GGG should probably address the player retention rate

Charan's point was simple. In real life when people pay for something (donation or not) they expect something in return. If you want to question this look at american politics where it's a donation system yet somehow people claim businesses own politicians. Here it seems the opposite, people not donating seem to have the highest demands and those who have tend to be more relaxed.

It's not a 100% thing, there's always exceptions but I've noticed the same thing as well.

It's not a "donors deserve more" or anything of the sort, he's pointing out an observation.

I just wanted to say that I agree with Anubite. Carry on.

I've played a lot of small games. Like, real small. As in, <100 active players at any given moment, small. Here's some estimates from my own personal experience:

5 avg active concurrent players | 25 total active players
80 avg active concurrent players | 625 total active players
600 avg active concurrent players | 5,000 total active players
40,000 avg active concurrent players | 400,000 total active players

The last statistic is from EVE Online.

Currently, PoE's average concurrent players, is what... well /players doesn't work anymore, but if it did, I'd guess between 50k and 60k concurrent players. This suggests a player base larger than EVE's. Let's say there are 500,000 totla active players for PoE right now.

If only 5% of these players spend $10 during the Holidays, GGG has made $250,000 USD.
If only 2.5% GGG has only made $125,000 USD.
If only 0.5% GGG has only made $25,000 USD.

The first two possibilities suggest sustainable growth - remember that NZ is not the US, $125,00 USD should go a decent way over there. Of course, the actual numbers should vary a lot, since the average amount a player buys is over $10 for sure.

Given PoE's player counts I would not worry about retention rates, as long as players come and go, some amount of them will spend between $10 and $50, unless they're like Charan.

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Antnee wrote:

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I hope you're joking because this is not the case. You're not buying a share of something. You're not buying into some elite group of people that dictate the direction of the game. You willingly give them money to support their cause and to aid them. Their recompense if you will is them producing the game itself, for free and free to play. Other than that they don't owe you jack shit.

They don't "Owe" us anything, yeah. On paper, I agree. But if you think that donating the sometimes absurd amount of money that people do doesn't earn that person at least an ear, then you have lost your grip on reality.

Actually no I havent. Just because you donate a large amount of money doesn't make you some sort of investor. They have no binding contract to you where it says you matter. Are they grateful? of course they are but thats it. [removed by Admin]

Hey guys, please refrain from antagonising other users on the forums. Keep your replies on topic and abuse free please!

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

But good? Oh yes. For a free to play game, it's pretty damn good.

This line needs to die. There've been plenty of free to play games over the last few years that have been as good as ANY pay to play title out there. You can no longer judge free to play games on a curve.

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UnderOmerta wrote:

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

But good? Oh yes. For a free to play game, it's pretty damn good.

This line needs to die. There've been plenty of free to play games over the last few years that have been as good as ANY pay to play title out there. You can no longer judge free to play games on a curve.

+1 to this

IMHO you can't judge this game based on anything than the game only and not in comparison. As far as I'm concerned there is no ARPG that sets the bar for what is a must.

It will be interesting to see how new supporter sales continue. In all honesty I gave far more than I would have during open beta, because it was open beta and it felt more like being a part of something. I bought the release support pack because I needed more points, and I felt like the extra portal effect was worth it because it makes distinguishing portals much easier in "round style" boss farming.

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anubite wrote:

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evilcloud5 wrote:

Fan boys at their best^^. This game isn't that good TBH, and there are many problems that put people off right at the start. Has nothing to do with today's gaming population.

I might be a fan, but I'm not blind to the many problems this game has. I report - I've reported on them all the time. And even after all this time, many are still not fixed or even seemingly in the process of being fixed.

But PoE still stands head and shoudlers above most games today - if you doubt this statement, please bring out some titles or a meatier explanation for us to discuss. Anyway, this sad fact should be enough to suggest that the problem does stem from today's gaming population.

Today's gaming population is coddled, at best, inexperienced, impatient, myopic, dispassioned, and unskilled at worst.

Path of Exile is heads and shoulders above games within its own specific genre, and that's mainly because the competition is absolutely garbage.


When you start comparing Path of Exile to other games, no, it doesn't stand heads and shoulders above everything else. Completely false.

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

-- Those who pay to support the game are not only unappreciated by the f2p community, they're often mocked; related to this, higher supporters seem to complain less than free players (although there are very obvious exceptions), which doesn't make sense to me. People who pay more should logically expect more, demand more. In the Real World, that's how it works, like or not. It's only in this weird reflection of reality that those who pay more for the same product may be more satisfied than those who pay *nothing* for it.

Actually you cannot be more wrong than that. During my time studying in college I had a part-time job as a so-called night-auditor for a company that provided them for hotels. I did this for 4 years in various hotels ranging from 2-star to 5-star. I also worked in bars.
What I learned there was: It's always the cheapskates that complain the most and the loudest and are being the most obnoxious. Always.

And it wasn't just me. This is standard hotel knowledge. If you saw a busload of folks who payed 49.95€ for a night in a 4-star hotel you knew you were going to be in hell. Literal fucking hell.

And it doesn't seem to be a surprise here either. If you pay a lot for something that you value, you will have a hard time being harsh in your critizism about it. Because the more you critizise it, the more you devalue it. And the more you devalue it, the more your spending a lot of money on it reveals itself to have been a bad decision.
And as far as my experience goes one of the hardest things you can do, is admitting that you have made a bad decision. Unless it hits you in the face, of course.