New Branding and a New Website -Video

[kaidley 83]

57 minutes ago, elentari said:

Dunno about you guys but atm kinda not feeling it logging into wurm...

 

Maybe if things improve, but at this point I am not even cautiously optimistic, I am just straight up pessimistic.

 

Can't muster the energy to play. Sad days.

majority of my town has been waiting over a year for the new combat sites, and for them to fix the new faith sites. no reason to log on anymore. Barely any mobs and 30% of the mechanics of the game locked behind PVP, which is also broken.

[Docterchese 1,570]

45 minutes ago, polarbear said:

I like it. 

 

Conflict of interest?

 

[Ecrir 887]

Interesting that they used AI to generate stuff for the website, especially as that would mean that they do not even own the copyright on a lot of the content currently present on the website.

[polarbear 284]

8 minutes ago, Docterchese said:

 

Conflict of interest?

 

Edited July 1, 2023 by polarbear

[Adnurak 127]

I think it speaks volumes how important it was to push ahead and get this website downgrade pushed out live in time for whatever investor meeting or deadline was imminent, so important that it could be filled with factual errors of the sort that any player of the game would notice and question, but any sort of response to the outpouring of negative feedback has been quite unfairly relegated to staff who had no control over any of this.

 

23 minutes ago, Damascus said:

i been keeping tabs on the financial reports also .

It is so easy to google the info on them and the constant lost for GCG .

Yep.

Also of note: their other products and services consist of monthly subscription "mystery game crate" services and an index of HTML5 shovelware games.

I checked their top listed game, a cheap minecraft knockoff named "Minicraft", which failed to load for me, and had a total of 26 user ratings (the 27th from me checking to see if you needed to register an account or do anything more than click one button to rate the game, and you did not. 26 total ratings for their site's "top game".)

GCG's entire range of products appears to me like an arrangement of smoke and mirrors to keep syphoning investor cash, there's absolutely no way a site like gameitnow.com is turning a profit, this is the profile of a cannibal investment firm.

Spoiler

 

If Wurm is as important to GCG as their other products, then we know what to expect more of going forward.

[Vorticella 958]

Filling the forum and chats with pessimistic comments like "The game is doomed, I'm not sure I want to support it anymore" probably won't motivate new players or investors to put their money here.

 

It's understandable to be worried and upset when things change in ways we don't like, but it would be better to focus on giving helpful, constructive feedback instead of insulting the team and talking about quitting.

[Votip 1,621]

1 minute ago, Vorticella said:

Filling the forum and chats with pessimistic comments like "The game is doomed, I'm not sure I want to support it anymore" probably won't motivate new players or investors to put their money here.

But the actions taken don't motivate old players too.

2 minutes ago, Vorticella said:

It's understandable to be worried and upset when things change in ways we don't like, but it would be better to focus on giving helpful, constructive feedback instead of insulting the team and talking about quitting.

To who? CEO launched new site, created this topic and we haven't seen him anymore since then

[Melketh 92]

Can we discuss this gem added into the Terms of Service under User Generated Material;

 

Quote

The conditions are that you follow our terms while playing/ obtaining the material and not use it in a way that breaks our code of conduct or portrays Wurm Online in a negative manner.

 

Who's to determine what negative manner means?  Are we allowed to rightly criticise changes to the game on stream or in videos? When the game starts pushing highly predatory monetisation strategies on players, are we not allowed to discuss them?  Or are we forced to champion them if we wish to speak of them at all?

 

What are the penalties if the company decides comments we make or have made portray the game in a negative manner?

 

Edit:  It has been pointed out that the above language existed in the previous Terms of Service too and never really came up.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Melketh
Clarification

[Xagru 431]

12 minutes ago, Votip said:

But the actions taken don't motivate old players too.

To who? CEO launched new site, created this topic and we haven't seen him anymore since then

As far as we've ever seen him here

[wipeout 1,355]

2 minutes ago, Melketh said:

Can we discuss this gem added into the Terms of Service under User Generated Material;

 

 

Who's to determine what negative manner means?  Are we allowed to rightly criticise changes to the game on stream or in videos? When the game starts pushing highly predatory monetisation strategies on players, are we not allowed to discuss them?  Or are we forced to champion them if we wish to speak of them at all?

 

What are the penalties if the company decides comments we make or have made portray the game in a negative manner?

My best guess?

Big youtuber decides to try the game and doesnt like it looks more into it and bad mouths gcg and suddenly finds his account banned.

Next day all drama ensues everything goes to ###### and yet another story in the countless stories of how wurm is a bad  game that you will grow to love but is ran by bad management who will do anything to sabotage your time there.

[Vorticella 958]

16 minutes ago, Votip said:

But the actions taken don't motivate old players too.

To who? CEO launched new site, created this topic and we haven't seen him anymore since then

 

There are humans on the receiving end of all this, even if they aren't active in this thread at the moment (can you blame them?). I fully agree that there were significant mistakes made with this release, but people don't need to be butchered alive to understand that they made mistakes.

 

All I'm saying is if you love the game and want it to stick around, maybe stop to consider what kind of effects such pessimistic comments can actually have before making them in public.

[wipeout 1,355]

1 minute ago, Vorticella said:

 

There are humans on the receiving end of all this, even if they aren't active in this thread at the moment (can you blame them?). I fully agree that there were significant mistakes made with this release, but people don't need to be butchered alive to understand that they made mistakes.

 

All I'm saying is if you love the game and want it to stick around, maybe stop to consider what kind of effects such pessimistic comments can actually have before making them in public.

So we should not show our love and care and frustration and anger when the people above the devs screw up so badly that the game we cherish becomes a bigger laughing stock then it already is? gotcha noted

On that note I still hope we will get a proper website and this piece of garbage is thrown away and deleted and then erased from existence with DoD 5220.22-M (ECE) just so that no one ever has to look at it again.

[Adnurak 127]

5 minutes ago, Vorticella said:

stop to consider what kind of effects such pessimistic comments can actually have before making them in public.

Pointing out patterns of bad behaviour and asserting that those patterns could continue and create problems for Wurm is not in any way conjuring those problems into existence. GCG getting involved with Wurm and then two important staff members suddenly leaving the team didn't happen because people made "negative" posts on the forum. Not voicing valid criticism because it sounds "pessimistic" or might hurt someone's feelings is no way for adults to behave, this is not a serious point of view.

 

13 minutes ago, Vorticella said:

There are humans on the receiving end of all this

 

I think everyone here has a great deal of respect and appreciation for the time and energy that Wurm staff and devs have put into the game, our criticism is not remotely directed at those people. To recognise the hard work that has gone into Wurm is also to recognise that Wurm's continued existence is not just a fact of life, it's for that reason that I share my concerns here.

[Vorticella 958]

15 minutes ago, wipeout said:

So we should not show our love and care and frustration and anger when the people above the devs screw up so badly that the game we cherish becomes a bigger laughing stock then it already is? gotcha noted

On that note I still hope we will get a proper website and this piece of garbage is thrown away and deleted and then erased from existence with DoD 5220.22-M (ECE) just so that no one ever has to look at it again.

 

It's possible to share your concerns without vomiting your emotions on people. They're also more likely to hear what you're saying when they aren't feeling attacked. Obviously you're free to spit on people if that's what you want to do, just don't expect good results from doing so.

[Votip 1,621]

23 minutes ago, Vorticella said:

There are humans on the receiving end of all this, even if they aren't active in this thread at the moment (can you blame them?). I fully agree that there were significant mistakes made with this release, but people don't need to be butchered alive to understand that they made mistakes

That's why you don't push massive updates at Fridays, but Mondays

 

24 minutes ago, Vorticella said:

 

All I'm saying is if you love the game and want it to stick around, maybe stop to consider what kind of effects such pessimistic comments can actually have before making them in public.

Do I love the game anymore? It's difficult to love after last years.

[wipeout 1,355]

2 minutes ago, Vorticella said:

 

It's possible to share your concerns without vomiting your emotions on people. They're also more likely to hear what you're saying when they aren't feeling attacked. Obviously you're free to spit on people if that's what you want to do, just don't expect good results from doing so.

And that requires some level of respect and respect is earned not given

The wurm dev team? I respect them I might not agree with them on things from time to time but they have shown they can still get the job done
This outside contractor that gcg hired and made the ai monstrosity that was launched at the start of the day before taken down? I don't respect them, they took money from gcg to create a website who's focus was meant to be to show what the game is about and promote the use of more silver purchases.

Instead what the wurm dev team was handed was a piece of garbage that chatgpt 3.5 made with no wurm dev team input what so ever and they got forced to make this go live and face the resulting circus while krister took the weekend off to enjoy whatever he does on the weekends.

Would you respect someone who comes out of the blue and turns what is a big part of your life into a joke and ###### on it? Would you still respect them if they publicly lie about what that thing is capable of doing and setting the company up for potential lawsuits of false advertising and the likes?

We saw the writing on the wall but we gave gcg a chance to see if they could deliver something that would help wurm grow and instead? They gave us something that is worse then the wurm website from 2005 so no I am not going to sit there and treat them kindly or with respect when i talk about the garbage job they did why should I? They did not respect the players and the community and the existing image with this move so why should we respect them?

Gcg is only going to care about increased silver purchases they made that clear back in may regardless of premium subscription numbers or player count so why should we respect the owners of the game we love when they dont respect the game that only exists because we love it too much to give up on it?

Plenty of better games have fallen and disappeared already yet wurm chugs on because of the dedicated playerbase a playerbase that gcg has made clear about they do not care about at all, they want to save their sinking ship by destroying the one single property they have that keeps them afloat so why should we sit here and act all nice and kind and caring towards them?

I called it months ago that if gcg goes down the path of increasing monetization practices in the way they proposed it that wurm will end up dying as those practices have killed every single other game where developers did those same things as a result of upper management(who dont care about their own property) coming in and destroying it with what they believe is best suited and then blaming the players afterwards for abandoning them when their screw ups come back to haunt them.



I have been down that route with other games that i played alongside wurm and i  have said it countless times what is being started here right now is a slippery slope into a quick death spiral that will lead to a player activity of 5-10 max and servers being shut down due to cost until the company closes the doors as the game looses more money then it brings in, wurm has survived for as long as it has because 1. free developers 2. low cost developers 3. no ambitious projects that tried to reinvent the wheel 4. no cooperate entity stuck in a high rise breathing down the necks of the developers pushing them into a direction to "increase" his profit margins so that he looks better on the quarterly report so that he can get more investors and buy that 5th house he so "desperately" needs.

Now 4 is gone 2 is starting to change and the only way wurm can massively grow and increase its silver purchases as desired is to take on 3 but with 3 comes great risk of loosing ones identity and given other games in the past they all lost their identity so that does not spring much confidence when gcg's first direct public push(they tried to push for vr before) is this not even half baked rebranding.

So no sorry they don't deserve my respect not until they treat the existing playerbase with some much needed respect

[Vorticella 958]

31 minutes ago, Adnurak said:

Not voicing valid criticism because it sounds "pessimistic" or might hurt someone's feelings is no way for adults to behave, this is not a serious point of view.

 

I agree! That's not what I tried to say at all.

[Adnurak 127]

1 minute ago, Vorticella said:

I agree! That's not what I tried to say at all.

 

Fair enough, I just think it's very important that all of this is put out in the open and people shouldn't hold back their real thoughts. I don't mean to mischaracterise your position.

[Miralux 94]

37 minutes ago, Vorticella said:

 

It's possible to share your concerns without vomiting your emotions on people. They're also more likely to hear what you're saying when they aren't feeling attacked. Obviously you're free to spit on people if that's what you want to do, just don't expect good results from doing so.

 

Agree with Vorticellas resoning.

When I read the news and saw the new webpage, promovideo and everything yesterday, my reply were basicly wtf and I have no words.. I would probably not have written that if I waited a day responding tbh. And I assume the same goes for many that has replied to this thread. The feeling that made me respond the way I did last night were that "they dont understand wurm at all and is trying to make the game I grown to love to become something I do not recognize at all."
I do still think that alot that was shown to us yesterday, did in fact reflect on the new owners, that they do not grasp the wurm experience. However, I do understand comments like myself and several of others have made during the last hours, have not done anything helpful to the case at all. I am not judging anyone, I reacted the same myself. Watching Factionalfight twitchstream yesterday gave me some more reflections though.
 

Webpage and those 'placeholder pictures' - I hope that they will change soon to something that reflects better what wurm is. I do understand that they were not ment for us at all, most likely for shareholders to show they are taking action to the game... however, I cannot imagine its good promo having most of the community ranging against the chances. If people considering either to invest, or to start playing wurm, I would assume some would google the game, and threads like this might appear... Though, just an assuption here.

The fire letters. This is just a very small thing. But it kinda was flashed in front of our eyes.. and it really felt like some kind of cheap Blizzard imitation. Wurm has never felt like a blizzard-game to me. And I've played WoW for 10yrs or so++. I do not want it to move that direction either, so that was probably one of the things that made me unsettled.

Wordings in the movie: your destiny awaits! .....What destiny? Wurm is a game where you shape your own path, your own playstyle, its a game giving you way more freedom to choose your way of enjoying it than most other games I know. I can log on, spend a whole day just fishing sharks in the bay. Or endless hours mining like crazy in my mines. I can go hunting, plant gigantic fields of corn, dye all my items in absurd color combinations just because I can. I can bake jaffacakes and send to random people or imp hubbys ropetool untill I fall asleep or I can ride to the top of a mountain just gazing at the nightsky and watch how the moons aligns. I can choose all these things, and many many more. I love it! Making a promovideo would reflect better on the game if it used wordings telling something about this being a sandbox game where you shape your own gamingexperience. Not flashy wordings and fire. Thats another game, thats not us.

I am happy we do have devs and gms that actually know and love wurm just like we do, and my hope for the future is that they are able to make the new owners listen when people describe how wurm is for THEM and how their dreams for a better wurm future is. Even if Krister is not likely to read the playercomments too often, we know many in staff are in fact very aware of whats moving in the community. Thats why we can still have faith someone thats able to affect the direction this is taking, is listening still. And thats my request to Staff: please tell Krister to listen to the community as well, not when we are yelling and being unreasonable, but when hes about to take turns that is likely to make him loose alot of players thats already willing to put money in this game regulary. Cause if wurm is to have a future, you need the excisting playerbase as well, and the experience and knowledge between the many people thats been here for many years, is probably the most valueable, unpayed, resourses you got.

[Dao 145]

3 hours ago, Adnurak said:

I think it speaks volumes how important it was to push ahead and get this website downgrade pushed out live in time for whatever investor meeting or deadline was imminent, so important that it could be filled with factual errors of the sort that any player of the game would notice and question, but any sort of response to the outpouring of negative feedback has been quite unfairly relegated to staff who had no control over any of this.

 

Yep.

Also of note: their other products and services consist of monthly subscription "mystery game crate" services and an index of HTML5 shovelware games.

I checked their top listed game, a cheap minecraft knockoff named "Minicraft", which failed to load for me, and had a total of 26 user ratings (the 27th from me checking to see if you needed to register an account or do anything more than click one button to rate the game, and you did not. 26 total ratings for their site's "top game".)

GCG's entire range of products appears to me like an arrangement of smoke and mirrors to keep syphoning investor cash, there's absolutely no way a site like gameitnow.com is turning a profit, this is the profile of a cannibal investment firm.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

If Wurm is as important to GCG as their other products, then we know what to expect more of going forward.

 

 

I said the same thing two weeks ago.

 

 

  

On 6/17/2023 at 7:37 AM, Dao said:

How little a man needs to be happy. The opportunity for comments was opened for you, and you began to generate ideas on how to help your favorite game. And now you are happy.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to help. But let's look at things realistically.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/GAME-CHEST-GROUP-AB-PUBL-120974631/

https://i.imgur.com/Z8aAjq1.png

 

We see a company that suffers losses every year.

The company has 4 employees.

 

What does the company "GAME CHEST GROUP AB" actually do?

Here is the official websites of this company.

https://gamechestgroup.com/

https://fridayplays.com/

https://www.instagram.com/gamechestgroup/

Do you like it?

 

"GAME CHEST GROUP AB"  actually is small junk shop. They resell games and loot boxes with games.

I'm not trying to offend anyone just showing the sad state of affairs

And now let's see what the company really offers to do with Wurm in a press release on the official website

 

https://gamechestgroup.com/investor-relations/press-release/21951

 

They did not say a word about any improvements in the game, development etc. They said was to change the brand and add things to the shop.

 

4 employees can't do more.

Now let's think about what a company of 4 people can do.

First, they urgently need money.

 

There are 3 ways to get money:
1. sell new popular product.
2. find new buyers.
3. increase the number of sales at the expense of old buyers.

 

But

1. There are no new products and will not be,  even development is not planned.
2. New buyers are not in a hurry to run into the game. And rebranding is unlikely to help here. Although there will be attempts to attract new buyers (see "New Branding").

 

There remains a third way. Let's consider it.

 

First step

It is no big secret that there are hundreds of settlements in Wurm that have standing for decades. People buy silver once a year (Black Friday), pay for settlements so as not to lose them and rarely enter the game.
How to get +20% to income? Right. You just need to remove the 20% trader's discount. Those who want to keep their settlement will buy 20% more silver. And you don't have to do anything.   It was first step. Did you think it had something to do with in-game mechanics? No. It was just a rent increase. Nothing personal, just business.

 

 

Second step.

How else can you get people to buy more in the store? Mmmm... Remove in-game earnings. Lately there have been "rumors" that MOI upon Foraging and Botanizing  happens 3-5 times less often, and bring only 1 and 5 c coins. This should force you to buy premium in the shop. Nothing personal, just business.

 

Third step.

We need to give people the opportunity to buy more powerful weapons and armor in the shop. And at the same time to clearly show that without a shop they will always lose in PvP. Pay to Win.

  

 

Nothing personal, just business.

 

 

Fourth step.

Loot boxes. This goes without saying, because loot boxes are Game Chest Group's specialty.  "Game Chest Group. Find over 1500 discounted games or game-loot boxes in smal, medium or large packed with codes to redeem on steam every month"(c) https://www.instagram.com/gamechestgroup/   Nothing personal, just business.
 

Do you still think that they will improve the game?

 

Here should be my favorite picture of laughing Darth Sidious. But they will ban me for it, they will decide that I am mocking. Therefore, I will post a picture of  sad donkey.

 

 

 

 

 

They said, "No! We're giving advice here, we feel important so everything will be fine. You just don't understand."

 

Now I can post my favorite picture of laughing Darth Sidious.

 

Edited July 1, 2023 by Dao

[Samuraifishploo 27]

Y'all used AI art when there are an insane amount of just flat-out gorgeous architecture and well-planned player-made cities in the game? This is frankly insulting. So many of us would have been so willing to say, "yeah, feel free to take screenshots of my deed, I'm happy to help!"

[Grizwaldo 25]

  

2 hours ago, Vorticella said:

Filling the forum and chats with pessimistic comments like "The game is doomed, I'm not sure I want to support it anymore" probably won't motivate new players or investors to put their money here.

 

It's understandable to be worried and upset when things change in ways we don't like, but it would be better to focus on giving helpful, constructive feedback instead of insulting the team and talking about quitting.

I believe that's part of the point. If someone's doing something that clearly isn't in the consumer's best interest, to try and appeal to investors, then complaining loudly enough looks bad to investors (and other potential customers) and the guy in charge has to either fix it or get the opposite of what he wanted. Motivating people to put money into this in response to changes you don't like would be counterproductive and incentivize more things you don't like.

 

There is also a lot of actual helpful criticism in here among the non-critical (but still important to voice) disapproval. And I haven't seen any attacks on the work or character of anyone except that one guy who just showed up here. If you don't like the negativity, pull a pro CEO move and just don't read it.

[Xagru 431]

In report they said (translated, swedish original):

"We are pleased to announce that the total sales of Wurm Online via Steam have now reached SEK 10,000,000 since its launch on the marketplace, July 2020. This significant milestone demonstrates the success of the game and the continued strength of the brand.
The exposure in Steam has increased sales and reached more paying players and it is because of this that we are starting an expansive phase to reach a wider audience by offering the game through more marketplaces. More information to come."

I dont want to count, but... 10mln SEK is around 85000 euro in 3 years, 2,3-2,4k per month. If game makes 2,5k euro per month, that doesnt sounds big deal. I don't mean the exact amounts, more substantial is between words "we are starting an expansive phase to reach a wider audience by offering the game through more marketplaces." Discrepancy between the image of the CEO sitting in an armchair in the management office of a skyscraper with a view of the city skyline, which is probably supposed to give the impression of a large, rich company (apart from the emptiness in the background, as if the chairs and everything else are props), the impression competence in what he/they do, making great visions. Including all this new branding that looks like it was done in one day. A company that sells junk apps, and among them all, Wurm, like a gem in mud. This is really not optimistic from the player's point of view, and even from the investor's point of view. It looks like a show not like a project.

If this video is marketing, I don't trust it.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Xagru

[BoulderDash 41]

wurm users, the new direction of wurm is one to bring in new customers and younger players. the hype appeals to the younger crowd.  the point is to drive you away and bring in the younger users who will say how amazing it all looks. then they ask their parents for their credit cards so that they can buy some sweet silver items from the cash shop.

 

i saw this happen on a old online forum i used to go on called gaia online and there the money grabbing from the new ceo doomed the virtual economy. they also tried to appeal to the younger users alot.

 

if gcg has experience in mobile games and such and the website is more geared to the mobile crowd then i wonder when wurm may get dumbed down so that it can run on mobile phones. medieval farmville. what do you think?

[Docterchese 1,570]

13 minutes ago, Xagru said:

In report they said (translated, swedish original):

"We are pleased to announce that the total sales of Wurm Online via Steam have now reached SEK 10,000,000 since its launch on the marketplace, July 2020. This significant milestone demonstrates the success of the game and the continued strength of the brand.
The exposure in Steam has increased sales and reached more paying players and it is because of this that we are starting an expansive phase to reach a wider audience by offering the game through more marketplaces. More information to come."

I dont want to count, but... 10mln SEK is around 85000 euro in 3 years, 2,3-2,4k per month. If game makes 2,5k euro per month, that doesnt sounds big deal. I don't mean the exact amounts, more substantial is between words "we are starting an expansive phase to reach a wider audience by offering the game through more marketplaces." Discrepancy between the image of the CEO sitting in an armchair in the management office of a skyscraper with a view of the city skyline, which is probably supposed to give the impression of a large, rich company (apart from the emptiness in the background, as if the chairs and everything else are props), the impression competence in what he/they do, making great visions. Including all this new branding that looks like it was done in one day. A company that sells junk apps, and among them all, Wurm, like a gem in mud. This is really not optimistic from the player's point of view, and even from the investor's point of view. It looks like a show not like a project.

 

The math in this post is off by a factor of 10, 1 SEK = 0.085 euro. So it's 850,000€ total or 25k € / month, which isn't so bad. However, I suspect most of that money came from the Steam release, so it has probably been a lot less profitable for the last few years.

 

It's quite tragic, because Wurm makes enough money to sustain the servers and a small dev team (which is what we got in the Rolf days.) But it does not (and will probably never) make enough money to get the new owners (GCG) out of the debt they're in...

Edited July 1, 2023 by Docterchese