I know we’re probably kind of far from something like this, but what if we could trade Gleam Club membership like a consumable item, similar to the way Runescape runs their membership? It could give perks access to the younger playerbase who might not have the funds but still play the game a ton, or anyone who might not have the funds at the time? I linked an OSRS wiki entry that explains the mechanics of the bond trades, I’m assuming (and hoping) Boundless would have a better spin on it.
Edit: For the record this would mean a player could buy a 1 month pass with real money and trade it to another player for coin and/or items. Wonderstruck would get paid!
I dunno… GC is a pretty main (not 100% sure on that) and necessary source of income, it costs a lot of money to keep servers online…
just simply having active players doesn’t help with that, it makes it worse heh. more players = more work for the servers = more cost.
Unless you mean being able to gift a period of GC to someone after it’s been paid for, that I’m ok with but paying for GC with cubits doesn’t seem right. Cubits are what you get after paying money or playing the game.
GC should be paid only.
ok, if these GC coins were a separate, new currency tied only to irl money, then ok, i’m fine with that.
but that is a little dangerous in that it may be seen as another p2w element to some players… "what?! another currency?!) or may seem like EA style microtransactions or something.
it would just have to be really clear when introducing the currency or idea.
Yeah, a GC bond wouldn’t get created unless someone purchased a GC bond with irl money. Essentially a way to buy the perks for someone and get something in return with an enforced trade.
im nomraly the first to cry P2W but its not really you are not generating coin out of thin air it would require someone with what you would value a 1 month GC membership in coin to trade it
oh for sure! I’m just saying the perception of someone who doesn’t do the right research
which is why i said it would need to be clear and specific when introducing it so new players don’t assume things
I would say revisit this idea after we have a large enough player base to merit the use of it.
Besides, with how bad player retention is, we’d just see beacons all over the place for 6-12+ months at a time that don’t get used. I much rather not have that problem we did in EA come back to the game. That’s if the player gets the coin to buy GC in the first place.
I feel you, but we’re experiencing this already, without this kind of feature so I wouldn’t cite this as a reason not to implement. For reference, 2 single plot, untouched beacons right next to my build
There is currently a perceived problem with player retention to the tune of “I came back and my beacon ran out and all my stuff was gone I quit 5ever bye” as well as “this game feels like a job”, so this mechanic could offer free month passes if someone wanted to take a break?
And if they never come back? We’ll just see a lot more beacons around with empty plots. It will literately be the same thing that happened in EA. What we have right now is no where even close to how bad it was.
I don’t see a problem with the cost of GC.
And the issue with player retention isn’t perceived. It’s actually a reality of what’s going on.
I don’t see a problem with the cost either, but not everyone has access or the means to afford it every month. Thinking in the vein of like… age 10-16 without a credit card.
The game is $40 USD at full price. It’s pretty unlikely that a 10-16 year old is going to just be able to shell out that kind of cash for the game since they can’t hold down a day job because of laws and what not without their parents buying the game for them. I think that’s a thing even outside of United States. So I doubt they’d be able to play long enough to learn the game to acquire the coin in order to buy GC with coin. On top of that, I doubt they’d be able to just straight up buy GC with real money whenever they need it if they can’t even afford to buy the game at $40 USD.
Chances are more likely that they won’t even be able to buy the game at it’s current selling price anyways. Not every kid has their parents also playing the game.
On top of that, without new players buying the game on a regular basis that generates the revenue to justify getting better servers and financing additional content for the game, it won’t matter how many times the current player base purchases GC. It’s even more irrelevant since we don’t have regular game purchases from new players to see any solid positive trending growth. The free play weekend event would have been more successful if there was better player retention and new player experience in the game.
The problem isn’t that people can’t afford GC every month or six months or whatever the case is. The problem is the price of GC is irrelevant if players aren’t being retained and the $40 USD price tag is deterring potential customers away; which is an actual real economic thing. Bring in the terrible new player experience that adds to the bad player retention and you have a very horrible recipe for sustainable growth and consistent product sales.
GC shouldn’t be offered as a coin purchase at this time because of all of these reasons. Maybe later when the game reaches 100k players or something like that. But definitely not when the game doesn’t even have 1000 players playing it every week.
Alright, let’s pump the brakes a bit. In USD, 1 unit sale of the game = 8 purchases of GC. James just got done posting as well that the GC purchases are used to cover the server costs, so this feature would actually further incentivize current backers to maintain the infrastructure.
Before updating the OP, I think I did a bad job of clarifying that a person actually has to purchase the 1 month GC in order for them to have the ability to trade it with a player. Also, this mechanic already exists in a popular game and is working. Does that change your opinion at all?
