Hey we still have 8 days to go on the homecoming eh! Trying to wear our interest out?
The reason why so many 'Free to Play' mobile games, which is how InnoGames promotes Elvenar, have so many 'Events', as well as Leaderboards and/or 'League' systems (as have now been added to all Events) is because these are one of the best ways to extract money from new players - who are, based upon every meaningful change to the game over the past year, if not for longer than that, now by far the primary focus of the game's designers. Most mobile games will usually make their début nowadays with at least one type of recurring 'Event' already in place, and not infrequently also a competitive 'Leagues' and/or other type of Leaderboards system (and in many cases, a Fellowship/Guild system as well, to encourage participation in these competitions via peer pressure - one of the strongest human motivators of all). If these games manage to survive their first year or so, they will usually start adding more and more 'Events' and/or ways for players - both new and old - to compete with each other, since competition is a standard driver of revenue in any game (online or any other), and statistics show that many more players will pay to compete than may appear to be the case, not least because the majority of 'Free' game players are, for various reasons of their own, unwilling to admit that they spend any money on their [at least theoretically] 'optional' paid aspects, and especially not on their competitive aspects (not a criticism, just a fact).
When each new player joins, and although you'd think that mobile gamers would be used to this system by now, it seems as if many of them keep making the same inexplicable error (considering how standard this pattern is, in almost all mobile games), which is to believe that the particular Event(s) and/or Leaderboard contest(s) currently happening (or soon due to start) at the point when they join represent some kind of lucky chance to gain a rare in-game advantage, which induces many new players to spend - often quite highly - on these Events and/or contests, even on the very day they join the game. This creates, in many people, a desire to keep on playing, even when they fail to complete the current Event and/or to place highly in the current contest, largely due to the well-known 'Sunk Cost Fallacy', which is - whether or not one considers this to be ethical - one of the main ways in which mobile games retain players (with the second and even more useful side-effect being the fact that most players develop a sense of loyalty to their in-game group/FS/Guild, as well... which can arguably be seen as more exploitative of one's players than it is helpful for them, but all most 'Free' gaming companies are interested in, typically, is the end result - i.e. player retention and thereby, they hope, further revenue
*).
* A common response to this observation is: "What else would a business care about, anyway?". If one is a classical pure Capitalist, the answer would be: nothing. But if one has a broader range of priorities - such as an admiration of the old - even old-fashioned, it seems - virtues of creating high-quality products (I prefer the term 'games'...), taking pride in one's work and in the company's reputation, prizing longevity and excellence of games as well as profit, and so on, well - there are many other values, and aims, which gaming companies almost all used to pursue, and in some cases, happily, still do.
Of course, new players join (and leave) these games all the time, especially if they have no reason to commit themselves, so the game designers provide - and heavily promote (e.g. via the new in-game banner showing the 'next Event due in X hours' countdown) - frequent and (cosmetically) different new Events and/or contests (recurring and/or one-off), in the hope that no new player will be without the chance to spend money on what they inaccurately assume, at least at first, is a unique/rare and fortunate chance to gain an in-game advantage. Again, I am surprised that this system continues to work, seeing as so many mobile games have been using these tactics for years, but gaming industry analyses prove time and time again that this presentation of each (largely interchangeable) Event and/or recurring in-game competition continues to extract money - and/or player time, as well, which is also useful in the creation of the 'Sunk Time Fallacy' - from new players, and preferably from existing players as well, even if they're not new to mobile gaming in general. As I've said before, in other posts, it's not for nothing that many mobile gaming companies now employ not only data analysts, marketing agents, Anti-Social Meeja promoters, and PR specialists alongside their game designers, but also psychologists.
I play a number of mobile games, since they also all use the familiar 'Free to Play' game system of placing artificial roadblocks throughout the game in order to slow players down and generate motivation to log in at frequent intervals (i.e. more chances to spend money; not in-game = not spending, after all). Even though a good deal of 'dead' waiting time still occurs as a result of the artificial delays placed in the game (examples: the time-gated Daily Event Quests and the unnecessary 16-hour delay between Tournament Rounds), most mobile games of the 'Social Viral' type (as are all of InnoGames' offerings) typically have at least two or three recurring 'Events' on the go - all the time - plus a FS/Guild system, plus a Leagues/Leaderboard system (or more than one), so that the 'dead' time is reasonably well disguised - and, again, so that players are more likely to log in to see whether some or any Events or contests are ready to be pursued - or just whether someone in their group has said anything in the Chat or via Inbox Messages. In fact, we will only see MORE of these Events and/or contests happening in Elvenar, especially because if you follow the Press releases and game performance reports which InnoGames provides to the gaming industry (as opposed to its playerbase), you'll see that Elvenar, in the view of InnoGames, is now entering its most profitable phase, within an easily predictable lifetime pattern followed by almost all mobile games.
Many players still believe that a tiny percentage of so-called 'whales' - very high spenders - are the primary source of revenue for Free to Play games, and this was once largely true of most such games. However, the world of Free to Play gaming has, of late, finally caught onto the old maxim that if one wishes to become a millionaire, it is easier to ask one million people for one pound than to ask one person for a million pounds, and there is also the consideration that early players are more readily and cheaply impressed than long-term end-gamers (this is true of any video game, naturally). These are, between them, the two main reasons why one now sees games such as Elvenar not only devoting most of their efforts towards new players, but even going so far as to actively disadvantage their late-game players, most of whom have spent all the money they are ever going to spend, thus becoming nothing but a drain on the company's finances and therefore, harsh though this sounds, an element of the playerbase which the company may well actively wish to drive away, rather than continue to devote some (or even any) of their development budget towards keeping these largely non-spending but also vocal, knowledgeable, and demanding players happy with high quality new game content.
Once one realises that many mobile games now fund themselves increasingly by means of an aggregate of comparatively small sums of money from many ('fresh', typically inexperienced, and therefore easily impressed) new and often transient so-called 'revolving-door' players, rather than by means of comparatively large sums from far fewer longer-term, more 'jaded', higher-spending 'whale'-type players, the actions of InnoGames (and other companies like them) become far easier to understand - if not to condone. A dozen new players who buy, say, the Builders' Hut and/or Magic Academy upgrades, plus maybe a Chapter One Diamond building or two, and/or spend a tenner or so on the latest graphically novel (even though, code-wise, cheap-to-recycle) Event, and then leave when they realise the whole pattern just repeats, are probably - and in my view, very unfortunately - more cost-effective than one player who spends three or four times as much, but over a longer time, and then stops, and begins to demand a constantly (= expensively, in the company's view) improving game, while providing less revenue in return than another set of a dozen newbies - and there are always more new players out there, too, as mobile gaming continues to become a greater part of many people's everyday lives.
So long story short; it is not so far from the truth to believe that the designers actually ARE trying to 'wear out the interest' of any players who are not likely either to spend money on the current/future Events and other spending opportunities in the game, or to remain interested - and in-game - enough to become part of the necessary competition (and companionship) upon which the game's 'Social Viral' design is fundamentally based. If you are neither paying to play, nor present often enough to, er, 'encourage' those who do, the world of 'Free' to play games, sad though it is, sees you largely as an unwanted expense which is better replaced by someone else who actually will either pay themselves, or support those who do.
And people wonder why (actually, they probably don't...) I am such a vocal non-supporter of the 'Free' to Play game revenue generation concept...
