Posted by Amish Boy on December 21, 2000 at 07:09:29:
In Reply to: The key to a bigger CF is stickers, yeah I said stickers.. posted by Daishan(VIP) on December 21, 2000 at 04:06:26:
1)Money - I know little about these things, but I imagine that any incremental funds would have to go towards equipment to handle an influx of new players ***Warning, fuzzy math follows*** Word of mouth however will get you some more quality trials and is free. The way to go about it would be a pledge month on CF (speaking out o' the arse here so it'll be rusty). Every active player tries to bring in 2-3 people and OOC rules are slackened a bit for that time. Or perhaps spruce up the academy a bit to make it more interesting (mob-wise) and let people slide on OOC there. That way you're bringing in more people, flattening the learning curve, and still maintaining the integrity of the game. Just a few thoughts.
2)Stickyness - sure you could get folks to try the mud with a mass effort, but as innumerable posts have stated, there is a steep learning curve to get to a playable level and the newbie channel ain't...sorry, ai not gonna cut it.
3)Chinese marketing - Chinese marketing is the idea that if we can market to China (i.e., 1 billion people - said with pinkie in mouth) and only get 1%, that's still 10 Million people. The problem is, what if you're selling Christmas trees? My point is that CF isn't a broad interest item so you can't expect a high success rate.
Stickers will get you a .5% return at best so you'd be spending $40 per trial. Estimate 1 in 5 stay on because of the learning curve and the fact that society is a bit more visual and won't eat up a text-based game. So you're talking $200 per new player.