Attempted to put up a vote offering in the "Ideas" forum for "Legacy Accounts should be Exempted from Mobile Ads" . . . how does InnoGames expect to have any meaningful feedback if attempts to gauge broader opinion through Idea's voting is "Rejected."
Any way, I'm going to leave my feedback. This is solely for InnoGames to see my opinion and get my feedback.
Mobile ads are the worst idea ever. InnoGames is about to lose a large portion of its customer base if it continues to push ads on those who have played for months or years without ads.
Its one thing to put ads into new accounts signing up from now forward, but it is entirely another thing to impose mobile ads on legacy players whose signups and time investment in the game occurred prior to the roll outs of the mobile ads.
There is no question this is a company decision by InnoGames to increase its revenue, but there is also no question it will cause the collapse of the game through cruicial core Legacy player losses. Already approximately 3/4 of all server players on all worlds are inactive. This is the result of recent Management/Administrative attempts to change the game to increase revenues . . . it is failing - primarily due to the lack of central focus on player retention and improving in-game experience and enjoyment . . . a past president of the United States once said "
its about the Economy st*pid" but here the
economy is the social capital - the interactions of long term legacy players with both new and other long-term players who are here because of their friendships, not because they want to light up their mouse with a thousand clicks every hour or because they enjoy tapping a hole in their mobile device's screen protector.
The smartest move is to exempt legacy accounts (players who signed up prior to the introduction of mobile advertising) from seeing the ads. Basically these Legacy Accounts would continue on exactly as if mobile advertising did not exist.
The recent massive loss in value of Twitter and Facebook value drops should scare the heck out of InnoGames. Facebook has seen some unimaginable drops in its value for example losing a quarter Billion dollars in value in one day recently . . . the largest in stock market history. More over, "Meta," Facebooks attempt to evolve and increase revenue (similar to this InnoGames Mobile Ad misplaced plan), massively missed targets and gave a horrendous "troubling" forecast for the third quarter of 2022.
. . . this should be a wake up call for InnoGames Management and Exectives as well as MTG ("Mobile Telecom Group" InnoGames Parent Company).
I strongly urge a re-focusing onto customer retention. Moves like introduction of mobile ads will not only NOT result in increased revenues, but will result in loss of market share and customers . . . this is loss of reach for the company.
The simplest solution is to exempt Legacy Accounts (created prior to the introduction of mobile ads) from seeing the ads. Those players began playing the game without ads and invested their time in the game within that social-contract with InnoGames. . . but more importantly, these Legacy Accounts/Players have been building up InnoGames market share by engaging with other players socially online. There is real value in these Legacy players for InnoGames and imposing Mobile Ads on them and making them quit InnoGames offerings will cut the heart out of the engine that holds games like Forge of Empires together (Legacy players who are proven over time). Imposing advertising on these legacy players is a violation. These players have invested their time and energy in the game and they should have a strong position supported by InnoGames to continue on without the Mobile Ads.
While I understand InnoGames desire to increase revenues, it would be far better served by using the money it invested in developing the Mobile Ad system in an advertising campaign to attract more customers to the game as it did in 2011 and 2012. That is a far better advertising focus than imposing mobile ads on players that will cause people to leave the game.
The introduction of Mobile Ads is mistake identical to the mistakes Twitter has made and Facebook has made in attempting to develop "Meta" in the dark . . . a group of MBAs and Executives sitting around in a dark room with no windows patting each other on the back and saying yea yea yea like Beavis and Butthead heh heh heh heh . . ."that sound great" when in fact it could easily result in loss of customers/players and the collapse of the game entirely.
I've privately discussed with friends and other players what InnoGames could consider as an option going forward.
Here is my feedback/suggestion:
- Do not impose Mobile Ads on Legacy players . . . introduce them solely to new sign-ups who can make an informed decision about their investment of their time in the game.
- Purchase Discord (or a like company) and integrate it into all InnoGames and other MTG platforms. MTG is big enough to purchase a company like Discord, and this would increase player engagement massively. There are ways to gain revenue within Discord that are far superior to Mobile Ads and could be held and provided independent of the hook of the games offered by InnoGames . . . essentially the games, like Forge of Empires will attract players and a Discord like Social platform would increase engagement and offer increasing revenue opportunities. To say the Message Center in Forge of Empires is substandard and poor quality is an understatement. Bringing in a true Social Interaction site like a Discord Company would transform InnoGames and other MTG gaming holdings into the powerhouse for gaming experiences well into the future.
The principle is that games like Forge of Empires always end up being social interaction experiences for people who originally sign up to just have some fun in a game. Like going camping, its not the campfire that people are going for, while that is fun and nice, but rather its the friends and family that make camping so popular. Targeting and purchasing a new holding like Discord to increase social engagement is the path forward. Forcing mobile ads on legacy players is like a park ranger coming along and telling a bunch of friends they can't have the campfire . . . where's the fun in that and some people just won't go camping there anymore.