Outwitters' low revenue - Marketing suggestions and ideas for OML

[Eijolend]

I think the asynchronous part is easily the best thing about this game, so you can stay active and competitive without requiring a huge time investment or a fixed place in your daily schedule.

That being said, it's so sad such a great game as Outwitters with a reasonable monetizing system has problems keeping up with the crappy games without content swarming the market.
I think selling alternative visuals would be the easiest way to get a quick influx of money - although many people didn't like that part about HeroAcademy, it's a great way to sell stuff without touching the game balance at all!

[Fluffysox]

Haven't bothered reading anything, and not sure if anyone has suggested this, but I don't think you should restrict players. This game should be the same as it is. My idea would be to only have ads when your not in a game, and also sell aesthetics. Like the new bases that are coming out. OML can sell these bases, race by race for a a buck or too. They would make a lot more than just releasing the new base designs for free. Also, OML should put aesthetics in. These won't make the game pay to win, but will still want players to buy it.

[worldfamous]

(10-13-2012 11:54 PM)Joggies Wrote:  Who knows if I'm representative of others, but I LOVE the concept of Outwitters, I'm PREPARED to pay for it through buying add-ons and what not, but I HAVEN'T YET and will continue to hold off for the time being. Why?

Specifically:
- the queue stacking issue really breaks the game for me. This should be easily fixable and it's a huge issue. I'm in the top 100 list, but have essentially stopped playing until this gets fixed because it distresses me. I've posted to this effect previously.
- Also, first turn advantage saps away a lot of joy for me. I win easily as P1 every time. I win as P2 a majority of the time, but it's a painful grind (although sweet as treacle when you beat a queue-stacker in multiple games). But often enough you lose, sometimes to a slightly worse player who was just good enough to get across the line by leveraging the P1 advantage.

I'll be happy to splash $5-10 on Outwitters once the two issues are fixed. (And immediately if there was an underaking to resolve them soon.) I'd also continue paying more for extra add-ons if good content keeps coming, but that of course depends on the business model working.

Finally, there is one issue that doesn't worry me personally that much, but I have noticed from a lot of posts that it causes anxiousness for many players:
- the hidden ranking system. People seem to be getting put off by the opaqueness and they get frustrated by results they don't expect. They want to know roughly where they are placed, not just if they are in the top 100. If players' approximate percentile ranking was always available to them, I suspect more people would be willing to commit with their wallets and it would have a direct impact on the revenue situation.

So it's not perfect. It's still the best out there and they've clearly stated they are constantly working on the game. The so called "easy fixes" are obviously either not so easy, or have other repercussions. I have to say I have a problem with the fact that you played enough to reach the top hundred and yet you're holding out for these fixes. It boggles my mind how for years we've paid $60 for crap games and the $3 price tag sends people running for the hills. Can you really say you haven't received $10 (max Outwitters investment) in value so far? For those of you hung up on FTA, try some 2v2. It's nowhere near as prominent and 2v2 is like playing a completely different game. Your value immediately doubles.

[Juslas]

Customizing with flags, color and personal special units is something that should be cost efficient. But nothing I would buy, 35 game slots bought just to support.

Real problem is the slowness of the games. We all know it, having game slots occupied by unresponsive newby. At least if you start as fluffy, but some masters are taking several days to make their move, too. Playing slow turns new players away, if you play slow, you are the reason why player base is not growing.

Introduce fast game slots. Those 5 free ones would do fine. Player would have 3 minutes for each turn. If timer runs out, turn is skipped, 3 skips a row means lost game.

Pros.
Slow normal game to us who like turn base strategy. One slow slot to free players, too.
Fast game would be like playing against AI but better, who wouldn't like to have Half an hour Outwitters session every now and then.
I see no need for separate ranking for slow and fast games. You start fast only if you have time to play it. And that 3 min limit might be too long, 2 would be plenty for me.

And for 2v2 please take a day off immediately, those games can take a month nowadays.

[CombatEX]

Thanks for clarifying the 'Speed Game' section of your main post Ravernoth. Sounds goods.

I do agree with Eijolend that it's great being able to stay competitive without having to invest chunks of time. I would advise against separate leaderboards. I was actually thinking more that players would use asynch mode in friendly matches or randoms than on ladder. However, now that it has been brought up it would work for ladder too.

Just keep the ladder intact though. Both players have to play with the time-limit anyway so why not keep them on the main ladder? I know that in Chess players aren't ranked the same in speed vs standard, but speed Outwitters is more similar to standard Outwitters than speed Chess is to standard Chess. In the proposed speed Outwitters in a typical game you'll have 30 seconds - 1 minute per turn whereas in chess you typically have <10 seconds (well at least in the speed Chess I've watched though I imagine there are variants).

New Suggestion

This goes with idea 1 in your main post.

1) Change the business model

a) Make it a paid app - Example: Great Big War Game, $2.99

• All teams are included
• Release Demo version with League disabled and only Scallywags available
  

I think a better way to do this however would be to keep the main app free. Personally I'm less likely to download a demo version than I am to just download the main app. So here is my alternative suggestion.

b) Keep it free

• Raise price of Uber pack to $6.99
• League play is locked until a purchase is made (this works in the same way the 20 game limit works so for example you can buy one team and that will unlock league).
  

I think this is a critical error. Free players should not be allowed to play ranked games, in fact, it's quite shocking (extremely generous, Adam and Alex are such nice guys =D) that anyone can play ladder without paying a cent.

Make Outwitters a paid app with all features, but make the free demo version so that you can't play ladder. Or, keep Outwitters free, but essentially a paid app in that players cannot play ranked without paying.

This would be similar to how Blizzard does Starcraft 2. You can play SC2 for free but only in casual games and only with one team. This way free players can get a good idea of whether they enjoy the gameplay enough to make the purchase (since they can play full games in unranked). Outwitters already does the one team part, but for some reason anyone can play ladder. =O If you like the game enough to want to compete... just pay for it already.

[Bad Herr Day]

Everyone's gonna hate this idea but it works for games like moshie monsters and club penguin.

Charge a subscription fee, like $1.99 per month to play, with the first month free.

You would have to offer AI, more maps, challenge mode -scallywags to play and win in 1 move etc.

You also need to make the points scoring more transparent. I play chess on ICC and chess grades are open and clear for everyone to see and to calculate the impact of a win/loss.

Also offer an open api so other people can create and play their own computer AI program's, but mark them as computers so human players can choose whether they want to be drawn against computers, humans or either. Go onto ICC and see all the features chess players get.

[HollowKisame]

Just a suggestion for new icon. Make it a special unit or update icon with recent new special unit to represent most recent new class?

[GoHeat 3]

(10-15-2012 12:10 PM)HollowKisame Wrote:  Just a suggestion for new icon. Make it a special unit or update icon with recent new special unit to represent most recent new class?

I think a soldier would be more appealing in my opinion. Not sure which soldier though.

[Strategic thinker]

Looking at the numbers, some quick analysis to see how OML can get to $300k revenue:

1) Can't get there through attracting new players on current revenue model. Would get the same 2% conversion rate.

2) Can't get there by increasing revenue from existing payers. With only 10,000 paying users, although this thread has clearly indicated how willing we are to pay more to support this great game, it would max out at closer to $10 than $30

3) Probably can't get there by nerfing the free game to get the 500k to convert - likely many have moved on already, others would all be annoyed at having free taken away, and there may be many players like Joggies who would need a spiritual experience to shell out

4)Probably can't change revenue model and attract new players without major new mainstream appeal functionality. Marketing has been done, blogs have spoken, word of mouth has buzzed

Conclusion:
The game is over for multiplayer. [Clarification Edit: I mean it is no longer possible to get to $300k through the multiplayer game. Hopefully multiplayer will last a long time as the premium Outwitter experience] OML made the wrong choice on revenue model, but they can't dig themselves out without annoying their loyal customer base. Chalk it up to experience.

The best route to recoup the $300k is through releasing a single-player game at $4-5. Assumptions behind this recommendation
1) The other alternatives wont be big enough
2) Adding AI will be an incremental coding job. (I know AI will never match more than a ?Gifted? human. But by ramping up the AI wits on a sliding difficulty scale, and a couple of predetermined styles - blitz, turtle, creeping, special - I think it can provide an OK single-player challenge, with badges etc. See Neutrajima Hex)
3) It will make the game much more attractive for the mass market. Sometimes, you just want a quickie. And going up the learning curve in multiplayer is intimidating!
4) It is a big enough change to relaunch and get buzz again

Hope the devs are reading this thread, we would all love to see them get the return they deserve for this great game. Although community praise and support is a poor substitute for cold hard cash.....

[Juslas]

And size of the downloadable matters.

First I ran out of space with my iPhone 3G 8 Gt, then iPhone 4 16 Gt and iPad 2 16 Gt. I am ok with 32 Gt 4s, but retina iPad just inflated app sizes. Carcassonne and Ticket To Ride are now more than double the size compared what I initially bought. Several new titles are about 1 Gt. I don't have room for Outwitters on my iPad, though I paid max out and play daily on my phone.

Outwitters will be deleted from your phone to make room for new stuff. You are not making free players to pay, since game is already deleted.