Although they caught a ton of flack (interestingly, not RIGHT at release or when the game leaked out a bit before - the floodgates on that seemed to be opened by a single Reddit post a little bit after comparing they thought were supposed to be in the game to what was), by building so much hype beforehand, they were able to get in a critical mass of fans who loved it as it was, and all those initial sales let them put their heads down and go to work on the updates making it the success it now is. There are still people who won’t forgive them even now, but they got some of their money regardless.
Sean IMO managed to do what not even the best PR firm could have done though - made himself a cult figure. First the hype then the mystery… even now, he plays the fanbase fiddle like a virtuoso. He caught them a ton of hell, but also got them a lot of press. Back before NMS’s release, I learned about it right away, 2013 IIRC, but even if I hadn’t, it had all sorts of press and exposure to where I would have learned about it repeatedly if I hadn’t right then. Boundless did do a few things and events as majorvex mentioned, but it got nowhere even close to the exposure that I can see - I only learned about it when seeing it by chance in the PS store, and this is with me browsing gaming stuff online, various social media sites, a LOT. But this is the norm too, it is hard to get that kind of exposure as an indie, I see it with a lot of games in the works that I follow… so many incredible ideas, so much talent and heart, but just not many people who seem to be aware of them. Boundless could and should have gotten a lot more hype and attention - so many cool, innovative features, all the worlds, portals, game economy, seeing builds from other planets. I’ve said before, but the general reaction I tended to get when I’d share screenshots on Twitter was, “This looks really cool! What is this?”
I think one of the things that made NMS sell so well on launch is that Sean talked very well about his game. He was charming, intelligent and enthusiastic. His only problem was that he probably got carried away talking about what he wanted to have in NMS at launch and what was actually available at launch and people read too much that was clearly ambiguous as being a promise.
And like Paka had pointed out, those big sales allowed Sean and his team to continue adding content without worrying about putting food on the table.
I think if Boundless had had a naturally talkative personality to talk enthusiastically about Boundless to the gaming press Boundless would have been a better selling game at launch.
When a developer really believes in their game AND can talk enthusiastically about it at length to anyone who will listen it’s priceless, free PR.
In the end, Boundless has not been able to retain players. Advertising alone is not going to fix a game that is perceived by most players to have flaws. There seems to be a common thread that the NPE is poorly handled in the game which seems to be reflected in statistics related to achievements. Marketing is not ever going to help with this, only changes to the program. I also believe that in the end, the game is just too time consuming and grindy for the average player that does not spend 5+ hours a day playing a single game. If players do not feel a sense of accomplishment during the time they have to play then they move on to a game where they can. I do not have any other games where I spend literally hours mining and end up with nothing but piles of rocks, or set my workshop up to craft and then log out for a day to allow the crafting to complete. I have never understood how the long crafting times were good for the game. I also never understood how the RNG can be anything other than frustrating for a casual player.
We all know that indie games can succeed and can do so without a lot of advertising or PR. Games such and Space Engineers (with over 5,000 concurrent steam players) and Don’t Starve (with 1,800 concurrent steam players even with the launch of Don’t Starve Together which has over 15,000 concurrent steam players). I do not think advertising and PR alone would have made a difference as long as the developers continued to follow the complexity is fun mantra espoused by one of the developers during the games first year. The developers seemed to listen to this and the players that felt that the longer it took to do something the better and the more ingredients and steps to craft something the better. In the end I think all that did was discourage the casual player and the cash flow they could have brought to the game.
Very good points there, and I find myself going back and forth on a lot of it I admit. No question the NPE and complexity are serious issues, but would it have gotten many more in the door even had these things been optimized so that retention was much higher (so better reviews/word of mouth spread)? Edit: Based on the returns Phil mentioned them needing per month in the other thread, it sounds like even had we kept 100% of the free weekend players it might not have been enough. Of course, monetization is another issue too here.
Conversely, if enough hype had been built, if a lot more copies were sold initially, it might have enabled them to do more and get it turned around… and it perhaps could have still found enough of the niche of those of us who are addicted regardless to sustain itself. Absolutely a game like this I feel should have a lower barrier to entry and it took me working with a newcomer directly to see just how many issues there are… but some do love complexity, with enough attention it might have managed a better base?
In the end it probably needed both. Sounds like, due to that lack of early attention, the early access players were skewed then to the more intense/less casual sorts, where if the early base was larger and had more casual types, it might have been more vocal in stressing the issues on the complexity.
To be honest, I think there were plenty of players that were concerned about the complexity and time commitment the game was requiring from EA players, but with a developer (who left a few years ago) liking the complexity and a group of players saying that players wanted things “handed to them versus working for them”, it seems this was ignored and I feel like now we are dealing with the consequences of that. Also some items like the forge were introduced right when the game went live so one item that certainly introduced complexity was not even a part of the game in EA (or at least not until the very end).
We will probably never know if the cash flow route taken was ever going to pay for the game. If after the free weekend when we had 800+ concurrent players from steam and that meant 4000 actual players and half bought gleam club then the game would have a cash flow of 10,000 USD per month. That would have at least paid for running the game and maybe that number would have meant more word of mouth spreading good things about the game. Maybe they should have used a subscription model and made the initial purchase price less. Maybe if we had 1000 players willing to pay $5 per month for a subscription the game would be covering its costs.
I do wonder how difficult/time consuming it would be to change some things about the game. If they reduced the crafting times across the board, if they increased the drop rates from mining, gathering and farming, and if they increased the number of items produced when crafting would this encourage more playing? If they reduced the number of ingredients (not just the quantity of any ingredient but a reduction in the number of types of ingredients) needed for recipes would that also encourage more play? If players could do more in less time could we keep people playing longer and maybe as a side effect encourage more gleam club and cubit purchases?
At this point even if it upsets some players, I think some consideration needs to be given to changes that might broaden the appeal of the game.
I do think this is a big part of it too. There are many popular games that were fully created and promoted by just one person or a couple. They showed so much passion for getting their game out there to share with others (now look at them): Project Gorgon, Ooblets, Minecraft, Stardew Valley…
Warframe is another popular game that struggled to get going and made some missteps:
“The studio had found it important to release new content regularly to keep a stream of income from the game. They were also faced with the problem that to understand all of Warframe’s systems required some commitment by the player, and players that felt it was too much would wash out after a few hours. This led to them investing more into the player community to keep them up to speed while helping players understand what the game’s systems offered. This included starting a weekly video games development “Devstream” on YouTube hosted by community manager Rebecca Ford. Starting a fan convention called TennoCon, and working with Twitch as a partner to promote certain streamers and offer Warframe rewards within the game.”
The harvest times on farming and not releasing the original promised content (namely Titans) was ultimately what had driven me and a few others away from the game.
What has kept me away for the last 8 months is the recent developments really don’t peak my interests for current game play.
With hindsight, this is probably the only way to make it profitable. With the way it’s currently funded, people’s initial investment in buying the game can only last for a certain length of time, but the server upkeep costs continue indefinitely and they are forced to rely on quick turn-around churn just to break even. Gleam club just doesn’t cut it, it seems.
This is compounded by the fact that the universe will expand to accommodate extra players, but then can’t shrink again. They got a lot of planets spawned around launch when it had good coverage and that all needed upkeep, but the only directions it could go from there are the player-base shrinks due to attrition (but have to cover disproportionately increasing costs), or it grows due to success (at which point the universe grows more and the costs remain proportionate).
Tbh, both Turbulenz and us EA people should have seen this coming way before it even launched, or at least discussed/highlighed it more, given how niche the appeal for this game is.
I see this mentioned a lot and I do agree it does fit a niche. I mean doesn’t every game appeal to a certain niche and can’t that niche really be of any size? I mean I view Boundless appealing to anyone who loves Minecraft/Modded Minecraft, Creativerse, No Man’s Sky, ARK or really any sandbox building game. I still feel they could drop the whole MMO tag as I don’t think that is really what draws in the crowd.
I still think they should drop this off the Steam page though.
I don’t agree with the niche statements nor removing the mmo function. Roblox, Tr**e, and modded Minecraft aren’t niche either. I do agree that PvP should be removed and replaced with PvE and PvM.
I don’t feel it fits a niche so much as just fits in a genre of games. For the most part, it fits in with the games I listed and many others. I look at Steam a lot and whenever you go to the Boundless store page it shows a “More Like This” and currently for me those games are: ARK, Raft, The Forest, Starbase, Terraria, Astroneer, Rust, Don’t Starve Together, Craftopia, Valheim, 7 Days To Die and Green Hell.
So when I think of a niche I think it more fits into a genre of Open World Survival, MMO, Building/Base Building …
The Steam “More like this” isn’t the same for everyone. Mine says “Ark, Starbase, Raft, Satisfactory, The Forest, Valheim, Eco, Rust, Scum, Conan, Tr***, Space Engineers”. I think Steam just suggests some of the top selling games - a marketing strategy. There are games that are much more similar to Boundless than the ones they suggest.
Catching up on previous posts regarding the state and costs of operating the game. Despite not being active, I would be really sad to see boundless disappear.
There’s been some interesting ideas thrown around. I guess the question is what takes the least amount of overhead and has the most potential to bring new players and more money.
I think reducing the number of planets certainly does have an immediate effect, but potentially also alienates some core and new players and ultimately drives them away. Not to mention the outward appearance to new players that are interested enough to look at buying the game. My opinion is this should be a last ditch effort.
There is no doubt that the universe is bigger than it actually needs to be. Especially with the addition of private planets. What if the universe was split in to a tiered system. Base purchase of the game would give you free access to the first 3 tiers of the universe. To access anything above requires the purchase of gleam club.
It’s a radical change, but it theoretically requires the least amount of invested time by devs and shoulders the burden of the server costs.
It’s not just the best selling when it is the “More Like This” usually. I mean I am sure it’s partly a marketing strategy, but like many games I own, I have looked at this section many times to find games similar to a game I might be playing. I used it to find many games in the past and it tends to work pretty well in finding games similar. I do feel Boundless is kind of in it’s own genre in some ways it does however have tags assigned by Steam that aligns it with some other games with the same tags kind of like below:
I don’t know if you can charge for the game and then also charge a subscription to get access to half the game. That would lead to bad press. It might work if you made the game free to play and then required gleam club to access the higher tiers. That way the initial 3 tiers are a free demo, with subscription to the full game.
People who have already paid for the game would need to still have access to the full game though, or again you get bad press for cheating people. It could get complicated.
That is fair perspective. I certainly don’t deny that or disagree with your comments. Also gives the old “pay to win” tag more credence too.
However, it certainly seems a drastic approach is needed. As the current situation seems there’s not enough income to justify keeping the servers running in the future and the development has been stalled. What ever happens in the end I don’t think will be ideal for every player, but I’m onboard with any ideas that have the potential to give the game new life.
Sorry for delay, not been around for a few days. For my perspective, it is a massively niche game.
Look at how it advertises itself. A voxel sandbox MMO. But MMO’s which frequently require more effort and grind to increase longevity are almost diametrically opposed to the creative builder games. The MMO crowd usually want depth and complexity, with combat and really skill/knowledge based mechanics. And Boundless isn’t that (skill trees are not complex, there are no hard choices to make; crafting is not complex, it is time consuming; Forging is almost complex, but the heavy RNG nature really diminishes the value of skill/knowledge). On the other hand, the voxel builder creative crowd usually don’t mind a little work, but want to be able to build things and actually BE creative in any given play session. And Boundless isn’t that either. It caters to the limited middle ground of players who want a bit of both.
Even if you knew nothing about the game, you could look the number of players who stick with it. While there are other factors (like lack of ability to/difficulty accessing in-game info or a lacklustre NPE), this does give enough hints that while it is part of the voxel builder, survival and MMO genres, it doesn’t appeal to large proportion of people who buy it based on those tags.
TLDR: I’m not saying Boundless is a bad game. It is a good game. But it tries to be too many things to too many people and ends up only being right for the small subset of people who want most (if not all) of those things. Otherwise you’re just left playing part of a game, and whichever part it is, it’s a part that isn’t optimised for being a sole experience, or to be done without the others as well. That is why I say it’s a niche game.
Hmm. I see your points. I have found myself asking many times (even here on the forums) if they were trying to go the MMORPG route or if they still wanted to be a voxel sandbox building game. When the grind for mats & recipes become tedious, it leans more towards MMORPG. However, it would need many things added to become a full on MMORPG. If it wants to be a voxel sandbox building game, it needs to provide more decor and blocks…and loosen up the requirements for crafting & building.
There are a couple of similar games that have made it work. I don’t know if they had more backing, marketing, a larger team, luck, or what. One of the main ones is F2P with tons of MTX though. Boundless could be everything (if that is the goal), but they’d need to add a lot more content, creatures, dungeons, blocks, speed up crafting potions, ability for players to easily submit designs for others to use, more races & character customization, etc.
Boundless could and should have gotten a lot more hype and attention - so many cool, innovative features, all the worlds, portals, game economy, seeing builds from other planets. I’ve said before, but the general reaction I tended to get when I’d share screenshots on Twitter was, “This looks really cool! What is this?”
Sounds like, due to that lack of early attention, the early access players were skewed then to the more intense/less casual sorts, where if the early base was larger and had more casual types, it might have been more vocal in stressing the issues on the complexity.
