I noticed that Chiptune Champion sold out basically instantly yesterday before the new sale (and the new coin spin) even hit. This struck me as odd, because usually games last at least a day before they sell out. Then I remembered: people have 10k coins at this point. They are (rightly) being rewarded for maintaining a 50 day or more streak and now have the ability to buy anything they see, and it seems that we have already hit the critical point where there are enough of them that games will sell fast.
This is a bit of a problem, because it discourages new people from joining the coins shop. They’ll build up a streak but be unable to use it because games are selling out before they can get to them. So I thought up a few fixes for your consideration.
Fix A: Increase the price of unique or popular games, maybe even to the extent of 10-20k coins.
Cons: As time goes on you’ll need to keep increasing the price to maintain the rarity.
Fix B: Monitor how many coins people have and base your prices on percentages of the average rather than fixed prices (ex. Chiptune champion may be 40% of the average amount of coins a user holds).
Cons: Reduces the reward from maintaining a streak and the prices will inflate with the currency to ridiculous levels.
Fix C: Release the keys in batches. This will allow people who check in at different times of day have a chance to pick up the keys and all the keys won’t be eaten up by the wealthy immediately.
Cons: Prices will still fade into uselessness as time goes on here, and people may find it annoying to figure out what times the keys are releasing.
I really do appreciate what you’re doing with this, but the currency is inflating way faster than it’s being used. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it will likely put off newcomers.
I have maybe a suggestion for how the games are introduced. Maybe when they’re added as “coming soon” there should be an announcement in here saying exactly when they’ll be released (date and time) that’s either 24 or 48 hours after being added as “coming soon”.
What the games themselves will be I feel can remain a sercret until then, but this will aloow people to hopefully prepare for the releases while also giving flexibility towards the release as when the “coming soon” games arrive can still be random.
Or if possible a timer can be added to them instead of “coming soon”.
Criticism on fix A though: what would constitute a popular or “unique” game? Most of them seem like they have a niche audience and mainly sell fast here because they are free.
Also Con: It will discourage new people eventually from even bothering with the system, if prices constantly rise, the longer the streak they’ll have to go through to even get one game. It may not start like this, but I imagine rising prices will lead to something costing a years worth of streaks to get just because of the many coin horders.
Well,there is a rough idea of when the games will appear since its every two weeks. So you could give or take a few days from the exact point of two weeks, which is similar to what you have proposed. This however, wouldn’t change how fast the games will be taken as it will still get snatched by people who see the offers first, which makes the timer pretty useless. Fix C doesn’t sound that bad honestly, since people from different time zones can have a chance, and makes sure the games don’t go immediately.
I found fix B and C to be pretty good ideas (both C and B and my suggestion can work together too), which is why I didn’t mention them.
Without knowing the exact sample size of the games that are placed in the coin shop we might remain with a similar issue. While spreading out the game over a period of time is a novel idea, without knowing when it will be released you’ll have to camp out the shop until it does, because I believe the game will now go in a matter of minutes rather than hours, sure you’ll have multiple instances to keep checking, but if your daily chance relies on being online for the exact few minutes before all copies are claimed I believe it will likely result in more frustration.
Though I just realised that my suggestion might also cause an issue, which is people flocking the site to claim the game(s) at the time they’re stated to appear.
(Sorry I had typed out another reply but I accidentally deleted it while switching back and forth between your reply and the OP on mobile. So this one might have missed some points I had made there)
But I don’t see any problem with that. Why? That is how the loyalty system works, and that’s pretty fair. You stay longer, you have a better chance.
Old users: That’s their reward.
New user: Need stick with the site longer to get good games.
So it doesn’t discourage anyone, but encourage them stay with the site instead.
Anw back to Chiptune Champion. I believe the reason they were gone so fast is the number of keys anw.
The system now works just fine for me, you guys suggestions are nice, but somehow make it so complicated. Imo there are basically 2 thing needed:
The timer (also announce the game will be added): The timezones are really different to everyone, so with number of user increasing, would be nice if we know the name of the game and the time it will be added before a little bit of time. No one can stay on the site 24/24, so this way everyone will have a chance to prepare, and keys will go to people who want it the most.
Increasing the number of keys: This really depends a lot on the game, but unbundled game and bundle games but haven’t in bundle in a long time should have more keys, so everyone will have a chance.
A timer seems like a recipe for the opposite. Will serve basically to crash the website’s server in what will amount to a DDOS and generate collective anguish.
I think a timer is a bad idea too, I feel like people will camp the site and things will sell out even faster with the possibility of that traffic crashing the site.
But I really think OP makes good points, I like the average coins idea, sorta like humble bundle where if you pay more than the average you get more but then it’s costlier for the next person, though it would sorta work in reverse in this case.
chiptune lasted for nearly 24 hours, if you check the site everyday at the same time you would have almost certainly got it, also you know new games are coming up because they tease them in the shop ahead of time, whilst i agree the prices are probably too low and that the coin value of games will have to constantly increase to stop people taking copies just for the sake of it, it seems to me your fixing something that isn’t currently a problem
I can’t really agree with any of these ideas. I don’t really check the shop for a couple hours after games are released and the only thing I have missed a chance at is the one that cost 250.
A would require special pricing on all games that most people will not be able to afford and end up stopping any new users from getting games for months if there are keys left by the time they manage to save up for something they want.
B would stop any new users from getting games at all because they would always below the average making impossible to get anything unless all the older accounts decide to spend the coins they saved up waiting for something they want. Even then they would be able to buy the next game or 2 as well because the price would drop whenever they buy a game, letting them buy a bunch of games in a row and the keys would be gone just as fast.
And C wouldn’t help much at all because the keys would be gone even faster in short bursts. There would be less keys at any given time when a batch is released so you would have a smaller chance to get a game. If they don’t announce when a batch is going to be released it would be a F5 race, and if they do announce the times for releases you will have more people competing for less keys every time. People are going to miss out regardless.
The main thing that I could see being done that wouldn’t break the current system is have more keys available for all the future games in the shop because that is the main problem. Base it on a fraction of the community that is likely to buy the games or something regardless of the coins users currently have. Or just over stock a game if possible so that people can’t actually buy a game out.
I have not been getting any games for a while because I have them already, rare enough, or I am not interested in playing those kinds of games, the last 3 groups of games. Maybe having a survey or option for accounts to indicate what kind of games they are interested in to help figure out how likely a game would be bought. A way to indicate that you are interested in a game that has been in the shop before might be cool as well to show how many people are interested in it coming back eventually.
