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Ask HN: Review our startup - Taxi Mogul, a persistent browser game

taxi-mogul.com

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Re: Ask HN: Review our startup - Taxi Mogul, a persistent browser game

#41

Post by teej »

dominik wrote: post #39
teej wrote: post #19

Here are a few critiques solely from the game & Facebook perspective: - You've got an iframe app and you have both horizontal and vertical scrollbars (on mac FF at least). Get rid of them, they drive people insane. - First time experience is pretty horrid. The "tutorial" is 20 click beast that goes through every aspect of the game at once. Make the game learning process a little more progressive. Don't let me do all…

What sort of virtual goods could they sell in their game? And how do they prevent people buying virtual goods from feeling as if they're "cheating"? Perhaps it's an old-style complaint, but virtual goods feel against the "purity of the game" -- imagine playing chess online and being able to drop $5 to get an extra move -- sure that "speeds up" time, but it also (to me at least) breaks the game... I'm not sure yet how…

> What sort of virtual goods could they sell in their game?

The Taxi Mogul game already offers "items" that speed the game up (pay $5 or wait 5 hours). They could also sell faster taxis, better drivers, etc. Really doesn't matter.

> And how do they prevent people buying virtual goods from feeling as if they're "cheating"?

I hear this asked -all the time-. Two things.

(1) It's much less of an issue in games that aren't PvP. "You beat me in one-on-one combat because you paid" is completely different than "You have a higher score/advanced faster than I did because you paid". The "cheating" feeling doesn't go away, but it's much, much less pronounced.

(2) Allow players with time to trade with players with money. The simplest, turnkey solution to this is a dual currency model. Simply put, players with time get credits and players with money get tokens. Players can trade credits and tokens on the free market. This allows market forces to determine the cash value of credits, instead of you pegging a pricepoint to it. I cannot stress how important dual-currency models are for games dealing with virtual goods.

> but it seems that for social status to work players have to feel invested in the community

Absolutely right. Social status virtual goods only work when there's high community interaction and visibility. A lot less people would care about achievements on Xbox 360 if it weren't for Xbox Live.

Re: Ask HN: Review our startup - Taxi Mogul, a persistent browser game

#42

Post by m_eiman »

m_eiman wrote: post #30

I think it's a fun idea, with three area that can be improved: 1) Like the others are saying, you need to find a (better) designer 2) Playing the game seems to be a massive time sink. I could never spend that much time on a game, regardless of how good it is. And I don't think it's just me, pretty much nobody with a job could spend a few minutes every half hour to run their taxi company. Which ties into.. 3) Too much…

As an update a few days later I'd like to add that the new "improved" version with ads is.. Let's just say that there should be less ads than game. I know that they're there to annoy users into paying for the premium version, but this is just too much.

Re: Ask HN: Review our startup - Taxi Mogul, a persistent browser game

#43

Post by m_eiman »

m_eiman wrote: post #42
m_eiman wrote: post #30

I think it's a fun idea, with three area that can be improved: 1) Like the others are saying, you need to find a (better) designer 2) Playing the game seems to be a massive time sink. I could never spend that much time on a game, regardless of how good it is. And I don't think it's just me, pretty much nobody with a job could spend a few minutes every half hour to run their taxi company. Which ties into.. 3) Too much…

As an update a few days later I'd like to add that the new "improved" version with ads is.. Let's just say that there should be less ads than game. I know that they're there to annoy users into paying for the premium version, but this is just too much.

Sneaky thing with the "earn us affiliate money to pay for your premium account" scheme, though! And I mean that in a positive way :)

Re: Ask HN: Review our startup - Taxi Mogul, a persistent browser game

#44

Post by villiros »

Thanks a lot for all your feedback, guys. It far outstripped my expectations. HN once again proved to be a fantastic place :)

We've addressed some of the most pressing issues, and based on what we're observing from new users, it did help a lot.

One thing I definitely learned, is that providing context in the original post would have been tremendously useful for everyone. Writing a few lines in the original post would have helped everyone involved.

Re: Ask HN: Review our startup - Taxi Mogul, a persistent browser game

#45

Post by villiros »

m_eiman wrote: post #43
m_eiman wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an update a few days later I'd like to add that the new "improved" version with ads is.. Let's just say that there should be less ads than game. I know that they're there to annoy users into paying for the premium version, but this is just too much.

Sneaky thing with the "earn us affiliate money to pay for your premium account" scheme, though! And I mean that in a positive way :)

You got it. We didn't actually change advertising stuff at all, it's just that it only kicks in after a few days for each user. In general, advertising performs terribly in these kinda games, so our revenue model is based on transactions and premium accounts. Ads are just a way to force users to pay. It might be slightly over the top at the moment, though.

Re: Ask HN: Review our startup - Taxi Mogul, a persistent browser game

#46

Post by villiros »

dominik wrote: post #40
bemmu wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on the virtual goods part. By letting people complete offers to get points, I've been getting over $5 CPM.

Sounds interesting. Can you elaborate and provide context?

Most games in this space depend on virtual goods sales for their revenue. You know, "Get the sword of Unknowing and Libidinousness for $0.50" sorta stuff. A surprising number of players are quite happy to shell out their credit cards for such items.

For those who aren't willing to pay real cash, but still want them items, an option is to complete (free) affilate offers. Things like completing surveys, signing up to websites, downloading ringtones, etc. At the moment, those pay publishers quite well, and everyone wins.

We are using Offerpal network for ours, and when someone completes an offer to get a certain number of in-game points, we get the face value of those points in cash. CPM metrics are fairly useless for this sorta things, but eDAU (revenue per 1k daily active users) tend to be very good for games with well-designed transactions model.

This stuff is also fairly useful for anyone selling cheap things on line. If you're selling a thingybob for $5 apiece (website subscriptions, physical items, etc), you can capture cheapskates by having them complete offers. In which case you get an extra $5 from a customer who would've brought you no revenue otherwise.

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