Sunday, June 20th, 2010
Issue: 33   Editor: HowlingMadMika


MANUAL: How to kill a potentially brilliant game. AldarionX
Hello and welcome to this manual. Before using the manual make sure you meet the following conditions:

1. You must have a game that is running smoothly and has a lot of players online. You can’t kill a game if you have no players
2. You must have a second admin who effectively does all the work. However, make sure not to become too close with him as you’ll have to ‘fire’ him during the process.
3. You must earn some money from the game.
Once you meet these conditions you are ready to kill your game! Please proceed as stated below:

You notice that the other admin is doing all the work for your game. In fact, he is so busy that he created a script with the ‘busy’ status for his profile. Now this is very handy, because if you steal that script you can use it on your own profile and pretend to be very busy as well.

Once you’ve stolen the script you start by ignoring the community and letting the other admin do even more work. In the meantime, you continue to earn money.

Now comes the point you decide it’s time to kill the game. You announce a reset in which you promise several things that aren’t true and you start an argument with the other admin, which you lose. He is so fed up with you that he leaves. However, this may result in players leaving because they think you are wrong here, so you state that you fired him.

The announced reset is delayed because you never really did anything, but firing the other admin is a brilliant excuse for that delay, accuse him!

You start writing a story on the forum in which you try to justify your actions. However, because the other admin was the one who effectively ran the game, no-one believes you.

The other admin writes his story, which tells the truth. You are so angry because everyone believes him that you decide to place him on the Ban on Sight list.

The community is disappointed so you promise to hire a new admin. You know that this is impossible but to keep players satisfied you tell them this is very easy. Make sure not to hire a third admin, this will cost you money.

You never organized Russian Roulettes before but to make sure people keep buying points you organize one. Everyone secretly knows you’re trying to regain some trust in the game, but don’t worry, only a few will speak their mind.

Now comes the fun part, players start to leave because you don’t give them what you promised them. You’ll probably receive a lot of bootmails, but just keep the ‘busy’ status on your profile and continue to do nothing.

Players are leaving rapidly now. You continue ignoring the community and not responding to any of the players but you start working on an update which is pretty pointless given the conditions of the game. You update the roulette page.

Important: From this moment on you’ll stop any work as long as you’re still earning money.

Bugs are getting into the game but you decide not to fix anything. Make sure not to hire another admin, because he might solve these things. Please make sure the bugs are around for at least a couple of months.

Everyone starts to be a bit fed up with you, so you program a script that makes it look like you’re online, even though you’re sitting on the beach all day long.

Even the staff starts to be annoyed by you. It is important to ignore them in this stage, some may leave but others will stay just because of the position.

Problem: money drops. You decide to run a Help Desk Operator talent contest, to make sure people keep being interest in the game. Make sure not to select any of the application within a year as all applicants will probably continue p(l)aying.

Well done! One of your very best moderators left the team, this is looking great as far as killing the game. However, because you don’t care you don’t remove her from your crew, nor do you remove her new account that was somehow added to the Help Desk.

The next thing is just continuing what you’re doing: nothing. Wait until more staff members and players leave and the game will eventually die.

Please note that this isn’t easy and it requires a lot of patience. There are a couple of things that you can’t really influence, such as the other admin starting a better game, but those things are benefiting you even more when you’re killing your game. Best of luck, you can do this!