General Discussions

I don't pay really close attention to the trainer requests apart from visiting it once a month to spend my credits, but I visited it just now and it seems like all the credit requirements were increased. Normally titles were in the 100s and lower 1000s, but now most are in the 1000s and some have reached 10k and even 50k.

I had a brief look over the forums here but didn't see anything posted in regards to this. I clearly remember most games being under 1000 or slightly above. Just curious if there is an official post on this somewhere or am I seeing things?

Credit requirements are adjusted upwards based on the amount of unused credits held by the member base. Right now there are over 50 MILLION unused request credits held by Premium members. It's also based on the downloads of previous titles. If a previous trainer required 2000 credits, we made the trainer and it got downloaded a total of 5 times, then it wasn't worth the time and expense of creating, updating and supporting it for such few people.

With that many unused credits sitting out there, would you ever reset the requirement balance if those users didn't log in for X amount of time?

I can certainly understand the amount versus the total users of that trainer.

possibly.

As the list looks now, it's approximately 145-150 titles and something like 39 are >1000.

So, something around 3-1 of <1000 vs >1000 which seems fairly balanced. Another interesting number would be of all those outstanding credits, how many were simply earned monthly and how many were actually acquired via a new purchase.




[Edited by element5, 5/13/2014 5:26:06 AM]

I was totally for the point/request system. Right now I am on the fence about it.

If you are taking in account of unspent points then you will have to considers a few things.

The 50-75 you give freely at the end of the month. Those are that (I would think) points you would expect a lose of revenue with every month.

People that hoard points with the mindset of waiting for others to spend their points for the trainer. These are the people you might want to target the most. Increasing the minimum amount of points for trainers isn't a way to go about it.

Next you have people that are against spending points for trainers for whatever reason. Maybe you can create an ad campaign to try to change their mind.

Then you have to take into account of all the inactive accounts you have. This was mention before.

My biggest fear is the minimum amount points vs points (is there a redline?) available will just get so high that it would be impracticable for anyone to be willing to buy points to put into it. Especially with Indie titles. I am in no way saying that you should never raise the points. I completely understand it's based off time put into creating and maintaining. I just think a bit of advertising and creation of the occasional sale would drum up more interest (and maybe change some minds as well) to want to purchase more points and use up all those unspent points.

This is all up to you. I am just trying to maybe give out some suggestions.

Sorry for my bad English. It is not my first language.

As the point requirements go up, we offer more points for the same price of purchase. I have already DOUBLED the amount of points given with each tier of purchase. If a game is popular enough to warrant a trainer, then people will spend their points on it. What we can't have is the same 5 people spending points to get indie early access game A, B, C, and D a trainer each month where they are the only people using it. Each trainer costs us approximately $500 to produce so we have to make sure that we are getting enough use and selling enough memberships to cover it. If people hoard their points or don't feel that a game is worth their points, then it surely isn't worth our time. I've recently put games at 4000 and 5000 points only to see them meet the requirement within a day or two. That right there tells me that people will spend them if they really want a trainer for a specific game. If you're the kind of person that needs a trainer for every game known to man and can't wait for the points to be assigned, then that is where you have the chance to purchase more.

Here is a good example:

Link

This title had less than 2000 points assigned to it. We spent almost ALL DAY and it took TWO PROGRAMMERS to make the trainer. It has been downloaded 7 times in a week. That was nowhere near worth all of the time and effort put into it. We can't be doing this for every little dink game that comes out. This is another reason why the point requirements go up.