Game & Turn pricing

[Angerak]

I can't think of anything I can do with it without building an entire board game out of it, and that wouldn't work well.  Aside from the complexity of handling combat manually, and the size (100x100) of the board, the game relies heavily on hidden information which wouldn't work well on a tabletop.

I wouldn't mind coming up with an alternative design that would run well as a phone app, but I personally only have dumb phones and can't do much in that area.

If you ever decide you want to make it into an online board game (which is kind of what Cohorts is), I can give you some design tips on how to manage the hidden data.  It's not trivial, but it's definitely doable.

[Davin]

If you ever decide you want to make it into an online board game (which is kind of what Cohorts is), I can give you some design tips on how to manage the hidden data.  It's not trivial, but it's definitely doable.

In Galac-Tac, all you'd see on the board would be the equivalent of topography.  Where everyone starts, where ships are, what you've discovered to date, and even where large combats are is only available to you personally.  Effectively, every piece of data in the game is hidden.

One of the things my GTac Assistant program does is accumulate all that personal information over time and display it to you all together on the screen at once.  I guess I could do something like that if every player had his own galaxy map that they updated themselves and kept hidden from all the other players.  Actually, Galac-Tac (especially in its old paper version) can print what's called a "wall map" where you could assemble a dozen or more sheets of paper (the original cut-and-paste) and hang it on the wall for you to mark up or stick push-pins in, and a number of people did just that.  Since there were seldom two people in the same household playing in the same galaxy it was usually pretty easy to keep secret from other players.  But if people are sitting around a table playing, I just can't see that as being a reasonable option.

[Angerak]

We had a large discussion this afternoon at the office, talking about pricing schemes.

I can't say this is official, but our current plan is to sell a starter version of the game (gives players access to about 30% of the game) either for Free or for a very small fee. If we charge a small fee, we'll also give the person access to play 5 hotseat games. The hotseat games will also be limited play as well.

For the pay to play scenario, we are thinking of charging a small fee for the game plus one module (we're not sure on what the fee will be yet, but we're thinking between $5 and $15). This gives the player access to unlimited solo play. Hotseat and PBM mode will cost $5 (or something similar) per game.

We are expecting each new module to be between $5 and $15, depending on the amount of effort required to build the new module.

These numbers are not carved in stone, but this is basically what we're thinking about right now.

[BlueGolem]

I quite like the pricing model that Alamaze uses.
Monthly subscription fee; which reduces the incentive to drop out of games not going well.
New player ramp-up intro games. Mentors provided to ease the learning curve.
Different levels of subscriptions so one can vary their activity level to match real life.
Those guys put a lot of thought into pricing and have done a great job.
However, this system might require a decently-sized player base to really carry off.
Games start quite often (can be almost daily), so you're never stuck waiting around for a new game,
while the subscription clock is ticking.
A newer game might require a different model.

[Angerak]

I quite like the pricing model that Alamaze uses.
Monthly subscription fee; which reduces the incentive to drop out of games not going well. 

Personally, I prefer a subscription model as well but the general consensus I've got back those that I’ve talked to is that they really dislike subscriptions.
 
I am curious though, why you feel that a subscription reduces the incentive to not drop out of games that are not going well. 

[Davin]

I am curious though, why you feel that a subscription reduces the incentive to not drop out of games that are not going well. 

In my mind there are a couple of reasons...  First, the ongoing cost seems to be generally lower for a subscription than for a turn-based fee.  And second, a subscription (at least in my book) allows you to start another game while you fight to the bitter end (with sometimes potentially meaningful results) in the game that you're not expecting to win and continue to get some gratification (if not revenge) out of it.  The latter allows you to play the new game for the usual cost and therefore going down with style in the previous game is essentially free.

Perhaps the dislike of subscriptions is that if you're not playing continuously then you feel like you're wasting money paying for gaming while not playing.  This is true to a certain extent, but you do have options.  For one thing, you can usually stop subscribing if you're going to be out for months at a time.  For another, often the subscription fee for several months is less than what it would have been if you were paying by the turn for what you actually played, and thus missing a month or so of play now and again is still cheaper than if you were paying for individual turns.  It can also depend on the game -- if your position continues to operate in some background way while you're absent, then you're still getting some play-benefit for that time spent and the subscription isn't exactly wasted.  And, of course, you could simply continue to play and avoid that whole issue.

Some people may have other reasons for disliking subscriptions, such as how payments are made and the like, but that would be a different kind of question to be dealt with in other ways.

[Angerak]

I am curious though, why you feel that a subscription reduces the incentive to not drop out of games that are not going well. 

In my mind there are a couple of reasons...  First, the ongoing cost seems to be generally lower for a subscription than for a turn-based fee.  And second, a subscription (at least in my book) allows you to start another game while you fight to the bitter end (with sometimes potentially meaningful results) in the game that you're not expecting to win and continue to get some gratification (if not revenge) out of it.  The latter allows you to play the new game for the usual cost and therefore going down with style in the previous game is essentially free.

Under my current proposed model, you'd only pay a one-time-fee to play the game ($5-$15) with no turn costs.  You can play as many games as you like, paying the one-time-fee for each game.

This means I don't need to pay any monthly fee.  For the fee of $5-$15 I can play until the game comes to an end.  Missing turns don't cost you (other than poor performance in the game).  To me, no additional/monthly cost means a much better chance of keeping a player in the game until the end.  Not to mention, in the Veil of Entropy module, you want to stick around until the end to get to fight with/against Gods.  Even with a crappy position, you'd still get to unleash hell, fire and brimstone on the enemies that have been kicking you around all game long.

[Davin]

Under my current proposed model, you'd only pay a one-time-fee to play the game ($5-$15) with no turn costs.  You can play as many games as you like, paying the one-time-fee for each game.

Sorry, I assumed that you'd have a subscription vs. a per-turn cost.  A one-time-per-game cost would certainly avoid the recurring costs that people might shy away from.