Why Not Stay Awhile?

This post will take care of several things I've been wanting to mention, but never took the time to do. Plus, of course, a real post with actual thoughts in it.

First, happy new year to you all. I would say "may it be everything 2009 wasn't", but that would be a huge list of things, so let's say just say "Hope it will be a goodyear" (I never get tyred of that one).

Second, let's all make a round of applause for Lews here (wave to them, don't be shy, they don't bite) who's joining us and will be writing articles alongside yours truly. Lews has his own blog, in french, "Le Nid du Dragon", which I've joined to write articles there too. let's hope the collaboration will be fruitful

Third, because it is relevant to this blog, I did quit my job last month, because it was far from satisying and stifled my need to create things. For the next two years, my goal is now to become a freelance board game designer. So you might will see articles on that kind of things here. It has already started some months ago, if you have been paying attention.
Suffice to say, the next two years should be very interesting... It will not be easy, but it should be fun.

That's it for our announcements. On to our subject, and that subject will be customer retention. And Marketing.
I've recently purchased back issues from a board game magazine (Plato magazine, which you may or may not know) as I've only recently discovered them and like their writing style. No, that's wrong. The incentive for getting the back issues was because they offered not 1, but 3 board games with it. From a rather huge list, I might add. Happy with my purchase, I talked about it with one of the person that made me discover said magazine, and saw him make a face.
"I've been a subscriber to their magazine almost since day one. Loyal. What do I get for it? Jack. You come along innocently, have now almost all the issues I have, and 3 games to boot..."
"Oh, I can see how you might have issues with that..."

Pun nonwithstanding, it got me thinking. Subscription-based magazines tend to try to attract new people by offering incentives, but completely forget about their current subscribers, as though persuaded that they would be loyal for life. Now, how do companies entice people to come, stay, or come back? Time for some research! Some necroblogging later, I have a number of rewards and incentives types.

1) Veteran Rewards

The term I'm using comes from Tabula Rasa (again), who had something called the veteran rewards, fluff things that you got after you had been a subscriber for some time: you can see the rewards for three months, six months (looking like Richard Garriot... Now that will boost troops' morale!) and nine months of fighting the Thrax.
City of Heroes has such a program too. hey, look, so does Aion.

Must be an NCSoft thing. At least they seem to understand the value of long-time subscribers. It sadly didn't save TR, though.

DDO has another take on this: for each month you are subscribing, and your reward is Turbine Points, which you can use to unlock parts of the game once you decide to cancel your subscription. Be a subscriber long enough, and you might as well have purchased a lifetime subscription.

So, the longer you subscribe, the more things you have that differentiate you from a new player, even if he can play 40 hours a day and you can't.

2) Anniversary Rewards

Not yours, but the game's anniversary. I found these two articles from the Ancient Gaming Noob about WoW and Everquest 2. And this for LOTRO second anniversary.
These rewards are only for people who are current subscribers at the time of the event, whether they've been subscribing for 1 hour or for 5 years.

3) Referee Rewards

If you can get more people to play the game you're playing, the company might offer you some rewards for the task.
Sometimes, the more people you get, the more rewards befall you. Sometimes, the rewards are split.


4) Homecoming Rewards

The reward for coming back to the game. Most of the time, it's a free coupon to play the game a few days. It's a bit like when Steam makes a full game available for an entire Week-end.
The goal here is to make lost subscribers see that the game has changed, in the hope that their tastebuds will make them want more.
If anyone knows of a game that offer "substantial" rewards for coming back, I'm interested, because now that I think about it, the coupon is free of charge. Or, you might see it as a reward for having subscribed in the past (good times, good times).

5) Preorder Reward

You are rewarded for getting the game before it has had a chance to be reviewed, and you have only seen some beta screenshots (or been in the beta). A reward based on faith, so to say. Congratulations, a (would be) early adopter is you ! I won't even bother researching the subject, just pick an MMORPG at random from the last 3 years, and you'll see plenty of them. Depending on the platform, your reward will be different, so you'll have to make your research here.

Yeah, so?
  
Many kind huh? And I'm not even talking of what you can get for F2P games where you send money, à la Kingdom of Loathing... So, online games do cater more to their customers than magazines.

But... Only one catering is for current, long standing customers. It's (mostly; see below) comprised of fluff, which is fine, because you shouldn't get a gaming advantage for time spent paying and not time spent playing, IMO. Now that is another can of worms I am not opening. For now...
All the others are oriented towards getting new customers. Or getting back lost ones. Which maybe they wouldn't have lost if the game had been finished before getting rushed - oooo, can of worms, again ! They're just everywhere.

So what? Why am I bothered by these rarities ? Well, a well known motto is that "getting new customers is [insert favorite number] more expensive than keeping existing ones". It should be a given to care for them, then, no?
But a motto is easy to say, and I can't really give expenses numbers to back it up.

Consider EVE online. There is a reward for staying subscribed, and that is skill points. You constantly gain them overtime. So, someone who has been p(l)aying for years will have more than someone who has been playing 24/24 last month. This gives them an edge on the field, although it's more of a multifaced edge than a Two-Handed Sword of Extreme Slashiness, as each skill has a maximum level reachable. It's not gamebreaking, as someone who has paid less, but played more will have earned more money (I hope).
The result is that people have a reason to continue paying even if their interest in the game has temporarily waned. Yes, there are people who leave the game, but EVE has been growing organically since its opening, garnering more than 300k paying customers to this day.

Now consider WoW. Or Everquest. When someone's interest in the game has waned, he has no real interest in continuing to pay (laziness excluded): if he does not play for 6 months, in one case, he will have lost 6*month cost of the game for no benefits, in the other, he won't have lost the money, and still no benefits.
In EVE, 6 months of skill growth is still something to keep in mind.

True, it won't save a game that lacks basic fun, like Tabula Rasa, which found its fun months after its grand debuts. Months too late. But it will make people think twice before unsubscribing. And think twice in a good way. Not think twice in a "oh-god-they-want-me-to-write-a-6500-words-essay-about-why-I'm-leaving-and-make-3-phone-calls,one-of-them-in-India,let's-just-stay-subscribed" way.
See the difference? One will make people talk about they like the game, just not now, to their friend, the other will make them bitch to their friends. Guess which one...

Choice Matters

I've recently finished Overlord: Dark Legends for the Wii, and something felt off during my entire playthrough, compared to the original Overlord. Reading Challenges for Game Designers, and the blog Game Design Concepts helped me figure it out. It's really simple. It can be summed in one word: choice.

But this word has many consequences...

1) Choice?

Yes. Choice. As I discovered in the sources mentioned above, there are different kind of choices. Some are good in a game, some... Less so.
A meaningful choice has an impact on the course of the game. Also, you take one because you have at least an idea of what the consequences will be. A blind choice is one where you do not know what will happen when you make it. A meaningless choice is one that has no impact. Whether you take one path or the other, the rest of the game will be stricly identical. It might as well not have been there. An obvious choice has different outcomes, but one is so evidently superior to the others that you will always take it.

In Overlord, everything is about meaningful choices. Yes, you are an Overlord. But will you be the evilest on the block? Or will you help grannies cross the street, and then mangle the young whippersnapper that tried to run the two of you over? There are many moments where you have a choice between Evil and less Evil (or even, ewww... Good). At the start of the game, you are explained what the consequences of corruption(your evilness meter) will be : your spells will be more powerful, but you will gain less gold. There are different endings as well: almost good, quite bad, and evil.
In O:DL, the only choice you get while following the script is whether or not you will do the optional quests. How meaningful...

"What about your equipment? There are forges to be discovered in O:DL !", I hear some of you say, "so you can choose what to wear, at least"
Oh, yes, you can. You have different armors, with no clue as to what they do, for gold... You have different weapons, with some little clues as to what they do, for gold. So, you just buy the most expensive one. Because expensive = better, right? And you've got more gold than you can shake a stick at. Now, that, you see, is a blind choice. You just hope your decision is good.

How is it meaningful in Overlord, then? Aaaah, am I glad you asked...
First, you have to choose whether you will take an expensive piece of equipment, which is potentially stronger, or a weaker one, but far more affordable (and so, enabling you to buy more pieces of equipment). Because if in O:DL, you will soon have more gold than your really need while playing the game normally, in Overlord, it is not so.
Then, the equipment itself. They begin bare. You have to sacrifice minions to make them stronger (I'll get back to the concept). But if you sacrifice minions, which you summon using Lifeforce gathered from defeated enemies, maybe you won't have enough Lifeforce to play the game efficiently ...
Finally, what will you upgrade? For example, armors can give you more mana, more life, and a third choice that escapes me right now... But you can not upgrade them all to the max. Each armor can only accept so much minionic lifeforce. You must choose what is more important to you.
That way, your Overlord is equipped as YOU see fit. You know why you made every choice. You know what these choices entailed.

To change a blind choice into a meaningful choice, you need to give players data. Give them an idea of what each choice will result in. Or, if you want them to explore, give them feedback on their choices. What are the consequences of their choices? Delayed consequences are fine, as long as the player knows what action begat what.

That covers no choice, and blind choice.

Now, Let me tell you about Minions' Sacrifice and Minion's Sacrifice in O:DL.

In Overlord, part of the equipment upgrade process is to sacrifice minions. Not only do You get the armor you want, you also get to see a cool sequence where all the minions you've just decided to sacrifice run en masse and jump gleefully ("Woohoo!" "Yeehah!") in the bubbling cauldron of the forge. Imagine the sight when you've decided to sacrifice 400 of them (And the colors are respected, too). Check around you: people love that sequence. As I said, in 0:DL's forge, you just buy your equipment and are done with it. Maybe it's because the Wii can't handle it? Maybe. Doubtful.
Be aware that this paragraph was just a rant because they took out of the game something that added to the flavor and the atmosphere. The next one is about choice. Really.

So, they added Minion Sacrifice. How evil (and it's an honest "How evil", not a snarky one). You grab a minion by its throat, shake it to build up the pressure (thus called the TG&S: Throat-Grab & Shake), and then break his neck to replenish your Health/Mana. Very cool idea.

Now, how can you replenish your Health/Mana.
Breaking a minion's neck gives you a shade of Life or Mana depending on its type. Something like 10% of a bubble.
You can also sacrifice a minion by sending him in a Life/Mana well, which gives you 50% or 100% of a bubble. You can also wait for Life potions to drop when your minions destroy objects. They give you 50% or 100% of a bubble.
There are at least 2 of each well type per map. Maps are small, and you can backtrack without penalties. The more you are hurt, the more the potions drop.
Know what we have here? Those who said "an obvious choice" can join my minions and have a cookie ! Why break a minion's neck when you just have to backtrack a bit and sacrifice the same minion for more health?

To change an obvious choice into a meaningful choice, the Risk/Reward ratio of each choice must be close(r). For example, if there were less Life Wells, snapping the neck of a minion for less life might be interesting if I am pressed for time. Provided it replenishes enough.

You can also TG&S a minion, and then release it in a direction of your control. After a (short) time, he will explode. You're told that you can destroy some barriers with it. You encounter 3 of them in the zone where you're told that, and then never see them again.

TG&S&E is also advertised as an attack move, but the process of grabbing, shaking and sending is very long. So either your other minions are doing nothing while you do it, or they have already killed the foes they were sent on before your minion bomb is ready.

Again, the obvious choice is not to use it beyond the barriers...

Is there a meaningful choice in O:DL? I honestly can not recall. To their credit, I can't find a meaningless choice either.

After this lengthy demonstration, I'm sure you're asking yourself: ok, but why does choice matters?

2) Connection and Feedback

I'm not talking about the controllers. I'm talking about the player, and his relation to the character he's playing.

When there are no meaningful choices, I find it's hard to relate to the character I'm playing. He's just a puppet on strings. I'm controlling it, but someone else is controlling my actions. I follow the script.

But when I get to make choices that do matter, it gets different. He becomes my character. My avatar. Anything that happens to him, or people close to him (especially when they're close because of my choices) is important to me.

In Overlord, as you advance in the story, your tower evolves because of your choices. It gets rebuilt. New rooms are opened, new decorations that you buy, trophies that you pilfer. You can't have everything, so what is there is what you've chosen to be there. It becomes your tower, an extension of your Overlord. Plus, you get to have a cool mistress.

Incidentally, this is also where you begin everytime you launch the game. So, the first thing you see is everything you have done so far. A good way to congratulate the player, and a good way to make him want more.

In O:DL, you do start in the same place (it's not your tower, it feels more like the cellar of the castle, but whatever). But it does not change, apart from the mana/blood/minion stonesthat get stacked around your throne. These stacks feel small compared to the size of the room, and the room in itself feels drab. You don't feel any need to stay here, whereas in Overlord, it is fun to simply walk the halls of your tower basking in your Overlordness.