Games & the UK?

[Leander]

The UK community of all our three games is small. There is still only one server for Shakes and Fidget or SoccerStar while other countries have more:

S&F servers:

Hungary: 6
Czech Republic: 9
Poland: 12
...

Why is that? Are browser games in the UK less popular? Is the game too expensive? Do teenagers have less time for computer games due to the school system, for example? Do you play on the US servers as there are more users? What are the reasons?

[Knytul]

Not sure if this helps, but most of us who play on the UK server, are NOT from the UK. Me, im from the US, alot of my guild is from like Greece and Bulgaria and Italy.....

[Leander]

Thanks. And do you play on the US servers, too or just here?

[GeorgeKen]

I am from Greece, I dont play in any other server besides this one and my opinion is that the game is poorly advertised in UK pages for example.... I have seen advertisments in Greek pages, US pages etc, but never in UK pages.... Maybe what I say is not correct, but could that be the case?


(lets not forget that most players in this kind of games come from internet advertising, if not all of them)

[Knytul]

I only play here. Honestly i didnt know the US servers existed when i first signed up. I just so happened to stumble across the UK server first and the game looked cool so i signed up.

[Knytul]

im going to kind of branch off of what Baldur is saying. Just look at the current player base we have now. Most dont even know that there IS a forums for the UK server (even though theres a big button up top that says Forum).

The problems are like Communication and Advertising. My best guess is that the popularity of the UK server has been mostly built off of word of mouth. I found the game on just internet research, part of what i do. 2 friends of mine joined just on word of mouth (mine). Im willing to bet that alot of people joined the game on word of mouth. Beyond that, i really havent seen much that really promotes the game.

If by some reason that the company owners are unwilling to promote the game for the UK server, im curious when we should be expecting to merge the UK server in with another, and if so, which?

[GeorgeKen]

If by some reason that the company owners are unwilling to promote the game for the UK server, im curious when we should be expecting to merge the UK server in with another, and if so, which?

I'd like to see a merge with one of the US servers (thats the only possibility considering the language issue... i wont start learning Hungarian for S&F and i bet the Hungarians wont like that either xD).


All in all it comes down to this:

1)Either change the marketing policy (if there is any).
2) Implement something really interesting in the game, the scrapbook only lasted for 1, max 2 weeks. after that it became boring.
3)Merge with a US server. (the remaining active players will renew their interest with some new competition)
4)Go like this until the game dies.

[Knytul]

I agree, most of the server primarily speaks english. And for those that dont (we do have a few in our guild), we have made arrangements to have information translated. If those arrangements fail, babylon translator works wonders in most languages. But i wouldnt want to try to translate EVERYTHING i say to a bunch of Hungarians constantly...

[Masq]

I only found out about this game when i was on holiday in Spain. It was an advert on one of the gaming website and then told a bunch of other people i work with about it, and they pass it on to others and so on and that's about half our guild now >.>.

A very interesting fact i did not know until using my laptop in other countries, was that ads you get change depending were you are. I always thought English website English adds, but no you get Spanish adds in Spain etc. Damn you Google adverts you clever ******

I live in the UK and i have never seen this game advertised once on any websites that usually advertise free to play games in the English region. So I think your main problem is you don't actually advertise in England but you do for other regions. Or if you did it was for a really short time because I never saw it. And i usually visit allot of websites that have free to play games plastered all over their advert spaces.

[Abbandon]

Hmmm... maybe a lot of UK palyers play on the USA servers?

But I have to agree with most of the sentiments here... i only found this game when i was in Germany.... and i think i have only seen it advertised once on a UK site.

[Kreuger]

small BUT more advanced that most of them, i guess only the german servers are ahead of us. quality over quantity!
although id really like to see some new competition..

[sWiTcHeR]

i would LOVE it if they bought in some more competition and mixed us with another server!!

Outside the top 15, MAYBE top 30 guilds, there's hardly anything of REAL interest going on. I'm not saying it's completely inactive, but I have a character on the first german server in a guild that's 158th, that are equal to around Ronin's level, and there's guilds of the same quality down to 300th position.... Now... wouldn't THAT be a little more exciting!

[Silva]

I have been looking through the forum to see why the UK W2 server is so quite. I joined server 2 like most people by stumbling across it on a link from another gaming site.

You need to look at the following things.

1. Merging active players across to same country servers.
2. Clearing inactive players who have never paid for the service
3. Advertise more
4. Make the game more interesting, for example have a guild locker where you can donate items. This then can be used by other guild members, either by exchanging up. Or purchasing from the guild and thus increasing guild wealth. This would then benefit all guilds at all levels.
5. Create a selling hall where people can bid for items, this would make a player wealthy and allow in game progression.
6. Price versus value for money, if I was paying for a service I should be able to play it to it's maximum. So you should get enough mushrooms for a 300 thirst every day and a 50% mount. You would see more people taking it up. Or look at other sites where you can watch videos etc and earn free mushrooms. By doing this you are rewarding the players who are paying for the service, and for the people who can't they could earn a small portion extra per month which you would get revenue from yourself.

But it does need allot more to hold a persons attention for a long period of time TBH.

[Leander]

Thanks for the feedback.

[muse]

me and one of my friends that play have time to play after school , and we only registered in other servers such as US , CZ , RO and etc. only to see the highest levels we don't play there .