Charging for something that used to be free?
CriminalBizzy
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in General
Great move! Now I wonder how much official registration will drop. I might have considered still participating "unofficially" if my score would have counted but since none of my actions will be counted... IDK.. its like it doesn't even matter to me anymore.
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You're paying for 2xAP and a Medal. It Pay2Win and selling Medals online rolled into one.
At least theoretically agents could meet up at anomaly portals, but that's why we have First Saturdays.
Is there some kind of award for breaking the "most enraged players in one week" record? Because Niantic is now the front runner.
@GearGlider you forgot the part where the own scores are credited to the total score.
Motivation was low with Prime only but that really made my decision to quit final.
Niantic: Man, I don't think we can possibly split the playerbase more than xfac shards.
Also Niantic: hold my beer
Three things I love love love about this announcement:
Why would it ever be refundable? I thought Niantic had a no refunds policy. I think this would go over better if maybe there was some kickback to local community volunteers or if they stated that they were going to take over planning the event.
Well, there didn't use to be anything in an anomaly registration they could refund 😁
I would like to reiterate my offer to pay US$5-10 month to Niantic, on a recurring basis, with the expectation of nothing in return except a reduction in their recent poor decision making. I am quite happy to pay money for a game I enjoy. Niantic seems intent on turning a game I enjoy into one I don't AND expecting me to pay for it.
*Don't mind me. Just selling torches and pitchforks here.*😅
Ohh, I'll take one of both. Do you have a lighter for the torch by chance?
"Why won't a for profit company continue to do things for free?!"
Yes. I can activate your torch for you. However, Onsite Activation $13 ($2 service fee + taxes not included).
Why won't a company heavily dependent on volunteer labour listen to their volunteers about how to monetize their product?
Spoken like someone who's never managed volunteers.
Given the actions they've taken in the past (drastically changing how they wanted to sell gear in the store after we skewered them for it last year, comes to mind), I would say they do listen. But they're a for profit business and need to be able to pay the costs for the developers coding the game, the bills to keep the servers running, the people making the videos, etc etc.
There's been zero consensus from the player base about how they could monetize the game, and even if there was, they would still be under zero obligation to listen.
We're the volunteer labor, but so far, Niantic's been the volunteer producers for us. I think they only thing we could all agree on is that they should just eat the cost of running Ingress as a platform test bed for other games (PoGo, WU).
Lol at Niantic expecting their player base to react like well adjusted adults and not entitled gamer babies.
The player base has given Niantic plenty of ideas about how to monetise Ingress beyond the squillions it made for them with Pokémon and HPWU.
Instead they keep on dropping their own ill-conceived ones on people. Ones that cost them engagement, loyalty and revenue.
The idea of charging off site players to get involved in an anomaly just sends a signal for people to care less.
Already with the Primepocalypse upon us many players are running out of care factor. IMO Niantic should be taking a hard look at their decision making process, the once fanatical player base support is being destroyed.
i’d much rather pay to get the app once than have anomaly scoring and anomaly badges become pay to win content. I don’t attend anomalies but this is bad news for serious hardcore agents.
Let's not forget the other problem: what the heck is an operator or a recharger going to do with a 2x AP bonus?
1. Why doesn't anyone understand this is effectively a LARP at a far larger scale than most people have been exposed to? Yes we have to pay bills, but doing things this way makes me think twice about time investment.
2. If I could count on an environment where normal shutdowns for updates instead of every thirty to forty-five minutes a freeze, boot, or force out happens we would pay. ROI in this environment is lower than it should be. If this keeps up I will go back to LARPING full time and say goodbye to brilliant merger of larping and geocaching.
Right, right. They listen so well they ignore all the reasoning behind suggestions from said fiasco and implement fees with no increase in value to something considered the core of Ingress - anomalies.
They're definitely in touch with the community. Got it.
I'm fairly sure we (the players) have posted in threads on the forums as well as on reddit about how Nitanic could easily monitize the game.
The problem is that they decide to do things well after the anomaly was announced and people have already made travel plans to go to these locations. That's more than a kind of shitty way to treat your player base.
Nothing extra for paying for the anomaly. Everything was previously free. Exchange rate for other countries is going to hurt attendance elsewhere from multiple chats.
If they did the anomalies in their own sandbox so outside interference (ie bots, spoofers, multi accounting, backpacks ect) wouldn't interfere with the anomaly and there wouldn't be so much damn lag, I'd see value in paying for it. But currently? Pffftt.
@NianticBrian Pro tip before the ship sinks, get some feedback from some actual people who play before dropping these bombshells on the agents/players. You might actually create less friction and much more positive outcomes than what's been happening.
You want to make money & we agents obviously love the game and want to keep playing and want to help. But the current methods just seem like they are creating some really bad friction.
You want to charge us for the anomaly, great but give us some value for it. Spin up its own instance. That's what you should be currently field testing. Like mentioned above I'd pay good money, like old $99 vr pack money for an anomaly that was running in its own instance without all the crappy lag.
If you're complaining about how Niantic needs Ingress to make money, Ingress was made to build up a POI database. Agents went out, found, and submitted POIs to be made into portals. Agents continue to do this and review the submitted POIs for free. Niantic has profitted massively from the POI database from games like Pokemon Go and Harry Potter Wizards Unite. We understand it's a company. We understand things cost money. But Niantic has been holding these kinds of events for years without charging people, but now they are when they're at their most profitable, after Agents spent years building up the way Niantic became so profitable. It's a slap in the face to start charging for events that have been held for free, that people previously voulinteered to do because they love the game and the community. There are plenty of ways to make money in these games that people will enjoy. Physical merchandise, in-person events, cosmetic items in shops. These methods have worked time and time again. But putting a medal and points for your team behind a paywall when all the time before Niantic has shown they can do it for people who love the game. It's sucks.
Did you consider that the ~$15 is what's it's going to take to cover the costs of the anomaly taxing the servers, increased bandwidth costs, staffing time? They've been eating these costs for years already. I seriously doubt $15/person would begin to truly cover what Niantic's dumping into these events.
They're going to have to start charging for something in Ingress, somewhere, or turn the game off. What little bit of ground is the community going to be willing to cede to keep the game going?
Omg yes, just add the option to the store, it's not hard, it's free money for them. I would happily pay $7-$10 a month just to help support the game I love. Even if only 15% or so of the player base chooses to subscribe, that's still more money in their pocket that they aren't currently receiving and they don't have to make bad business decisions to make a profit.
The only response to this can be summed up right here:
Wank Johnson.
Can they ban for Parody. I guess we'll find out... hell its only been 6 and a half years.
I've been playing Ingress since 2013 and i didn't expect NIA will use anomaly badges to gain profit. That really sucks for them not to think what are the hard works to participate an anomaly - It's really a good timing to quit ingress.
@ArtilectZed it depends on which country you're from, 15usd is too much for other countries.
I 100% understand that, but that in particular has nothing to do with the point I'm making.