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mindlessflight ([personal profile] mindlessflight) wrote in [community profile] anonrerising2024-07-28 06:55 am
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Re: Santae Exposé

(Anonymous) 2024-10-02 02:37 am (UTC)(link)
i know the other anon said as much, but nothing really bad happened to dv or lw because people were mass trading for fr. idk what you mean by "but it just makes me sad seeing how it turned out for games like Dappervolk and Lorwolf."

in fact dv was doing very well for a time and people were having to trade very expensive fr items for things on dv. the cross site trading was much more even between the two sites, and there were other smaller ones in the mix like goatlings. it wasn't until it was becoming more and more clear a year or two after launch that the site was going downhill that pretty much everyone only wanted to offload their dv stuff for fr.

and i mean, c'mon it makes sense. you invest time and effort (and possibly money!) into a site that you think is going to work out, or was fun at a point in time. and then you find out, oh geez, this game actually sucks! or these owners are not doing anything to keep me engaged and coming back! so yeah i think it makes sense that people would want to then reinvest back into the pet site that is consistent and successful.

so really, if the site is good and is more importantly FUN there is really no negative to even huge amounts of people trading for another site. if player retention is good, the game is fun, then there will always be people who are playing the game because they want to, not just because they want to trade for fr currency/items. i think limiting cross site trading to this degree (pb's limited embargo is not a bad idea imo) will probably only limit people who were unsure of the game, or may only have tried it because they could trade for fr (and again, if the game is fun, those people might just stick around too!)

i think you really only see situations like LW where pretty much EVERYONE is trying to jump ship, when the game is just bad. a lot of people saw the red flags for LW during alpha and beta, and because nothing changed some of the more savvy players saw what was coming. i get that it probably does look kind of depressing when everyone is trying to leave and trade their stuff away, but i mean it's not the players fault lol there's a reason it's happening.

Re: Santae Exposé

(Anonymous) 2024-10-02 02:45 am (UTC)(link)
SA

sorry for the rant what im trying to get at is that we've unfortunately not seen an actually successful petsim come out recently that had cross site trading. sometimes i think people might have different opinions about it if both dv and lw didn't turn out to be dumpster fires for multiple reasons

really kind of hoping that pb becomes that finally successful sim so we have more than one big giant (fr) in the cross site trading scene

Re: Santae Exposé

(Anonymous) 2024-10-02 03:41 am (UTC)(link)
NAYRT

I completely agree. I have seen this sentiment before with cross site trading, and while I don't think the other anon meant that it was cross site trading that caused those other sites to fail, I have seen others who have outright stated it, and more who implied it.

Bottom line, if a site is *fun* and has a draw, people are going to play it. If that site allows cross site trading to other popular sites, that is basically free publicity. Because it means *someone* is looking for what that site has. It also can mean that other people will become interested in the site, even if only for trading purposes, and one of three things typically happen.

1. The site is fun, so the user starts playing it in earnest. Result: another user creating traffic for the site, and potentially talking about it, thus bringing in new users.

2. The site isn't fun, at least for that user, but has a good trading ratio with the other site, and is fairly easy to make that currency/items to trade. Result: another user creating traffic for the site, because the metrics don't care why that user is playing the site.

3. The site is badly managed, or is really not fun, or just doesn't interest the user. Result: just another abandoned account, no gain from it, but also typically no bad publicity, unless the site is really badly managed.

I have played a lot of sites through the years, many with cross site trading, and most of them were the typical 'flash in the pan' sites, that might have a small but dedicated user base, but weren't getting updates anymore (or at least not big updates, I have run across a few sites that tend to milk updates for money, by basically only updating cash shop items)

However, there were some that were fun, and had larger userbases, or were still being updated and had a small but dedicated userbase. These sites are still going, despite allowing cross site trading.

I had something else to say, but can't remember what it is now. I also seem to have said a lot of the things you did :P

TL;DR is that site metrics don't care why a person is playing their game. The more people who play it, generate traffic on it, the better it seems. Even if those people are only playing to trade with another site.

Re: Santae Exposé

(Anonymous) 2024-10-02 03:54 am (UTC)(link)
SA

I think I remembered what I wanted to say!

I really do think that a lot of people don't realize what goes into making a site. A lot of people think it is going to be their 'hobby' project, or it will make some money to cover its costs, or that it is going to be fun, and when they open the site to the public, it is nothing like they imagined.

Once you have to be there for other people, it stops becoming a hobby, and it becomes a job. You can no longer really work on your time, because the longer it takes to do something, the longer between updates, the better the chances of people leaving your site and giving it bad publicity. it also means that if something in the site breaks badly, you have to fix it as soon as possible.

When that site becomes a job, it often stops being fun. As said above, you are now no longer working on your time, but rather have deadlines and have to do certain things at certain times.

Pet sites are also, to my understanding, money pits. Especially smaller ones. This means they can get expensive, especially as the userbase grows, because you now have to worry about space and servers and outages.

As the site grows, it might also mean either branching out, which puts more work on your shoulders (such as an artist becoming a coder), being dedicated to having the site remain small (so it can be done with the minimum of people), or you have to hire more people, which now means you have to coordinate with them.

There is also dealing with the public. Look at how Aeq handles the userbase, and look at how many complaints she gets, even for the most innocuous of things. Think about all the complaints you see on FR and on the various salt blogs about FR and the staff, and how they handle the business.

I would say that a lot of people who want to start petsites, don't have the temperment required to actually *deal* with those people and not alienate them. I know I certainly don't.

Basically, I think a lot of people underestimate how much work actually goes into a petsite, even the smallest of ones. They aren't prepared for it, and so when they start running into hurdles, especially with regards to money, it can become easier to just abandon the site rather than try to stick with it. Which is fair, not a lot of people are prepared to keep throwing money at a site hoping that one day it will start making money.
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