I see lots of complaints about the greedy devs and manipulative business practices, but I don’t see a lot of realistic suggestions to fix those aspects of the game.
I agree that a lot of the problems in the game could be fixed if it was the kind of game you buy once and never have to pay again. But I don’t think that is realistic for a game this small, and definitely not for one that has already been around this long.
This means they are stuck with the F2P model, unfortunately. Some have said that wouldn’t be such a problem if you could only buy cosmetic items, like how some other F2P games work. Unfortunately, I think Crossout is too small for that to be enough to keep it running. Crossout is not Fortnite, and never will be.
That doesn’t leave us with a lot of options, and it looks to me like Crossout is trying all of them at once.
I am very curious where Crossout makes most of their income currently. Obviously packs were the big moneymaker in the early days, but my gut tells they probably make a lot more from BPs, once they were introduced. I doubt premium subscriptions and crosscrowns add up to much, but I could be wrong.
If my assumptions are correct, and most of their income comes from lots of players buying a few BPs a year, is that such a bad option? Seems better to me than depending on whales buying expensive packs, or making the grind so tough that more people pay for premium.
How do you think Crossout should pay the bills? What would you do if you were in charge?
Literally just make uranium generally available to all players through a raid and boom suddenly a lot more players feel like sticking with the game and might even put money into it when the “endgame” gear does not cost hundreds of monies or be absolutely unavailable to a large part of the entire playerbase
12 hour trial and then a $15 price tag… I think most people who experience the sandbox that Crossout provides would happily spend $15 on the game.
The issue here is I think they would need to rework the structure parts available for new players… The base structure which a new player has should be drastically expanded to allow new players to really get stuck into the creative aspect of the game.
If you were to start this game with all the fenders and such that a vet player has accumulated after many years then you’d be more likely to enjoy the building aspect compared to the tiny amount a new player currently gets to pick from.
I’m not sure that would actually help the game make money. People that have already been playing a while are either spending money, or have enough stuff they aren’t spending money.
I’m pretty sure they make most of their money from those of us that have already been in the game for a while. More free stuff isn’t going to make me spend more money, and I definitely wouldn’t quit the game over not getting enough free stuff.
But you might be right that a milder grind might keep newer players around long enough that they become customers. But if you give them too much stuff, they’ll never spend any money.
The only real personal XP I got with other games in the multiplayer category extends to WoW and Star Trek Online. In the past I’ve thought one or two game features could be ported over into Crossout to help with things, one of those is the subscription model. $300 for a lifetime (of the game) subscription, then, make everything craftable and obtainable through the grind with perks that cut down that grind only gained from the lifetime sub.
First of all, as a cheap person, I would absolutely not give Crossout $15 after only 12 hours. Make it a month, and I might consider it, but even that would be a tough sell.
I was playing for free for quite a while before the first BP came along, and I don’t think I would have bought that BP if I hadn’t already spent enough time playing to know I wouldn’t regret throwing them some money.
Also, a one-time $15 payment is not really enough to replace the income from their other sources. Not to mention how many new players would quit after that first 12 hours.
Besides, requiring that payment to even play the game seems pretty harsh for a F2P game this small. Seems like suicide to me.
it’s been working for STO for a decade now. You can play free or get the lifetime sub. I got that sub after a year of playing it and I’m glad i did. I still go back when new content drops and…yeah, anyhow, just any idea.
The up front price wouldn’t fully replace any micro transaction cost, but I’d hope it would alleviate the devs rampant anti-player antics. If they had that extra money they might not have to be so heavy handed when releasing new broken content…
But of course they would most likely just do both anyway because greed is greed
8 years ago Rocket league cost $20 after a trial period and look how “small” that game is in reality… it began as a few basic copy-paste pitches, 3v3 2v2 and 1v1 modes and that was all it was… but because of how fun it was people were happy to spend the up front cost and the game got absolutely massive. It did suffer from the whole loot box epidemic and is now f2p but the f2p model only happened 3 year ago.
I like the Battle Passes as a monetization scheme, but their game struggles to be fun to actually play so it doesn’t make the difference it probably could.
Most of this game’s features are steeped in unnecessary BS, and many are just a source of pointless frustration, like the stupid market, for example. I don’t need that schit. I’ve said before that these developers seem to feel they need to add a certain level of misery to every damn thing you do in this game. They can barely give things away for free without pissing people off, and IDK why. I’m not kidding.
They other half of this game’s features are simply dead-ends they stopped developing a long time ago, and who knows why? There’s a really cool game in here, but it’s buried beneath a lot of useless or unamusing junk.
Changing all the parameters of what you think the game is over and over, and at any given moment is literally “up-setting.” People build collections of cool things, and then the developers come in and destroy it all with nerfs, or secondary nerf (gets trumped by OP p2w). Tracks are probably a good example of this. Fusion is a feature that magnifies this frustration.
I think they simply need to make their game more amusing, and stop victimizing their patrons, and wrecking their schit. They are driving everyone away with it, and all they can think to do is build a bigger carrot for their stick.
Other than that, I think the Battle Pass is a good formula for monetization. The decor store was too, but Crosscrowns. WTF? Not to mention the stupid prices they want for that stuff. I’m not surprised they don’t sell more of it and make more money. That whole situation is just very poorly assembled. It’s no wonder people don’t go for that.
It’s not so much “what they could do to make some money.” It’s more like “what they need to stop doing that is driving their players away and pissing everybody off,” because under all that BS is a very good and marketable game. There is nothing else like it.
Isn’t the current Rocket League a sequel to a game from like 2008 or something?
Also, from what I can tell, the devs of that game had a bigger bankroll to start with thanks to their work with other companies. And they’ve since given up on that business model, so sounds like it wasn’t working great for them.
I mean I do like the idea, but I just think Crossout is too small and weird to risk scaring off casual players with a mandatory fee. I definitely would not still be playing Crossout if I had been required to give them money upfront like that.
It would be great if “make the game better” would solve everything, but the question remains how you monetize that without making it too annoying for new/free players.
Also, “make the game better” has very different meanings for different people. Most of the stuff I see people complaining about here doesn’t bother me at all, and many of those complaints are contradictory. Not sure there is a consensus on how to make the game a better experience. Just look at all the forum fights about that question.
Not victimizing them, is a pretty straight forward and nearly universally appreciated attitude. Ya, Jeffery Epstein probably saw that differently. There’s always one.
I think the Battle Pass is working fine. It should be. It’s not a bad system, but they wouldn’t have to squeeze it so hard if they curtailed some of the BS they do in other areas.
Also, like I said, the decor shop is a good idea, but it doesn’t work because it’s stupid the way they did it. Crosscrowns are like admitting your going to steal from your customer before they’ve even bought anything…supposing they understand simple math, I guess.
I wonder what kind of budget Crossout started with?
Anyway, this model might have worked if Crossout had started out that way, but hard to switch to it this many years in. I remember Rocket League having a lot of hype early on, which also helped it use that model. And that they don’t use that model anymore suggests that it wasn’t working for them so well.
Not trying to put down your idea, as I think it could work under different circumstances. I just don’t think it’s a model Crossout could switch to at this point and not bleed away all their new players.
