Eliminate

[LiamW]

You guys have to realize that the traditional business model on the app store is simply not sustainable any more, especially for multiplayer games. Multiplayer games revolve around having a large userbase. In making eliminate free, ngmoco resolved this issue. We, the hardcore market, will pay 10$ for a game like Eliminate. However, the vast majority will not, thus leading to low sales and a small userbase. This has happened before. So the company panics, drops the price and ends up alienating the fans who got it at full price, also the low price ends up being too little to cover server maintenance and still make a good profit.

Ngmoco however, chose not to go down this path. They decided to do something similar to Zynga's strategy, a pay-to-play model which has proven to be very successful for them. On the app store, the top paid app garners ~15,000 downloads a day. The top free app gets a whopping ~100,000 downloads a day. It makes much, much, much more sense to make it free than have it at a low price, but only if DLC is involved. Ngmoco now have a huge userbase, and make a pretty good profit through DLC (Eliminate is currently ranked at 57 in top grossing) .

A very smart business move on their part.

[klouud]

I think the energy purchase model should be revamped. The steps are too large. It should look more like:

$0.99
$2.99
$5.99
$9.99
....so on

Obviously you get more bang for your buck as you progress up the price tiers.

tim

[Mclovin]

WTF. Game is weak as rubbish. Ngmoco games a very overated (part from topple) leave the online FPS games to call of duty.

[Moe]

What weapon should I choose out of the following: Vaporizer, Rocket Launcher or Animatter Jet?

[Michael]

Yeah I have to say that I do love the game dearly; but this whole pay to play thing pisses me off. I'm broke; and I dont really pay for extra things in video games rather than add ons for rpg games and such. So now I'm stuck on not really being able to play online for credits because I have to wait two days to get maybe twenty minutes tops of actually getting money! It upsets me and I think the hardcore gamers are going to dominate; I wish it was me; lol but it can't be because I won't be throwing money towards one app put of the other 99 my itouch cAn hold, you know? So I really don't think this games going to last long, sure it night make the makers some pocket change but that's about it.

[Camzy]

I'm level 11, win most games and I haven't yet paid a cent. I don't understand where all this hatred of the matchmaking system comes from either. The system matches people based on skill. The only thing that could crop up is that some people get matched with people at a much higher level. If that's the case, then lower your skill without credits until you start getting better equipment. I don't feel at a disadvantage because I haven't paid. I know that some people are more hardcore than me and play 5 times as much, but even playing on the daily dose of 6 recharged games I've got a decent armor and weapon.

[pgjon]

Always rocket launcher for me