Originally Posted by Phosphor_chip
Hey all- official person from Phosphor here! A lot of interesting comments!
At Phosphor games, our developers come from a console / PC games background, and in mobile we are all huge fans of premium style games, and that is why we made Dark Meadow. But if you ever look at the top 100 grossing charts on iOS, you will see there are only a few ‘core’ premium games compared to 30 or so free to play games. The majority of the iOS audience won’t even look at a game unless it is free. Game development is a huge massive effort, and you really want to give as many people as you can the chance to experience the game you created.
That all said, we aren’t fans of “skinner box” style games, and we never planned on altering Dark Meadow to have paywalls or increased forced grind. The kind of games we play here are premium style, and that is exactly what we set out to do when we updated the game to free to play- it isn’t less of a game or gimped in some way, it is the original game, plus more features, and like the original version, you can buy in-app-purchases, but they are in no way required to complete the game.
Some of the new features (based on community feedback)
• New environments to explore (about 1/3 more), new boss creature
• Bombs that instantly take out most enemies
• Map so you know where you are
• Warps so you don’t have to start from beginning
• New weapons with special attack fx
• Health packs you can use in combat
• Made crossbow more deadly, more useful (as some of our playtesters have completed game without using melee)
Our intention was that we’d have one version of the app, so (future) leaderboards, etc could all be shared by same community. We always planned on turning off ads and gifting premium players, so we didn’t see any negative to what we were planning.
BUT it sounds like the community really wants them to stay as separate versions. From reading the forums, one large issue is it sounds like a lot of users have completed the current version, deleted it (as it is a large file size), and would like to check out the next one, but there is a good chance they won’t have save data, and they’d have the hassle of downloading the current one just to have a save game, then download the newer one, etc. All an annoyance we’d rather not give our fans.
SO we are keeping the Premium version of Dark Meadow separate from the Free one, and both will get all the new features. So anybody who previously purchased the game can update whenever they want, and they will just get new stuff.
iOS is a constantly evolving market- the market has even rapidly changed since we shipped Dark Meadow. Free to Play, if used correctly, can be an exciting way to include more gamers. Team Fortress, Jetpack Joyride, League of Legends have proven it can be a positive thing for their communities. Without putting it out there for you guys to try out, we won’t know how well this pricing model will work out of the gate, but we take the community very seriously, so please let us know what you think!
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03-13-2012, 02:51 PM
Part of the way to survive the iOS market is not to have all your programming eggs in one basket. Your game is successful as is readily apparent from the passionate fans on this thread! It might not be as broadly successful as you'd like, but please build on your success, don't tear it down or rip it apart. It sounds like this new plan is a step in the right direction, at least it's doing right by your existing fans. Thank you!
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