MyCoverPhoto

So Dave, i don't know what the analysis was, but lets get straight to the facts, 72$ for a yearly premium, for a broken game, less then 300 active members, non functioning map editor, and other smaller things that can be mentioned, like with moderators actions, but lets not. Dont want to get this straight into archives.

Ivan and amok had the game at 45$ for full-premium, which people also found to be too high for what the game offers, you are new but it would be a good idea to see the games demographic. Age groups/nationality, there's a few of these information in the feedback polls forum.

Most players are either slavs, eastern europeans, americans and turks, probably 4/5 non americans, as an eastern european myself i can tell you we rarely pay for games, especially ''indie'' games with unique and niche substances like Atwar. Infact most of us probably got premium through friends, often ivan would offer a discount or seperate packages for protocoins or a few bucks, few exeptions.

That being said eastern europeans at best, for this game, humbly around 5$ or 5€ for the one year premium package

Yes I wanted to send a mail about this and the fact that the word ''nig ger'' was removed from the game's vocabulary. But alas.. my half hour of writing a mail was in waste as that word caused the mail to be crashed

Inb4 forum ban
inb4 lock
inb4 archieve
press f for respects

Wr1tt3n by The_Empirezz, 02.01.2019 at 13:29

Yes I wanted to send a mail about this and the fact that the word ''nig ger'' was removed from the game's vocabulary. But alas.. my half hour of writing a mail was in waste as that word caused the mail to be crashed

Rip

Back to the topic:

Our community is decreasing drasticlly and even greater gap between vetreans to novices will make Atwar die faster. I can't see how a man in his right mind would approve this.

Id like to hear Sun Tsu's opinion on this

Maybe Dave would like to give hes side of the issue?- imo this is a pretty major issue. Changing like this is fine but give us a blog about it or a dev post fill the player base in.

I thought everybody knew by now that writing about issues on atWar doesn't fix them. If it did, this game would be massively different.

Nature of AW: Outdated web game
Target market: 15-20 years old
Main player base: Eastern Europe
Number of active players: Less than 150
Status of game: 10-15 games at most in peak hours
What AW need: New players who don't find AW pay to win
Pricing (before): ~$40 for permanent premiumship
Sales (before): All times low despite 50% discounts
New features after transfer of ownership? No
Material change after transfer of ownership? No
Other games: PUBG price: $34.99; FIFA price: $38.99...

LETS PRICE AW AT $71.88 PER YEAR :0)

Wr1tt3n by 4nic, 02.01.2019 at 13:18

So Dave, i don't know what the analysis was, but lets get straight to the facts, 72$ for a yearly premium, for a broken game, less then 300 active members, non functioning map editor, and other smaller things that can be mentioned, like with moderators actions, but lets not. Dont want to get this straight into archives.

Ivan and amok had the game at 45$ for full-premium, which people also found to be too high for what the game offers, you are new but it would be a good idea to see the games demographic. age groups/nationality, there's a few of these information in the feedback polls forum.

Most players are either slavs, eastern europeans, americans and turks, probably 4/5 non americans, as an eastern european myself i can tell you we rarely pay for games, especially ''indie'' games with unique and niche substances like Atwar. Infact most of us probably got premium through friends, often ivan would offer a discount or seperate packages for protocoins or a few
bucks, few exeptions.

That being said eastern europeans at best, for this game, humbly around 5$ or 5€ for the one year premium package

TL;DR

This is what Amok/Ivan had before:

1 month = $5.99
3 months = $17.97
6 months = $35.94
Lifetime = $49.99

And this is what I have now:

1 month = $5.99
3 months = $14.99
6 months = $24.99
1 year = $35.99

My prices are actually cheaper, so what are people upset about?

---

Let me see if I understand what you are suggesting... If there are 300 active players as you say, and we charge $5 for one year premium, that works out to $1500 of income for the entire year. The servers alone cost more than that to keep running. So what you're suggesting is... we bankrupt atWar?

Now let's be serious for a moment and talk pricing. I'll answer your question and also hopefully clear up some of the nonsense people are saying in chat. Note all prices are in USD.

Amok/Ivan set the pricing of atWar at $5.99/month. They offered packages for 1 month = $5.99, 3 months = $17.97 ($5.99 * 3), and 6 months = $35.94 ($5.99 * 6). This follows a nice pattern, yes? Then they had lifetime for $49.99, which is equal to $5.99 * 8.3, approximately. In other words, if you planned to play the game for more than 8.3 months, then lifetime was the best deal.

Now obviously I'm talking regular prices here. As I understand it, Amok/Ivan would typically do a 50% off sale at the end of the year. So all these prices would be reduced 50%, but the math is still the same -- lifetime price = 1 month * 8.3.

Are you with me so far? What I've described above is the pricing as it was from Amok/Ivan's time.

---

Now let's talk about my pricing:

• First, I turned off the 50% sale on December 31st, as I publicly said I would. No big surprise there.
  
  
• Second, I stopped offering lifetime premium. Why? Because it's a terrible idea for the long term survival of the game. Most of the premium players here already have lifetime, so all that money was collected by Amok/Ivan, but there is no recurring revenue left for the future. As much as I love the game, I'm not independently wealthy... meaning I can't run atWar as a charity. It needs to make a profit in order to pay for itself. If I wanted a short term infusion of cash, then sure I could sell a bunch of lifetime subscriptions at a big discount. But what I want (and what atWar needs) is long term stable income. So we need to stop selling lifetime subscriptions.
  
  -- Side Note #1: I'M NOT TAKING LIFETIME AWAY FROM ANYONE WHO ALREADY HAS IT. That's just silly, so all you people screaming about it can stop.
  
  -- Side Note #2: For those of you that think I'm being "greedy", my response is... oh really? You think so? Just imagine what would have happened to atWar if some (actually greedy) silicon valley corporation had bought it. They would be monetizing the shit out of everything. They'd turn this into a Vegas cash machine, and you wouldn't even recognize the game anymore. They'd pump it for all they could get out of it, then dump it. (Or, on the other hand, probably nobody else would have bought atWar to begin with, because the revenue numbers were so bad. More likely Amok/Ivan would have just stopped paying the servers some day and you would all be out in the dark.)
  
  
• Third, I added a 1 year option to fill the slot where lifetime used to be. How did I come up with the (regular) price for it? I followed the same exact formula as Amok/Ivan: $5.99 * 12 months = $71.88. Simple.
  
  
• Finally, I put in some new discounts. I didn't like the flat 50% discount on everything, because there's no incentive to get a longer subscription. Almost every subscription service I can think of gives you a bigger discount the longer you go. So that's what I'm doing here. If you only want 1 month, you pay full price $5.99. If you want 3 months, you pay $14.99 which is about a 17% discount. 6 months, you pay $24.99 which is 30% discount. 1 year, you pay $35.99 which is 50% discount. This makes 1 year the best deal, so there is a clear incentive to buy it.
  

These discounts are not the same thing as a sale like the one that just ended. If I do another year end sale for 2019 (which I probably will), then all of these prices would be reduced further. But the point here is really just to show the value you're getting vs. what you're paying, and hopefully motivate people to choose longer subscriptions. It is highly unlikely I would ever actually charge full price ($71.88) for 1 year.

I hear what you are saying about $5.99 being too much for Eastern Europeans / other countries. I'm open to the possibility of lowering the price at some point, but if so it would have to be the same price across the board. Meaning I'm not going to charge different prices for different countries. And of course if we change the base monthly price, all the longer term subscriptions would have to be re-priced accordingly. That said, I think $5.99 is not that much for one game... I know people who spend much more than that on other subscription games!

However for people who can't afford $5.99, I would rather level the playing field for them in other ways. For example, we're going to be doing more Protocoin drops, which people could use to buy premium. I want to do other events where people can participate and get Protocoins. I also want to add more places you can actually use Protocoins... for example what if we allow non-premium players to start a game using a premium map for X protocoins? There are a lot of ideas in this area, it's just a matter of time to implement and try them.

Of course, a lot of this is an experiment and it may take some time to find the right balance of pricing, discounts, protocoin usage, etc. I think I'm on the right track though, since some people have already purchased the new 1 year subscriptions.

Update #1: added TL:DR.

Wr1tt3n by The_Empirezz, 02.01.2019 at 13:29

Yes I wanted to send a mail about this and the fact that the word ''nig ger'' was removed from the game's vocabulary. But alas.. my half hour of writing a mail was in waste as that word caused the mail to be crashed

You can still use the word in PMs. There are no restrictions on PMs.

Most likely your session just timed out. If you are typing for a very long time, this can happen. That's why I always copy what I've typed before I send it, just in case.

Wr1tt3n by Guest, 02.01.2019 at 14:26

I thought everybody knew by now that writing about issues on atWar doesn't fix them. If it did, this game would be massively different.

My God Casper, you need to have a little more patience. I've been here 1 month and I'm only one person, you can't expect me to fix literally years of issues that quickly!

Wr1tt3n by Dragon, 02.01.2019 at 14:30

Nature of AW: Outdated web game

True.

Wr1tt3n by Dragon, 02.01.2019 at 14:30

Target market: 15-20 years old

I'd say 15-35.

Wr1tt3n by Dragon, 02.01.2019 at 14:30

Main player base: Eastern Europe

Most paying users now are from USA, followed by Western Europe.

Wr1tt3n by Dragon, 02.01.2019 at 14:30

Number of active players: Less than 150
Status of game: 10-15 games at most in peak hours

False. We actually have a lot more than that.

Wr1tt3n by Dragon, 02.01.2019 at 14:30

Pricing (before): ~$40 for permanent premiumship

It was $49.99 for lifetime premium.

Wr1tt3n by Dragon, 02.01.2019 at 14:30

New features after transfer of ownership? No
Material change after transfer of ownership? No

I've been here 1 month guys. Give me a little benefit of the doubt, for fucks sake!

Wr1tt3n by Dragon, 02.01.2019 at 14:30

Other games: PUBG price: $34.99; FIFA price: $38.99...

Totally different games. You're comparing apples to oranges.

Wr1tt3n by Dragon, 02.01.2019 at 14:30

LETS PRICE AW AT $71.88 PER YEAR :0)

It's actually only $35.99 for one year.

Moving this back to general discussion. I don't know why it was archived, it's fair enough for people to be concerned about pricing. I don't mind having the discussion.

If there were more things to do with protocoins, I would buy some.

Wr1tt3n by Dave, 02.01.2019 at 15:20

Moving this back to general discussion. I don't know why it was archived, it's fair enough for people to be concerned about pricing. I don't mind having the discussion.

Dude u're a very patient guy, taking time to explain of that shit.

Maybe for the futur would be better to announce things before (maybe i've missed the annonce, if so nic is a nerd)

Wr1tt3n by Witch-Doctor, 02.01.2019 at 15:26

If there were more things to do with protocoins, I would buy some.

Wr1tt3n by Guest, 02.01.2019 at 15:30

Maybe for the futur would be better to announce things before (maybe i've missed the annonce, if so nic is a nerd)

Maybe I should have made an announcement... at the time I didn't think it was necessary, but I didn't realize people were going to freak out so bad.

Wr1tt3n by Dave, 02.01.2019 at 15:40

Wr1tt3n by Guest, 02.01.2019 at 15:30

Maybe for the futur would be better to announce things before (maybe i've missed the annonce, if so nic is a nerd)

Maybe I should have made an announcement... at the time I didn't think it was necessary, but I didn't realize people were going to freak out so bad.

Yeah, I think a few players might've bought the 1 year thinking it was lifetime since they didn't know about the change.

Dave if I can reduce people's elo for 100 protocoins, I would dump so much cash on this game.

Wr1tt3n by Guest, 02.01.2019 at 15:42

Wr1tt3n by Dave, 02.01.2019 at 15:40

Wr1tt3n by Guest, 02.01.2019 at 15:30

Maybe for the futur would be better to announce things before (maybe i've missed the annonce, if so nic is a nerd)

Maybe I should have made an announcement... at the time I didn't think it was necessary, but I didn't realize people were going to freak out so bad.

Yeah, I think a few players might've bought the 1 year thinking it was lifetime since they didn't know about the change.

If so, then either they are blind or they can't read. It clearly says 1 year.

Wr1tt3n by Witch-Doctor, 02.01.2019 at 15:43

Dave if I can reduce people's elo for 100 protocoins, I would dump so much cash on this game.

Lol, maybe I'll do that.

Honestly, I understand the fuss, as the community took lifetime premiumship ability as something granted and unique to AtWar. But the truth is, the management changed and with it, so did the game. Whether we like it (it was needed, anyways), or not. We, as a community, must be thankful for Amok and Ivan for creating such a project that ended up 'flourishing' and despite all that happened and all the neglect that was imposed upon the game and the community, survived these 10 years. However, we need to mature and grow up, look beyond the idleness and futility of "staying the same ad eternum". There's much reform needed that has been pointed out for years by various members of the community along with formulated ideas to surpass difficulties, and we must wait for them and give our quota of contribution, whether by feedback, or by actively contributing to the game, independently or collectively.

To be Frank (see the pun with Kevin Spacey vid lolz), I haven't been up to checking all the fuss regarding the chance, but come on people, AtWar's a game, run and marketed by a private corporation that pursues profit and financial vitality that allows the game to stand on its feet, ultimately enabling (in our case, Dave) the Admin to pursue greater reform and innovation. We had too many years in a game that was neglected (for various reasons) and put on a laissez-faire, almost rotting on its own, if it wasn't for Sun Tzu at his time and Moderators throughout this whole time aswell as (some) supporters. So, change, especially on its revenue sources was to be expected.

Lifetime Premium, (and I have it, so I could sort of be accused of bias, since I have it and this discussion wouldn't personally interest me?) as exposed did not seem profitable and eventually casted a shadow upon the other premium subscriptions as it seems way more reliable to buy a lifetime premium than to buy a x month subscription. Either way, the current lifetime premiums don't need to be considered as a lost perspective for financial gains, since that lifetime premium was and is usually conveyed at map production and a contribution by players to the community that if there were no lifetime premiums, would not occur. Now, it's true 1 year premium subscription seems a bit far-off for a good junk of the player section of this game that wouldn't give a dollar to this game and would rather pirate it (cykas, I'm looking at you ), however, we could mitigate that burden with more promotions, special events or even giveaways (as its been happening, for some time now, with private members funding it).

Also, I've played Supremacy 1914 and Call of War for a few years, and, if memory does not fail me, premium there was at around the same monthly prices than AtWar, and there were inumerous players (western europeans mostly, honestly) that would repeatedly subscribe to premium, effectively throwing away dozens of $ to funding that game. And S1914 and CoW are slow as fuck games, and we could kinda consider as direct competitors for AtWar, when it comes to player market. If we want more revenue, since we have a big eastern european and turkish market, might aswell focus on advertising it in Asia or Western Europe, idk

Just give Dave a benefit of the doubt, we waited 3 years for a map editor, each December 31st Amok or Ivan guaranteeing us that in the upcoming summer, the editor would-be out and we patiently waited, I think we can wait out a little bit longer for reforms, and give our quota of help if required, whether trough feedback or support in various fields.

Wr1tt3n by Witch-Doctor, 02.01.2019 at 15:26

If there were more things to do with protocoins, I would buy some.

Same!

I understand Dave decisions based on the information that he gave us, they make sense, I wanted to suggest few things that you might already considered.

1. The server price seems to high, maybe you can move it somewhere else like on https://scaleway.com
2. Sell Merchandise/Goods
3. Increase ads on website, the right amount of ads will not make people abandon the game
4. Have more people on the site to split the cost
5. Sell more services (with protocoins)
6. Move the game to other platforms, like steam

Wr1tt3n by Dave, 02.01.2019 at 15:40

Wr1tt3n by Guest, 02.01.2019 at 15:30

Maybe for the futur would be better to announce things before (maybe i've missed the annonce, if so nic is a nerd)

Maybe I should have made an announcement... at the time I didn't think it was necessary, but I didn't realize people were going to freak out so bad.

Keep it noted, but this community tends to freak out with whatever admin or moderator does that targets their interests or friends. Ask the moderators, they know the heat they have to put up with sometimes xd

Wr1tt3n by Dave, 02.01.2019 at 15:20

Moving this back to general discussion. I don't know why it was archived, it's fair enough for people to be concerned about pricing. I don't mind having the discussion.

I think your doing a fine job. A bit of advice I was skeptic prior to your statements on the issue as all information given was from players.
You should probably make a log of all your changes, where you can write your thinking behind them and answer questions. It would totally stop the fear mongering of trolls. Because after you explained I totally get your point.

Consider adding Lifetime Premium back for a higher price. It would make for a fine prize in tournaments and giveaways, also I'm sure some people would like to spend the extra to get it. Also, thanks for taking the time to respond to this thread and answering the questions! Transparancy is important as we want to be updated on everything.

Wr1tt3n by Al Fappino, 02.01.2019 at 15:57

Wr1tt3n by Witch-Doctor, 02.01.2019 at 15:26

If there were more things to do with protocoins, I would buy some.

Same!

I agree we need an updated ProtoShop.

Wr1tt3n by Witch-Doctor, 02.01.2019 at 15:26

If there were more things to do with protocoins, I would buy some.

I couldn't agree more. I've got a few ideas I've been looking into. I haven't made any official posts yet, but you should see something here in the next few days or so