Discussion Future of Forge of Empires?

[CaodeAqua]

The decline in active players is a concerning trend that is taking place across many online games, including Forge of Empires. There are a number of reasons for this decline, including the rise of new mobile games, the increasing popularity of social media, and the changing preferences of gamers.

One factor that may be contributing to the decline in active players on Forge of Empires is the game's complexity. The game has a lot of different features and mechanics, which can be overwhelming for new players. This can lead to a high churn rate, as players lose interest and stop playing.

Another factor that may be contributing to the decline is the game's lack of innovation. While the game has added new features and content over the years, the core gameplay has remained relatively unchanged. This can make the game feel stale and repetitive for long-term players.

The game's monetization model may be contributing to the decline. The game's premium currency, diamonds, can be used to purchase a variety of items, including resources, speedups, and blueprints. However, diamonds can also be purchased with real money. This can make the game feel pay-to-win, which can turn off some players.

Despite these challenges, there are still a number of things that Forge of Empires can do to reverse the decline in active players. The game can make the game more accessible to new players by simplifying the learning curve and providing better tutorials. The game can also add more innovative features and content to keep long-term players engaged.

Finally, the game can improve its monetization model by making it more fair and balanced.
Only time will tell whether Forge of Empires can overcome the challenges it faces and reverse the decline in active players. However, the game has a loyal following and a strong community, which gives it a chance to succeed.

By the way the in-game currency is not gems but diamonds, please learn this fact, OK?​

View other drafts







Thank you for the correction. I apologize for the error. I will remember that the in-game currency for Forge of Empires is diamonds, not gems. I am always learning and improving my knowledge base. I will try to be more careful in the future.
I hope this information is helpful. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

 

[outoftheline]

wondering where you got the data from with the decrease in active players? decrease by how much compared to what please?


i think FoE has been pretty fair with its monetazation model for the longest time. in the last year or so they expanded it, but.. actually? what is pay-to-win in FoE? you cannot win much by paying large amounts of money?! you just need to play a lot to "win", if you mean getting further up in the ranking system.

 

[MonkeyDMonkey]

Message written with ChatGPT?

 

[Thunderdome]

The decline in active players is a concerning trend that is taking place across many online games, including Forge of Empires. There are a number of reasons for this decline, including the rise of new mobile games, the increasing popularity of social media, and the changing preferences of gamers

While a growing trend rests with mobile gaming, however, it's not the only reason why players would not have time to play a game. Other reasons could be: a title's age (number of years a game has been running), the upkeep of hosted servers, and dwindling sales of premium content due to hacks and/or cheats to obtain such without the need to purchase; among your reasons as well. Sometimes, folks take to console gaming like the PS5, XBox, etc.

One factor that may be contributing to the decline in active players on Forge of Empires is the game's complexity. The game has a lot of different features and mechanics, which can be overwhelming for new players. This can lead to a high churn rate, as players lose interest and stop playing.

Another factor that may be contributing to the decline is the game's lack of innovation. While the game has added new features and content over the years, the core gameplay has remained relatively unchanged. This can make the game feel stale and repetitive for long-term players.

When I first started to play FoE (was in 2012), it was kind of difficult at first (there were no 1.x exchanges; there were no extra features to gain rewards; and there were not much in terms of event buildings). The Forge Bar had a limit of 10 that nothing can be beyond that, so you had to use the points before you reload more. This makes leveling GBs difficult as you have to click on the points (there were no fixed quantities), leave the GB window, open the FP window, buy the points, close the window, re-open the GB window, dump points, lather, rinse, and repeat.

The events were detailed in terms of information (how it's played) so the player would know how to go about it.

Now, I don't know what it is I am playing. PVB was released with no value to the PVP definition. In a different game, we had league challenges to which a player gets three attempts to battle out players across a ranking system in order to move to the top. There were no bots in between; meaning, if you are sandwiched between two live players who you cannot beat, you will have to wait until one of them moves further up so you can move up. Another game has you switching between challenges in order to challenge players to reach to the top (RIP Wartune). GE, I can rip through 1-4 with just a Hover and 7 Rogues. I am still building on City Defense so I can do 5 with just fighting.

The game's monetization model may be contributing to the decline. The game's premium currency, diamonds, can be used to purchase a variety of items, including resources, speedups, and blueprints. However, diamonds can also be purchased with real money. This can make the game feel pay-to-win, which can turn off some players.

While I think that Inno follows everyone else when it comes to the gimmicks of getting someone to spend, however, they're only 1 of 2 developers (and games) that give out free premium currency through some means aside from just spending. Those wishing to spend more can do so; or spend for a month of FoE+, or even unlock the silver and gold tiers of an event for extra items.

Despite these challenges, there are still a number of things that Forge of Empires can do to reverse the decline in active players. The game can make the game more accessible to new players by simplifying the learning curve and providing better tutorials. The game can also add more innovative features and content to keep long-term players engaged.

GvG wasn't made available to the mobile players. Heck, ads were plaguing the mobile player than the browser player. To me, it feels that the mobile player is getting the shaft from the developer.

However, there should be an option to where we can skip the tutorials for those of us who are seasoned players starting in a new world.

Finally, the game can improve its monetization model by making it more fair and balanced.
Only time will tell whether Forge of Empires can overcome the challenges it faces and reverse the decline in active players. However, the game has a loyal following and a strong community, which gives it a chance to succeed.

I don't see anything wrong with the monetization model in use by Inno. If I wanted something from them, I would buy. If I don't, I would just ignore and play my game as I see fit. However, I would like to see Inno improve in catching and banning those who use hacks, bots, or scripts in gaining an "advantage" to any other player, whether free or paying.

 

[Nessie]

I have no idea what this is all about. InnoGames is a profit-oriented company, that is clear to everyone or not? The company will do everything it can to maximize profits. I see no decline (unfortunatly)

 

[Charles el Britannia]

The game can make the game more accessible to new players by simplifying the learning curve and providing better tutorials. The game can also add more innovative features and content to keep long-term players engaged.

That is extremely vague and thus a useless statement. How exactly can Inno simplify the learning curve? Give some examples of how this can be done.
Also, the tutorials are already quite good. There is no need for better tutorials.
Finally, Inno is adding more features to the game (guild raids, events). It takes time though to make and test new content and players can devour content much faster than a developer can produce it.

 

[UBERhelp1]

Despite these challenges, there are still a number of things that Forge of Empires can do to reverse the decline in active players. The game can make the game more accessible to new players by simplifying the learning curve and providing better tutorials. The game can also add more innovative features and content to keep long-term players engaged.

Let's see:

1. The tutorial has been updated this year, including the new Welcome Event to help teach new players about events.
2. The learning curve has been simplified, as shown by the early eras speedup.
3. Mini challenges, updates to GE and GBG, as well as more involved and new events provide content for endgame players.

This really does feel like it was written by chatGPT lol

 

[ADSL]

The tutorial has been updated this year, including the new Welcome Event

Please give me a link to the official news about the introduction of the Welcome Event.

 

[drakenridder]

If I recall correctly, I’ve read an investor’s report from Inno prior to the acquisition of Inno by MTG. In which they stated an unusual boom due to the covid pandemic. They stated in the post covid pandemic time, a decline back to “normal” numbers were to be expected. However it wasn’t really possible to accurately predict to what extend. This is common with other companies. I can name a few examples that are no rivals of Forge: Lego saw a boom in sales. As many people where locked at home and where looking for new hobbies. In another trade there was also a boom: electronics. Many tech companies experienced a steep increase of customers. In the same trade as Inno, game companies experienced an increase of players.
Most of those companies knew it was a unusual boom due to the pandemic. It’s to be expected post pandemic a decline would occur. As people would return back to their outdoor activities. As many restrictions were lifted post pandemic.

After some digging into MTG’s public financial reports. There’s a general decline in revenue with the games of the same genre as FoE. That been said for this year the decline was at its lowest at Q1, compared to Q4 of 2022. Which was a declining trend consistent throughout 2022. At Q2 revenue saw a rapid recovery, followed by a strong climb in revenue up to Q3 of 2023. As we’re still in Q4 no data is publicly available of Q4 of this year. The revenue I’m referring to is from MTG’s entire portfolio in the same genre as FoE. This may not reflect Forge’s performance but considering how big FoE is in Inno’s portfolio and to an extend MTG, I think it’s a positive sign.
I could not find publicly available data on active players at FoE. Though I assume @CaodeAqua has excess to this data due to the claims made on the decline of active players.

For reference this is the MTG financial report I’ve been referring to, page 7


Based off this I’m confident FoE is still going strong. However I’m unsure to what extend FoE can maintain its position. Perhaps guild raids could help the game generating some hype again. As to the game feels mostly relying on GbG and the social aspect.
To me personally the game has changed a lot. Where originally ages, city building and the cmap were the main drive to me. Nowadays GbG feels like the main game. With GE1-5 the weekly secondary game and the ages a side feature. Like FoE “story mode.” Determining whatever units are to our disposal and the opposing armies. With events the core source of buildings to buildup an army for mainly GbG and beating GE1-5. Based off that, if guild raids are at least decent, it might give a 2nd game “mode” to play. Instead of GbG. This is just my personal experience with the current state of the game. Based off this, I feel another potential future for the game could be the space hub. If it is the final age offers at the very end of the TT a modular end game with similar replay options as GbG/GE. As some sort of game “mode” for endgame players.
So, in short. Imho if guild raids are good and successful it could offer FoE a shot to future prove it somewhat. As an alternative game “mode” to play to GbG. Another opportunity the game has is for the endgame players: the space hub, the presumable final age. If at the very end of the age a modular feature gets unlocked. To serve as a 3rd game “mode” besides GbG and guild raids. Assuming they’ll release the age after finishing guild raids and taking another year or so to develop that feature. To encourage players to make the push through the entire TT to unlock it.
Other than that, I’m unsure when fatigue will settle in by whales and a critical number of (previously) active players.

 

[Boo...]

Guys, someone decided to make a joke.
Of course, this is ChatGPT text.

 

[drakenridder]

Guys, someone decided to make a joke.
Of course, this is ChatGPT text.

So, ChatGPT could at least use its forum account to show us its sources. Like where it’s getting the knowledge for the decline.

 

[Kronan]

Yeah, just like Noah said to those not on the arc - "Don't worry, bros!! It's just a normal rainstorm" LOLOL

I haven't checked on this recently. @UBERhelp1 has typically been very plugged into the research report side of how and what MTG is doing in their business, from their corporate presentations, and quarterly reviews. There's PLENTY of this stuff on them out there, if you know the industry, and now how to do investment research.

95% of you DON'T have a clue about this.

Data and charts abound and there are posts in OUR FORUM here with them. Ask @drakenridder or @UBERhelp1 for their posts showing financial changes and items related to what MTG is doing.

Even if you can't get these business presentations, or analyst review on if MTG is a good "investment" or not, you MUST use your own senses to determine if FoE is a booming thriving business, or just holding on, or somewhere in between.

Some charts and graphs previously published might enlighten you, even if you can't sense it from playing. Things I've noticed, as having been a player here for a lot of years, definitely have changed, although no one can say 6 years ago FoE had X people actively playing, but now has Y (meaning it has less).

For example, Forge DB did this daily, and before it went defunct, many people over time did watch changes in the game's active player count occur from 2018 to whenthe website closed shop in 2021. So with a little prowess, stuff like this told a story, quantitatively . This is the final snapshot when it closed:

https://www.forge-db.com/us/combined/

Some people can be sensitive to changes in the game culture, and activity without hard and fast numbers. There is a quality vs quantity side to this.

1) Less traffic in 1.9 groups
2) Longer to get rid of a collections
3) Hoods that are mostly tumbleweed cities, and some even made up predominately of -1 era players.
4) More inactive friends, red dots and yellow
5) Less P/M and longer to fill the tavern to clear it
6) Fewer aids or tavern sits/day from the same quantity of friends
7) Top guild sizes have definitely shrunk into the 50-60 range, from 80, even guilds that had waiting lists a year ago
8) More public goodbye's, and private ones too. Real goodbye's not "threats" to leave.
9)...

I'm noticing generally,a less robust playing environment. Mature players have "lifted" their city to a steady-state and are no longer chasing items by MORE involvement in the game. They're moving along more slowly, and re-balancing back to Real Life.

If you look around the forums or do a simple websearch, you'll get public data on MTG's business. If you work with an investment advisor, their firm might have research data or an investment thesis on MTG.

Do your OWN due-diligence, if you care too. But the OP expressed opinions that possibly come from the way (texture) it seems to them about playing changes, and participation.

I've listed some things which might portend a change in "active players" here, or a game decline, or denouement.

You can roll along and say the sky is NOT falling (which seemed to be the general pushback up to now), but admitting the reality from clues you see is much harder to do, and admit publicly.

 

[drakenridder]

@Xiphos there are indeed two sides on the topic. The financial side, which can be looked up from MTG and the active participating players. The financial side seems to doing fine. When it comes down to enjoying the game and newbies replacing leaving players... I'm unsure w/o hard data anyone can claim anything.
The game still feel lively with enough competition. It's plausibel that the game isn't able to attract more new players than players leaving to replacing them. I think it has mostly to do with the game offering little more beyond events and guild features. Once you've reached the best age for battles, the guild features and events are all that's left. Aging up could still be done but would often feel like a penalty. Escalating keen eye and the "awesomeness" of SA:T units don't do the game any favours. This what I'm suspecting to be the main cause of fatigue of the game.
The cycle might get broken by guild raids or the space hub. Only time can tell. Not having too much hope in either but gonna give both the benefit of the doubt

 

[-Alin-]

Future of FoE is simple, get as much money as possible indiferently if the game is dying or not.
They made it fair in the last year in a way or another with changing some mechanics and get rid of the others which were broken.

There is still a thing that InnoGames is heavily lacking, their "anticheat" system, If it is any.
There are many scripts and self made scripts into the wild, and players which are not banned or takes too much time to happen, and only for 1-3 days and not permanently banned from game.
InnoGames have access to all of the clicks and requests did on client side or to their servers side by a player, it should be easy enough to ban people which are inhumanly faster or are doing the exact same clicks at the same period of time from several tools( I won't tell which ones, several are still working just fine shared on dark web links with TOR browser).

Second is the multi account usage and passwords sharing, several top guilds share accounts and passwords just in case the main user isn't available for a day or x days, this would give advantages to GbG and next QI mechanics.

Something need to be done here too, rather than only focusing on how to monetize the game and adding Platinum and Diamond upgrades to buildings and changing some stats and colors and wash the hands.

I understand after the 75 people laid off things got slower for all of Inno games developement, I've seen that already, and not only on FoE, but if the main issues aren't addresed, the game is slowly dying.

Several friends, top players, left the game, and aren't few, while DE, USA, EN servers might be still populated, the other ones are already pretty dead on the aspect of players playing actively, servers with barely 5-6 game worlds on which are around 1000 players at most on-line, and new players aren't playing very actively or are willing to delete the game faster.
Used to be more guilds and more active, now those guilds are dead and players are moving on the top 20 guilds, that's the recent trend.
Same happening on beta, which isn't a server with super activity, but used to be more populated in the past years than now.

Otherwise, the game as a whole is great, lots of things to focus on and play or enjoy in the free time.

 

[Emberguard]

So, ChatGPT could at least use its forum account to show us its sources. Like where it’s getting the knowledge for the decline.

To be fair, when someone asked ChatGPT what the best Great Buildings are.... it started making up new Great Buildings that don't exist, or from a different game

Mature players have "lifted" their city to a steady-state and are no longer chasing items by MORE involvement in the game. They're moving along more slowly, and re-balancing back to Real Life.

That's to be expected the more the ratio tips towards there being more mature players than new ones. I can't think of any game where if you keep playing a long time you wouldn't either reach a steady-state OR have to restart something to keep going.

Prior to the introduction of spawner buildings a lot of players were already in a point where they could be in a steady state if they were inclined to do so. If nothing else it did reinvigorate cities in the short term. Of course it also means we can revamp at a much faster pace than before, which will have its own knockon effects on what people will go for next

Not accounting for blue galaxy:
20/150 fragment spawn gives +4-5 buildings per year
3/100 fragment spawn gives +11 buildings per year
3/15 fragment spawn gives 73 items per year

 

[MJ Artisan of War]

The Future of Forge of Empires looks like this.....
"The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs" is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 87 in the Perry Index, a story that also has a number of Eastern analogues. Many other stories contain geese that lay golden eggs, though certain versions change them for hens or other birds that lay golden eggs. The tale has given rise to the idiom 'killing the goose that lays the golden eggs', which refers to the short-sighted destruction of a valuable resource, or to an unprofitable action motivated by greed....

 

[Thunderdome]

The tale has given rise to the idiom 'killing the goose that lays the golden eggs', which refers to the short-sighted destruction of a valuable resource, or to an unprofitable action motivated by greed....

I read a version of this sort somewhere where the guy killed the goose thinking there were golden eggs inside and all he got was nothing but a dead goose.

Moral of that story takes knowledge on what works and how to improve or enhance on it while ignoring those that don't work and removing them in order to make room for things that will work. Point of those feedback threads on when an event or feature comes out was to gain said knowledge from those who are participating. However, only few things were done while major problems were left alone in existence.

I know a thing about transparency but when you have players in the multitudes asking for the same thing to be done (like to combat players who cheat by bots, scripts, or other ill means), it should have been a priority to be addressed, discussed, and mitigated on. Simply staying in the shadows isn't going to make the problem go away. A lot of players will be frustrated and most will just quit.

The gimmicks (for monetary gain) are fine, but if there is no backbone, then it's just poop. Meaning, if Inno cannot find a pair down there and enforce their Terms of Service and Game Rules to the satisfaction of their players, the players will take their business elsewhere, or won't buy and will only play until Inno pulls the plug on FoE, once and for all; no matter how many gimmicks they can muster.

 

[LafThePirate]

There is still a thing that InnoGames is heavily lacking, their "anticheat" system, If it is any.
There are many scripts and self made scripts into the wild, and players which are not banned or takes too much time to happen, and only for 1-3 days and not permanently banned from game.
InnoGames have access to all of the clicks and requests did on client side or to their servers side by a player, it should be easy enough to ban people which are inhumanly faster or are doing the exact same clicks at the same period of time from several tools( I won't tell which ones, several are still working just fine shared on dark web links with TOR browser).

There have been players sifting through the unencrypted socket data from the browsers to FIND these cheats, pass the relevant information on to Support and in some cases bans happened. One US server in particular it's extremely selective or outright incorrect. There was a post somewhere that stated the 'cheat detection' was purely AI based, no room for error. Well, there sure as heck IS room for error when one player can get an inhuman # of hits in either GVG OR GBG and remain actively playing. Others get banned for using a fast computer and connection with NO cheating. There's basically no point in reporting them because there won't be any action taken. Don't need to get the canned responses from support - we have the database, we have folks in the same hoods as the cheaters and can see they're still active.

Encrypt it - good way to fix at least that part.

 

[Silly Beaver]

After some digging into MTG’s public financial reports. There’s a general decline in revenue with the games of the same genre as FoE. That been said for this year the decline was at its lowest at Q1, compared to Q4 of 2022. Which was a declining trend consistent throughout 2022. At Q2 revenue saw a rapid recovery, followed by a strong climb in revenue up to Q3 of 2023. As we’re still in Q4 no data is publicly available of Q4 of this year. The revenue I’m referring to is from MTG’s entire portfolio in the same genre as FoE. This may not reflect Forge’s performance but considering how big FoE is in Inno’s portfolio and to an extend MTG, I think it’s a positive sign.
I could not find publicly available data on active players at FoE. Though I assume @CaodeAqua has excess to this data due to the claims made on the decline of active players.

An Increase in revenue would not necessarily mean an increase in players. With the last 5-6 months of events having to pay cash money for the upgrades, that could certainly account for increased revenue. I know I have paid the $24.99 a couple times because they were so beneficial for A/D

 

[drakenridder]

An Increase in revenue would not necessarily mean an increase in players. With the last 5-6 months of events having to pay cash money for the upgrades, that could certainly account for increased revenue. I know I have paid the $24.99 a couple times because they were so beneficial for A/D

That’s why I’ve pointed out that there are 2 aspects of the game: financial and player base. The financial situation appears to doing fine for now. I didn’t claim an increase of players. As a matter of facts, I’ve even pointed out w/o hard data on number of active players, we can’t draw any meaningful conclusions