I'm a casual Deluxe Ski Jump player. I started playing this game - as, I'm sure, lots of Polish people of my age here - when I found its pirated version (2.0, wasn't even 2.1 yet I think) installed, on a bunch of computers in my school. Best thing that happened to me ever on "IT lessons" (lessons were terrible, and that is said by an IT passionate, the only thing we've been told to do was drawing in MS Paint...) in primary and secondary schools was DSJ 2. I played it to death both with my colleagues in school, and in my home. Never paid for the game. And I don't feel particularly guilty or bad about it. After all, how old were I when I started? 10? It's only in recent years starting to become normal to buy more games in Poland, but kids still pirate them because it's yet another thing to ask their parents to give cash for, and due to numerous reasons (parents disapprove playing games/see paid games as something that's not needed - kids should shut up or play something that's free; parents have different money priorities or simply lack the money; the illegal version is exactly the same to a kid that plays it on 1 computer alone/with friends... etc.) it won't change, like, ever.
I have a legal version of DSJ4 and bought online subscription twice. Never bought DSJ3 because I didn't find the physics fun enough, (that is a subtle way to phrase "I completely didn't feel the flying system and the game was too difficult for me as a result
). 4 was a totally different story though, it was instant fun. I don't play it often nowadays, mostly because it needs too much time to become a master, and I never mastered any game no matter how much time I put into playing it, so I just launch DSJ4 for a couple of days in a row, each half a year or so. I check the forums sometimes though, and I saw this topic. I think I have a good understandment of the problems that a game needs to face when people start to forget about it. Here are some possible things that I can think of:
-
FIRST OF ALL! NEVER EVER stop making new versions. You can add nonsense features, that take 5 minutes of development time all combined, but make sure new versions appear frequent enough, and build up the hype for them. Otherwise, you will lose any potential customers. It's not a matter of me being all like "I want more hills, so I'm saying that to make Jussi work on one or two all the time", I am not even an active player right now...
-Consider making
game-breaking changes once in a while. This one is going to be hated so much by everyone here, but while everyone loves their hill records, what is the point of breaking them if the flight system stays the same all the time? An example: an RTS game that I play nowadays, stays interesting only because the developers try to balance different units against each other, and as a side effect they screw up all the things everyone was used to - so to win, it's necessary to adopt and change your strategy with every new version. Make the flight system more realistic, make it easier, harder, whatever. I'm pretty sure 90% of the forum people already gave up on reading this post and clicked on the reply button to bash me right now instead
I do realise that this idea is very extreme and totally disregarding the record holders! (on a side note, seeing how big of a problem cheaters are for this game, I care only about people that fight for their personal records, not for the first place on the list...)
-make an ad-supported version of DSJ, that would serve as a place to get free cash off people that usually pirate the game since they have no other option (see my point about young kids above). Give them a feature they won't want to give up, like multiplayer. Of course, knowing that this will mean 10000s of people in multi, and will severly increase the server load, make it bad enough - make a
player cap in the free version, perhaps, or do something that will make you sure the ad version will
earn more than lose. Consider allowing to make (dedicated/builtin into the game?)
micro servers for the ad-supported version, with a cap of 6 players maybe? (so friends-only games can happen there) Ad-served version should partially compensate the paid version as well. Generally, do something that makes ad version users pissed enough to want to have MORE, but not pissed enough to leave the game for the pirated version. For example, a racing game sim I know, has a demo version that has multiplayer, but only 3 cars (full version has around 20), 1 small track, and loads of stuff cut out from the game. The result is, the developers still get loads of income for the game, even if the demo multiplayer version was always insanely popular. Of course, Jussi will never be able to aim for "loads of income" - racing simulation games on PCs are a niche, but even being a niche, a racing game always will have infinite potential customer base, which definitely isn't the case with DSJ
-always look for
more publicity. I don't know how hard these days it is to get greenlit, but lots of potential buyers probably don't buy much stuff that's not on Steam, and they keep tracking new games there. It probably doesn't hurt to try, even if DSJ is a niche game and 90% of people on Steam don't know that ski jumping even exists.
-try to implement something that
casual players will like. Something that makes even bad players want to continue playing multiplayer. Maybe some sort of
sandbox multiplayer mode? You might think it's ridiculous, but kids around there would love to have a competition mode where everyone has a 27389217489217489kmph wind etc. A really nice feature for that would also be
non-continous jumps mode, for situations when 3-4 friends play a game and they would want to jump one by one,
seeing all the jumps of the other players, instead of a current "everyone jumps at once" approach.
-one last point that I want to talk about, even if I don't have many advices - the multiplayer social aspect of the game feels awkward. You just jump into the game, and basically play singleplayer there, comparing your results to others afterwards. (See my "micro servers" and "non-continous jumps" ideas above perhaps?)
Rid wrote:Also, why don't you release source code of DSJ2?
As much as I would like it to happen (I even was the guy that made a topic about it few years ago), how is that exactly related to this topic?
