Founder's Pack Updates and New Bundles

[HvitUlv]

Well, the great power of this game, is that this is a different experiance. Because of that I bought one of the Founder's packs. But also, I would never do it without participating in the open alfa event. I am extremely happy of what the game is giving us and the effort you guys are putting in it. Here is a link concentrating about the games that are pay to play vs free to play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl6d1BW8_RI

A very good example is the Titan Fall. It also introduced some new mechanics and interesting ideas, but there is a very small playerbase at the moment, mainly because players didn't want to pay to play or threw the game away because of poor matching system (small player base).

Giving this, if you want it to be pay to play game, as you mentioned in the stream yesterday, it would be best if you would provide long term access for the players, when the game goes live. For example let them create a new account free for a week or a month, let the player gather some items, experiance, ISO, give them the possibility to check how great the game is. Not only some free weekend from time to time.

Well, this is actually something that might be a problem for the community and devs in a rather after beta future. But starting to think of it now already is not a bad idea.

I hope that all will go according to your plans and we will be able to spend years having fun in AR.

[gloves]

I could type a lot about this, but going b2p seems like a death blow for AR as a competitive multiplayer side. The main game mode requires 8 players, and any hope at more than an extremely niche playerbase + competitive scene dies with this change. It will be near-impossible to introduce a ton of new players to the game (even with an enjoyable free weekend, many people aren't looking to drop this sort of money on a non-AAA title).

While AR isn't quite a moba, successful games in that market are universally f2p with various monetization schemes, games from other semi-similar genres (think titles like Xcom, Frozen Synapse, and arguably even rts-style games) tend to sell for a fraction of the price or are much more complete products (including things like story mode, more game variants, and so on). It's hard to see AR succeeding by deviating negatively from industry standards -- queues will be small, matches will be unbalanced, there will be no competitive scene to generate hype...the future picture of this game looks very bleak. Perhaps it was ambitious to hope, but I could have plausibly seen AR as a third or fourth-tier esport (think something like WoT or Rocket League from an esports perspective) and with an active, passionate, moderately-sized playerbase. Now it's hard to see the game even getting off the ground.

Of course designing a monetization scheme is super important and the game needs to be making money. I just see no upsides of going b2p versus going with a god-pack model (a la Smite) instead. Leave access open, encourage new players to sign up and play for free at any time, and have a reasonably priced pack allowing blanket lancer ownership in addition to a-la-carte purchasing options. The player-count (which could literally be magnitudes larger) should more than make up for any lost revenue from upfront sales, and you could throw the pre-order community a bone in including the lancer pack with existing pack purchases. Nobody's mad, you guys don't lose money, and AR doesn't artificially cap the playerbase behind a paywall. Not only that, the gaming community writ large widely praised Smite for this sort of model, and it was clearly a giant success. I challenge you to name a b2p game in a similar niche (a competitive multiplayer game with 1 core game mode) without massive franchise backing and name recognition (hi SC2, CS:GO, etc.) which has experienced similar success. I'm relatively confident it doesn't exist.

You guys obviously have some metrics, data, ideas, etc. which have lead you to make this choice. I'm sure in your offices you've discussed a "lancer pack" concept before and opted to go this route instead. Why? What are we missing?

P.S. Hi Muzzy, made an account here just for you

[hackman]

Well my opinion on this is short: $30 is too high a price for anyone player who is only slightly interested. If you don't have a few die-hard friends who talk you into buying, you probably won't... For a competitive game to keep a big playerbase it needs to be cheap. Look at Awesomenauts - they did it right! Or look how games like Strike Vector or Titranfall failed: too high of a prize for a spontaneous purchase.
Personally, since I am really broke right now, I hesitated on buying the Founder's Pack plus I got Beta access anyways. I'll regret it, since next week the price for the same pack will double. You should consider keeping it at 10 for a longer while, and give every current player a chance to get a nice low-price early access. Not sure if I'm gonna spend double what my friends payed (once i get cash end of month) just cause someone pulled an overnight overhaul of business model....

[Jkitty]

I personally don't really like the whole all freelancers unlocked forever for simply buying the game. Now I understand that higher priced founders packs would have such a thing but it doesn't seem right for just lower level purchases or for simply buying the game.

I mean earning the freelancers is a part of them and I know technically my opinion can't apply here because I already had almost all of them due to buying the most expensive founder's pack but how do you earn further money? One of the big things was people having to buy the freelancers, sure you could earn them with ISO but I bet a lot of people would just buy the their few handful of favorite freelancers up front and now that part of the income is lost.

[MurderousRobot]

I mean earning the freelancers is a part of them and I know technically my opinion can't apply here because I already had almost all of them due to buying the most expensive founder's pack but how do you earn further money? One of the big things was people having to buy the freelancers, sure you could earn them with ISO but I bet a lot of people would just buy the their few handful of favorite freelancers up front and now that part of the income is lost.

The idea is to continue charging for cosmetic items and game boosters. For example: GG's and Skins will still be available for cash.

I will say I'm a bit surprised at the $30 price point. I'd think $20-$25 would be more agreeable, but that's my opinion as a consumer, I don't know much about how pricing games work in practice. However, we are still in closed beta and content is still being added to the game. With more lancers and maps coming in it might feel justified down the line. If the 'Limited Early Price' of $20 is lasting until actual release then I think that's a fair chance to get the game cheap!

I think a lot of concerns might be cleared up once we learn how the refer a friend trial program will work.

[Kaynine]

Seems like a slap in the face to me. After getting invited to try a new upcoming f2p game, I and many others like myself get thrown out and the door locked behind us after the word of this great game has spread enough to make a quick buck on.

It was fun while it lasted, was great playing with/against some of you guys. I'll need to let my brother down easy. He didnt get invited so he was excited for launch.

[Sandling]

Seems like a slap in the face to me. After getting invited to try a new upcoming f2p game, I and many others like myself get thrown out and the door locked behind us after the word of this great game has spread enough to make a quick buck on.

It was fun while it lasted, was great playing with/against some of you guys. I'll need to let my brother down easy. He didnt get invited so he was excited for launch.

Just to inform - You can currently unlock the entire game for just 10 bucks, whether or not you were invited before. There's indie titles with heftier pricetags on their head.

[MurderousRobot]

Just to inform - You can currently unlock the entire game for just 10 bucks, whether or not you were invited before. There's indie titles with heftier pricetags on their head.

Yeah.. I mean if your only complaint is "I was never planning on spending money on this game and now I can't do that." ... uh... sorry, I guess?

[Ibsen]

;;;

[Ibsen]

Seems like a slap in the face to me. After getting invited to try a new upcoming f2p game, I and many others like myself get thrown out and the door locked behind us after the word of this great game has spread enough to make a quick buck on.

It was fun while it lasted, was great playing with/against some of you guys. I'll need to let my brother down easy. He didnt get invited so he was excited for launch.

If it was fun, you would support it.

Art and entertainment aren't a free service by default.

If you won't spend this tiny amount of money on your hobby, then maybe you're not really that interested.