Why does everything have to be so binary with you guys? Either it's dead... or... it needs millions in marketing and has to be a global genre leading game? Where's the practical middle ground approach?
TWstat.com says there are 40,000 active users... inflated or not, it's going to be the number I use here because I don't have access to anything better.
At $1 per user per month, that's $480,000 revenue per year. Is that achievable under the free to play model with other forms of income generation? I have no fckn idea but this user would happily pay more than that per month on merch or even donations for a fair game, especially if the company was transparent about this stuff and for the community.
I think you could practically double the games player base just by improving the game mechanics and taking care of the community a little better. Then you have $1,000,000 in revenue. Try telling me now that servers, office, and staff total more than $1M for what is essentially a website - and yes I know it's more complicated than a simple website but we are not talking a AAA budget, polished standalone type game either, which is what some replies on this topic sound like.
Branding and marketing doesn't have to be big and expensive projects either. Some consistent, light, targeted social media type stuff would be enough to bring in a gradual flow of new players. Again, it's not my area of expertise but I follow people in the industry and see examples of where it's being done well to know it's realistically possible. I've posted many ideas in other threads for building up the community and making them feel valued enough to spend money. It just takes a little creativity and effort.
Everything comes back to this though: No amount of branding/marketing/community management will make up for a broken product. You have to fix the broken game mechanics first.
I really respect the enthusiasm, I want Tribal Wars to succeed and go back to its former glory myself. However realistically, I don't think it will happen. Everything should have a beginning and an end, dragging stuff on for too long generally doesn't end well.
If everyone had your level of pessimism, nothing new would ever get invented and the world would never change. Your default response to everything is to look for all the potential roadblocks. Please try spending half of that energy on coming up with solutions.
As long as there is a community that love and want to play the game, it doesn't have to ever die. It's such a broken philosophy to assume every thing has to fit the "product life cycle" model and all decision have to be made accordingly. It's the customer demand that determines a products lifespan.
Or in this case at least, you break the product and drive away your customers. Which is another topic of the P2W model. People who are paying want to dominate the players who are not paying. If you drive away the non-paying players... where is the content for the paying one? That's why TW currently has an expiry date.
It just doesn't need to end this way is all I'm saying.
Just as a side note, I found this image that I think will help people look at the different types of player in our game. The opinions about the game state, why we play, etc are going to be different for you and I but having that full understanding of the 4 different types may open your eyes to options for changing the TW product to cater more heavily to one that would make a business model viable again. You compare the game to chess while I compare it to a game of football with my teammates. Very different perspectives and the nuances change the approach a business should take to cater to their customers.
