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Cipacadrinho

Wurm's income source and client satisfaction

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Hi!

 

With content patches being alot of work for a small and  largely volunteer dev team to be able to release them at a pace that meets the expectations of the clients that pay a montly subscription and looking at the models of income other succesfull games chose i am asking  you guys if you think a skin/cash shop system like LoL or ESO would work for you or not?

 

Would you be able to get your friends to pay for free but also be interested in buying skins and other cosmetics from the shop in order to provide Wurm with the income lost to removing subscriptions?

 

Would you rather not have to prem and be able to choose from 2-3 monthly skins that you would pay for if you fancy them?

 

Would Wurm income plummet or people will not pay prem but will be paying more for deeds maybe? Would deeds income and skins from cash shop give more income or less than curently?

 

What if they add something in the cash shop called sponsor a dev? Like you have each dev say what they would like to work on and you can donate a fixed amount to them? Would that be sponsorhip or donation or dunno how it would work they have to figure it out.

 

What if they do a sponsor a feature deal on the cash shop? Like they say ok who wants ducks in game can give 5euro/monthly we estimate it would take 2 months. Would that be feasible? Would it be more fun?

 

TLDR: Move away from subscription and rely on deed maint income and more monthly skins for income and maybe create support a dev and/or a project on the cash shop where ppl could give 5/10euro each month for they cause.

 

This way people could get more involved and champion the stuff they are passionate about seeing being added in game while providing direct income to the devs working on it so they are incentivised to give more of their time to Wurm developing.

 

Would it be a PR nightmare if lets say ppl pay for an archery revamp patch by the support a feature deal in the cash shop but then they dont develop it in the way they invisioned it let's say most ppl like it but some of the backers wanted a diff direction. Would people be able to hold their nerve or be crybabies on forums yellin: they took my money and did not make it like i wanted it.

 

Should devs being supported thru those cash shops options feel forced to listen on ppls feedback or pressured to go in a different direction than they and/or the game lead would want a feature to go?

 

Would a big giant disclaimer before buying support a dev or support a feature on the cash shop stating that they reserve the right to create it in the dev team's vision and by paying you dont buy a right to have the feature being developed to your own specifications?

 

I think it would be beneficial since the money from more bigger deeds and monthly skins will be spent on maintenance and the support a dev and/or feature option on the cash shop will go straight into the devs working pockets while adding some pressure on the timeline too. I mean a bit of pressure to meet a deadline is a good thing right?

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In the spirit of many questions, I'm wondering if you've opened this in the wrong section on forums.. this is not the typical suggestion.. it's rather discussion opener.. for other's thoughts or w/e..

 

DEPENDS what CCAB actually needs.. how many actually pay, how many can and will spend more IF.. and how many will back certain projects etc.. more money does not always result in more work done or taking less time to get something to the finish line.

 

Problem have to be identified.. to offer solutions, bottom line seems like it's not enough people, as to how much they are paid and motivated who knows, if you work 4h .. that's not that much to create a lot daily.. plenty of unknowns.

 

If extra hands are what is needed.. there could be a bounty system.. offering ingame loot or cash.. for doing something with reasonable value as code or artwork to expand current game.. extra side modules could be listed somewhere.. and have more volunteers just jump in and get 'dirty' and expand the content faster(if they do it in good manner and not spaghetti confetti code from some 30minute java tutorial wasting their time and dev checking it..)

 

Without proper change for the monetization model of the game and decent player numbers.. it's unlikely to see wurm ever dropping the subscription model without risking a lot. The whole alts system is 'helping' to see this in a further improbable future.

 

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I am just looking at the biggest bottleneck in the way of Wurm's Development: the size and time available of the dev team. 

 

So a system that would manage to funnel cash from the players into the pockets of a dev will boost the ammount of content being added.

 

As an example let's presume  X is a volunteer dev and  is working on archery as a part of the exploration update basically he goes to his irl paying job gets traumatized there then comes home reads the Wurm forums while he eats gets traumatized some more then works 1-2h on archery and after goes to take care of his day to day life stuff.

 

With a support a dev/feature thingy he could see that let's say 300euros were raised by people that want a wooden topless murmaid in front of their boats so he could work on that 1-2h more than they would work on Wurm usually and put the thingy in game then gets the money.

 

So it would incentivise devs to put more manhours and be more interested on what the players want.

 

This could also be a PR nightmare because ppl wil cry their suggestion is not put in for support while others that are much dumber suggestions.. filthy sdoopeed suggestions are. But thats the cost of doing business imho.

 

Ofcourse that having a big paid team does not mean that they are gonna be efficient by default but you know what is not efficient for sure? What we have now:)

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Wurm is a slooow paced game so the social aspect is important and having existing players be able to get their family and friends in game and be able to develop their characters without having to pay a subscription is gonna bring alot more income from skin shop and from general player retention.

 

Wurm is not the type of game where people log in for 30m get to shoot people or rob a bank then log off.

 

You guys want me to tell you what is the biggest thing wurmians have in common?:)    Ok, i will tell you anyway:

 

The need to show their "stupid" deed and layout to anybody that gets in their damn local nevermind a visitor.

 

So imagine wurmians being able to do that with their family and friends and those friends saying yeh this looks cool i might play too. Right now they might roll in get 1 month prem play for 10h realise Wurm is grind and quit.

 

By making it free is more likely for them to try it again and again untill some of them will stick with it.

 

 

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42 minutes ago, Cipacadrinho said:

I am just looking at the biggest bottleneck in the way of Wurm's Development: the size and time available of the dev team. 

 

So a system that would manage to funnel cash from the players into the pockets of a dev will boost the ammount of content being added.

 

As an example let's presume  X is a volunteer dev and  is working on archery as a part of the exploration update basically he goes to his irl paying job gets traumatized there then comes home reads the Wurm forums while he eats gets traumatized some more then works 1-2h on archery and after goes to take care of his day to day life stuff.

 

With a support a dev/feature thingy he could see that let's say 300euros were raised by people that want a wooden topless murmaid in front of their boats so he could work on that 1-2h more than they would work on Wurm usually and put the thingy in game then gets the money.

 

So it would incentivise devs to put more manhours and be more interested on what the players want.

 

This could also be a PR nightmare because ppl wil cry their suggestion is not put in for support while others that are much dumber suggestions.. filthy sdoopeed suggestions are. But thats the cost of doing business imho.

 

Ofcourse that having a big paid team does not mean that they are gonna be efficient by default but you know what is not efficient for sure? What we have now:)

Money does not always mean content.. look at "ScamCitizen" (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/star-citizen)

 

Important part here is... dev payrolls aren't normally low, know a few who do not code once their work hours are over, they disconnect from anything that lets them 'code', also know some that do and make way more with side jobs.

 

'Issue' here is *maybe* being tied to support your code later with bugs/feature-fix and updates.. where there are plenty of small jobs to do as once time.. possibly get more money.. no support for free in the future, and you code with stuff you write from scratch or well established base, where idk how easy it is to figure WO code, not getting dispelling dropdown menu for this many years speaks on it's own.(it's not that black and white, but you get the ideas)

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You do make a fair point but at the same time i think you would agree having money actually go  into development can trigger another interesting phenomenon: dev competition.

 

Just like most of us devs go to work and when they are done for the day they are done but like it or not having money as an incentive will attract java coders that would not otherwise look towards Wurm.

 

And now there could be a competition created and have multiple people wanting to work on a specific feature.

 

And having a veteran wurm Dev rest for the day while one other guy decides he has the skill to code a feature in java and get the money in few hours is a good thing for us because it means content will get done faster and in higher volume.

 

L.E.  Imagine Wurm's dev team being busy working on something else while theres stuff available for coding and paid for by us already? What would stop a  WU private server dev from coding that stuff fast to get some progress for the game he likes and get some money too.

 

You reckon people like Buddha or Sindusk would have a problem working on some of these and get paid for it?

 

Sure there would be strict parameters they would have to code around to make a puzzle piece that actually fits in the puzzle but it can be done all you need is a willingness  from all sides to make it work.

 

Edited by Cipacadrinho

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Did you know that 70% of the existing league of legends development team is dedicated to microtransaction content? 

 

Eso also has subscriptions as well

 

The idea of making the game free somehow leading to more profit still baffles me. 

 

In order for a microtransaction based game to be profitable it has to dedicate two thirds of its resources purely to the content that makes profit.

 

Focus on suggestions about cool things to see in a game, business models are definitely beyond this section of the forums. 

 

And worst of all is the idea of miniature crowd funding content. Would this simply become a system for whales to dictate what's in the game? 

 

As for bounties, there are already systems like that in place and have been for a long time. The contracted developers also receive projects that they work on as well. 

Edited by Archaed
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26 minutes ago, Archaed said:

And worst of all is the idea of miniature crowd funding content. Would this simply become a system for whales to dictate what's in the game? 

 

No because suggestions would be submitted then the dev team would pick the ones they like and add them to the list of projects that can be supported.

 

But yeah technicalities are to be solved in a later stage of implementation.

 

I do agree that there are flaws to any system so am not looking for a perfect one i am looking for one that would offer better satisfaction to both the dev team and the customers. 

 

The current one is not doing taht to a satisfactory level.

 

And with all due respect if you expect me to pay 3x8euro each month for my toon's prem for a game that gets a skin every month as content versus playing something like New World taht is buy to play and have multiple character slots on that one account aswell then you surely can see that Wurm is at an competitional disatvantage.

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33 minutes ago, Archaed said:

...

As for bounties, there are already systems like that in place and have been for a long time. The contracted developers also receive projects that they work on as well. 

But they are NOT public afaik, as to writing java.. not my cup of 'tea' or should I say 'coffee..', but whoever can do good or better with that and have some spare time, could get involved IF of course the actual dev team have time to spend on babysitting and reviewing code to make use of such.. "more public" system.

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I wish we could simply ask and actually get an answer instead of guessing and hypothesizing.

 

Dear Devs, Would increased income from sales affect the development cycle in any way? Would the company hire more full time devs if the income would prove to be steady or would it just pocket the money and nothing would change?

 

If getting answers to such questions would be this simple, we could collectively chip in by buying silvers or premiums to boost the development speed.

I fear it could go the other way around though, the answer might be "owners would pocket the money and invest it in semi-professional feral rabbit fighting league" and that would make people stop spending money on the game entirely.

So... we won't get an answer.

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2 minutes ago, Locath said:

I wish we could simply ask and actually get an answer instead of guessing and hypothesizing.

 

Dear Devs, Would increased income from sales affect the development cycle in any way? Would the company hire more full time devs if the income would prove to be steady or would it just pocket the money and nothing would change?

 

If getting answers to such questions would be this simple, we could collectively chip in by buying silvers or premiums to boost the development speed.

I fear it could go the other way around though, the answer might be "owners would pocket the money and invest it in semi-professional feral rabbit fighting league" and that would make people stop spending money on the game entirely.

So... we won't get an answer.

Or the third option, that players are simply asking too much. Wurms always had a very open and honest communication style under rolf, but it's led to this idea that suggestions can be made about business models and how the company should be run, which is just a bit absurd in the end. 

 

 

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Just now, Archaed said:

Wurms only had a very open and honest communication style under rolf

 

 

Fixed it for you

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Why is it absurd? Alot of smaller game companies are using crowd funding to have the resources to hire a permanent dev team to create the game.

 

This system would just be micro crowd funding with the devs choosing suggestions or adding own ideeas to a list that is then presented to the player base in game and then the players can choose to help crowd fund the ones that area appealing to them to speed up the implementation process.

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6 minutes ago, Archaed said:

Or the third option, that players are simply asking too much. Wurms always had a very open and honest communication style under rolf, but it's led to this idea that suggestions can be made about business models and how the company should be run, which is just a bit absurd in the end. 

 

Good point which i didn't consider or was blissfully ignorant in thinking that a company might want to take their only customers opinion in to consideration.

 

So far this does seem like the most accurate summarizing of what is happening. 

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Bad idea. Any F2P CRAP. Pay for a subscription and support the game. Dont want? Use silvers)

Edited by AlexeySt
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13 minutes ago, AlexeySt said:

Bad idea. Any F2P CRAP. Pay for a subscription and support the game. Dont want? Use silvers)

True, most of the suggested is implemented, buy 1000$ worth of silver every month, send them down the wishing well with a 'thx' message, and there - game or devs are supported, rest is up to management what happens with the income.

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This one has been discussed often; trouble is you get the same folks trolling it down.

 

I very much suspect wurm will stay subscription, not because it offers long term game health, but because it offers reliable stockholder profits.

 

The steam reviews speak for themselves on that matter

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4 hours ago, Etherdrifter said:

This one has been discussed often; trouble is you get the same folks trolling it down.

 

I very much suspect wurm will stay subscription, not because it offers long term game health, but because it offers reliable stockholder profits.

 

The steam reviews speak for themselves on that matter

I think it's more that in order to be profitable, it would have to be much more aggressive on microtransactions, and given the current speed of development, would mean all future content would be to drive microtransaction sales. 

 

Simply put, it's the idea that if you make the game free with microtransactions, you'll be swarmed with so many players all of a sudden who are happy to spend money on skins that game somehow becomes more profitable. 

 

Step one: go no sub f2p

Step two: use the profits to grow

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Whereas, at the moment, development and design are aimed at driving player subscription.  I'll hold up the "look at priests" banner there but also...

 

It's just a random side affect, probably not intended at all, but breeders need larger deeds after the AH update to cope with the extra rng.

 

Donkeys/mules are the first free player content we saw in a while; everything else has been designed towards upping those premium subs (lost progress once you hit 20, solo deeds, animal limitations, constant death, massive creative limitations etc).

 

The thing is, that's ok.  A game is first and foremost a product, it makes its profit by either engaging the player or using Skinner box mechanics.

 

There is an argument for free to play content being heavily expanded (though not a switch to free to play as that would reduce profits); wurm relies on its players to create content, and on some servers that just isn't happening due to a lack of players.  The current free player has a hard time making content.  Expanding the free offering in a way that still drives the player towards a premium experience, but also allows them to create the content you need is the trick.

Edited by Etherdrifter

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Thing is, this has always come down to financial law. There's a reason Wurm 'hires' volunteer coders, and unfortunately, most Java coders are using their coding skills full-time to keep their RL afloat.

 

Channelling more money into the official budget of Wurm is probably not going to change anything. All artists burn out on doing the same old grind every day eventually.

 

Now, if you were to totally independently from the game, persuade a mate with coding skills to volunteer for the development team as an unpaid coder, and raised money to pay them out of your own (crowdfunded) pocket, you'd probably STILL run into the difficulty of discerning the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. And such machinations of economy are beyond me to comment on.

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If the team was interested in this, I bet they would just set up a tiered patreon. Something with like 3 tiers, 1: An extra monthly support for new features. 2: Get access to vote on which feature should be prioritized. 3: Access to discussion group with devs. Or something similar. The point is not the exact setup. Point is that if they wanted something like this, it is services for this already out there, that is so easy to set up. So my guess is that they are already happy with economy and direction of things. They still might have trouble finding good coders, etc, so I am not saying this means "all must be paradise for them".

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If the team streamlined volunteering to contribute to Wurm code, even JUST FOR BUGFIXING, I believe that I would aspire to learn Java just to volunteer my TIME for free - there are still overhead costs to be covered, so even unpaid volunteers aren't '100% cost-free' to the company.

 

Taken as-read that this community will still exist in ten years time, it would not be a waste of time for me to do this. But I'd have to believe that I would get hired-for-free, or there would be no point in investing my energy in training for this, as I could not be otherwise employed as a java coder elsewhere in the industry if it doesn't work out.

 

In-house apprenticeships for java coders - even if I'm not granted such a thing - would be something I would definitely sponsor.

 

Apprentices could work on WU code.

Edited by Drayka

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On 8/14/2021 at 11:45 AM, Drayka said:

Channelling more money into the official budget of Wurm is probably not going to change anything. All artists burn out on doing the same old grind every day eventually.

 

Money wasn't channeled (at least not any significant sum) to hiring 5-6 devs after Unlimited hit the shelves and it sold a lot of copies.

Money wasn't channeled to hiring more devs after the Steam release either. 

 

I'd rather experiment with the reality of seeing money put into development by hiring more devs before we make any other assumptions.

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2 hours ago, elentari said:

I'd rather experiment with the reality of seeing money put into development by hiring more devs before we make any other assumptions.

 

I wish Devs would post in the Suggestions channel, what they wish the PLAYERBASE would add to the game.

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