Conquer Club

xroads wrote:Bottom line cc is a business, the owner should be involved In stead of a ghost behind a wall.

I won't disagree on that point. People kinda need that reassurance. Even if you have a non-profit community site, the community need to see at least one of the "owners" on there on a regular basis. If they don't see that, they start to lose faith in the entire community, and they think that you don't care... or the site is on its last legs. Even if the owner was busy working away on stuff in the background, but hadn't communicated that, how would the community know his intentions? I do think some form of communication is important, business or not.

Cc and the community is quickly dying. Users, games, and posts are all trending down sharply.

xroads wrote:Cc and the community is quickly dying. Users, games, and posts are all trending down sharply.

Few of the mods post anymore. Like a light going off this past week.

We need trump to tweet about how great this site is.

I know you're joking (at least, I think you are), but we already have enough racism and bigotry here. Don't need more.

iAmCaffeine wrote:I know you're joking (at least, I think you are), but we already have enough racism and bigotry here. Don't need more.

why not? xtra, karel & the ram are fun to mess with...*shrugs*

The so called dice generator has officially won..the site is now dead!!

iAmCaffeine wrote:I know you're joking (at least, I think you are), but we already have enough racism and bigotry here. Don't need more.

lol. There is nothing racist about Trump.

The truth hurts sometimes.

This post/string was quite entertaining, but had too many trolls/off-topics.

Things in motion tend to stay in motion, so unless something big happens it will continue to deteriorate

A few thoughts on NR/farming: Allow then to be walled, just make their games worth 0 points until they get ranked. Warn people about being farmed and have a some kind of bounty on farmers

And when you try to calculate revenue don't forget to add Ad and Store revenues

Bigbullets wrote:

iAmCaffeine wrote:I know you're joking (at least, I think you are), but we already have enough racism and bigotry here. Don't need more.

lol. There is nothing racist about Trump.

The truth hurts sometimes.

Interests:Likes to play real time.

you wildin bro

Recently had the chance to have a nice visit with lack. He's doing well. Always liked him and his interaction. However, when he owned it, 95% of the threads and talk back then we're JUST LIKE THIS. People complaining, spouting shit about how the site was dying, whining about how he managed it. Nothing's changed except whammo chooses not to personally take the abuse

Did you see AK Iceman dropped by. I don't know if he played any games.

lol...no. Must have found another library to steal wifi from?

Could be.

KoolBak wrote:Recently had the chance to have a nice visit with lack. He's doing well. Always liked him and his interaction. However, when he owned it, 95% of the threads and talk back then we're JUST LIKE THIS. People complaining, spouting shit about how the site was dying, whining about how he managed it. Nothing's changed except whammo chooses not to personally take the abuse

One key difference was the one owner interacted with the public, and the site was growing and in a good situation (traffic generation / new members arriving).
The other doesn't interact, and the site is shrinking considerably. While its stabilized the last few months, this is usually a period of growth, so its still a worrisome trend for next summer...

My favorite restaurants are the ones I met the owners. Takes the experience to another level.

Completely agree.

Maybe offer your tortellini soup recipe. That could bring people in.

There goes my "Canadians are universally nice" theory.

You don't want to save this place?

xroads wrote:Eventually subscriptions will dwindle to the point where it starts bleeding red, and the love affair will be over.

Found this thread while looking at posts by the player with the highest number of active games. I don't think anyone can beat that record - there aren't enough games running. I am ranked 2032 with 4 active games, which means less than half of the "active users" currently play more than 4 games, so I don't think there is much coming in from subscriptions. Love seeing that stat on the homepage that there are over 600,000 players. That makes all the micro-transactions and slot-machine style conquer stars make sense - bigWham is just flailing around with ideas he saw in successful apps and ignoring the big problems that the community identified.

What could he even sell? He doesn't own the maps (and legally can't even use them), the interface is a mess (hacky code costs more to fix than starting fresh), it doesn't have a working app or online presence. Maybe the game logs to some big data group who wants to analyze how people play? Do any of the bots play well at all?

I think CC is like a FunkoPop or Beanie Baby - the owner has it on a shelf and looks at it once in a while, but he isn't trying to sell and no one would ever buy it. Eventually he'll dump out all his app projects and it will go to a landfill. I wouldn't hold out hope of getting a warning.

Was bored at work on this Friday afternoon so I wandered back to the ever-dwindling CC scene. This thread got me thinking...how much is BigWham actually taking home as the owner every year? Let's crunch some numbers (I am a big math guy after all ) that are probably totally wrong but I really don't feel like working. Please do tear my numbers apart. I'm curious what people think.

Ok, so if I look at the scoreboard, I see 4,537 active users. Let's say half of those are premium (which is probably overstated but let's be generous).
4,537 * 0.5 = ~2,250

Annual premium is now a whopping $31 (yikes, this was around $10 when I started a decade or so ago).
2,250 * 31 = $69,750

Now there's probably 100 or so members who are very involved and earn lots of credits or get free premium perks (KA?) or something like that, so let's shave off that number to $65,000, which is probably closer to realistic. I don't think CC has any other revenue streams...there is no advertising, no other buy-in options on the site, etc.

What are his expenses? I have no idea what the cost of running a website is, but when I look online I see "software or web hosting renewal" which can range from $5 to $99 a month. Let's say $50 a month. And I see "domain SSL recertification" which is nominal...like $10 annually (let's ignore that). I don't think any of the mods are paid; my understanding is they are volunteers. Maybe his right-hand man or two gets a little paycheck but let's ignore salaries too. So $50 a month = $600 a year. Let's say his expenses in total are $1,000 because I'm probably missing some small items.

So I get a bottom line net income of $64,000 for 2023. Maybe it's only $30,000, maybe it's as high as $80,000, but somewhere in that range. I don't think he's reinvesting any of that income into the site at this point for meaningful improvements. My guess is BW is just taking his yearly distribution of $50k or so every year and waiting until he recoups his investment.

How much did he buy the site for from El Jefe? Certainly a lot more than it's worth now, as at that time CC was precipitously declining but was still relatively close to its peak. I have no idea...maybe 15,000 active users? And still relatively fresh from lackattack's initial release of the site?

Let's say he bought it for half a million. It would take him a decade to recoup his investment at the current rate. My guess is he has already recouped his investment or has gotten close, and at this point does not think meaningful investments are worth the detraction from his distribution. I think he came into ownership with good intentions and wanted to revitalize to lackattack's level and ameliorate El Jefe's damages. Ultimately his efforts were futile and he has, by this point, resigned himself to mining the last bit of gold left out of our dried-up mountains.

fusibaseball wrote:Annual premium is now a whopping $31 (yikes, this was around $10 when I started a decade or so ago).

I haven't got the figures but I do know that statement is absolute poop. The cost of annual premium hasn't risen in years, it's NEVER been as low as $10.

We do know 1 thing, this site ain't making anybody a $ Millionaire.

The way forward is increasing the participation levels of the players that are still here. That means that CC should be placing efforts into incresing participation levels in area's where New Players can join and instantly feel a part of.

You might not belieive this, but I am going to be blunt here Keefie :

- Clans - Nope, playing on Specialist Maps using Specialist settings ain't going to get any NEW PLAYER hooked.
- Tribes - That actually has a chance if the game content is limited to Maps and Settings that NEW PLAYERS can pick up and play. If it goes the way of Clan games, it will suck to.
- CC Tourneys - Soul-less CC Tourneys also Suck. Playing in a Tourney where you don't care if u win or lose is pretty boring.
- Player Led Tourneys - Are the way forwards. But only if each has a CLEAR SCOREBOARD as a minimum and some way to engage the Player. Commentary / Game Chat / Prizes / Active Tourney Forum / Highlights........SOMETHING!
- 1 SITE WIDE TOURNEY - Where 90% of Active Players play it is 100% what is required. Because from that, you would drive additional participation into every other area of CC. (Clans, Tribes, Player Tourneys). There would need to be a hook to get 90% people to play. And this is radical. Ranking Points, you gain Ranking Points if you win games/meet objectives in it. But crucially, every entrant loses ZERO Ranking Points if they lose in it. That brings in so many more players to the Party. NEW MEMBERS are automatically Entered into it. The TO's personally mail the New Player, welcome them and explain what it's all about. Hand Holding for a week or so.

But, what do I know about entertaining people?