Look at it this way, a new source for income would jumpstart production of Foundry assets. They would be independent of the current asset selection. This would open all sorts of options for the developers to create with the blessing of their paymasters in Perect World who have been confused with what to do with this tool.
Cryptic needs to justify the time and manpower needed to continue working on this tool, this would be the perfect way to do it.
Also known as Gingie(In game) Sskald(Gates of Sto-vo-kor)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I think I have a couple of points, some of which have already been touched on by others.
1. Cryptic have said time again that they are NOT going to monetise the foundry in such a way that would make the authors pay. They don't believe in it, in fact to semi quote them "We should almost be paying them".
2. Say they made packs and sold them for $2 and say 200 people bought them (a not unrealistic number for Foundry Authors). That's about $400 gross. If it took an artist a week to put together the pack, that's about an average of $1000 pay. Already they've made a loss.
3. Putting in paid packs could stifle the creativity and very well create a two tiered system, which so far hasn't been present in the Foundry, Those that can afford to buy packs, and those that can't. This would also occur with the 'holodeck' idea because some people just couldn't afford to buy packs.
4. On the 'Holodeck' idea, why not just put the assets straight into the foundry using the methods they have described in the past instead of making the authors buy a pack of costumes etc that they may never use for their character?
5. Why spend time making a couple of dollar pack for the minority when they can make $20 starships that the majority of the community will buy?
6. The foundry already generates income, simply by giving the playerbase something to do to keep them ingame. That generate income indirectly via the dilithium exchange and people just buying more things from teh C-store (such as lock box keys from drops in the foundry ;P ok.. that was a cheeky one)
7. NO ONE should ever have to pay for features, so PLEASE don't suggest making the Cutscene tool, or teleporters, or new and better behaviours something people have to pay for
With very little if any financial incentive to do so and having stated they don't want to make people pay to make good content, I don't see them ever doing this.
Inherently I am against making authors pay to make content. And buying packs will not give them any incentive to put stuff into the foundry. They already want to.
I bought a Lifetime so I would never have to pay for something again in the game if I didn't want to (being a student is tough on your bank balance). I would feel obligated to buy these packs to keep up with others, and I simply couldn't afford to.
... In the words of a friend of mine "It simply isn't Star Trek"
*shrug*
Foundry Enthusiast
Machinima Person
Did some things back in the day
Well, it is a bit of a catch-22. There is no incentive to monetize the Foundry with the actual limited number of people who use it. But Cryptic is unlikely to put the resources into the Foundry to make it awesome without some financial incentive to do so.
I see there is no easy answer. I was always in the camp that said that Foundry access should have been limited to Gold members only (as of right now, they are unlockable to Silvers upon purchasing a slot with dilithium). But as it currently stands, there is little chance of that changing.
I see no reason to monetize the Foundry. It would be a waste of Cryptic's resources.
Remember the the Foundry is really just a stripped down version of their Genesis Engine. If Cryptic truly wanted to monetize the Foundry, they should license out the Genesis Engine. I know I would buy it in a heart beat.
"If you have never used Cello, I'm not interested in your browser opinion."
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
1. Cryptic have said time again that they are NOT going to monetise the foundry in such a way that would make the authors pay. They don't believe in it, in fact to semi quote them "We should almost be paying them".
They also said that at one point they were not going Free to Play. Things change. Don't fear change.
2. Say they made packs and sold them for $2 and say 200 people bought them (a not unrealistic number for Foundry Authors). That's about $400 gross. If it took an artist a week to put together the pack, that's about an average of $1000 pay. Already they've made a loss.
$2? !? when they sell per character space suits for $7.50, why would the sell a foundry packs for $2? Heck bank slots cost $1 a per slot with a min. of 10 slots. Think more $20 - $25 per pack. That would be about $50,000. About the paid for a Dev for a year.
3. Putting in paid packs could stifle the creativity and very well create a two tiered system, which so far hasn't been present in the Foundry, Those that can afford to buy packs, and those that can't. This would also occur with the 'holodeck' idea because some people just couldn't afford to buy packs.
Hold on there, I have been told you can earn everything in the game by just playing. You can get zen by trading it for dilithum which you earn by just playing the game. There would be no two tiered system. T
7. NO ONE should ever have to pay for features, so PLEASE don't suggest making the Cutscene tool, or teleporters, or new and better behaviours something people have to pay for
No one HAS to pay for anything in this game. IT IS FREE TO PLAY! You can earn everything in the Zen Store by trading your dilithum for Zen.
With very little if any financial incentive to do so and having stated they don't want to make people pay to make good content, I don't see them ever doing this.
I think there is a lot of financial incentive. Like in the overall game a small set of players are willing to spend a lot to cover the mass of players who pay nothing. Same would apply to Foundry makers. You may not want to paid, but I am sure there are a few who have lots of money to spend and are willing to pay to help support their hobby.
I bought a Lifetime so I would never have to pay for something again in the game if I didn't want to (being a student is tough on your bank balance). I would feel obligated to buy these packs to keep up with others, and I simply couldn't afford to.
Again, you don?t HAVE to buy anything in this game. everyone would still be able to make missions, but those authors who support the game, of course, would be about to get some extra goodies to play with. No different than the player who love ships, doffs, or gear. I am begin to understand, why some people feel there maybe an elitist attitude amount the foundry authors
Beers,
Jengoz =/
"Star Trek Online is powered by the most abundant resource in the galaxy . . . Gullibility"
I'm getting real tired of people throwing around the "elitist" label.
Can't seem to have an honest difference of opinion without name calling.
Many players oppose monetization in other aspects of the game, is their opinion invalid as well?
I agree about the name calling. Let's try to keep this civil.
lots of people opposed monetizing the game initially, but that didn't stop it from happening, and the result has proved to be very successful. I just don't want to see cryptic loose out on an opportunity to speed up foundry development and growth when there is a group of people just itching to throw money at them to ensure its further development and growth.
It's not like those that don't have money will be excluded from purchasing assets or contributing. Zen can be purchased with dilithium, which can be earned fairly easily in game. If you don't like the idea of using zen, fine set the price in dilithium. It's the same thing.
I'm getting real tired of people throwing around the "elitist" label.
Can't seem to have an honest difference of opinion without name calling.
Many players oppose monetization in other aspects of the game, is their opinion invalid as well?
Nope, they have very valid opinions.
As I recalled many of the people who opposed the changes to Free 2 play, where called "elitist." When they declared the game better they way it was and would be filled with F2P "hobos" and riff raff. They too declared they had paid for a lifetime sub and should not have to pay more for anything else. They cried "DOOM" and that monetization would fail and no one would buy anything. But look STO was failing and now it is making gobs and gobs of money all because of the new monetization system.
Maybe instead of crying that nothing is being fixed or added to the foundry, people should stop thinking the foundry as some sort of hallowed ground that should be serviced by the Devs as a matter of principle and see that the solution to get it moving forward is right in front of everyone. I have no love for some of the monetization things that cryptic has added. But if you really want improvement to STO and the foundry, there is going to have to be some shared sacrifice. The foundry community is going to have to accept that it will need to paid its fair share to support the trek, if it wants to see the foundry and STO grow and survive for years to come.
Beers,
Jengoz =/
=-=-=-=-=-=
Play Farts, becasue playing with Tarts is just rude.
"Star Trek Online is powered by the most abundant resource in the galaxy . . . Gullibility"
Maybe instead of crying that nothing is being fixed or added to the foundry, people should stop thinking the foundry as some sort of hallowed ground that should be serviced by the Devs... The foundry community is going to have to accept that it will need to paid its fair share to support the trek, if it wants to see the foundry and STO grow and survive for years to come.
I just don't know what to say when I read something like these statements. Jengoz, please let me take you nearly two years back in time, if I may.
When the Foundry team left for NW during S3, the STO team seemed to abandon the Foundry completely. I don't think that we had 1 single dev even working on it, before S4 broke all of our missions, which was well before seasons 5 and 6 focused entirely on F2P conversion that didn't seem to care about the Foundry become it couldn't be monetized by PWE...
At some point, we got a "big update" that seemed to consist of a few added features and mostly cosmetic changes. It was, in the words of dstahl, the update they we might not really notice, and many of us didn't.
Meanwhile, we were the only ones telling a story about STO lore for nearly a year, without even much of an acknowledgement that we were contributing to STO, in terms of dev time, beyond fixing what got broken.
In the entire history of the Foundry (after the Foundry team left) we have mostly been ignored, overlooked, marginalized, and isolated, until roughly 1 year ago when talk of spotlights took nearly 1 year to materialize.
Now, in the wake of Cryptic actually doing something for its Foundry author community (beyond odds and ends here and there), you tell us that we need to stop thinking of the Foundry as hallowed ground, to be serviced by the devs at our whim... because we haven't experienced our fair share compared with others.
I am begin to understand, why some people feel there maybe an elitist attitude amount the foundry authors
WOW, I did not think this thread would end up going there...
I fail to see how wanting to keep the foundry free (with the exception of the 10k dil) could be construed as elitist? But that's another thread.
I don't fear change, I don't think I ever have in this game.
Selling packs for $20 is quite a lot to ask. You also appear to have your maths wrong. $20x200 = $4000 still not a huge return in Cryptic/PWE terms. I would also want a hell of a lot of content for that amount of money.
It takes some time to grind up the dilithium to pay for $20 of Zen, about a month of refining and earning max 8k dilithium every day. A lot of foundry authors don't enjoy doing that. I happen to enjoy playing but I, like many people simply can't get into the game and play as much they'd want to because of real life commitments. Combine that with the urge to be in the editor making missions instead of playing, and we reach a dilemma that would take months to grind for those asset packs.
It is a tapped resource. As I explained, the foundry already provides content for the game and therefor provides a large source of income. As Dan Stahl said on PrimetimeUGC episode 18, without the foundry, STO, Wouldn't still be here, does that not make it the biggest tapped resource?
As I said, yes you can earn it all, however it takes a very long time, the exchange rate (last I checked) is about 90ish dil to 1 Zen. So that's about 28 days hitting max refinement each day to earn 2500zen
You missed the point, possibly of this entire thread. To get the features, you would HAVE to pay somehow, whether it be through time spent grinding, or paying up front. Simply put, if you didn't pay, you wouldn't be able to make as good a mission as someone who had. (You can always have a better story, but as its a game, people want to see shiny pretty things too unfortunately).
How many people do you expect to buy these packs? Because even if all of the regular foundry authors did, that's still a tiny percentage of the player base, if not less than 1%. From a business perspective, does that sound viable?
I have supported this game from the moment I could Subscribe (almost three years ago now) and I've been heavily involved with the Foundry since the Redshirt closed testing. I like many many others have invested a lot to support this game, through Financial means, spending thousands of hours playing it, thousands of hours in the foundry creating content for the other 99% to play to keep people in the game, devote hours to creating podcasts about the game and create machinima productions to show off and celebrate its beauty and abilities.
Do those people not deserve rewards for what they've done over someone buying a pack? (Before you say it... Nothing in there is 'elitist'... I checked ;-P )
I love this game. I'm passionate about it and it even helped me get into University as strange as that sounds, I just think this is one step too far.
I guess we'll just have to find out more this week when PrimetimeUGC interviews Zero
Edit- My apologies for not adding specific quotes to every section as I'm currently doing this from an iPad .. at 6am :P
Foundry Enthusiast
Machinima Person
Did some things back in the day
As I stated during this discussion, I would not be a merry man if this were to happen.
As many people in this thread have already pointed out --
1.) The subset of players creating good Foundry missions is microscopically small and would not equal a return on investment even if all the Foundry authors bought every pack produced. There's not not enough damn authors, guys. If the Klingon C-Store ships were a net loss of revenue invested for Cryptic (and ships are way cheaper to render and produce than ground assets like costumes), (and there's a Hell of a lot more Klingon players than Foundry authors) there is literally no way in freakin' Hell that anything we buy in the form of packs will ever be worth it to them.
2.) The Foundry is not only full of hurdles that make mission creation difficult: it's downright incomplete, missing Jupiter Uniforms, Academy Uniforms, Open-Jacket Uniforms, Odyssey and Bortas Uniforms, EV Suits, Mirror Ship Versions of Every Federation Starship and their Skins (we know they exist, we fight them), Mirror Universe NPC Contacts, Tholian NPC Contacts, Hazardous Environment Zones, and that is just annoyances off the top of my head. They will not add in and tag new assets and features when they can't even get the ones that already exist in there and working worth a damn.
Even if we did equal a sufficient amount of a player base to render a return of investment on anything they create and sell, it's fundamentally wrong on principle to be paying money to complete a tool they said they would complete two years ago but moved the team working on it away to another game. I'm sorry, that's wrong. You keep your promises. And that is completely made moot because we are completely revenue agnostic at best, and revenue losing most likely.
So I wish this idea would roll over and die. Typically our podcast comes up with several great ideas, but I'm pretty certain if Episode 100 would have gone on long enough I would have had 6 of our 7 hosts arguing with me "Hey, why not sell your soul to the Devil, Hav!?" because the suggestions were getting that stupid.
Final word: they should get back to fixing and enhancing the Foundry the same way they always said they would and for the same reason: it adds free content to the game. The amount of time I spend making one mission is astronomical because this tool set is so restrictive and broken in so many ways. I am not going to pay them for the privilege of using their assets to create content for them, and the idea that this slippery slope would even be suggested in light of its absolute futility bothers me.
I like this post, even if my earlier statements of being willing to pay contradicts it. Havraha is speaking in logic, while I'm just sort of desperately saying.... "How much do I have to pay you folks to get a transporter pad?"
This is one of the cases I agreed with Havraha while I was listening to the show... *shudder*
The idea of selling packs to Foundry authors is something that sounds good at first, but then when you analyse deeper, it doesn't seem so attractive. The previous posts in this thread make good arguments, so look at those.
As Alt pointed out with the Zinc video, Cryptic's view is that there should be no barriers to Foundry mission creation - adding in pay gates to have authors unlock stuff would stifle creative output. We already have to ditch ideas because assets and features in Foundry don't exist or haven't been provided (Romulan ridges, Jupiter Uniforms etc. even though all these assets are already in game and exist).
I agree with Hav that it's bad to charge Foundry authors - if you were alimac30 spending 5 months making a mission, would it be ethical to charge an extra $20 for him to finish it with a nice looking set of assets? I don't think so. It's already like slave labour getting your players to make free content for you.
I wouldn't really be interested in grinding dilithium for ZEN to unlock purchases either. There's too many things competing for my time - if I wanted to grind out enough for a pack using cerb's figures above, it would take me a month of non-stop grind for enough dilithium? What about all the other things I need dilithium for, like fleet stuff, buying gear, rep system, etc. there's not enough time in the day to do all this grinding!
I agree with the comments above about the Foundry author base being a minority group. It makes no financial sense to be selling stuff to 1-2% of the STO playerbase. You wouldn't get enough return on investment.
TL : DR
Those were the reasons I think charging anyone for Foundry stuff (players or authors) is a bad idea. So what is the solution?
Don't charge authors for packs. Don't charge players to play.
Look at how Amazon makes money. Amazon Affiliates.
What we need to monetize Foundry is to make Foundry authors C-Store affiliates.
Havraha I believe has stated on the show before that Foundry missions should have all assets in the game freely unlocked for authors to use and that missions should act as a showcase for the C-Store, encouraging players to say "Hey that looks cool" and buy it from the C-Store.
There should be a mechanic where at the end of the mission when the review window pops up, there's also a huge button that says:
"Hey, this mission featured a cool looking Odyssey class ship. Click on this huge button to go to the C-Store and get the Odyssey pack for a 10% discount!"
And that discount would only be valid for completion of the mission (using the algorithms for the IOR qualification we know they have) and also when a player completes a purchase, it should give the Foundry author a kickback, e.g. a 100 dilithium tip.
That way, authors get rewarded for making missions, players get rewarded for playing a mission with disounts in the C-Store, and Cryptic gets money because they are marketing stuff to the 99% of players rather than 1% of authors and generating more C-Store sales.
It's win-win-win.
That's how you monetize something.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The Syndicate Extraction by Galactrix - Trailer: youtu.be/8SL7AXuUMec
Not to derail this topic, but let's call it for what it is- it isn't "elitism", it's "click groups". People don't like any subject matter, group, or niche in any game that they are not themselves involved in, so it becomes easier to label them as elitist.
In the entire history of the Foundry (after the Foundry team left) we have mostly been ignored, overlooked, marginalized, and isolated, until roughly 1 year ago when talk of spotlights took nearly 1 year to materialize.
... because we haven't experienced our fair share compared with others.
I think the PvP players and KDF Players might argue with you who has been ignored more.
Selling packs for $20 is quite a lot to ask. You also appear to have your maths wrong. $20x200 = $4000 still not a huge return in Cryptic/PWE terms. I would also want a hell of a lot of content for that amount of money.
Agreed, not sure it that would happen. Cryptic seem to have pretty high prices for not a lot of return. Would have to ask the buyers of $50 Ships and $7 space suits to see if it was worth the price.
It takes some time to grind up the dilithium to pay for $20 of Zen, about a month of refining and earning max 8k dilithium every day. A lot of foundry authors don't enjoy doing that. I happen to enjoy playing but I, like many people simply can't get into the game and play as much they'd want to because of real life commitments. Combine that with the urge to be in the editor making missions instead of playing, and we reach a dilemma that would take months to grind for those asset packs?. As I said, yes you can earn it all, however it takes a very long time, the exchange rate (last I checked) is about 90ish dil to 1 Zen. So that's about 28 days hitting max refinement each day to earn 2500zen
On the subject of grind, I think Dan covered that the other day. 'Season 7 being "grindy" - welcome to the MMORPG genre. '
It is a tapped resource. As I explained, the foundry already provides content for the game and therefor provides a large source of income. As Dan Stahl said on PrimetimeUGC episode 18, without the foundry, STO, Wouldn't still be here, does that not make it the biggest tapped resource?
In MMO's other player are content. Foundry Authors don't have a lock on creating content. PvP players create content. Social interaction in fleets is content. RPers make their own content. You could also say without players STO wouldnt sti'l be here.
You missed the point, possibly of this entire thread. To get the features, you would HAVE to pay somehow, whether it be through time spent grinding, or paying up front. Simply put, if you didn't pay, you wouldn't be able to make as good a mission as someone who had. (You can always have a better story, but as its a game, people want to see shiny pretty things too unfortunately).
This sounds the same as the design philosophy the game current has about ships. You don't have to have the fancy ship that is a little better with some shiny pretty effects. If you have enough skill the free stuff would works too. Same would apply to the Foundry, if you story was good enough, you would not need rely on flashy gimmicks to make your missions good.
How many people do you expect to buy these packs? Because even if all of the regular foundry authors did, that's still a tiny percentage of the player base, if not less than 1%. From a business perspective, does that sound viable?
You were right my math before was wrong. But as Cryptic tells us, there are 2 million captains playing STO but if only 1% are using the Foundry that is still 20,000 people. If they all bought a $5 asset pack that would be $100,000 or a $20 pack would give $400,000. Make it a $50 foundry tool expansion kit, we are talking $1 million. That could give Cryptic a reason to put start to put resources into it
I agree with Hav that it's bad to charge Foundry authors - if you were alimac30 spending 5 months making a mission, would it be ethical to charge an extra $20 for him to finish it with a nice looking set of assets? I don't think so. It's already like slave labour getting your players to make free content for you.
Is a player spending 5 months making a mission different than a player spending 5 months running a fleet, or 5 months building a starbase, 5 months deconstruction ship builds for PvP? Using the foundry is just another type of gameplay. Now with that and to make a monetization work, it would need to be rewarded llike other forms of game play. For example, maybe tips should be larger or authors should get dilithum every time players plays their missions. Authors would make good missions would be rolling in dilithum to buy packs. So alimac30 would not be slave labour, he would just be 'grinding' the foundry the way other players grind fleet events or killing those Salt thingys.
Other than the C-Store affiliates idea. I am not seeing any feedback to how to get the foundry development rolling. All I see is 'don't charge us more because we are adding to the game. Well, lots of players add to the game. Are Foundry authors adding more to the gmae than fleet leaders? Than the KDF players? Than the Bajorian RPers? -okay well maybe you got me on that one. I personally don't love the idea of monetizing either. I think the game has gone too far in some areas with it. But when you look at the other forms of game play in STO, you see the monetizing has help the development in those areas.
So, I ask, if you don't want to see the Foundry monetized, how would get Cryptic to accelerate development on the foundry?
Beers,
Jengoz =/
=-=-=-=-=-=
Play Farts, cause everyone likes a TRIBBLE joke.
"Star Trek Online is powered by the most abundant resource in the galaxy . . . Gullibility"
Since some of you are against selling asset packs, do you have any suggestions? How can we encourage Cryptic to throw more resources towards STO's Foundry to get more objects, details, costumes into the foundry without monetizing it? To me money is the best carrot to get things moving forward.
Since some of you are against selling asset packs, do you have any suggestions? How can we encourage Cryptic to throw more resources towards STO's Foundry to get more objects, details, costumes into the foundry without monetizing it? To me money is the best carrot to get things moving forward.
Yeah, actually, I have a tiny bit of an idea.
Absolutely everything that they have in either the CStore or LOBI , or any "gated" store type of thing should be made available for Foundry authors to use. They should be throwing these things at us as quickly as they are made.
Yes, they can "monetize" the Foundry, but not by charging authors for it.
Not sure how to explain what I am thinking, but they use the Foundry as advertising for the products they are putting on the Z-store, Lobi Store, Fleet Shop, etc.
I have received feedback (a lot of it actually) from people who, once they realized that the set of my mission IS the ship interior you get from the TOS bundle, say they were going to the Z-store to buy the bundle.
They could have smaller "challenges" to create very short missions (commercials) for the new content so that people get to see it in the game, and even interact with it (in the case of maps and such), without having to give it to them.
It's obvious that they get this idea from the last two anniversary episodes, where we got to play with a ship they were about to put in the z-store(last year) or Fleet store(this year).
Shrug.
This is just a quick thought in passing.
Have fun with it.
Tear it apart.
HippieJohn, the issue I see is that this doesn't produce consistent results. Sure it will work with interior sets, could work with costumes and such. But it requires Cryptic to have all of the zen store items in foundry, which as we all know isn't always kept up to date. We're still waiting on many many items that are available in the zen store to hit foundry and that they currently don't have enough resources to get everything into it in a timely manner. With that said, i don't think it actually does enough to sell those items. I don't think it will produce big enough results to be noticed and to encourage the growth of foundry.
But, here's another idea. How about for foundry missions, during loading screens there is a commercial played for the zen store items that the foundry mission uses. For instance, if you use an Odyssey and the Bajoran Vedek costume in your mission, during a loading screen, a message appears that says that this mission features and lists off the various zen store purchasable items that the author has used in the mission with perhaps the ability to click something to actually open the zen store and purchase the item. If something is purchased during the mission, the author could earn a commission on the sale. It could work for ships and costumes, even if they are not immediately noticeable.
Sure it helps cryptic sell product, but does it grow the foundry team or to encourage them to add assets to it that some of us want, like KF's transporter room, or a 1950's era juke box, or a volume with Federation shuttle craft flying over head (a la Starfleet Academy). How do we encourage them to give us new objects, not just costumes, not just ships, not just bridges, but new consoles, new wall panels and floors, new plants, animal life, new sets and maps, and other objects that would be nice to have in foundry?
In order to grow Foundry's object libraries, I think asset packs are still the answer. These would be cosmetic objects, essentially an extra. There is nothing that requires an author to purchase these packs. There is nothing in them that would prevent an author from creating missions. These are just extras that go to support the foundry and give those that want more choice exactly what they want. For those that want them, they can purchase them. For those that don't, no harm done.
We can even give them a shelf life on the zen store. Sell them for a year or two, and then add them into Foundry long after that new car smell has gone away. People that want the cutting edge in technology usually pay a premium for it. Then, as time goes by and the tech evolves, the price comes down until it's old hat. At that point, it becomes part of the Foundry for everyone to use? If you want it now, you pay for it now.
I'm just spit balling here. I'd like to see more ideas and suggestions, not negativity and shooting down other people's ideas. The important thing is trying to figure out how to encourage Cryptic to grow the foundry. Asset packs is just one idea.
Dan is just a bad EP. Its as simple as that. We've all thrown countless amounts of good ideas to him by now over the years, and he still prioritizes the less profitable avenues. Star Trek fans have been telling him how to make bank off of us, but to no avail. He's the wrong EP for this IP, because he just doesnt get us. In three years this game could be making WoW tremble, but I doubt WoW devs are scared of STO in the least. :rolleyes:
The Foundry Affiliates idea is something that should have been done from the start. But its obvious they arent as business savy as they think they are. The affiliates idea is the only fair way for Cryptic to make additional indirect profit off an author's hard work. And we dont need commercial loading screens inside commercial missions :rolleyes:
STO: @AGNT009 Since Dec 2010
Capt. Will Conquest of the U.S.S. Crusader
I feel the main reason people like this idea if they do is that they see it as a way to encourage getting more assets delivered to the foundry authors, or "rarer" or oddball ones added in. That or they want to add some form of foundry oriented "Kickstarter" which is all well and good but there is a big problem.
The foundry author base is WAY too small to make it a viable and cost effective use of time. They have said this in a few places including a European Gamers developer conference when they were sharing their knowledge gained on this type of UGC in mmos. It is not a good business idea. The best way to keep it monetized is to utilize it as content for players so they spend more time in game and are more willing to buy a new ship/costume slots/inventory slots or any other thing that they would be exposed to and more inclined to purchase while playing.
You may want more assets but monetization or a kickstarter, on our scale, will probably not make it happen. Even if we all were willing to pay we wouldn't have enough to support the construction of a single "pack".
For other details I side with some of the previous posts by Cerberusfilms and snippets from other folks who are basically getting all my thoughts out there.
Dan is just a bad EP. Its as simple as that. We've all thrown countless amounts of good ideas to him by now over the years, and he still prioritizes the less profitable avenues. Star Trek fans have been telling him how to make bank off of us, but to no avail. He's the wrong EP for this IP, because he just doesnt get us. In three years this game could be making WoW tremble, but I doubt WoW devs are scared of STO in the least. :rolleyes:
The Foundry Affiliates idea is something that should have been done from the start. But its obvious they arent as business savy as they think they are. The affiliates idea is the only fair way for Cryptic to make additional indirect profit off an author's hard work. And we dont need commercial loading screens inside commercial missions :rolleyes:
The Foundry is the least potentially profitable area in the game, only 2% of players regularly use the Foundry, even if they managed to get 50% of the regular authors purchasing these asset packs or the affiliate program (this is a high estimate, the actual numbers would probably be closer to 25%), most of the remaining 50% would more than likely quit the Foundry and STO altogether. And the remaining 98% of players would most likely never step into the Foundry create screen again.
In three years this game could be making WoW tremble, but I doubt WoW devs are scared of STO in the least. :rolleyes:
Uhm, no. Not without about $400 million in development, and even then it would be extremely unlikely, as Blizzard would react to anything like that by spending as much. Cryptic Studios went up against Blizzard in game development once before, and that with a few months of head start. The result? That game shut down last November.
There is no reasonable expenditure that could cause this game to overtake WoW. Their headstart is too great. Nobody within Cryptic has ever thought for a moment that they were aiming at unseating that juggernaut; it was never about that. WoW's success is due to a very specific confluence of events that have since been cemented by years of massive expenditure; the time is not ripe for them to fall.
It's possible that Elder Scrolls Online is spending enough money ($300 million) with the right mix (people tired of the old game, extremely popular existing game franchise, enough money spent to polish the bit usually left until after launch) to beat them, but anything short of that effort hasn't a chance.
Star Wars is a larger fanbase, has a greater history of successful games, and spent half that much money; and they didn't make an audible thump under WoW's tires as it rolled over them. I'm a Trekkie first and foremost since 1966, but this franchise isn't as huge as we like to think it is.
I ran into a gamer yesterday who didn't know what a tribble was. We're a niche. A wonderful, hopeful, intelligent, amazing niche I wouldn't trade for the world, but a niche. To beat WoW you have to not rely on your IP, but actually outdevelop them, and that means outspend them.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
Uhm, no. Not without about $400 million in development, and even then it would be extremely unlikely, as Blizzard would react to anything like that by spending as much. Cryptic Studios went up against Blizzard in game development once before, and that with a few months of head start. The result? That game shut down last November.
There is no reasonable expenditure that could cause this game to overtake WoW. Their headstart is too great. Nobody within Cryptic has ever thought for a moment that they were aiming at unseating that juggernaut; it was never about that. WoW's success is due to a very specific confluence of events that have since been cemented by years of massive expenditure; the time is not ripe for them to fall.
It's possible that Elder Scrolls Online is spending enough money ($300 million) with the right mix (people tired of the old game, extremely popular existing game franchise, enough money spent to polish the bit usually left until after launch) to beat them, but anything short of that effort hasn't a chance.
Star Wars is a larger fanbase, has a greater history of successful games, and spent half that much money; and they didn't make an audible thump under WoW's tires as it rolled over them. I'm a Trekkie first and foremost since 1966, but this franchise isn't as huge as we like to think it is.
I ran into a gamer yesterday who didn't know what a tribble was. We're a niche. A wonderful, hopeful, intelligent, amazing niche I wouldn't trade for the world, but a niche. To beat WoW you have to not rely on your IP, but actually outdevelop them, and that means outspend them.
QFT
Market anaylsts have spent years studying WoW's success and have generally come to the conclusion that it was a fluke and unlikely to happen again.
No. We're providing them unlimited and almost free content. Almost free because they have zer0 working on foundry stuff a few days a month, and i'm not even sure she isn't adding assets on her free time. Actually the ROI must be excellent with the foundry... :rolleyes:
A c-store assets pack sounds like prisonners paying for the rope to tie them to me. If it sounds silly to you then your mental health is ok.
Comments
Cryptic needs to justify the time and manpower needed to continue working on this tool, this would be the perfect way to do it.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
1. Cryptic have said time again that they are NOT going to monetise the foundry in such a way that would make the authors pay. They don't believe in it, in fact to semi quote them "We should almost be paying them".
2. Say they made packs and sold them for $2 and say 200 people bought them (a not unrealistic number for Foundry Authors). That's about $400 gross. If it took an artist a week to put together the pack, that's about an average of $1000 pay. Already they've made a loss.
3. Putting in paid packs could stifle the creativity and very well create a two tiered system, which so far hasn't been present in the Foundry, Those that can afford to buy packs, and those that can't. This would also occur with the 'holodeck' idea because some people just couldn't afford to buy packs.
4. On the 'Holodeck' idea, why not just put the assets straight into the foundry using the methods they have described in the past instead of making the authors buy a pack of costumes etc that they may never use for their character?
5. Why spend time making a couple of dollar pack for the minority when they can make $20 starships that the majority of the community will buy?
6. The foundry already generates income, simply by giving the playerbase something to do to keep them ingame. That generate income indirectly via the dilithium exchange and people just buying more things from teh C-store (such as lock box keys from drops in the foundry ;P ok.. that was a cheeky one)
7. NO ONE should ever have to pay for features, so PLEASE don't suggest making the Cutscene tool, or teleporters, or new and better behaviours something people have to pay for
With very little if any financial incentive to do so and having stated they don't want to make people pay to make good content, I don't see them ever doing this.
Inherently I am against making authors pay to make content. And buying packs will not give them any incentive to put stuff into the foundry. They already want to.
I bought a Lifetime so I would never have to pay for something again in the game if I didn't want to (being a student is tough on your bank balance). I would feel obligated to buy these packs to keep up with others, and I simply couldn't afford to.
... In the words of a friend of mine "It simply isn't Star Trek"
*shrug*
Machinima Person
Did some things back in the day
Now a Games Developer and Researcher
I see there is no easy answer. I was always in the camp that said that Foundry access should have been limited to Gold members only (as of right now, they are unlockable to Silvers upon purchasing a slot with dilithium). But as it currently stands, there is little chance of that changing.
I see no reason to monetize the Foundry. It would be a waste of Cryptic's resources.
Remember the the Foundry is really just a stripped down version of their Genesis Engine. If Cryptic truly wanted to monetize the Foundry, they should license out the Genesis Engine. I know I would buy it in a heart beat.
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
$2? !? when they sell per character space suits for $7.50, why would the sell a foundry packs for $2? Heck bank slots cost $1 a per slot with a min. of 10 slots. Think more $20 - $25 per pack. That would be about $50,000. About the paid for a Dev for a year. Hold on there, I have been told you can earn everything in the game by just playing. You can get zen by trading it for dilithum which you earn by just playing the game. There would be no two tiered system. T Because it is a untapped revenue source. You do want to support the game, don?t you? No one HAS to pay for anything in this game. IT IS FREE TO PLAY! You can earn everything in the Zen Store by trading your dilithum for Zen. I think there is a lot of financial incentive. Like in the overall game a small set of players are willing to spend a lot to cover the mass of players who pay nothing. Same would apply to Foundry makers. You may not want to paid, but I am sure there are a few who have lots of money to spend and are willing to pay to help support their hobby. Again, you don?t HAVE to buy anything in this game. everyone would still be able to make missions, but those authors who support the game, of course, would be about to get some extra goodies to play with. No different than the player who love ships, doffs, or gear. I am begin to understand, why some people feel there maybe an elitist attitude amount the foundry authors
Beers,
Jengoz =/
Can't seem to have an honest difference of opinion without name calling.
Many players oppose monetization in other aspects of the game, is their opinion invalid as well?
I agree about the name calling. Let's try to keep this civil.
lots of people opposed monetizing the game initially, but that didn't stop it from happening, and the result has proved to be very successful. I just don't want to see cryptic loose out on an opportunity to speed up foundry development and growth when there is a group of people just itching to throw money at them to ensure its further development and growth.
It's not like those that don't have money will be excluded from purchasing assets or contributing. Zen can be purchased with dilithium, which can be earned fairly easily in game. If you don't like the idea of using zen, fine set the price in dilithium. It's the same thing.
Nope, they have very valid opinions.
As I recalled many of the people who opposed the changes to Free 2 play, where called "elitist." When they declared the game better they way it was and would be filled with F2P "hobos" and riff raff. They too declared they had paid for a lifetime sub and should not have to pay more for anything else. They cried "DOOM" and that monetization would fail and no one would buy anything. But look STO was failing and now it is making gobs and gobs of money all because of the new monetization system.
Maybe instead of crying that nothing is being fixed or added to the foundry, people should stop thinking the foundry as some sort of hallowed ground that should be serviced by the Devs as a matter of principle and see that the solution to get it moving forward is right in front of everyone. I have no love for some of the monetization things that cryptic has added. But if you really want improvement to STO and the foundry, there is going to have to be some shared sacrifice. The foundry community is going to have to accept that it will need to paid its fair share to support the trek, if it wants to see the foundry and STO grow and survive for years to come.
Beers,
Jengoz =/
=-=-=-=-=-=
Play Farts, becasue playing with Tarts is just rude.
I just don't know what to say when I read something like these statements. Jengoz, please let me take you nearly two years back in time, if I may.
When the Foundry team left for NW during S3, the STO team seemed to abandon the Foundry completely. I don't think that we had 1 single dev even working on it, before S4 broke all of our missions, which was well before seasons 5 and 6 focused entirely on F2P conversion that didn't seem to care about the Foundry become it couldn't be monetized by PWE...
At some point, we got a "big update" that seemed to consist of a few added features and mostly cosmetic changes. It was, in the words of dstahl, the update they we might not really notice, and many of us didn't.
Meanwhile, we were the only ones telling a story about STO lore for nearly a year, without even much of an acknowledgement that we were contributing to STO, in terms of dev time, beyond fixing what got broken.
In the entire history of the Foundry (after the Foundry team left) we have mostly been ignored, overlooked, marginalized, and isolated, until roughly 1 year ago when talk of spotlights took nearly 1 year to materialize.
Now, in the wake of Cryptic actually doing something for its Foundry author community (beyond odds and ends here and there), you tell us that we need to stop thinking of the Foundry as hallowed ground, to be serviced by the devs at our whim... because we haven't experienced our fair share compared with others.
WOW.
WOW, I did not think this thread would end up going there...
I fail to see how wanting to keep the foundry free (with the exception of the 10k dil) could be construed as elitist? But that's another thread.
I don't fear change, I don't think I ever have in this game.
Selling packs for $20 is quite a lot to ask. You also appear to have your maths wrong. $20x200 = $4000 still not a huge return in Cryptic/PWE terms. I would also want a hell of a lot of content for that amount of money.
It takes some time to grind up the dilithium to pay for $20 of Zen, about a month of refining and earning max 8k dilithium every day. A lot of foundry authors don't enjoy doing that. I happen to enjoy playing but I, like many people simply can't get into the game and play as much they'd want to because of real life commitments. Combine that with the urge to be in the editor making missions instead of playing, and we reach a dilemma that would take months to grind for those asset packs.
It is a tapped resource. As I explained, the foundry already provides content for the game and therefor provides a large source of income. As Dan Stahl said on PrimetimeUGC episode 18, without the foundry, STO, Wouldn't still be here, does that not make it the biggest tapped resource?
As I said, yes you can earn it all, however it takes a very long time, the exchange rate (last I checked) is about 90ish dil to 1 Zen. So that's about 28 days hitting max refinement each day to earn 2500zen
You missed the point, possibly of this entire thread. To get the features, you would HAVE to pay somehow, whether it be through time spent grinding, or paying up front. Simply put, if you didn't pay, you wouldn't be able to make as good a mission as someone who had. (You can always have a better story, but as its a game, people want to see shiny pretty things too unfortunately).
How many people do you expect to buy these packs? Because even if all of the regular foundry authors did, that's still a tiny percentage of the player base, if not less than 1%. From a business perspective, does that sound viable?
I have supported this game from the moment I could Subscribe (almost three years ago now) and I've been heavily involved with the Foundry since the Redshirt closed testing. I like many many others have invested a lot to support this game, through Financial means, spending thousands of hours playing it, thousands of hours in the foundry creating content for the other 99% to play to keep people in the game, devote hours to creating podcasts about the game and create machinima productions to show off and celebrate its beauty and abilities.
Do those people not deserve rewards for what they've done over someone buying a pack? (Before you say it... Nothing in there is 'elitist'... I checked ;-P )
I love this game. I'm passionate about it and it even helped me get into University as strange as that sounds, I just think this is one step too far.
I guess we'll just have to find out more this week when PrimetimeUGC interviews Zero
Edit- My apologies for not adding specific quotes to every section as I'm currently doing this from an iPad .. at 6am :P
Machinima Person
Did some things back in the day
Now a Games Developer and Researcher
I like this post, even if my earlier statements of being willing to pay contradicts it. Havraha is speaking in logic, while I'm just sort of desperately saying.... "How much do I have to pay you folks to get a transporter pad?"
The idea of selling packs to Foundry authors is something that sounds good at first, but then when you analyse deeper, it doesn't seem so attractive. The previous posts in this thread make good arguments, so look at those.
As Alt pointed out with the Zinc video, Cryptic's view is that there should be no barriers to Foundry mission creation - adding in pay gates to have authors unlock stuff would stifle creative output. We already have to ditch ideas because assets and features in Foundry don't exist or haven't been provided (Romulan ridges, Jupiter Uniforms etc. even though all these assets are already in game and exist).
I agree with Hav that it's bad to charge Foundry authors - if you were alimac30 spending 5 months making a mission, would it be ethical to charge an extra $20 for him to finish it with a nice looking set of assets? I don't think so. It's already like slave labour getting your players to make free content for you.
I wouldn't really be interested in grinding dilithium for ZEN to unlock purchases either. There's too many things competing for my time - if I wanted to grind out enough for a pack using cerb's figures above, it would take me a month of non-stop grind for enough dilithium? What about all the other things I need dilithium for, like fleet stuff, buying gear, rep system, etc. there's not enough time in the day to do all this grinding!
I agree with the comments above about the Foundry author base being a minority group. It makes no financial sense to be selling stuff to 1-2% of the STO playerbase. You wouldn't get enough return on investment.
TL : DR
Those were the reasons I think charging anyone for Foundry stuff (players or authors) is a bad idea. So what is the solution?
Don't charge authors for packs. Don't charge players to play.
Look at how Amazon makes money. Amazon Affiliates.
What we need to monetize Foundry is to make Foundry authors C-Store affiliates.
Havraha I believe has stated on the show before that Foundry missions should have all assets in the game freely unlocked for authors to use and that missions should act as a showcase for the C-Store, encouraging players to say "Hey that looks cool" and buy it from the C-Store.
There should be a mechanic where at the end of the mission when the review window pops up, there's also a huge button that says:
"Hey, this mission featured a cool looking Odyssey class ship. Click on this huge button to go to the C-Store and get the Odyssey pack for a 10% discount!"
And that discount would only be valid for completion of the mission (using the algorithms for the IOR qualification we know they have) and also when a player completes a purchase, it should give the Foundry author a kickback, e.g. a 100 dilithium tip.
That way, authors get rewarded for making missions, players get rewarded for playing a mission with disounts in the C-Store, and Cryptic gets money because they are marketing stuff to the 99% of players rather than 1% of authors and generating more C-Store sales.
It's win-win-win.
That's how you monetize something.
The Syndicate Extraction by Galactrix - Trailer: youtu.be/8SL7AXuUMec
In MMO's other player are content. Foundry Authors don't have a lock on creating content. PvP players create content. Social interaction in fleets is content. RPers make their own content. You could also say without players STO wouldnt sti'l be here. This sounds the same as the design philosophy the game current has about ships. You don't have to have the fancy ship that is a little better with some shiny pretty effects. If you have enough skill the free stuff would works too. Same would apply to the Foundry, if you story was good enough, you would not need rely on flashy gimmicks to make your missions good. You were right my math before was wrong. But as Cryptic tells us, there are 2 million captains playing STO but if only 1% are using the Foundry that is still 20,000 people. If they all bought a $5 asset pack that would be $100,000 or a $20 pack would give $400,000. Make it a $50 foundry tool expansion kit, we are talking $1 million. That could give Cryptic a reason to put start to put resources into it Is a player spending 5 months making a mission different than a player spending 5 months running a fleet, or 5 months building a starbase, 5 months deconstruction ship builds for PvP? Using the foundry is just another type of gameplay. Now with that and to make a monetization work, it would need to be rewarded llike other forms of game play. For example, maybe tips should be larger or authors should get dilithum every time players plays their missions. Authors would make good missions would be rolling in dilithum to buy packs. So alimac30 would not be slave labour, he would just be 'grinding' the foundry the way other players grind fleet events or killing those Salt thingys.
Other than the C-Store affiliates idea. I am not seeing any feedback to how to get the foundry development rolling. All I see is 'don't charge us more because we are adding to the game. Well, lots of players add to the game. Are Foundry authors adding more to the gmae than fleet leaders? Than the KDF players? Than the Bajorian RPers? -okay well maybe you got me on that one. I personally don't love the idea of monetizing either. I think the game has gone too far in some areas with it. But when you look at the other forms of game play in STO, you see the monetizing has help the development in those areas.
So, I ask, if you don't want to see the Foundry monetized, how would get Cryptic to accelerate development on the foundry?
Beers,
Jengoz =/
=-=-=-=-=-=
Play Farts, cause everyone likes a TRIBBLE joke.
Yeah, actually, I have a tiny bit of an idea.
Absolutely everything that they have in either the CStore or LOBI , or any "gated" store type of thing should be made available for Foundry authors to use. They should be throwing these things at us as quickly as they are made.
Yes, they can "monetize" the Foundry, but not by charging authors for it.
Not sure how to explain what I am thinking, but they use the Foundry as advertising for the products they are putting on the Z-store, Lobi Store, Fleet Shop, etc.
I have received feedback (a lot of it actually) from people who, once they realized that the set of my mission IS the ship interior you get from the TOS bundle, say they were going to the Z-store to buy the bundle.
They could have smaller "challenges" to create very short missions (commercials) for the new content so that people get to see it in the game, and even interact with it (in the case of maps and such), without having to give it to them.
It's obvious that they get this idea from the last two anniversary episodes, where we got to play with a ship they were about to put in the z-store(last year) or Fleet store(this year).
Shrug.
This is just a quick thought in passing.
Have fun with it.
Tear it apart.
Whatever, I have places to be and things to do.
Peace, Love and Snowy Walks
- John
But, here's another idea. How about for foundry missions, during loading screens there is a commercial played for the zen store items that the foundry mission uses. For instance, if you use an Odyssey and the Bajoran Vedek costume in your mission, during a loading screen, a message appears that says that this mission features and lists off the various zen store purchasable items that the author has used in the mission with perhaps the ability to click something to actually open the zen store and purchase the item. If something is purchased during the mission, the author could earn a commission on the sale. It could work for ships and costumes, even if they are not immediately noticeable.
Sure it helps cryptic sell product, but does it grow the foundry team or to encourage them to add assets to it that some of us want, like KF's transporter room, or a 1950's era juke box, or a volume with Federation shuttle craft flying over head (a la Starfleet Academy). How do we encourage them to give us new objects, not just costumes, not just ships, not just bridges, but new consoles, new wall panels and floors, new plants, animal life, new sets and maps, and other objects that would be nice to have in foundry?
In order to grow Foundry's object libraries, I think asset packs are still the answer. These would be cosmetic objects, essentially an extra. There is nothing that requires an author to purchase these packs. There is nothing in them that would prevent an author from creating missions. These are just extras that go to support the foundry and give those that want more choice exactly what they want. For those that want them, they can purchase them. For those that don't, no harm done.
We can even give them a shelf life on the zen store. Sell them for a year or two, and then add them into Foundry long after that new car smell has gone away. People that want the cutting edge in technology usually pay a premium for it. Then, as time goes by and the tech evolves, the price comes down until it's old hat. At that point, it becomes part of the Foundry for everyone to use? If you want it now, you pay for it now.
I'm just spit balling here. I'd like to see more ideas and suggestions, not negativity and shooting down other people's ideas. The important thing is trying to figure out how to encourage Cryptic to grow the foundry. Asset packs is just one idea.
The Foundry Affiliates idea is something that should have been done from the start. But its obvious they arent as business savy as they think they are. The affiliates idea is the only fair way for Cryptic to make additional indirect profit off an author's hard work. And we dont need commercial loading screens inside commercial missions :rolleyes:
Capt. Will Conquest of the U.S.S. Crusader
The foundry author base is WAY too small to make it a viable and cost effective use of time. They have said this in a few places including a European Gamers developer conference when they were sharing their knowledge gained on this type of UGC in mmos. It is not a good business idea. The best way to keep it monetized is to utilize it as content for players so they spend more time in game and are more willing to buy a new ship/costume slots/inventory slots or any other thing that they would be exposed to and more inclined to purchase while playing.
You may want more assets but monetization or a kickstarter, on our scale, will probably not make it happen. Even if we all were willing to pay we wouldn't have enough to support the construction of a single "pack".
For other details I side with some of the previous posts by Cerberusfilms and snippets from other folks who are basically getting all my thoughts out there.
The Foundry is the least potentially profitable area in the game, only 2% of players regularly use the Foundry, even if they managed to get 50% of the regular authors purchasing these asset packs or the affiliate program (this is a high estimate, the actual numbers would probably be closer to 25%), most of the remaining 50% would more than likely quit the Foundry and STO altogether. And the remaining 98% of players would most likely never step into the Foundry create screen again.
Uhm, no. Not without about $400 million in development, and even then it would be extremely unlikely, as Blizzard would react to anything like that by spending as much. Cryptic Studios went up against Blizzard in game development once before, and that with a few months of head start. The result? That game shut down last November.
There is no reasonable expenditure that could cause this game to overtake WoW. Their headstart is too great. Nobody within Cryptic has ever thought for a moment that they were aiming at unseating that juggernaut; it was never about that. WoW's success is due to a very specific confluence of events that have since been cemented by years of massive expenditure; the time is not ripe for them to fall.
It's possible that Elder Scrolls Online is spending enough money ($300 million) with the right mix (people tired of the old game, extremely popular existing game franchise, enough money spent to polish the bit usually left until after launch) to beat them, but anything short of that effort hasn't a chance.
Star Wars is a larger fanbase, has a greater history of successful games, and spent half that much money; and they didn't make an audible thump under WoW's tires as it rolled over them. I'm a Trekkie first and foremost since 1966, but this franchise isn't as huge as we like to think it is.
I ran into a gamer yesterday who didn't know what a tribble was. We're a niche. A wonderful, hopeful, intelligent, amazing niche I wouldn't trade for the world, but a niche. To beat WoW you have to not rely on your IP, but actually outdevelop them, and that means outspend them.
QFT
Market anaylsts have spent years studying WoW's success and have generally come to the conclusion that it was a fluke and unlikely to happen again.
A c-store assets pack sounds like prisonners paying for the rope to tie them to me. If it sounds silly to you then your mental health is ok.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.