I do not think Stefan is opposed to PC Graal. He has mentioned himself that he really likes it, especially since that's where he 'started' out. I imagine it's the same sort of nostalgia that most of the current players feel regarding Graal.
But Stefan is a working man, and he needs to buy his and Unixmad's bread, so it isn't hard to understand why he'd be focusing his time on something that is sure to get the bread.
I think what we need to do is show that PC Graal can make a buck or two -- not only that, but that it can make more than iPhone Graal, or at least make enough to get some time dedicated to it. I know Zodiac has made some success here but I don't know how much it is compared to iPhone, and I imagine it isn't near as much otherwise we'd be seeing more Stefan around I bet.
The fact is that the combination of the iPhone App Store with the microtransactions in iPhone Graal is a way more powerful system for making money than the current subscription plans and lack of advertising that PC Graal has. I don't think CJ would disagree considering they are the ones raking in the cash from iPhone.
But switching the whole payment plan on PC Graal and spending money on advertisements would be a pretty large endeavor for CJ, and they probably feel that there are more important things to do. So the idea is that we need to convince them that PC Graal
is important and that we will hold our weight.
How do we convince them? I think if there is any plan that'll work, it'll be something like this:
- Have 2-3 solid servers that maintain a playercount, earn money from microtransactions, and don't smell of internal drama.
- Organize a solid case along with the managers of these servers and the PWA members, backed up by strong statistics.
- Present this case to Stefan and Unixmad.
With this plan, all we need to convince CJ of is "invest a little and see these numbers multiply", rather than what we would more or less need to do now: "invest in a playerbase that has shown constant failure and just hope for something good to come out of it."
I think step 1 is on the horizon. Step 2 will take some political hand-waving no doubt, but it is not impossible. (Consider how any bureaucracy works these days even though they are so massive.) Step 3 should be possible if we have a total backing of PWA and multiple server managers like step 2 requires.
I think it's possible.
I believe threads like these are not a bad thing even though they are often rehashes of old ones. Optimism may sometimes not get you much progress alone, but it rarely works in the opposite direction.
01-03-2011, 10:43 PM
and I also feel the PC advertisement ordeal wouldn't work very well unless of course we cross the two platforms into one community but they aren't wanting to do that If I recall right, inb4 global/pwa response "We were thinking on it but we haven't decided, guess we'll see."
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