Posted by mlitney on 6/13/2023 3:19:00 PM (view original):

Posted by upsetcity on 5/29/2023 2:17:00 PM (view original):

Posted by salag on 5/29/2023 9:48:00 AM (view original):
It's an interesting concept. I wonder how profitable WIS is...would need to see more about their finances to evaluate. Lots of intriguing questions...

I think most people are considering buying HD vs. WIS in this thread. Buying WIS means you’d need to be taking care of HBD, GD, and all of the sim leagues as well.

I recall adlorenz mentioning HD was the least profitable of all the games which is likely why so little attention is placed onto it relative to the other games (which also receive little attention in the grand scheme). If WIS was bought by the community, I’m guessing it would still be best putting HD on the back burner lol.

HD could be much more profitable if they updated the credit system. It seems silly that D2 and D3 earn the same number of credits as D1, when they each have 1/3 of the coaches of D1.

i generally agree but unfortunately they did down the credits in d2/d3 once and lost a ton of users. in general i think shoe makes a good point about who gets those credits... the core user base who would generally play with or without credits.

i think having a reward for winning is cool, but also, i feel like winning a NT already means more than the credits to a lot of us. if i bought WIS tomorrow, i would probably make the controversial move to completely redesign credits. credits would no longer be usable for gift cards or seasons, they'd be usable for a variety of swag only. some of that swag would be in game virtual items, some would be real world items. it would obviously take some time and effort to rework the system to make it actually enjoyable and not feel like just taking something away, but i think it would be a lot better in the long run, and would scale better. in-game swag could actually be more expensive than seasons, with a small user base, but i think its still worth it.

they dont even need to update the credits they just need to have more coaches since the number of human coached teams is what brings in money since it doesnt matter to WIS whether its the same coaches winning and getting credits or they are spread out more evenly its the same amount of NT credits being given out regardless.

If you redo credits you lose a ton of coaches who have been playing essentially for free for years. and we know WIS has zero ability to replace those coaches with new ones.

but in the end even putting in the effort to fix things let alone try and make them better isnt even there

Unless you find leadership who is invested in improving the product and evolving the games, nothing else really matters.

Posted by gillispie on 6/13/2023 8:41:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mlitney on 6/13/2023 3:19:00 PM (view original):

Posted by upsetcity on 5/29/2023 2:17:00 PM (view original):

Posted by salag on 5/29/2023 9:48:00 AM (view original):
It's an interesting concept. I wonder how profitable WIS is...would need to see more about their finances to evaluate. Lots of intriguing questions...

I think most people are considering buying HD vs. WIS in this thread. Buying WIS means you’d need to be taking care of HBD, GD, and all of the sim leagues as well.

I recall adlorenz mentioning HD was the least profitable of all the games which is likely why so little attention is placed onto it relative to the other games (which also receive little attention in the grand scheme). If WIS was bought by the community, I’m guessing it would still be best putting HD on the back burner lol.

HD could be much more profitable if they updated the credit system. It seems silly that D2 and D3 earn the same number of credits as D1, when they each have 1/3 of the coaches of D1.

i generally agree but unfortunately they did down the credits in d2/d3 once and lost a ton of users. in general i think shoe makes a good point about who gets those credits... the core user base who would generally play with or without credits.

i think having a reward for winning is cool, but also, i feel like winning a NT already means more than the credits to a lot of us. if i bought WIS tomorrow, i would probably make the controversial move to completely redesign credits. credits would no longer be usable for gift cards or seasons, they'd be usable for a variety of swag only. some of that swag would be in game virtual items, some would be real world items. it would obviously take some time and effort to rework the system to make it actually enjoyable and not feel like just taking something away, but i think it would be a lot better in the long run, and would scale better. in-game swag could actually be more expensive than seasons, with a small user base, but i think its still worth it.

I feel like the price point of HD per season would need a decent reduction if the credit system for seasons was removed. If I had to pay full price every month I’d likely drop down to 1-2 teams instead of my current 6 teams as $80 every 1.5 months is pricey, and other coaches have even more teams than that

Posted by patsrule755 on 6/14/2023 11:44:00 AM (view original):

Posted by gillispie on 6/13/2023 8:41:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mlitney on 6/13/2023 3:19:00 PM (view original):

Posted by upsetcity on 5/29/2023 2:17:00 PM (view original):

Posted by salag on 5/29/2023 9:48:00 AM (view original):
It's an interesting concept. I wonder how profitable WIS is...would need to see more about their finances to evaluate. Lots of intriguing questions...

I think most people are considering buying HD vs. WIS in this thread. Buying WIS means you’d need to be taking care of HBD, GD, and all of the sim leagues as well.

I recall adlorenz mentioning HD was the least profitable of all the games which is likely why so little attention is placed onto it relative to the other games (which also receive little attention in the grand scheme). If WIS was bought by the community, I’m guessing it would still be best putting HD on the back burner lol.

HD could be much more profitable if they updated the credit system. It seems silly that D2 and D3 earn the same number of credits as D1, when they each have 1/3 of the coaches of D1.

i generally agree but unfortunately they did down the credits in d2/d3 once and lost a ton of users. in general i think shoe makes a good point about who gets those credits... the core user base who would generally play with or without credits.

i think having a reward for winning is cool, but also, i feel like winning a NT already means more than the credits to a lot of us. if i bought WIS tomorrow, i would probably make the controversial move to completely redesign credits. credits would no longer be usable for gift cards or seasons, they'd be usable for a variety of swag only. some of that swag would be in game virtual items, some would be real world items. it would obviously take some time and effort to rework the system to make it actually enjoyable and not feel like just taking something away, but i think it would be a lot better in the long run, and would scale better. in-game swag could actually be more expensive than seasons, with a small user base, but i think its still worth it.

I feel like the price point of HD per season would need a decent reduction if the credit system for seasons was removed. If I had to pay full price every month I’d likely drop down to 1-2 teams instead of my current 6 teams as $80 every 1.5 months is pricey, and other coaches have even more teams than that

agree 100%, it should not be 6x as expensive for 6 teams as for 1 team. some sort of scheme where you pay less for additional teams would be in order IMO.

Unpopular opinion: The flip side of this discussion though is that having a significant portion of your "customers" playing largely for free (or at pennies on the dollar) isn't really a good business model. Those people take up resources of the company (they generate CS tickets that have to be responded to, they hold jobs that paying customers want, they gripe when there is no development for a product they arent really paying for, they have user costs associated with more people interacting with the website). Im not arguing that they have no value, as more users is generally good for the community as they can bring in new players, help others, keep a healthier volume of coaches in worlds etc. Also, some level of credits does help incentivize people to play but I do think there is a chance the credits arent reflective of what WIS is getting out of it esp at D2/D3.

The fact that we've gotten to the point where the the core customer base runs multiple teams more or less for free is almost certainly why the investment in the game has stopped. A large percentage of the consistent customers are doing most of the winning and doing it without providing any revenue to the company. That's the why game has stagnated and why it continually changes ownership without renewed commitment or investment. So either the revenue structure changes or the game slowly dies off until it no longer exists.

there's no difference in revenue if its the same 5 coaches winning all the credits or the credits are spread out among 50 coaches.

its a set amount they are giving out each season regardless of who it is going to

I have ten teams and I suck these days, so HD is making plenty of money off of me. I would pay full price if they removed credits. You know the best things in life aren't for free.

I've been in these discussions for like 8 years, and I don't think any new convincing arguments have ever been made. The system is really backwards in a lot of ways, but the bottom line is that the baseline price point is just too high for a pay-as-you-go, online subscription game. So they need the big credit incentives if they want to retain users - but then that leads to the problems we all see with longtime users amassing more credits than they could ever spend on the game, and nothing else worthwhile to spend it on.

I don't know if there's any real problem to players playing "for free" as long as they've already put in up-front investment; and for the most part, players do that when they get to the point where they're cruising. So I think probably the thing I'd do is just turn the model into more of a one-time purchase thing (per world) that you just keep. Maybe $30 per world, or something. You don't get fired, until you get to the power conference level. Maybe some incentives for Final 4 or better, like a few dollars off another HD world or other WIS games, but free seasons wouldn't be a thing anymore, because it would be one-time and done. I think ultimately that also might allow for more growth too, because the price point per season is really high (with no credits) compared to other games, and is likely keeping folks away, especially folks who don't pick up the game quickly.

Posted by R0pey on 6/15/2023 2:17:00 PM (view original):
there's no difference in revenue if its the same 5 coaches winning all the credits or the credits are spread out among 50 coaches.

its a set amount they are giving out each season regardless of who it is going to

You could argue that having the elite coaches stockpile credits is a good thing. When they quit or get banned (wink wink) then that big pile of credits go unused.

Personally I'm sitting on about 12 free seasons worth of credits. I've been playing this game for like 8 years and have paid for maybe 2 seasons.

i've long thought it was a terrible business idea to let your best users play for free, as they're generally the ones who are hopelessly addicted and have the most elastic willingness to pay for the product. i would love for them to get rid of the credits and lower the baseline price a bit to make the entry point easier to swallow for new users while still collecting more revenue that can be funneled into development on the whole

I came up with a proposal to revamp the credit system years ago here

It was downvoted more than upvoted so I'm guessing it was a dumb idea.

Posted by trail on 6/16/2023 4:04:00 PM (view original):
i've long thought it was a terrible business idea to let your best users play for free, as they're generally the ones who are hopelessly addicted and have the most elastic willingness to pay for the product. i would love for them to get rid of the credits and lower the baseline price a bit to make the entry point easier to swallow for new users while still collecting more revenue that can be funneled into development on the whole

This is very true.

I'd suggest a cap system of credits, that you can't use more than $XX amount of credits in a 6 month period or 12 month period.