NEWS You Hate To Read- One More Thing They Make You Pay For

[GoldenRivet]

What bothers me most is that we have a playable beta that is been released to a certain segment of the community and here we are still drawing nearer and nearer to a release date and all we have is a bunch of unanswered questions.

She was careful to avoid the term "money" or "currency"

She said you can use "credits" forgive my ignorance but is this something you gain over time, something you buy with a credit card, or a little of both?

I'm sorry but few things are more annoying than being in hot pursuit of a convoy, getting ready for attack etc only to discover that you have to drop $5 to get those time compression points and continue playing.

That strikes me as ridiculous.

All I expect unisoft to do is show me where the money is. And at every turn that is refused.

[Feuer Frei!]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

What bothers me most is that we have a playable beta that is been released to a certain segment of the community and here we are still drawing nearer and nearer to a release date and all we have is a bunch of unanswered questions.

Are we? Drawing nearer to a release date?
How long has the beta been going for now? I'm just asking a question, not attacking you.
I'm curious, what are the 'signs' that we are drawing nearer to release. As anyone knows, and i don't know how long the beta has been going on for, but betas can last months, many months.

She was careful to avoid the term "money" or "currency"

Of course, it's called marketing spin. Being very diplomatic. You don't want to 'scare' people away before the game goes live.
If it hasn't already anyway, due to other factors.

She said you can use "credits" forgive my ignorance but is this something you gain over time, something you buy with a credit card, or a little of both?

I'm sure that will become clearer, once we get closer to a release date.
Which begs the first question i asked.

As for the pay to win or pay to play, well, Ubisoft obviously has done some research into the Micro Transaction games marKets, hint hint WoT, and thinks that because they are making money hand over fist, that they can emulate this by introducing us to the SHO game.

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!

Are we? Drawing nearer to a release date?
How long has the beta been going for now?

the first German Betas were released to testers some time in December if i remember correctly. (About 3 months ago) The game was announced at least this time last year (march or april) on subsim

logic would dictate that the natural life cylce of development - immediately following Beta, is Demo and following demo is release.

to clarify my statement in the earlier post... we are nearing a release date in the sense that we are a year closer give or take than we were last march. not necessarily that a release date is looming in the coming weeks.

Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!

As for the pay to win or pay to play, well, Ubisoft obviously has done some research into the Micro Transaction games marKets, hint hint WoT, and thinks that because they are making money hand over fist, that they can emulate this by introducing us to the SHO game.

this is true and i agree... I do not claim to have my finger on the pulse of the submarine simulation community, but a large part of me tends to think that Ubisoft is going to be very disappointed by taking the title in this direction and expecting to make it into a WOT / WOW cash cow.

i just think the sim customer and the game customer are two different people, and they look for different things in a product.

see my other thread about microsoft flight.

this pay to win concept does not mesh with simulators IMHO

[Sonarman]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

a large part of me tends to think that Ubisoft is going to be very disappointed by taking the title in this direction and expecting to make it into a WOT / WOW cash cow.

Possibly true, but consider that this is a browser game and requires much less programming & development than a true Silent Hunter game, also it recycles many assets 3D models etc from the previous titles but most importantly this time all revenue goes directly to Ubisoft there is no packaging , no retailer no transportation, no middle men.

In a typical retail game Ubisoft would probably make only about 25% of the price you pay here at a store, now they make 100% on each & every purchase. Therefore it is a much less risky for them, piracy is eliminated completely and even with lower customer numbers it's potentially a more profitable enterprise.

I think pay to play sims could be great "Rise of Flight" being the best current example. To my mind however Ubisoft have taken the wrong approach here in going to the browser rather than a full 3d client experience. Unfortunately for us the profit they could potentially generate on SHO may blind them to an alternative/better solution in the future. On the other hand if they make a loss and it's a disaster they would probably wash their hands of the series altogether, rather than giving it another try with the more risky costly full 3d client solution.

[Seeadler]

Originally Posted by Sonarman

Possibly true, but consider that this is a browser game and requires much less programming & development than a true Silent Hunter game

If someone want to know, SHO is developed with the Away3D Engine
http://away3d.com/

In a typical retail game Ubisoft would probably make only about 25% of the price you pay here at a store, now they make 100% on each & every purchase. Therefore it is a much less risky for them, piracy is eliminated completely and even with lower customer numbers it's potentially a more profitable enterprise.

According to Ubisoft CEO "Yves Guillemot" only 5-7% paying customers out of the range of player of a F2P browser game are enough to gain profit from the game.