Because It's pointless to open a new thread talking about pretty much the same as you do, I'm going to use your post to give my take into the way Spacelords is monetized:
In some cases, when devs decide to switch to a F2P model, they go full greedy with their monetization, charging for everything in a very draconian store. I have to say that, surprisingly, Mercury Steam has done the opposite. Well, not exactly, it's not even generous, it seems to me more a combination of naivety and laziness. It’s like you don’t care about their own game’s future.
Current monetization is very lacking, in depth, variety and presentation. There is barely options to buy stuff making Mercury Points mostly useless. The few things buyable are disperse through different menus or even hidden to players, like skins for characters that you haven't unlocked yet. And what is even worse, you are ditching whole segments of possible players by failing to realise that every person has different psychological traits and therefore they are interested in paying for very different things in a game.
In the next points I'm going to talk about several areas that in my opinion are currently not ok, explaining why and how to improve them and the reasoning behind my logic to change them based mostly in economics and psychology.
CAMPAIGNS
Campaigns should come back but in a different way. The new characteristic for campaigns should be:
- Paid Campaigns bypass the level requirement to play them on multiplayer: the reasoning behind it is that some people find that part of the fun in a F2P is the grinding in order to unlock new content. That gives you a sense of accomplishment and also dosify the amount of content in a timely manner for the player. Other people don't. In fact, some of them HATE the grind, others like immediate rewards and some other are compulsive buyers or just impatient. If all of them are willing to pay for that content, who are you to denied them that option? And what is even worse, force them to go through a grind unwilling. The most likely scenario for this type of players is that they just quit the game, frustrated by the lack of maps or by playing to many times the first maps in order to unlock the others.
- Paid Campaigns unlocks solo mode: something that I find completely nuts is that you put so much resources on cutscene, storytelling and lore, which are the pillars for solo pve experience, and then you decide to get rid of all your Payer User ( PU ) that enjoy that kind of experience by forcing them to play online the game in order to get their precious solo experience.
Let me put this clear, most PVE players HATE PVP, and a good chunk of solo players HATE group content. If you force a user to do something they hate you have lost them from your game. It's ok for devs to incentivize players with rewards to leave their comfort zone and try new experiences but force them to do something against their will with no alternative is a no-no, and a terrible move for business.
With solo mode, this users, that wouldn't play or put a single penny in your game otherwise, now they would find a new way to play and enjoy the game contributing economically to the development.
Also remove directly "training mode". It's obvious why Non Payer Users ( NPU ) should be always contained in a multiplayer environment and being denied solo content, their way of contributing to the game is making shorter queues. So why put that nonsense mode, that in order to unlock you have to play it 5 times? There is no incentives to any player to use this mode, in 5 matches you have already learn the mechanics and only adds confusion to the player.
- Paid Campaigns unlocks solo progression but a slower XP rate: now that I have already stated that a good portion of solo player base don’t touch multiplayer ( see your own metrics before Spacelords launch, how many PU played none or less than 5 matches online to confirm that there is population that doesn’t want to engage on Group Content ). So why denied them progression if they are already PUs?. In fact by adding progression they are going to play more the game which increase the chances for them to pay for characters, skins or boosters. This opens a whole new market of PUs that you had closed before.
The reasoning for a slower XP, gold and faction points rate is easy. You want to contain solo pve population in a solo pve environment. If the rate is the same as in multiplayer, a good chunk of population is going to leave group content to farm in solo, worsening queues in the process. Because why risk losing a match and therefore getting far less rewards, if you have a solo mode alternative that you can win easy, and without antagonist or mentor matches that can risk your rewards and making farm slower?. This is what in Games Theory is called “Dominant Strategy” by putting the same rate you are incentivizing your population to abandon group queues and that’s the last thing you want to, specially with skin monetization which works better in social environments. Psychologically speaking a good chunk of vanity users don’t purchase stuff for themselves but to seeking attention from others, approval, acknowledge, recognition, differentiation, etc. That is why instagram or facebook are doing so good, most people don’t take pics from their dishes or their holydays to keep them for themselves, they do it to show the world or their circle for a wide variety of reasons.
Also slower rate incentive solo players to try group content from time to time to get more rewards ( again, force to=bad , incentive to=ok ).
- Naming and Pricing: your old pricing I think was quite good and fair, 10€ for 1 campaign and 1 character, but you have to put some work in the naming. The name has to state clearly that you don’t need to buy the campaign in order to play those maps. That what you are paying for is only to override the grind and to get solo mode.
The average user don’t read more than the title, they don’t care about the details and they are going to get piss off with the devs when they find out that they have paid for something that they could get in other way. Yes, even when the devs stated clearly what they were selling,( see Gears of Wars 4 season pass as example about outrage with free maps). And I don’t blame them, every single company has its own business model and you can’t expect that the users put some effort in learn all the details on how thousands of games are monetize individually.
Throwing into the name words like “Instant Access”, “Solo play” or something along the lines would help. The more transparent and honest you stay with your player base the better. Also campaigns should be purchasable with mercury points through in-game menus, not only through each platform own store with direct money.
CHARACTER UNLOCKS
Other thing that blow my mind about Spacelords’ monetization is that you can’t buy characters with money ( except valeria and schneider ). That you can’t try them before unlock them and that you can’t even see what skins they have before being unlocked.
Characters should be purchasable with money and this should override level requirements to unlock them. As I stated before there are people that for different psychological reasons they would pay for this, so give them the damn option. And you should have the option to paid with mercury points or through each own platform stores.
Also you should have the chance to try them before purchase/unlock them. Put a button in every characters screen that leads to a current existing map with no objectives and just infinite npcs waves so people can try them before deciding to invest in them or not. You can leave the map at anytime. This would help to keep your relationship with your player base more honest and would reduce possible and unnecessary backlash for investing in a raider that turns out, for that player, to be not that fun.
Pricing for raiders should be way lower than for skins. When you pay for a raider you are paying for refreshing new ways of playing, which keeps people more invested in the game and also opens the opportunity to purchase some skins. Unlike skins which doesn’t open ways to additional purchases, or expands your gameplay possibilities in anyway. What you pay for is vanity and exclusivity. Overprice is a way to keep certain degree of exclusivity on skins..
Finally, not unlocked raiders should show to the user everything, price in Gold, in Mercury Points, their previewable skins and prices, their “try raider” button, weapon skins, etc. How can you sell skins if you need to unlock that character before? Do you think that people are going to be happy if they invest all their farmed gold in a character that turns out to have close to none skins, or ugly ones, or lame weapons or boring gameplay?. Again, the more transparent the better, and by showing skins upfront you can open the door for possible future purchases.
SKINS, DYES & EXCLUSIVITY
Current amount of skins is pretty shallow, more so for a now full F2P game, I suppose that with the new F2P plans this is going to be fixed in coming weeks/months, if not, you should put effort on it. Anyway I recommend to put in place some kind of dyeing system to give more options and exclusivity to people. It doesn’t matter how good your artists are, it’s impossible to make happy to everyone.
I know that making current skins dyeable is not a quick or easy task but in the long term is better for everyone and a fresh way to monetize and to reward players. You can throw some colors in the store, some colors as game rewards for special events or stuff like that.
Try with just a couple of new dyeable skins for the more demanded raiders and see how community reacts.
QUALITY OF LIFE ( QoL )
While some users have personality traits that favour eye-pleasing and vanity items others don’t. Others favour functionality over aesthetics. QoL microtransactions is the way to apeace this kind of player. Your Loadout system is a good example, the problem is that is only appealing for the most hardcore and end-game segment of Spacelord’s community which is a minority.
In this category other games have bigger inventory slots, more crafting skills slots or faster, shorter travels and stuff like this. I don’t see anything applicable to Spacelords in current state but it would be something to take into account for future features.
Maybe gold / faction boosters could fall in this category, for people that still enjoy grinding but a faster rate.
STORE
The in-game store should contain every single item available to purchase. Having stuff all over the place is ok, but you need also a unified hub that contains everything. It’s discouraging go to the store and having the feel that mercury points are only valid for buying boosts.
The worst part is that pretty much boosts and skins are for now the only thing that mercury points can buy. This needs to change.
SPACELORDS’ FUTURE
This hasn’t anything to do with monetization but a lot with Spacelords future economically speaking. There is a common quote that says “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. If all you have on Spacelords pipeline for the future is more campaigns and raiders, that is not going to fix a thing. Monetization is not the problem, but it helps. And little tweaks on MMR or gold/faction points/ blueprints aren’t the problem either. Spacelords should move forward and evolve.
TL;DR
Monetization is shallow, not diversify enough and opaque.
Purchasable campaigns that bypass level grind, unlocks solo play and solo progression
Raiders purchasable that bypass level grind
Locked Raiders tryable and show all their stuff and prices beforehand
More Skins
Dye System for Skins
Store more transparent, stocked and unified
Quality of Life microtransactions
Spacelords needs to evolve, no significant changes in core’s game since the original launch.
