Tree of Savior Forum

Marketing. Game satisfaction. Monetization. A post for developers and the management team

General Discussion
#1

NOTE, I DO NOT SUPPORT EITHER VIEW. THIS IS JUST A FEEDBACK FROM A MARKETING AND FINANCE POSITIONS.

It seems that there is a debate going on here. The underlying issue of the debate is whether you listen to the general consensus of the active players or go ahead with a pre-planned release program.
There are two factors in play here. One, is how vocal the current active people are and the underlying issues. Two, the effects of going live on steam with the game.
Let’s discuss these:

  1. Who are the people currently participating in the discussion and how do they factor into the demographics of the game once it will go live? Are they supporting the views of the majority of the people who will be playign the game post launch? So, if you have access to the ips of the people who are voting for and against founder packs, you can easily determine their geolocation and then determine which marketing grouo they fall into. It is my understanding that some of the areas will have heir own servers upon launch, and that they will be playing independent of steam. You can use this information to plan your decision accordingly. Another question you have to ask yourself is whether these people are representative of the greater player base? The quick answer would be no. Noone on this forum IS representative of your average player base, as all of these players are hardcore fans which are outliers. So you have to decide whether you want to cater to a small subset of all the players or try to please the bigger population.
  2. If you go live on steam without proper testing the potential negative feedback will be devastating. If you are running a closed beta, you get hardcore players who are willing to deal with bugs and issues. As soon as you go open beta you run into the issues of trying to convert the player into a paying customer. If you are unable to do so, that is lost revenues. If we are to assume that you do not release a bug free game, you are going to be losing customers and associated revenue streams. And let’s be honest, no game is bug free.

So. What is the point of the paid “starter plan”? You, the developers will raise money while testing the game with a relatively small group of people. The befit is that you get some revenue to cover your costs while testing the game in an environment which doesn’t thave the help of steams servers. Is this a good idea???

You have to answer that for yourself after reading this post.

If there will be constructive questions and feedback, I will gladly answer your posts. Please note that his was a quick description of the issue and that the actual problem unveiling right now is actually a huge issue that can have an effect on TOS in the future.

Thank you very much for reading over my post.

2 Likes
#2

This is very true. People on Steam tend to be very harsh, edging unfairness, when rating a game. Even if we, hardcore fans, know that sometimes things are not black and white, steam monsters* do not care if the devs didn’t have enough time to fix something, they just go for the thumbs down and talk trash about the game.

*Steam Monsters (for lack of a better term): I meant those who do not follow the development of a game through the official website, forums or fanpages and just plays the game because Steam highlighted it to them.

1 Like
#3

I think most of the player base will be the people

#4

Huh, I totally forgot about this standpoint. I voted for the 1 month because I felt like the game would be more fun with more people but you make a good point. Still, the best marketing advice we could give to them would be to communicate with your customers, which I’m sure everyone and their mother knows by now and is tired of hearing.

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#5

I completely agree with you. If they were to come out and explain WHY they have decided to go this route, the community (or majority of people) would read it and go “yes, I see your points. I might not like this, but I see the points that you are trying to make”, just like you did.

I believe it is still possible to have this conversation, although now they have to handle it in an extremely delicate way (think social media management).

Let’s see what they decide on :slight_smile: