Kickstarter for Anacreon?

General discussion for the game Anacreon
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Rykker
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Every web-based 4X space strategy game out there just seems to be a rehash of Planetarion/OGame/AstroEmpires... which is why I love Anacreon... Unfortunately this game doesn't get the love and attention it deserves and doesn't have even close to the number of players those games have despite being superior in almost every way possible. I was thinking that George should start a Kickstarter for Anacreon to both raise awareness and some development funds for the game. One thing that's missing from every Anacreon game is sound & music :) Even a soundcloud plugin with some custom made ambient music would be great. I think with a kickstarter, some top notch graphics content could be produced or even allow George to spend more time developing the game. Granted of course part of me is happy that this is a relatively unknown niche game which prevents it from being overrun with obnoxious loud trolls...
george moromisato
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I really appreciate the encouragement! Thank you!

A Kickstarter campaign has a chicken-egg problem, unfortunately. The campaigns that succeed and bring in large amounts of money (>$100,000) are the ones that already have a large following. It is very hard for an unknown game to raise that much money. I estimate that Anacreon would be able to raise between $5,000-$15,000. That's still real money, but not enough to make a difference in the development schedule, unfortunately. Moreover, the amount of time required to create a successful campaign (and fulfill all the reward tiers) is non-trivial and often dwarfs the actual amount of money raised.

Nevertheless, I actually very encouraged by the progress of Anacreon, and I have no doubt that its popularity will grow over time.

The biggest problem Anacreon has right now is that it is too hard to learn. My next development task is to create an in-game tutorial of some sort to teach players the basics of the game. Right now, it is so hard that a majority of new players (probably 60% or so) quit the game before they've conquered a single world. I also need to fix various bugs, handle game balance issues, and add better graphics and effects--but the tutorial is the most important part.

All that needs to be completed before a 1.0 release. Right now I'm forecasting a 1.0 release sometime around the first-half of next year. At that point I'll start working on marketing and PR to spread the word about the game. Once a wave of marketing starts, I expect the popularity of the game to grow.

Thanks again for the kind words.
Kourtious
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george moromisato wrote:I really appreciate the encouragement! Thank you!

A Kickstarter campaign has a chicken-egg problem, unfortunately. The campaigns that succeed and bring in large amounts of money (>$100,000) are the ones that already have a large following. It is very hard for an unknown game to raise that much money. I estimate that Anacreon would be able to raise between $5,000-$15,000. That's still real money, but not enough to make a difference in the development schedule, unfortunately. Moreover, the amount of time required to create a successful campaign (and fulfill all the reward tiers) is non-trivial and often dwarfs the actual amount of money raised.
Eh? Don't you have around 5-10 thousand players in Transcendence with 10% active on forums? If I were in your position, I would do something like this. First, post an Anacreon Kick-starter to increase server capacity. I infer that $2500-5000 can be earned from the forum active player base. This should be enough money to create a good server for around 500 players in Anacreon for $500-3000. In addition, I infer you earn around $10,000 per Transcendence expansion over the course of the year. Then, I would hire people to manage/improve only Anacreon and start advertising. However this is just what I would do.
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6cef
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not sure i agree that the tutorial for anacreon ought to be the #1 priority, nor that it is the reason for a 60% abandon rate before first conquest, though i'm sure you have more information about it than i do.

i think rather, like the original anacreon, the problem is with the interface. it's not that the game is so complicated, it's that the interface choices get in the way of playing the game.

for instance, deploying & transferring fleets. what's the difference? why are there two ways to do the same thing? it's not at all intuitive to a n00b that these things are basically identical.

and building things on planets! why would you ever not build everything? so if you're always going to always build everything at a given tech level... why not just automatically have those things start building? i realize allocation is an issue, but handle that separately. having to click through build on every planet every time the tl changes makes for not fun.

also, i'd recommend when you select a planet, have the friendly fleets en route to the planet highlighted.

but if you look at most modern 4x games, i'm not sure what the industry term of art is, but there's this "action queue" that they all have. civ 5, age of wonders 3, warlock... every turn, there a list of things you have to do. choose city production, units don't have orders, etc. that single thing would reduce n00b attrition greatly, because it's just so easy to lose track of fleets, forget to invade, forget to build structures (see above) and so on. for a new player, a little glowing queue icon in the corner with 5 or 6 tasks (build ship, deploy ship, invade planet, fleet idle...) is going to get them familiar with the mechanics super-fast, and then if they quit, it's not because the didn't get it.

for a tutorial, you could have a new map/game that only has two or three worlds on it, and the only way a newly created player "unlocks" the giant multi-player map (like the one currently being played) is to complete the tutorial or at least attempt it. obviously there are other ways to do that, but given what i can intuit from the architecture of the system, that might be the path of lease resistance.

but seriously, i think way more bang for the buck from interface improvements vs tutorial.
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