Focus On Your Regulars

I recently came across an interesting and particularly relevant article, "Kabam: Look Beyond Whales, Focus on Your 'Regulars'," by Matthew Handrahand. According to Aaron Loeb, Kabam's President of Studios and Live Services, the long-term success of free-to-play games -- such as Uprising -- depends upon the "people who play them all the time." I find this kind of long-term thinking interesting since it wasn't too long ago that one of our cartel members, Winter Vos, pointed out that his approach to the game recently changed to a long-term, sustained mentality with the release of 3.0. Of course, Winter is one of the original members of KoB and has been a consistently daily player since he joined, so his point has more to do with the gaming experience than anything else, but the idea is essentially the same.

The question then becomes how to retain players for an extended period of time. And the answer comes quickly: Make an awesome Star Wars game. Now, that may seem reductive, but it's incredibly complex in practice. For example, the release of Uprising 3.0 gave us three new Raid levels to explore. Are they great? Sure. Are they awesome? Nope. Why? They aren't multiplayer. The forums are filled with indignation about the lack of multiplayer Raids. On the other hand, Uprising has done some things very right. I remember, for example, when the Commando elements to the game were introduced. I immediately spent all my Rebel Faction Currency on Rocket Launcher 2. Whew, it was awesome! Why? Rocket turned out to be a truly ultimate Tank Ability. While it was expensive, it wasn't prohibitively so. And, more to the point, it was fun.  

I suppose my ultimate point here is that, for Uprising to last, Kabam needs to make the daily grind interestingly  worthwhile, not just substantially  worthwhile, for its daily player base. How might they do that, other than increase the trickle of electrum into the game? Well, for starters, improve aesthetic elements that have little bearing on PR. They could easily loosen their belts on the new Legendary Gear shards, for example. Since the first Lando missions appeared, I've earned exactly two Ultimate Gambler shards. Two. In over a month. I understand why 6-8* and 7-9* gear shards are difficult to acquire, but this Vanity gear is even more difficult to find, even if it does drop, more often than not, just 2 5* electrum when salvaged. (I haven't seen a 6* electrum salvage in roughly a month from any Legendary gear I've earned.) And on this note, do you have any idea how difficult it is to find 4-6* Noble gear in the Holo crates? I've been wanting to upgrade my 3-5* set -- which I essentially use as an appearance set -- for a long, long time now. And it wasn't exactly easy to find the full 3-5* set to begin with. Kabam could very easily offer a wide selection of new Vanity looks for the great number of different players who grind this game.

And, as I suggested, all this hardly scratches even the surface of what they could do in terms of aesthetics, never mind anything else. The Star Wars universe is a vast, pluralistic one, full of variety. Shouldn't a great Star Wars game do that fundamental fact some justice? And don't even get me started on changing the color of the lightsaber! That could've been a whole new Rumor Mission crate to buy and explore.