In search of a business model

[Backov]

I am currently working on a board/CCG game with a fantasy theme.

It's coming quite well, and is fully multiplayer as well as multiplatform, being written in Java. I should start alpha testing it sometime this weekend.

That said, I have no idea how I'm going to make any money on this game. I can easily make it very solid, polished, and pretty. However, I haven't seen any board/CCG games that are doing very well.

The biggest of the small ones, Star Chamber, is a virtual ghost town most of the time. Is there any good model here?

I can't realistically charge subscription rates. I don't think I can really do a one-off charge (there are continuing server expenses), so I'm looking for alternative business models.

Expansion packs? (It is a CCG after all)

Invite model? (How does that work anyway?)

Some sort of Laser Squad Nemesis thing where you're basically buying games that you can start?

Any ideas?

[Rainer Deyke]

I assume this is a multi-player only, online only game where people have to connect to the server and find an opponent there in order to be able to play at all. In that case, you are selling not just a game, but a community. In other words, you are selling your players to each other. In order for this to work, you need to maximize the number of players. You probably can't get enough players if you're charging any money up-front. In other words, in order to have a product (community) worth paying for, you need to give it away for free.

Let people create accounts for free. Give them some free cards with each account. Let them play for free forever with their accounts. Then sell them additional packs of cards.

If that fails, run ads.

[Applewood]

You could try something along the lines of the game being free if you reccommend a friend ? That friend gets it free too. If you come alone, there's a minimum charge.

Make it clear this is an offer running for 6 months or something and then the price goes up. You want to get the community started, but you're not a charity either.

Maybe instead of free, they get free play for their first n (a lot) of games. Get them well hooked before bilking em :)

Or keep it totally free for the entry level game, but make sure that the expanion/booster packs offer a lot more gameplay and are very cheap and very desireable. I would avoid the temptation in this case to enforce a sign-up fee to be able to buy packs. If I were in your shoes, I think I'd try this one tbh

Take a look at how MTG:Online works and scale back from there. (Unlike them, make sure your server tech is scaleable in case it takes off!!!)

Just ideas - I've got no experience in this area.

[zoombapup]

I'd suggest looking at the korean model of "free to play, pay for upgrades".

Basically, free to play the "basic" game. But make them pay micro-payments for additional content.

Its the card game model really, "booster" cards essentially. Most of the companies that run this model, use a dual money system. That is, they have 2 forms of currency. "Game" currency, which is achieved by being good at the game. Then "Special" currency, which is paid for. They do this, so that players can play for free AND buy add-ons as rewards for good play, but they see that tantalising new item in the store, which is better than thier shiny new thing they saved up all thier hard earned points for, so they think "what the hell, took me a month to save for this, migth as well just buy it".

It works amazingly well as a purchase model, because you are already pre-sold essentially. You alreay KNOW you *want* the item, so its simply a matter of finding your level of desire vs commitment (i.e. in order to commit the funds).

Check out www.albatross18.com for a great example of this in action.

[Polycount Productions]

I am currently working on a board/CCG game with a fantasy theme.

It's coming quite well, and is fully multiplayer as well as multiplatform, being written in Java. I should start alpha testing it sometime this weekend.

That said, I have no idea how I'm going to make any money on this game. I can easily make it very solid, polished, and pretty. However, I haven't seen any board/CCG games that are doing very well.

The biggest of the small ones, Star Chamber, is a virtual ghost town most of the time. Is there any good model here?

I can't realistically charge subscription rates. I don't think I can really do a one-off charge (there are continuing server expenses), so I'm looking for alternative business models.

Expansion packs? (It is a CCG after all)

Invite model? (How does that work anyway?)

Some sort of Laser Squad Nemesis thing where you're basically buying games that you can start?

Any ideas?

Besides expansions could you try...

- Ads? (in-game? site-wide? permanent? monthly?)
- Donations? (combined with ads?)
- Premium/Private forums (for registered users) - subscription for them?
- Sell full version, let full version owners play unlimited+join some money contests? (like... costs $10 to play, but you have chance to win $100?)

[stiill]

The biggest of the small ones, Star Chamber, is a virtual ghost town most of the time. Is there any good model here?


I think if you're not big enough to have lots of people on all the time-- and most people aren't-- you can either really hope that the tournament route pans out, or you can remove the concurrency constraint. In other words, you can make it a turn-based game with play-by-email type gameplay allowed. That way, instead of having a lobby that seems like a ghost town, you have a list of people looking for and playing games that seems very busy.

Also, many of these games don't really need a downloadable client-- they could be pulled off using a decent AJAX framework and some cleverness.

I don't know if either of the things I mentioned actually help your business model.

[Sirrus]

Believe Artifact has done well (http://www.samugames.com/artifact/) - but perhaps this is a subscription model..haven't looked much into it.

[Julian Gollop]

Jason,
Funnily enough I have been working on an online fantasy/CCG prototype for the last month and I have been pondering exactly the same questions as you. Star Chamber is a pretty good game, but it is true there aren't that many players around. This might be related to lack of updates due to the recent acquisition of Worlds Apart (who I think own star chamber rights) by Sony online entertainment. The fact that Worlds Apart specialise in online CCGs, and that SOE sought to buy them, at least seems to suggest that their business model might be working. However, I suspect Worlds Apart really get most of their business through their Lord of the Rings and Star Trek games - which are pretty powerful licenses - and they are online counterparts to existing 'real' CCGs. Check out the forums for those games and you will get a feel for what the players think. I like the basic concept of CCGs, and I was a great fan of MtG. However, I didn't like the fact that you really had to keep buying cards to stay competitive - either buy buying loads of boosters to get a small chance of getting just the few cards you wanted, or by paying a stiff price for particular cards from other traders. So, I considered just having a simple, single payment for the game and then allowing players to earn more cards by playing games. However, as you pointed out, the server costs for online games need to be taken into account. We haven't done too badly with Laser Squad Nemesis, making around $2500 sales per month on average for the last five years. But, as with any online game with a subscription model, you need to keep adding some kind of content to keep the community going and players re-subscribing. The amount of work can really add up after you release the initial version. One thing I would strongly advise is that you have some kind of single player option. It might not be your primary design objective, but I think that most people buying games online are not actually that keen on playing multiplayer games. This has certainly been our experience with LSN, and we still have quite a high proportion of customers who never play the game online, even though the single player game is a much inferior experience.
Incidentally, I am developing my game using Python, PyGame and Twisted Networks. It's certainly makes for quite rapid development, although I am bit annoyed at having to program a gui system yet again!! Actually, programming python is so enjoyable that I don't mind the tedious stuff. BTW Twisted Networks is a truly excellent framework for games.

[Backov]

Thanks for all the feedback guys..

Also, many of these games don't really need a downloadable client-- they could be pulled off using a decent AJAX framework and some cleverness.


Funnily enough, that's exactly how I started. Unfortunately it needed a bit more than just AJAX, and after futzing with various Comet models I finally gave up and went Java. It works a lot better, and the OpenGL 2d engine is great.

I think if you're not big enough to have lots of people on all the time-- and most people aren't-- you can either really hope that the tournament route pans out, or you can remove the concurrency constraint. In other words, you can make it a turn-based game with play-by-email type gameplay allowed.

Ya, this isn't going to work unfortunately. It's not a Dom2/3 kind of game where it takes a long time to play. This should be a game that's done in an hour or so. Maybe a little more for a long one.

@Julian: Thanks for the slice of your experience there. I knew you would have something interesting to say about this. It is quite interesting we're making the same kind of game. :)

I've gotten quite a few ideas from this thread.. Aggressively recruiting free players, and somehow charging for upsells like cards or what have you seems to be the winner so far. I may be able to get away with a more direct charge if the game turns out to be very addictive.

As for SP - Yes, I had actually planned some single player. The only problem is that it's a fairly complex game and writing a decent AI for it is going to be tough. I wanted to get the MP game (the core of it) done first before I started thinking about writing bots. I intend the bots to interface to the game in the same way the humans do anyway. We'll see how it goes.

Again, thanks for all the help and suggestions guys.