Topic
Glitch could have been sustainable
Glitch could have been sustainable, but it was not because of many reasons (This is just a brain dump so points will be unorganized). Some of the reasons I could think of are:
Making the wrong decisions at the wrong time
Not enough incentives to become a subscriber
Not taking enough cost saving measures
Not taking advantage of enough money making opportunaties
Tiny Speck spent valuable time and resources introducing updates that were nice to have, but are not really necessary at the time. Such updates include the website redesign, encyclopedia revamp, skills table revamp (yuck), new maps, housing switch, the switch to imagination, and client optimization. Time and resources that were spent on these updates should have been spent trying to think of ways to stay afloat.
If you ever asked people about the subscriber pricing, most people cannot justify being a subscriber because the subscription costs are too high, there are not enough matching wardrobe items to purchase, upgraded subscriber locked furniture can be traded to non subscribers, votes are useless, and being a subscriber does not really give you an in-game advantage.
Games in which subscribers do not get significant in-game advantages and unlockable content are unheard of, because it is just too good to be true. The in-game advantages should not be too great (or else it ruins the game), but there certainly needs to be more. Such advantages could include subscriber-only skills, upgrades, maps (keyed areas and party rooms), improved versions of tools, mini games and quests, being able to zoom in out out of a map, and more subscriber-only polls.
There needs to be more cost saving measures. Back in the beta, the game was only open for specific tests. Not only does that save costs, it also makes people more grateful that the game is open. Rather than thinking I can do that tomorrow, people may remember there are only three more days until the game closes again. Also, EOTW parties are funner than being on a street all alone.
Game resources can also be saved and updated on a more permanent folder rather than in the browser cache because downloading and redownloding game resources eats up lots of bandwidth.
Some of the updates actually increased operating costs such as the introduction of the new snaps feature (storing and retrieving tens of thousands of snaps), the new housing customization (storing and loading housing customizations for every player), and the new maps because it increases bandwidth and storage costs. The housing customization also increased code complexity and created lots of bugs for the developers to fix (especially with the moving process).
More money making opportunaties exists, but were never implemented. I still cannot believe why Glitch does not have a store that sells merchandise. Not only will that increase revenues, it will spread awareness of the game. Time limited offers can be implemented where people who become a subscriber or remain a subscriber before a deadline gets some special item (that only looks nice) that cannot be gotten any other time. Time limited upgrades, wardrobe, and vanity options that can be purchased using credits. Advertisements on the website and also above the game window can also be easily implemented. There are many ways to milk this butterfly (just look at other games).
For Glitch to be saved, Tiny Speck needs to convince investors that they can do better and take some drastic measures.
Also regarding the move to mobile devices. There are many MMORPGs that are not designed for mobile devices and will not move to mobile devices. Do you think games such as Runescape will be played on a mobile device? You certainly can, but it is not feasible.
Replies
- Thanks, Captain Hindsight!
- Lol @ Odder Pu :)
- I agree that some things really should have been done differently, mainly installing a filter that prevents douchie forum posts from ever being published.
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Do we really need to do this? I am sure there are things that they would do differently a second time, but can't we all say that about our lives. We did the best we could at the time and will learn lessons for the future.
Ultimately, we lost a game, even though it means a lot to us. The people who made it for us are likely hurting too and are losing a lot more, huge investments of time, love, creativity and money, their jobs and colleagues. Please be kind and not rub salt into their wounds.
@ LOL Odder Pu :D -
+1 Odder Pu!
Macs, if you can do a better job I bet Tiny Speck would still consider selling Glitch. - FyodorD, you've won the thread. We can all go home now. :)
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It's interesting to think on how things could have gone differently though. At the very least, merch to show off the game in the world, advertising (I've never seen any, I was brought here a year ago from word of a friend but never saw any other advertising for the game), or just...idk :( it's sad to think, but interesting.
I personally since I started replaying in September, been writing 'glitch.com' on all my school desks to get people to maybe check it out in the off chance. Now I need to go and wash it off, or maybe keep it for the sake of remembering each time I look down. - Subscription costs were WAY too high. They should have thought of a better method to encourage people to purchase things.
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If they had one subscription tier at $5 a month... I have no doubt I would have subscribed and stayed subscribed throughout the past 2 years.
But instead of getting $120 from me, they got $0. That's your problem right there. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20, right? - Bashere, here to shit on your chips sice 2011.
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Subscription costs were way too high? I had the mid-tier at 9 bucks a month. How much fun could you buy with nine bucks? Two drinks at a bar? A crappy meal at a diner? Three quarters of a movie ticket?
The fun to cash ratio for subscribing to Glitch was a heck of a lot nicer than most entertainment options available in my town. In hindsight I wish I would have subscribed at the molybdenum level. - Ultimately this product failed because of Stewart.
- Classy move. What a sad person you must be.
- Guys, you know better than to feed the trolls... Let the Rook have them. :)
- Bashere isn't it time for you to whack off again?
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A typical MMO charges $10-$15 month. Glitch's subscription rates were more than generous.
Stewart busted his ass for this game. It succeeded this far because of him - and a crack team of developers and artists who's contributions cannot be overlooked - and not in spite of him. It was his shared dream and our shared joy. - I wish I had been a subscriber.
- I don't want to read the comments right now, because I think it's probably full of players who are cursing for thinking there could be anything wrong with their Tiny Speck. But I think this is all true. This all wasn't practical, and the decisions that have been made now are taking away this game in less than four weeks.
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lol@Apolline
A lot of you should be ashamed of yourselves. Do you think TS isn't already upset? If your hindsight is that good, don't you think perhaps they've got even more of the picture and are well aware of all that?
Seriously, go do something more productive. Like petting a kitten. It's fluffy and might help you become less vitriolic and bitter. - We don't have the full story and the people flaming and trolling should be ashamed of themselves. Stoot was running this project as if he had another year of funding in the bank. I bet anything their VC got spooked and pulled the plug early. When your VC spooks and you can't find alternate funding or sell the project to another company it's not a pretty picture. Been there, got the T-shirt. It's VERY stressful for everyone involved too.
- Disagreeing with some debatable points = flaming/trolling
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www.glitch.com/profiles/PM1...
Don't let the door hit ya where the Giants split ya. - Am fairly sure that there are more than 3 days between now and the 9th of December
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I agree with the OP.
They needed to show the userbase that subscribing was worthwhile. One thing they could have done was held more polls... in 12 months they had 1 which subscribers could spend their votes on, IIRC? -
I agree that the subscription needed to have more incentives and that there might have been just a little bit too much time spent on development but really, TS knows itself better than us so it's impossible to conclude that the ending of Glitch had to do with problem A, problem B or problem C.
I think this is well thought-out and is not at all a post meant to troll but it is still uncalled for given the circumstances. -
I have to agree on the subscription point especially. A few days ago I realized I could redeem a free month, and was excited to try it out. If I liked it I planned to do my best to subscribe as much as possible. But then I learned all it does is give you more clothing and furniture choices, which I was fine without. Credits are the same, only for dress up. I was really hoping for some actual in-game perks, like most games have. I didn't expect anything huge, but even a 10 daily Quoin limit bonus and slightly reduced learning times or increased brain capacity would have really made me want to subscribe.
And now with the 2.5k free credits, I have 845 left and everything I want and much more. This really shows me I wouldn't have had much reason to buy credits, especially since what I "wanted" I was fine without. And the few things I really did want I could get with the 100 free credits. - Exactly. 2k credits is all you'd ever need in this game.
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There are some players who would never want more than 2k credits but there are many players who spent way more than that decorating our towers or playing dress-up.
There were many players who bought subscriptions and were happy to do so. I think TS walked a tightrope between motivating people who could afford subscriptions to pay for them and keeping the game accessible and fun for people who could not or would not pay. In fact, if you read back through the forums you can see bitter complaints from non-subscribers about missing out on subscription-only items. TS even added an option to let people buy credits as a gift to other players.
I believe that the tremendous cleverness at TS that made Glitch so much fun to play was also employed in trying to make it succeed. -
I subscribed because I was playing and enjoying the game, although I never used more than a few credits, but Glitch has shown us that is not a sustainable business model. So I guess the lesson here is that games need to charge for things that most of the players feel they need (as opposed to just "nice to have extras").
Given the near ubiquity of the "free" model for games, it's clear that charging for things a la carte is more profitable than a $15 subscription fee, but you have to be selling compelling things. -
*dances on Bashere's grave* What?
And +1 Reirei Umezaki - I subscribed at the moly level, why? Because this game was beautiful and amazing and I wanted to support TS. The perks for being a subscriber weren't my incentive to subscribe.
- That's great for you Papa Legba, but that's not how businesses can sustain themselves generally.
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It is not my intent to criticize; the game was wonderful and well run from my perspective. This said, I never really had any incentive to subscribe, because none of the subscriber content was of any interest to me. I'm not much of a decorator and had minimal interest in wardrobe. I still have nearly 2K left of the free credits, after trying hard to spend it on vaguely interesting stuff that I've actually never bothered using in game. I never even used all of the original free credits on the account. Didn't need them.
I would have spend RL money for items that were fun and unique and did nifty things, or that sped up my gardening or harvesting. But not on decor alone, which seemed to be the model. I'm just not the decorating type, or the fancy-dress type.
I would also have been willing to dig deeper into my pockets had it been disclosed that it was actually necessary for more players to do so if the game was to continue. I'd have dug pretty damn deep to stop the game from closing.
I never saw any advertising for the game or in game for the subscriptions. That, especially if accompanied by a plea or a reminder that Glitchens who care and want to be nice should help be responsible for keeping the community going, would have gotten my wallet hauled out pronto. I honestly wasn't even sure how to subscribe. It wasn't really put in front of me, and I was only vaguely aware there was such a thing as a subscription. I wasn't sure if those were even being sold to the general public.
It looked like everything was just in a beta test, they weren't really pushing to sell subscriptions yet or have people start paying for the full content. I was looking forward to when it wasn't in beta any more. I expected there to be a solid subscription model at that point, and yes, I'd have been on board.
Hopefully the feedback is useful to the dev team, who did a fabulous job and gave us a game I will never forget.