Drastic Action Needed Before Its Too Late

[TheSaxonDruid]

Its Clear something Drastic has to be done, lets look at Marauders this way the game is great and fun to play, when you can play it. The problem is it will never get more players because the player count is so incredibly low already.

What they need is not to focus on updates to retain players strange I know, the game loop is already very polished and well put together. One solution is to lower the price and I mean drastically, there needs to be more word of mouth people are not going to pay 50 dollars for a game that when they look at the reviews says is dead and has no players.
2nd solution lots and lots of free weekends. Again same principal. Third and best option BOTH.
These are solutions that can be implemented right this very second with little effort while also letting the Devs focus on future updates.

To summarise Great game, bad marketing, easy fix.

And to the Dev's little profit is better than no profit, either lower the price to gain traction, or watch your already diminishing profits turn into none at all.

[BatarianSoF]

Since I told you the most already on Discord. About free weekends they can't do one every time they want since Steam has the control over the free weekends and allows only a certain amount in a certain time.

[TheSaxonDruid]

Yes and thank you for that man, I still think lowering the overall price is the way to go, but as you have explained that probably wont be happening sadly, thank you for all the info man, and maybe just maybe the devs see this who knows, can't hurt to be optimistic I guess have a good one bro

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by TheSaxonDruid:

Yes and thank you for that man, I still think lowering the overall price is the way to go, but as you have explained that probably wont be happening sadly, thank you for all the info man, and maybe just maybe the devs see this who knows, can't hurt to be optimistic I guess have a good one bro

Lowering the price isn't the way to go. They put this game on sale often and for a pretty good discount so if the price is a barrier for anyone all they have to do is wait for a sale. This is a server based game, they have to bring in enough money to keep the servers going and given that there are currently zero microtransactions, no in game cash shop, and no subscription fees to keep the money coming in I would say that the price is right where it needs to be.

Originally posted by TheSaxonDruid:

Its Clear something Drastic has to be done,

One solution is to lower the price and I mean drastically, there needs to be more word of mouth people are not going to pay 50 dollars for a game that when they look at the reviews says is dead and has no players.

They're working on the game, nothing drastic needs to be done. Be patient.

The game's not even close to 50 dollars, it's about $35 CDN or $30 USD so what currency are you talking about?

Originally posted by TheSaxonDruid:

To summarise Great game, bad marketing, easy fix.

No, it's just not that simple. Events happened behind the scenes that affected development and that still seem to be affecting things including communication between the developers and the players. A marketing push fixes nothing if the game isn't ready for that, isn't in the state it needs to be in, and right now it's not.

[TheSaxonDruid]

First of I live in New Zealand so its priced at 55 NZD, Secondly at the rate sales/ player numbers seem to be going they are maybe making 1 sale a week if even that, when considering purchasing a game people will be more likely to give it a shot if its cheap. The changes need not be permanent either just enough to boost player numbers so that the game can sustain an active player base. If that happens then the negative reviews will slowly start to turn into more positive reviews making the game look better to any potential buyers.
At the current stage its in now they would barely be making any profits, especially not enough to keep them afloat in the long term.
Lowering prices does not always mean less money it could equate to more sales which in the long term will Generate them more money.
Regardless I respect your opinion dude, but we might just have to agree to disagree on this one either way we both want the game to succeed.

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by TheSaxonDruid:

First of I live in New Zealand so its priced at 55 NZD, Secondly at the rate sales/ player numbers seem to be going they are maybe making 1 sale a week if even that, when considering purchasing a game people will be more likely to give it a shot if its cheap. The changes need not be permanent either just enough to boost player numbers so that the game can sustain an active player base. If that happens then the negative reviews will slowly start to turn into more positive reviews making the game look better to any potential buyers.
At the current stage its in now they would barely be making any profits, especially not enough to keep them afloat in the long term.
Lowering prices does not always mean less money it could equate to more sales which in the long term will Generate them more money.
Regardless I respect your opinion dude, but we might just have to agree to disagree on this one either way we both want the game to succeed.

Well, 55 NZD is roughly the same as 30 USD based on today's exchange rates so that's a non-issue.

You're guessing at sales figures when you've been here, what, a couple days? You're new on the Discord, have no idea what the sales are or have been like, and don't have the slightest idea how many new players are coming in every week. The developers know, but you and I don't. I can give an educated guess by looking at posts on Discord and I guarantee you that it's not as low as your assertion that it's maybe 1 sale per week, if even that. Do you even know how many units have sold to date? Probably not...

You are vastly over-simplifying the problem. If the issues this game has, the problems that came up in the past year, could all be solved by simply lowering the price then there's a really good chance they would have done that by now. It's much more complex than that, and lowering the price is not a solution in the short or long term.

It's not at all about the cost of the game. I've been here since October, 2022, when early access started, and have seen what's happened. You haven't.

[TheSaxonDruid]

I bought the game close to release in Oct 13, 2022 in fact. you're assuming things, I know the game has made 14 million in sales, so atleast the developers have some money, but not being able to play the game is my main concern and Its a concern of many players who enjoy the game but can't seem to find a single match, its either that or I have to wait 10 minutes in a US lobby where I get terrible ping and have a huge disadvantage. Player numbers are an indicator of recent sales. Doesn't matter If the game made sales in the distant past if people can no longer play it anymore. The game might of made the developers a lot of money. However right now its not. Pure and simple man. No point telling people not to worry about it and wait for a fix when the game has been in this situation for almost a year now, especially for those that are in Regions like AU and south east Asia.

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by TheSaxonDruid:

I bought the game close to release you're assuming things, I know the game has made 14 million in sales, so atleast the developers have some money, but not being able to play the game is my main concern and Its a concern of many players who enjoy the game but can't seem to find a single match, its either that or I have to wait 10 minutes in a US lobby where I get terrible ping and have a huge disadvantage. Player numbers are an indicator of recent sales. Doesn't matter If the game made sales in the distant past if people can no longer to play it anymore.

Yep, based on your "solution" to the "problem" and the fact that you just joined the Discord I assumed you were new to the game. My bad.

Now, if you have really been around that long then you should know that your suggestion isn't a solution to the problem, the price has nothing to do with the problem.

No, player numbers are not an indicator of recent sales at all. I keep telling people they need to stop pointing at the concurrent player counts as if they are the answer to everything because they aren't. They tell you ONE thing and ONE THING only - the number of concurrent players at that point in time. They do not reflect the sales figures at all.

The hundreds of thousands of people who bought the game can still play the game if they want to, the problem isn't sales so lowering the price isn't going to fix anything.

I rarely have to wait even 3 full minutes on the US lobbies unless I play when the daily low point in concurrent numbers happens.

[TheSaxonDruid]

Timezones are different for us man, when we jump on to play games you lot are already in bed, but I see your point somewhat in terms of lowering the price. But sales do mean an increase in active player numbers if even only by a certain percentage. But they still will increase players over time. Sure I agree if people came back it would fix the player numbers but so would players coming in both scenarios are good for player numbers. What's also rather worrying is how the last major update only slightly spiked concurrent players only for us to see it rapidly drop to the rate its at now. If the developers were making good profits on this game we would also see an increase in updates since more money for them means they can hire more workers, more workers means more work can get done in a shorter time frame meaning more updates meaning more players jumping back on.

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by TheSaxonDruid:

Timezones are different for us man, when we jump on to play games you lot are already in bed, but I see your point somewhat in terms of lowering the price. But sales do mean an increase in player numbers if even only by a certain percentage. But they still will increase players over time.

What? There are TIME ZONES?

You're making an assumption on what kind of hours I tend to keep, and that's not relevant anyway. There are times when the counts are higher and times when they are lower. If you play during the peak hours on the US servers then you will have little to no wait time.

Yep, more sales means more POTENTIAL players, but if the problems aren't solved then those potential players won't play for long, they'll stop playing for the same reason the 600k+ other people who own the game stopped playing, and we'll still be in the situation we're in now.

[TheSaxonDruid]

The more money they get the more money they can invest into improving the game. It goes both ways man. They make more money if more people buy the game they then use that money to improve the game quicker that then turns into the game being better received and players returning.

[TheSaxonDruid]

I'll try to summarise it for you mate, If they lower the prices more people will buy the game
because it costs them less, that's step one.
Step two more people buying the game means more people in the game.
Step three more people in the game means better reviews.
Step four better reviews means more people will consider buying the game.
Step Five more people buying the game means the devs get more money.
Step Six more money for the devs means they have more money to spend on the game.
Step Seven more money spent on the game means more updates.
Step Eight more updates means more players returning.
Step nine more players returning means more people talking about the game.
Step 10 more people learn about the game and buy it.
Step oh for goodness sake if you can't understand that there is no helping you.
Good day sir!

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by TheSaxonDruid:

The more money they get the more money they can invest into improving the game. It goes both ways man. They make more money if more people buy the game they then use that money to improve the game quicker that then turns into the game being better received and players returning.

There's no guarantee that lowering the price will boost sales significantly.

They've got enough money, and a publisher backing the project. Money is not the issue.

As I explained already the price is not the problem so lowering the price is not a solution. Try to understand that point because it's why your solution isn't viable at all. If they don't fix the issues then the game doesn't survive so it won't matter how they price the game.

Originally posted by TheSaxonDruid:

I'll try to summarise it for you mate, If they lower the prices more people will buy the game
because it costs them less, that's step one.
Step two more people buying the game means more people in the game.
Step three more people in the game means better reviews.
Step four better reviews means more people will consider buying the game.
Step Five more people buying the game means the devs get more money.
Step Six more money for the devs means they have more money to spend on the game.
Step Seven more money spent on the game means more updates.
Step Eight more updates means more players returning.
Step nine more players returning means more people talking about the game.
Step 10 more people learn about the game and buy it.
Step oh for goodness sake if you can't understand that there is no helping you.
Good day sir!

LOL. That's funny. You decided to post a list of steps as if I didn't understand what you were trying to say. It's not a matter of comprehension, you're just wrong. You can spell it out any way you like but that won't make you right.

None of this matters at all if they don't fix the underlying problems which aren't a matter of them needing more money or needing higher sales numbers.

You claim you've been here for a while and you think this is how it would go? It's not. They made a good amount of money in the first year but has it meant more updates? No, it hasn't. Updates slowed for reasons not linked to sales so more sales and more income won't mean more updates. It's a small team, things happened that they couldn't control, the pace of updates slowed and that wasn't related to the number of people buying, or not buying, the game.

You seem to have an overly simplistic view of the situation. You'e also got tunnel vision, focused only on your one single idea as the solution to all the game's problems instead of looking at the bigger picture and realising that based on all the factors involved that the price is neither the problem, nor the solution.

[TheSaxonDruid]

All you are telling me is that things happened with no context. Stop getting agitated man, why so passive aggressive too. I completely disagree with you on the price not making a difference other than that I agree with improving the game stop throwing insults around and lets just agree to disagree and let that be it.

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by TheSaxonDruid:

All you are telling me is that things happened with no context. Stop getting agitated man, why so passive aggressive too. I completely disagree with you on the price not making a difference other than that I agree with improving the game stop throwing insults around and lets just agree to disagree and let that be it.

Passive aggressive and throwing insults around? Wasn't doing that. Please stop making baseless accusations. I get enough grief from the usual "bad actors" that hang around here, don't need it from you as well.

Context. Yeah, true. I didn't really explain what's been going on.

Do you know about the lawsuit? Most of us have very few details about it but it's known that there was a lawsuit between SIG and Team17. Players weren't told what the outcome was but it certainly could be the cause of things like the pace of updates slowing considerably and the changes in the level of communication about what the developers are working on.

Do you know much about the big shake-up at Team17 that happened at the beginning of the year? Did you notice that most player support is handled by SIG via Discord now including cheating reports that used to be sent to Team17's website and initially handled by some of Team17's staff instead of SIG? Did you notice that basically none of Team17's staff respond to anyone about Marauders on Steam or on Discord now? It seems that all of those things fell on SIG's shoulders.

Are you aware of some of the other issues the developers have been trying to contend with such as the impersonators who have been going to various different platforms and pretending to be part of the development team? The issues with people going after certain members of the community in various ways?

Like I said - the problem isn't the price so the solution won't be lowering the price.

[TheSaxonDruid]

Yeah sure