Faction Advancement

[blackgauntlet]

Nov 13, 2011 1:05:27 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

I need to stop with the SoS notebook and focus on ST and TA =)

Dude, seriously, I think ST needs to slow down already.

I know it's your first love (which is why it's also your first game), but the updates for ST outweighs CK and TA by a million parsecs.

What's more, ST is (considered by most) a beautifully finished game. The touch-ups, new ships & aliens and playability are all fine but bugs and balancing are miniscule as compared to the rest of your games.

Also, on an economic standpoint, you are c*ckblocking yourself by spending more efforts on a done deal than to create a new income generator.

Because, let's face it, a would-be ST lover would love ST when they tried it on Free. Not so for CK. Players familiar with Neuromance would be put off with the lack of solid plot lines. Players familiar with Shadowrun would be put off by the lack of an interactive environment. Players familiar with Decker wil be put off with the lack of a visual Matrix.

CK, in its final form, attracts all these players into our fold. We, in the forum, know what to expect in the future. But not these chummers. After getting punked out by K.Horizon in the first hour of gameplay, they'd be leaving another 1-star review. I'll bet Andrew feels the same way (even though he loves to come up with new designs for spaceships more than NPC portraits) and you feel the same way subconsciously as well.

That said, CK is a behemoth of a project to undertake. I pity your sock-puppets. ;D

[LordofSyn]

Very well said!

[nyktos]

Nov 13, 2011 9:46:21 GMT -5 LordofSyn said:

Very well said!

agreed - but im a Knight at heart ;D

[gravismetallum]

blackgauntlet +1 Couldn't have said it better myself.(because I'm a grammatical disaster)

[blackgauntlet]

@gravis - That's all due to: Delegation and Dedication.

I am taking my cue from Cory.

Nowadays, I delegate the less important tasks to my sock puppets (earning a living, taking care of the family...) and dedicate most of my time in writing Nightsong-length posts. ;D

[LordofSyn]

ooh that was just cold on a few levels.

[blackgauntlet]

Nov 13, 2011 19:27:48 GMT -5 LordofSyn said:

ooh that was just cold on a few levels.

Sock puppets are really efficient. Highly recommended for multi-taskers. ;D

[Cory Trese]

I would love to be able to agree with this post but I'm afraid I cannot.

I do agree that CK isn't finished (meaning done.)

However, ST appears to be finished (as in, dying.)

The updates we're doing now are just trying to keep it from comletly droping to $0 / day sales.

I think you would be surprised just how brutally difficult it is to make any profit with Android.

[gravismetallum]

Do what you gotta do, I will support TB in the small ways that I can.

[grävling]

You mean that you are getting no new ST income? You think that all the people who are interested in buying ST have already done so? I am wondering what 'dying' means. Hope this is not too personal a question, but I am curious. Over the last weekend, at a computer conference, FSCONS fscons.org/ where in odd moments I played CK and a different game I am playtesting, deadly dungeons -- deadlydungeons.com/ -- try that if you like old world dungeon crawlers -- I made about 12 sales.

There was large interest in an android version of shadowrunner, which was sort of how I said this was. Hope it made lots of sales for you.

But the point was that lots of people said they wanted a trading game. I told them about star traders, but also warned them that my peaceful intention to just roam around the galaxy looking for bargains and following the rule of 'buy low, sell high' has always been frustrated by violent attack ... so not sure they want to buy it. A ST that was only about exploring and trading and not about getting your ship blasted out of the sky has appeal to many.

Not sure how hard that would be to engineer, just looking at a possible revenue stream,and hoping sales are up in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland after this week.

[grävling]

Also, are you on getjar?

this is where I look for new stuff, not android market.

[Cory Trese]

Not too personal of a question at all. Sales of Star Traders RPG and our other games are down between 60 and 70% over the past 3 months.

A lot of it has to do with our position in Google Rankings. There is a stastically signifigant correlation between the Google ranking position and sales.

Another issue we face is that our "applications" and "related" games lists more and more often include other games or our own free games. It might shock you to realize how many people download and play free without realizing / understanding that an Elite version exists.

Andrew and I hope that we are in slump due to some Google ranking changes and that updates and text adjustements on our end might turn things around. If the trend continues then I'm not sure what we'll do.

[Cory Trese]

Ignore me.

I'm going to go back to making and playing fun Android games

[grävling]

How about we enjoy the games and care about you as well?

thank you for so many, many, hours of fun.

Grävling the Grateful

[blackgauntlet]

Nov 15, 2011 18:20:13 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Not too personal of a question at all. Sales of Star Traders RPG and our other games are down between 60 and 70% over the past 3 months.

A lot of it has to do with our position in Google Rankings. There is a stastically signifigant correlation between the Google ranking position and sales.

Another issue we face is that our "applications" and "related" games lists more and more often include other games or our own free games. It might shock you to realize how many people download and play free without realizing / understanding that an Elite version exists.

Andrew and I hope that we are in slump due to some Google ranking changes and that updates and text adjustments on our end might turn things around. If the trend continues then I'm not sure what we'll do.

In that case, constantly updating it would not really do much to sales. Marketing, or finding some way to get around the rankings to get your games noticed, might be a lot more viable option.

As for gravling's input, maybe you could allow combats to be turned off in ST as a truly "trading only" variant? We're always behind you, in any case.