stevieoopsie
12-18-2011, 10:21 AM
Haven't played for 3 months due to busy schedule and now I'm back to my casual merchanting routine.. One of the recent developments in the gaming world (I hardly know anything about games) was Zynga's $9 billion IPO...now I know that some people have been complaining about STS but I still think Pocket Legends is AWESOME compared to Zynga's seemingly never ending, pointless grinding social games and has a much better community (I tried both of the new dungeons and some of the new features and I think people are too focused on the negatives there. Also I do agree the developers need to improve the way they deal with public relations).
One question for the company though, it seems that the technology works pretty well with web browser evident in the launch of the game on Chrome; why not turn the game into a Facebook app as well? The smartphone platform is peanuts compared to Facebook's user base. I know that Facebook takes away 30% of the revenue but I'm sure the marginal profit more than justifies for the revenue cut.
I feel that there are elements of PL that these Facebook social games cannot replicate and are perhaps more important than the entertainment value for people who are attracted to the "social" features. The auction house I feel has particular "social" value as a platform of exchange. A lot of the market elements associated with buying and selling items are also features you can't get running a Farmville village where all items have unrealistically fixed prices. There's also enormous educational value involved in these for anyone who is paying enough attention. Merchanting and trading for example are a great exercise of risk management and negotiation skills for kids (not just for kids; I work in the investment business and I can say that you can learn far more about the finance and business merchanting in PL than taking an MBA class).
I think if STS puts pocket legends on Facebook, it can beat the hell out of Zynga. I estimated that Facebook can offer 10 times as much user base as smartphone stores if STS can manage it well. A higher paid user/staff ratio can also create some economies of scale so that STS won't have to charge money for features that players feel entitled to playing for free.
Everything I said is purely from a business point of view..Reading through developers' response to player complaints it seems they have been under a lot of pressure from investors to improve profitability. Obviously I don't know enough of the specifics to make a statement so I suppose it is a recommendation the company can consider.
One question for the company though, it seems that the technology works pretty well with web browser evident in the launch of the game on Chrome; why not turn the game into a Facebook app as well? The smartphone platform is peanuts compared to Facebook's user base. I know that Facebook takes away 30% of the revenue but I'm sure the marginal profit more than justifies for the revenue cut.
I feel that there are elements of PL that these Facebook social games cannot replicate and are perhaps more important than the entertainment value for people who are attracted to the "social" features. The auction house I feel has particular "social" value as a platform of exchange. A lot of the market elements associated with buying and selling items are also features you can't get running a Farmville village where all items have unrealistically fixed prices. There's also enormous educational value involved in these for anyone who is paying enough attention. Merchanting and trading for example are a great exercise of risk management and negotiation skills for kids (not just for kids; I work in the investment business and I can say that you can learn far more about the finance and business merchanting in PL than taking an MBA class).
I think if STS puts pocket legends on Facebook, it can beat the hell out of Zynga. I estimated that Facebook can offer 10 times as much user base as smartphone stores if STS can manage it well. A higher paid user/staff ratio can also create some economies of scale so that STS won't have to charge money for features that players feel entitled to playing for free.
Everything I said is purely from a business point of view..Reading through developers' response to player complaints it seems they have been under a lot of pressure from investors to improve profitability. Obviously I don't know enough of the specifics to make a statement so I suppose it is a recommendation the company can consider.