inside crates. Made some improvements to the aiming control. We're currently working on a new environment, weapons, killstreaks and trying to improve the monetisation and virality of the game seeing as we're now free to play.
Damnit that sucks. It's always upsetting to hear about this sort of thing. I hope that at least some of those players who've got the game for free purchase some IAP... =o/ Does this mean that the game is going to be rebalanced? Or will the gameplay remain the same?
The current version 1.0.2 already had some rebalancing in terms of allowing progression through the levels a lot quicker, as one of the main gripes we have had was the 'grind' nature of having to play the same levels over and over. V1.0.3 improves that further, the later challenges have had their requirements reduced, there are less waves to complete in the later Jungle levels too. The 'medals' will have a use in a future release and they also give a reason to revisit the current Oil Rig levels and to buy each of the weapons, plus with the extra mini-bosses across many of the levels it means there are more bucks available to the player. Balancing of the game will be ongoing.
I hope they don't. It's only by people NOT paying for iaps that the move towards freemium can be slowed...and if some developers go bankrupt in the process, so be it. There's plenty of room for freemium apps on Facebook, even in Steam's Free-to-Play section. Sorry if I come off sounding a bit harsh. If freemium was all advertised as such I wouldn't be so hostile to the model. Just like on Steam. You dl a FtP game, and that's what it is; you know iaps may be required, the consumer makes the judgement call. It's different on ios. Developers have all the power; hold all the cards. They can remove from the appstore a game you bought and then rename it. They can add advertisements to a previously advert free app. They can change premium into freemium. Both via updates...where, judging by Apple's standards, anything goes. Now that Origin 8 has joined Everplay, and Hothead before them, along with many other devs, I've decided I can no longer support indie or small studios. I don't buy games to be angry. Most of my posts for the last couple months or so have been just that: angry. I guess devs don't realise they are part of a circular firing squad. From now on, I'm only spending my money on either ports, since I know they won't change, or releases from the really huge companies. Sorry little guys. You've done yourselves in as far as I'm concerned.. Btw, this post isn't directed towards this game in general...as I read it I figured this would be as good a thread as any to put my opinion out there. Ever since...what, 2010 or so?...I feel like I've been flushing money down a drain.
I agree totally about devs flip flopping from the type of game they release. But even with this issue on ios do you feel this is flushing money on $1 apps more than on consoles and traditional handhelds where games are averaging $40 to $60? I've spent around $100 now on apps... The cost of two new release Wii games. Or ~3 games on 3DS. I have over 1500 apps. I don't feel that I've been burned as much as I'm gaming pretty seriously for little money. Then again I bought a lot of my games from gameloft, sega, rockstar, square and so on with most of my indie purchases due to sales. I've taken a chance on several indies with no reputation and its paid off in good gaming times. If devs would just leave alone the paid versions of their games and instead spinoff a freemium version as a separate entity we wouldn't have this issue.
Yes I do nightc because I rarely buy console games; when I do, I usually buy them second hand, or I buy them after they've dropped in price...60 bucks is ridiculous. That's a decent night painting the town red, which I'll have better memories of down the linethan most games. As I've said before, .99 adds up for christ's sake. Besides, I rarely buy 99 cent games, most of my purchases are 2.99 and up. Individual cost is meaningless, it's the gross expenditure at my end. As far as my last console purchase, that was Ico+Shadow of thr Collosus Hd (PS3) for 15 bucks. And yes, I do think it was worth the money. And it will remain that way. It's called making an informed purchase, which is not possible on the appstore, since Apple gives the green light to downgrades that publishers call updates. Maybe more money could be made if everyone and their sister's boyfriend who lives down in a van by the river didn't think making apps was a high profit margin, easy cash grab. Or spent 400K to develop a 99 game like Whale Trail. It's the devs that sit in between the pros and the hobbyists that are really shafting the cunsumer. Maybe it's because time goes by so much faster then when I was younger, but half the time I buy an ios game nowadays it's been destroyed by updates long before I even get around to installing it.
Oh, and nightc, I've gone through 100 bucks in 2 weeks before in the appstore, mmkay? For at least 2 years, I've essentially not touched another playform...doesn't help that Skyrim runs too choppy on my PC to enjoy Don't mean to sound snarky, but hey...I'll trade you my ios account for your handhelds. The games haven't been "updated", have they?
Thank you very much for your consideration of the early adopter bonus. Once I bought the game and noticed the inapp structure, I realized that at one point it may turn freemium or constant frees, so having a reward for being an early adopter is well appreciated. Especially when the game went free in less than a week. I felt a little bad cause I was one of the first early adopters and was fairly vocal about how good the game was, cause I felt guilty for others buying the game off my recommendations, and suffering early adopter blues within a couple of days like Syntheticvoid did. I don't think he even played the game before it turned free haha. That is why my support for has gone up and down, but I am happy to see that you are considering your early adopter with this new early adopter bonus. The early adopters are the ones that are the loyal ones that need to be rewarded for financially contributing to a game, not punished for buying it early. We afterall are the loyal fans of the game, who help establish and publicize a good game. Your game has been interesting cause it almost seems like a constant experiment on pricing, I personally think you should just make it freemium, or convert it to a 99 cent app. Even $1.99 is kind of premium pricing, so everyone that buys it will be let down if it goes free. Pricing it at a buck, would entice sales, but at this point, it maybe worthwhile to just make it freemium. There are some great games out there that are freemium like Jetpack Joyride, Major Mayhem, Storm the train, Dead Trigger, etc... All of these games are great and rely on inapps. I enjoy all of them. Buying things like costumes, weapons, coin doublers, etc, allows them to make money off their games. Your game has great potential. One thing I would do is dump the 50 mb limit, and add a little better graphics like on the title screen. Also, add more characters or costumes, weapons, and add a boss mode where you play in an arena and play mostly against bosses mixed in with grunts. A boss mode, maybe you could buy for 99 cents. You could almost call this an arcade mode. Also, with a little less grindy feeling, this game would be great. Then selling a coin doubler for 99 cents would make sense cause people would play the game longer instead of getting bored by the grinding. Add a cool laser weapon kind of like in Major Mayhem, it just has to look good not affect gameplay, and sell that for 99 cents. Anyway, I think you need to establish a price policy at some point soon, cause switching from $1.99 to free constantly will only anger your biggest supporters in early adopters. This game will not survive without a loyal fanbase of fans to support this game. But thanks for consideration of an early adopter bonus, and good luck with this game. It afterall is a fun game, and I like how it is kind of a modern Total Carnage. It has a great fun factor, and the boss sequences are a blast. It looks like the developer is serious about making improvements, so I highly urge all of you to pick it up especially now that it is free again, and give it a try. Edit: after rereading the devs post, looks like it is going to be permanent freemium I suppose, so ignore some of my comments above about pricing points.
Thanks for the comments and feedback Connector. Yes, no more flip-flopping the price, we're free now and it is staying like that. A lot of the Oilrig levels now have mini-bosses in them guarding medals. Bucks Multiplier(Coin Doubler) has been added and it's a lot less of a 'grind' now compared to v1.0.0 and v1.0.1
Yes, the boss scenes in this game are quite fun, also, I like the gameplay of the game, looking forward to the next update. Good luck with this game, I would definately recommend any of you to try it cause it is fun, and now that it is freemium, you really have nothing to lose. The game plays like a modern day Total Carnage, and it is quite a fun dual stick shooter. Highly recommended!
Cool, new update, us early adopters got a 300,000 coin bonus! Coolness! Give this game a try if you haven't already.
I got the early adopter bonus despite getting the game for free just a few days ago. I am going to try and resist using the coins for fear of ruining the gaming experience.
How do i get the early adopter bonus ? I paid for this game when it came out, i've just logged in and my coins are still really low Should it just 'increase' to get the early adopter bonus ?
V1.0.5 of Total Recoil is now available on the App Store: http://bit.ly/T4DpQF Fixed the crash in the "Silver Jaguar" operation, and another rare one that could happen at startup on some devices. Fixed an issue with the "kill" achievements not registering. Brand new Oil Rig operation added for Second Lieutenant and above, with new flame vent hazards! Improved weapon select screen so you can buy and upgrade weapons while playing a level. Added numbers to the rank icons so it's much easier to see what order the ranks appear. Sentry Chainguns (enemy and killstreak ones) are now a lot deadlier in later levels. Various other little things...
Hi, fun game. I downloaded it and had a fun time with it. I can't say that I am a fan of time-share apps but it was fun, keep up the good work. -John
