tbf after Christmas has always been slow for a few months, the issue is whether ship sales will raise the same anymore, especially as a lot have already been purchased, Free Flys will help but new customers may wait until the game comes out before spending more than their initial buy-in.
Base-builders have been left out so the next step might be to sell habitats and mansions and then add-ons like wallpaper and gold taps and special baths and sinks etc to try and squeeze more out of the faithful, even garden plants and fences until people eventually realise the land they need isn't actually available for another 4 years.
But they (CIG) are trapped. Barring subscriptions (are they included in the funding tracker and if so any idea how many / much each month that raises?), there is no guarantee of future income unless they release some sort of JPeg for sale...and some JPegs are past their sell-by date.
So either new 'available in game' ships will be vastly increased in price and decrease the customer base (last time 15K buyers could have accounted for the money raised) or they need a new type of incentive that isnt stale. Which means a whole new venture and bases are the obvious next step....could even do a Hangar type module where people can build their bases in isolation to actually see them without having to supply the land.
Because the last thing they can do is stop and make the game or the money will stop, thats a secondary concern and why the ratio of devs / engineers to artists and graphics people is so low both in staffing and actually working on any project.
And it keeps niggling me that someone said something like or to the effect of 'SQ42 needs to be released by a certain date' as that implies Caulder has some sort of fixed deadline that cant be moved easily and has consequences and has already been delayed due to 'unforeseen circumstances' (Covid)....but he will want a Return and may take action to make sure he gets it. I still think he was sold a tech demo video and fell for it hook line and sinker blindsided by the amounts coming in but he must be getting nervous with all the excuses...and there are bank loans as well and they are even less forgiving.
2021 will be an interesting year for sure but so far the predictions are coming true, funding is down month on month and understandably so, slowly at first then the snowball gathers speed and momentum in the opposite direction, its the morning after the night before, nothing lasts forever.
Base-builders have been left out so the next step might be to sell habitats and mansions and then add-ons like wallpaper and gold taps and special baths and sinks etc to try and squeeze more out of the faithful, even garden plants and fences until people eventually realise the land they need isn't actually available for another 4 years.
But they (CIG) are trapped. Barring subscriptions (are they included in the funding tracker and if so any idea how many / much each month that raises?), there is no guarantee of future income unless they release some sort of JPeg for sale...and some JPegs are past their sell-by date.
So either new 'available in game' ships will be vastly increased in price and decrease the customer base (last time 15K buyers could have accounted for the money raised) or they need a new type of incentive that isnt stale. Which means a whole new venture and bases are the obvious next step....could even do a Hangar type module where people can build their bases in isolation to actually see them without having to supply the land.
Because the last thing they can do is stop and make the game or the money will stop, thats a secondary concern and why the ratio of devs / engineers to artists and graphics people is so low both in staffing and actually working on any project.
And it keeps niggling me that someone said something like or to the effect of 'SQ42 needs to be released by a certain date' as that implies Caulder has some sort of fixed deadline that cant be moved easily and has consequences and has already been delayed due to 'unforeseen circumstances' (Covid)....but he will want a Return and may take action to make sure he gets it. I still think he was sold a tech demo video and fell for it hook line and sinker blindsided by the amounts coming in but he must be getting nervous with all the excuses...and there are bank loans as well and they are even less forgiving.
2021 will be an interesting year for sure but so far the predictions are coming true, funding is down month on month and understandably so, slowly at first then the snowball gathers speed and momentum in the opposite direction, its the morning after the night before, nothing lasts forever.
