They also added Stoneheart units to one of the League Quests

Snowgoon said:

They also added Stoneheart units to one of the League Quests

They haven't got a clue

Yeah this is the saddest fact.

It's a clueless drive for the maximum short term profit in the least time possible whilst simultaneously killing their titles and literally leaving themselves with negative brand equity with their customers. 

There is zero long term future for this business model. The quicker Aristocrat work out that they are sitting on an imploding time bomb that functions just to enrich the senior management/owners of Plarium before it blows up (those still there will be on golden handcuff contracts with big bonuses to keep them there for 1/2 years of handover) the better. 

Then we might get decent games that have a long term future with some symbiosis between player enjoyment and money making. This is our only hope, owners that spent $500m and have to have a long term horizon.

roadstar Pitbull said:

Sir Dan Saul Knight said:

I don't really agree.

They proved the model could be profitable only in the short term.

The titles are all dying and inactive. The company has negative brand equity in that no one would ever play another Plarium game. This was fine for original management because they were only going to be the owners in the short term so they could totally ignore the long term.

Aristrocrat has to make money in the long term. They simple can't take the same approach and have 500m reasons why they can't. Sure they are only interested in profit like all companies but long term profitability is much more tightly aligned to our interests as it involves making good games people enjoy and creating a strong brand. You can't screw the customer like Plarium did and do that.

PS I am trying to have some hope here.

Although It's probably too late for Stormfall, game is too dead and brand is trashed. And you might be right that people are only interest in mobile games and will have little interest (although personally I think because everyone else is focusing on mobile, there actually may well be some money in making decent PC online games).

Arisocrat had the profits already and steady, they are ones who bought, so probably more so than plariums profits.

No one outside of Aristocrat knows what the long term is, but I do not see it being in gaming side other than adverts (player base).

Once the profit margin drops to a preset percent (5-15%??), the game side will die.

Hence all the short term money grabbing "new features". If it was more long term goal oriented we would have had the the basic features (beacons etc, etc) addressed and fixed. Some basic game features have not worked in almost or over 1.5 years... Even the new platform (webgl) is coming up on a 1 year anniversary before long, but it is not promising based on the time line and the graphics are still less then standard currently.

So, yes, it was all short term profits, years over many games has added up well. Will it change? nothing I've seen since the buy out has shown anything different. And was around a year ago...

https://www.aristocrat.com/

Just go to their site, and you see what their games is all about....

It flashes it all about creating great games and experience but when you see what they display its casino and poker games....(insert real money here...)

They want to apply and enhance those kind of games onto mobile platform...... and imho, this is where Plarium got interesting for them.

I feel we as players of Plariums web games is kinda like those people putting nickles on slot machines. Very little maintenance needed, and steady trickle of income. 

Sir Dan Saul Knight said:

When I looked at Big Fish yesterday it did seem to be all casual games, very mobile orientated. Have to admit that, which is not so good for hope.

They might want a stable of games with some variation though, rather than having everything the same?

Like I said earlier, in a wierd way if they and the other big developers are going to focus on mobile only then this will eventually open the PC market for RTS to smaller indies who will make the games they would love to play in the hope they will make some money. More often than not the game is "their baby" first and a money making scheme as a side bar (at least at the start)..... I remember the earlier days of Runescape fondly before the Gower brothers sold it.

There is also the tension between "F2P / micro transactions" and subscriptions. Micro transactions really began as an anti piracy approach in Asia but by accident people found how much money people were willing to spend on their hobbies and abused it. It is near impossible to ever make a micro transaction game good and avoid pay to win unbalancing. So the whole genre is doomed at the moment.

Maybe small indies with some passion to make good games might take the risk to try subscriptions again. They are generally risking their time rather than wads of capital, so it's easier to take more risks and be more creative in their approach. 

So either the Aristocrats cater to the demand we represent or they open the way for others who are much more likely to meet our needs. Still some hope? (don't know how long that process will take though, could take years to cycle through).

Well, I support a few indy games through Patreon, but not any online rts type of games. Also do some early access steam games, mostly crafting/survival type of games. The difference between these indy type of devs/small time companies. Is devotion to make a great game themselves want to play as well. Not just the next big cash cow for people to throw money at. 

Look at EA as example.. when was the last Battlefield game that was somewhat fun to play. For my part that was bf:vietnam and BF2 (which I got some of the expansion packs for)... these had no loot boxes and added crap like that....

For other online games I play, even they might have cash shops its... for fluff and stuff, that doesn't really affect the sandbox.. Flash mounts or costumes and such... at most some items that increase leveling, inventory space and such... but no outright "I beat you over the head with my VISA card".... I don't mind micro transactons and cash shops in games as long as it doesn't affect the balance of the sandbox. My time and effort invested is just as much worth as the time and effort invested by anyone else. regardless of how much they (and myself) spend. Your time and effort invested should always be the rewarding factor when it come to game play in any game.