Not much since it’s 50% off more often than it’s not I feel 
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Yup, someone new in my community has been waiting for it to go on sale for a couple weeks. He picked it up today and is already hooked. I took him through Fireborn and he was blown away just by Gleam Universe. A couple others in my community that are interested too, hopefully I can convince them to get it.
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Bump. So what can we surmise from the recent Humble Bundle? A lot? Nothing? What is the proper price point?
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Until we have a chance to see of the players actually continue playing for more than a month, I do not think we can make any assumptions if this resulted in more players or not.
A second point would be (and we will never know this) are the players that got the game for so little buying cubits or gleam club and thereby supporting the continued development of the game or did they pick up a cheap game and are not going to be willing to spend any more on it?
I would think if the price was lowered then we might see more micro-transactions to make up for less cash on the purchase.
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from my experience with new players included @LeFleurr that you cannot judge the game by trailers but you will have to actually play the game to see if you like it, and this cannot be said after a weeks playtime.
just like @LeFleurr she said ‘‘i don’t think this game is something for me’’ yet she is fully addicted to it
and i seen some players that are hyped love the game and last only a month…
tip of the day dont rush into the game by thinking you must be rich or must have everything.
that will kill the gameplay mood, just relax take your time to get to know the game
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i think that the coronavirus also increase the amount of players online. for th epeople who having more time or something.
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I agree unconditionally. Unfortunately, the world, especially the Western world, is now perpetually impatient and wants instant gratification. Will people actually delay their judgment for a week? My hunch is that most will not. Research shows that human patience thresholds are at an all-time low.
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From everything I’ve seen so far, I’m pretty convinced that more important than the price point and other factors in getting good players that we will keep, is simply getting it under the noses of the right group of players. Fans of other indie gems that have similarities and require similar time investments… perhaps other common factors that I’ve seen like being a little older on the average. So many people play games of course, even more now as pointed out, so any niche can be of a great size, more than enough to keep a game healthy.
By far the group to hit, that I’ve seen tons of overlap with on social media and a number of players come in from, is No Man’s Sky. Minecraft has a pretty broad base… NMS doesn’t have as big a base, but it IS still pretty big, and more of the group that I think will try and perhaps stick with Boundless as well. Couple other indies I can think of like Citadel: Forged With Fire and Conan Exiles that could be good to hit too. Posted before but in general what I’ve seen from screenshot sharing on Twitter: Boundless shots can draw a lot of comments and interest - general gist is , “This looks really cool… what is this?”
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i agree with you there and i have said it as well, in other words people are becoming lazy, and want all the gains faster and faster, things easier and easier without much work involved , there’s hardly any dedication anymore. back in my days… when i worked hard for something the achievement was worth it and gave me a good feeling and it kept me motivated! now these days most people don’t feel that anymore and they get bored faster and faster unfortunately 
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no not at all… the price is perfectly fine…
Sales now having those every 2 or 3 months is a good idea… everyone loves a bargain…check it out the deluxe version of this Boundless deluxe version is 60 bucks but its on sale for 30 for the next 24 hours!!!
Also, furniture,etc should be released as CHEAP DLCs say the space station furniture pack with 15 space age pieces only 2 dollars!!! Different packs all different DLCs… of course release a basic version of the furniture as Free content…but the special “themed” versions can be a small cash flow for the Developers.
The combinations of those two things plus rental planet money, gleam club money, etc will insure Boundless stays moving forward.
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and not to forget, people are vulnerable to other peoples comments as well
if i tell someone who’s vulnerable to what others say and i say nah don’t start that game its bad .
he or she will not even bother but who knows that game is totally what he or she wanted?
i think and know we should stop judging games and ‘‘people’’ by other people’s experiences
reviews etc is part of that as well
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Yep, definitely - that is when, when I’m interested in a game and look at reviews, I pay FAR more attention to specifics than comments like “This is fun!” or “This stinks.” I have a LOT of love for some games others hate, that get trashed in reviews, specifically budget RPGs. So if I’m interested in something, I want details.
Have to catch attention first of course, make people aware of a game.Sometimes you might have just a split second to catch someone’s attention, to get them to look into something more. The beauty of Boundless gives an edge there, both landscapes and creations - more screens out there the better. Boundless screenshots draw a LOT of nice comments on social media. 
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@Kal-El I think those are very valid points and yes, more data is needed to properly appraise the value this new influx of players has brought to the game. The only thing I would add is that many players did not stick around at the normal price point. Within the last year or two, quite a lot of new content was added and that new content did not seem to stem the overall decline of players either.
I do not have data to back my assertion but these new Humble players seem different to me. I have corresponded with many this past month and they very much seem to be enjoying the game. Obviously, many, maybe even most will probably not be in it for the long haul but my gut tells me that a good portion will be retained. I think a lower price is needed and I would be ok with cosmetic microtransactions to make up the shortfall. Again, I have no data to back this up.
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This has been my experience too. Maybe because steam sales pull in from a broad audience that has chewed through their other games, and they are just looking for another game real quick. The Humble Bundle was targeted marketing and grouped specific genres of games together.
Does anyone remember what else was in the Humble Bundle? DQB2 type games? A couple of JRPGs? MMORPGs? If so, those players are used to games where you level up your characters, skills, etc. I think that there’s a big difference from players that prefer fast, short, games that can be completed and long-lasting sandbox/MMORPG type games where you dedicate a lot of time to different activities, crafting, leveling, etc.
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Good observation, I think this is probably the reason. If it was bundled with a bunch of “dude, bro” FPS type games it would have brought a whole different audience and expectation.
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This is why the new player experience is so important. How someone feels about the first hour of gameplay will be a huge factor in determining whether or not they stick around. Right now the NPE is a bit of a grind and more of a survivalist kind of experience than most of the rest of the game. Its not necessarily a bad thing but doesn’t give much exposure to other methods of gameplay. For example, mining with an iron hammer is a slow process that can be quite boring. On the other hand, mining with an AOE diamond hammer with a mega fast brew is a totally different experience. Likewise with slingbows or mass crafting building materials. There’s no easy answer to improving the experience either as the devs are walking a tightrope that balances empowering new players and preserving a sense of progression.
Some changes that might help could include providing location waypoints to the top clusters of portals on a planet, making augments or easy forging recipes to give temporary forge effects to low level items and tools, or making a new player chat channel where the tutorial guides players to introduce themselves in it. Anything that enables new players to feel a sense of power and creative freedom without inhibiting progression should be the focus if player retention, and therefore player population, are the concern.
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[ grabs popcorn 
]
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I don’t think we should force the choice on new players. They should get to choose if they want to start in a city or in the country.
The system could select possible spawn points based on footfall. Maybe top 5 footfall spots on the planet?
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less inc money, same server costs… i dunno
I think the sales are better, rather than just chopping price in half.
In fairness, I don’t believe Boundless actually fills that niche all that well either. Compared to games from my past (Ultima Online being my favourite example), progressing your character is far too simple. Earn enough to grab your first forged tools, perform the single most XP efficient activity with them and you’re sorted. A dedicated player could easily be 50+ in a week, probably less. While you can fill out more skill pages after that, the opportunities for continued advancement seem too slim to draw in and keep the crowd that like a long, slower journey from newbie to mastery.
Crafting is also largely remedial. Sure, there are a lot of different pieces, but you just put stuff in a machine and wait. With today’s online resources, there is no skill to being good at crafting beyond Google-fu. Further, without any real interactivity to it, the only way to dedicate time to crafting is to scale your capacity to a point that you’re making more than you can use or sell (unless you’re trying to craft everything, which I’d stay stands against any notion of specialisation). Granted, forging is different, but it’s the kind of RNG nonsense that turns as many people off as it brings in.
I’d love Boundless to do well, but I’d say it still falls into a no man’s land of genre where it doesn’t fill any existing niche particularly well. Sometimes that can be a good thing, but it means that drawing people in by targeting genres is as likely to nett you bad reviews as it is good ones.