Sunday, November 14th, 2010
Issue: 55   Editor: oSean


Selling The Game? (Pt. 1) NVIDIAldarion
Bootleggers is not going all that well right now and most people seem to be aware of it. Increasing scepticism proves that a growing part of the community no longer thinks Bootleggers will ever survive the phase its currently in. The numbers of players that actually plays still declines and every objective person can see this is going absolutely nowhere. Something will need to happen for Bootleggers to avoid it sinking away, and let’s be completely honest, BSF2000 doesn’t seem to be the right man at the wheel. The Bootleggers Buzz had a (small) survey in which 178 people answered questions about the current state of the game. The results of two questions are shown in graphs below:





The graphs clearly show people aren’t too happy with the game and particularly BSF’s activity. People realize something needs to change and some are even willing to pay money for that. Even more, some are willing to buy the game. In the beginning of the week Himmelpotamus aka Himmel posted an open letter on the game Forum in which he expressed interest in buying the game:


Quote:
BSF,
As is clear by your total lack of regard for this site or the member base, this site is dying. I'm not laying blame anywhere, interests come and go, I have dropped projects myself in the past because I no longer feel like working on them or feel like it's a lost cause. As you refused to respond to me on AIM during my last contact attempt some months back I felt I'd go this route and see if maybe, just maybe, I'd get a response.

I run a successful web marketing company, and have an eventual plan for Bootleggers, but it depends on whether or not you are interested in either of the options, they are listed as follows:

1. Prove your revenue streams, expenses, profit month to month for the last year, and I will purchase the business from you outright and make the bug fixes/changes/feature improvements myself.

2. Bootleggers can partner up with my established web marketing company in multiple ways, two off the top of my head being to refer new members to bootleggers by paying a cost per click, or per valid registration, or any other criteria you could think of. The other method would be to allow members to complete free surveys or try out free or low cost products in addition to allowing Paypal as a payment option for Points. This method would further monetize your website as we pay clients *you* money per completed survey/trial/ringtone/download, allowing a broader spectrum of users to purchase points who can't or won't use Paypal.

For a demonstration of how this works, and the legitimacy of it, simply open a Facebook application like Mafia Wars or Farmville or any one of a hundred other titles, and look for the 'points' section, you'll see every one of them using the same method I just explained to you, allowing users to spend real cash on the points, OR to complete a survey/try a product in exchange for those points. This is currently one of the fastest growing trends in web marketing, and I think it would be a great fit for Bootleggers.

Keep in mind that option 2 would still require you to fix bugs, and release new features as well. A new option for points means nothing with no traffic to the site.

I went a little further in-depth than I had planned to, but at least now you have everything possible from me, hopefully I hear back from you.



The Bootleggers Buzz had a small interview with Himmel to ask him a few questions about his plan. First of all we asked him where he got the idea from and he told us, “I've been kicking the idea around for a while now, but I knew I had no chance of getting him to agree while the site still had some activity. The site is now pretty well dead. I own a web marketing company, we frequently purchase properties based on the value we see in them at their full potential. I believe Bootleggers has potential, but it's needs a major overhaul, changes to its points system, bug fixes, feature improvements/removals.” The question a lot of people ask is whether it is realistic to assume that BSF2000 will ever sell Bootleggers. Himmel answered when we asked if he thought he’d stand a chance of buying the game, “It all depends on BSF, if he's become bored with BL, as is clear by his lack of activity, it's time to move onto bigger and better things. I think it has a very good chance of succeeding if BSF takes the time to look at his revenue stream graphs over the last year or two, I imagine revenue for October in comparison to October of last year is a drastic difference, there comes a point where stagnancy is no longer going to provide an income, and Bootleggers has nearly reached that point (as far as I can tell)”

During the survey, we also asked the people what they’d think of the possibility of Bootleggers being sold. Would people be positive towards such a change? The results are shown below:



Two-third of the respondents thinks selling Bootleggers will be a good idea. Before the survey even began Himmel had already told us, “I sure hope BSF takes the collective community opinion into consideration, that's the whole reason I made it an open letter, I wanted to hear what everyone thought, and so far the responses seem to be very positive overall.”

However, if Bootleggers would be sold, management would change as well, which inevitably means changes will come to the game, not just in terms of its features. We also asked the people if they were afraid of such a change and this were the results:



The results show that just over half the respondents would fear changes. However, would that be justified? We asked Himmel: “Definitely not, if anything I think the players would praise the change in ownership. My ultimate goal is not to turn bootleggers into something that it isn't, I merely want to improve on the current content (bug fixes, feature improvements, player requests), the gameplay itself would stay the same, maybe with an added feature or two to start with, which players would be able to give thoughts on.” We also asked him if he had a message for BSF, and he had: “I've been a loyal member since 2004, I've been through the ups, the downs, and the in-betweens. I've run one of the most successful and mature Crews to date, being a role model for new Crews just starting off. I've made friends, enemies, but the bottom line is that I enjoyed every minute of it. I (and others, judging by the topics/responses) no longer enjoy it. The neglect you've shown has killed the game.” And he went on to conclude the interview, “I would like to thank everyone, friend or foe, for the great times I had, whether I was in The Invisibles, 1337 Guard, or even all the way back to Pentarchy and Penthouse. If something isn't done, and soon, myself and many others will not be around to ring in 2011 BL style.”

The final question in the survey was whether people would think Bootleggers will still be there in the near future. Considering the current circumstances that seems a very reasonable question. The results are shown in the graph below:



Remarkably, despite all disbelief in BSF the largest part thinks the game will still be here in the near future. I think we can safely say that some sort of change, either in admins, or in complete ownership, would be needed. At this point it doesn’t seem likely that BSF will ever sell the game, but what is really going to happen remains yet to be seen. I have always been told that ending with “time will tell” is ludicrous, but let me be ludicrous on this one, because, surely, time will tell!

Part 2 contains opinions from users participating in the survey. Make sure to check them out!