Suggestions to increase numbers of players!!!

[Jan]

(2) Trying to get rid of smoking? Throw away your Nicorettes, play Turbo Sliders!

Great one! Though I guess there are players in TS who still smoke.

In my opinion the current price is cheap enough for this game. Anyway it doesn't make big difference whether the price is 15e or 5e, only it would if TS would be freeware because then you don't have to pay anything through web. On the other hand freeware wouldn't be fair for those who have paid for the game, and like Limp-pu mentioned, there maybe would be more Kometen-like-people.

For me the hardest thing when I bought the game about a year ago was that I didn't have own bank account on web, so I had to use my dad's one. And my dad doesn't trust very much on paying the games through web like this and it wasn't very easy to make him pay. So in my case the price wasn't the problem, the problem was that it cost something.

I think that the best way to increase the amount of players is just to advertise the game more.

[The Dude]

Warning: This post may be longer than you could handle
To clarify one thing, my suggestion wasn't really to lower the price. You would get a discount by doing something; for example racing three months (> 300 races) so people who bought it for 20$ wouldn't feel cheated.
This suggestion wouldn't change the game and is therefor more realistic.

Now to my second suggestion A bit more unrealistic cause it would require changes to the game but not too much I think.

Background:
In the beginning (before my time), you had a 0.xx version which was free and many players were online. Many of them were the type of player who just wanted to have fun and play a few races between this and that. There were tight battles and these players wasn't so interested to join cups etc, just to have fun racing now and then. Then it happpened... the suddenly looked a bit nicer and cost 20$ - most of them left. Why?... Maybe they thought that graphics and mods wasn't all and the possibility to meet the new exiting players and share a few casual races each night would diminish.

How to get some of these back:
If you though that TS is a fun way of killing time but you didn't want it to be too serious then price is a factor.
What if you could get this kind of racing game for say 10$, then there would probably be more impulse-purchase of this game and you wouldn't need those who would go weeks of playing demo to decide if they would pay 20$ or get a few beers downtown.

My proposed solution:
Strip all mods of TS and just deliver a racing game for 10$.
Then for those who like there would be upgrades for this game.
Punaball +5$, BattleMode +5$ (both of these upgrades would unlock the modding capability of this game)

For those of you who discussed freeware. Another suggestion would ge to have a basic racing game as freeware and then provide upgrades for a small amount.

PS. I know that changing the game isn't most likely going to happen so do not comment on how improbable that would be, instead comment on the idea itself please.

[xzeal]

My proposed solution:
Strip all mods of TS and just deliver a racing game for 10$.
Then for those who like there would be upgrades for this game.
Punaball +5$, BattleMode +5$ (both of these upgrades would unlock the modding capability of this game)

Horrible horrible idea. Would work in some other games perhaps, but in TS...
... it would separate players, it would annoy players.

I really can't see any possible good outcome from this. If those 0.86 players did not buy the game back then when it was on a discount then they will hardy buy it now, 3 years later for the same discount while receiving less of the game.

Unlocking modding capability - do you mean the ability to create tracks and cars, since that is all that punaball really is, a round light weight car and a track with two holes in the wall.

I'll just stop here and say, bad idea ...

that 300 races idea sounds better, but financially a bad one. If they play 300 races they are hooked. When they are hooked they don't care about the price much.

[The Dude]

Horrible horrible idea. Would work in some other games perhaps, but in TS...
... it would separate players, it would annoy players.

As Dede said numerous of times. He sold the game to people who only wanted it for punaball. So you have separation today but have to pay for the whole package.

About discount back then. I didn't realize they could get the game for 10$. Ok, bad idea in that regard.

About Unlocking modding capability - do you mean the ability to create tracks and cars, since that is all that punaball really is, a round light weight car and a track with two holes in the wall.

I meant the ability to create cars, track (tiles etc.). About you comment on Punaball, true but you forget the logic that makes it into a game. You can not do that kind of modding today, can you?

that 300 races idea sounds better, but financially a bad one. If they play 300 races they are hooked. When they are hooked they don't care about the price much.

One year back when people played in average 60 demo races a month and did that for about 3-5 month without buying the game. Hooked or not, they cared for the game so long without buying it, why is that?

[dede]

One year back when people played in average 60 demo races a month and did that for about 3-5 month without buying the game. Hooked or not, they cared for the game so long without buying it, why is that?

It's because demo could provide good challenges and a big community. I've been playing all the day for weeks back in 2005. Demo server had players in there for about 24h/day. You could play even 300 races in a couple of weeks without even noticing it.
If the demo community doesn't exists, we'll hardly show to newcomers how fun this game is.

[Anddru]

Maybe something like this can help ?

http://turbosliders.com/forum/viewtopic ... highlight=

[mikko]

When it comes to computer games, there are many kind of people. I try to list them in the order of abundance:

1. People who do not have computers
2. People who have computers but do not play games
3. People who play games but never pay for them
4. People who play games and are willing to pay for them

All registered players of Turbo Sliders (who purchased the game themselves) belong to group 4, whereas demo players belong to either group 3 or group 4. From the point of view of Turbo Sliders, group 4 can be further classified as follows:

4a. People who are willing and capable of purchasing the game
4b. People who are willing to purchase the game but find it difficult in practice
4c. People who find the price too high for their wallet but would buy the game if it would cost less
4d. People who do not think this game is worth 20€ (are there any?)

So, which group of people should be our target? Most people in the world belong to group 1. They should not be our target because they do not have a computer and cannot therefore play. Most of those people who own a computer belong to group 2, but they should not be our target either because they do not play games. The next abundant group is 3. They do not pay for games (but invest 500€ to a graphic card and play 3D-shooters downloaded by p2p-programs). Because they do not pay for games, they will never buy Turbo Sliders. The only way to reach this group of people is to go freeware. That is where we should go.

If freeware is not an option, we have to put our focus on the most marginal group, group 4. Registered players belong to groups 4a and 4b, but there are also unregistered group 4b people. Jan above gave an example. It is not always easy to buy the game. Is there something that could be done to make it easier? The last method would be to go after group 4c and 4d people by lowering the price tag. But that would be the least fruitful method.

[dede]

All registered players of Turbo Sliders (who purchased the game themselves) belong to group 4, whereas demo players belong to either group 3 or group 4.

Normally I don't buy games. You know.. when you can play a game without paying it, you won't even consider about buying it (that's the Italian mentality at least).
For some kind of games, though, you're not allowed to play online unless you have the original game. Playing against human players is most of times worth to buy the game itself. I'm not sure why I bought Turbo Sliders. Probably I simply loved the demo and I wanted to have more fun, more opponents, and so on. I didn't even care about the price (12 EUR is about the money you spend going to disco, or drinking couple of cocktails).
Kind of freeware would help (free license for most addicted / best demo players?). And also a kind of system to calculate a discount based on skills/activity.

[The Dude]

About the price. When I started playing TS and considered buying it, I have to admit that I belonged to 4d
Why, you might ask?
It wasn't that I couldn't afford it. I just compared it to other games with a price tag of 20$. Back then I could chose from GTR - FIA GT Racing Game, Quake IV (4) (DVD), Swat 4, Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic and Turbosliders. These other games were about 6-10 month old back then.
I also though like Hatu wrote sometimes in the past

The only thing I really agree with here is that the price @ $19.95 is overpriced for a game of this quality. IMHO.. Just my opinion. I would feel it would sell better if cheaper, say like $9.99...
The features/gameplay are too lacking to have a price tag of $20 USD. I belive the game would do much better if it was sold for a lower price.

I still thinks that shareware games should be aimed to the mass (group 4c, 4d) by having a price tag so that you easily could afford it (4c) and don't start comparing them with larger commercial games (4d).

Drop my last idea with the mods - too much to change and maybe not that good - but I still support the player activity discount idea; aiming towards group 4c and 4d.