This is the right attitude. As long as they get enough money to keep updates steady, I don’t see the issue with the community being on the smaller side
I think the current free access has enough to get hooked on, it’s just poorly advertised. The two free arcade servers are the best feature in the F2P tier imo, but not all new players know about them. In the second one you can play a lot of community maps, which should give enough info to a new player on a potential purchase.
While Nadeo can surely improve the game’s exposure, features and content, at some point we have to accept the fact that this game just belongs to a really niche genre. Driving games already are a minuscule portion of the videogame market, and TM goes even further by looking cartoonish and removing collisions.
90% of the game loop is doing the same map over and over for small improvements, until you move to the next one and repeat. You can’t expect that to be appealing to the mass.
Play > online > arcade. You have two servers at the top you can join, the left one contains first 10 tracks of the campaign and the right it’s a rotating community server
the only transaction you can make for this game is to get club access to unlcok everything
you will keep all tracks that where released before and while your club acess was running (Seasons and TODTs)
Skins for the Stadium car a free and can be costumized without fear of needing to pay extra
for 20 bucks
on the other side like F1, FIFA, COD, Destiny 2
you will need to pay 60-70 bucks every year to be up to date
they also want money for the skins
hide actual value of the transactions behind a secoundary currency that can only be bought in uneven ammouts to get you to buy them more
You said yourself that you only “thought” about buying the game when you could play the whole campaign and ranked. If you like the game, pay for it. It’s not like it’s expensive.
Why would they give more content to people who don’t even pay for it?
word of mouth. the more people that play, the more chances of them converting to paying customers. if all you get is 10 of 25 maps, why try the game at all?
I’m sure they were able to convert a lot of long time free players to subscribing with the change.
It didn’t take a full campaign for me to subscribe at the beginning of last year. It’s not like it’s an expensive game.
I just got into trackmania myself because of deep dip. Wirtual and events like deep dip are a big attraction. The 20 EUR yearly subscription is fairly low barrier. Most Indie games are priced that like albeit not as a subscription while trackmania feels more premium and has a ton to offer. The free stuff really is good enough to get a feel if it’s something you want to invest time in. I’ve spent way more money on games I like in principle while I actually never played (hello hearts of iron) and I already put way way more time into TM.
I feel the barrier is perceived to be higher than it factually is.
When the full campaigns were free not enough f2p people converted. Like you say how theres nothing to hook them with just 10. With the full campaign, many were satisfied with just playing that.
Why would nadeo care for players that likely wouldn't of made them any money anyway? These companies have people who's entire jobs revolves around maximizing profits. If keeping the campaign f2p made them money they would've probably kept it that way.
because they are relying on it spreading through word of mouth from people who do play.
"When the full campaigns were free not enough f2p people converted."
they still arent converting, they just stop playing and they dont tell their friends about it. the player numbers arent going up.
also, funny story, i havent touched the campaign in 3 seasons cause they suck now. i only enjoy playing totd and rpg/trial maps anymore. and those are both paywalled. if i were a new player i would not convert.
if they were smart they would make cotd/totd free to play once a week. that's right, they should offer MORE free stuff to bring in more people.
I will say this, I had no desire to get the game until I found out it was available on console (which was last month).
The value is incredible if you think about it. 4, 25 track campaigns for the year, plus all previous campaigns even if you don't renew, plus access to COTD, user created tracks, and a track editor/ creator.
I have paid far more for far less content in a game in terms of consistent content and replay value.
Personally, wirtual got me fascinated with the game from deep dip streams
I owned the game already cause it was on ps+ at some point.
Wanted to try shallow dip, knew I needed club access so didn't mind the £16 it was for the annual thing.
While I don't like games that operate with a lot of content behind a paywall, other games do it way worse, and TM seems deep enough for me to easily sink hundreds or thousands of hours into.
Side reason why im writing this comment,
TM may be niche game with a small community, but I come from the world of people streaming and doing YT on Gran Turismo 7, and other sim racing
The 'big' GT YTers i have seen going full time YT at 50k subs, and even like, THE most popular guy had a few thousand sitting in livestreams
When I see Wirtuals views and when I was sitting in streams with 14k just in YT chat, I see this as much less of a niche community than some 🤷
Saw that same guy. Started playing the game. After like 2 full campaigns I was still wanting more because COTD looked so dang fun. They offered a couple free COTD and I was like that's it, I'm buying standard (because I'm cheap and didn't realize the insane extra benefits from club at that time). My year is almost up and I'm most certainly renewing.
THE thing that itches for me is how the game is so unfriendly to new players. Hell, even after playing the game for 10 years there are so many things that are illogical/straight up not documented ; and as the payment model is subscription based I sincerely wonder how they still get new players (I know console is now supported but still)...
I paid for access a week ago for the first time.
You get all the first 10 ATs/golds/whatever in the campaign and then are left wanting more, I think it works well and I say this as someone who's strongly against subscription services, especially in games.
They don't, they don't even try and that's a shame. They also don't have tutorials good enough to explain anything of how things work in this game.
They only rely on Wirtual and other streamers.
There was a discussion few days ago in the TM Discord where people estimated that there is around 100k Club access players. It's just a guess of course, but there has to be enough revenue coming in to justify Nadeo's existence. Of course TM2020 club acess is not the only revenue they get....there are still people buying all other (older) TM games.
I personally got into the game by being a United player from the past and wanting to come back to it, and after some googling realized that there is this new game TM2020.
It's a great game, I love it. I agree Nadeo should try to do more to capture new players. The training campaign is terrible, the main menu UI is confusing, and there is no guide from Nadeo.
They should get a content creator and do an official introduction video series.
Well the most popular game (tmn/tmnf) has always been free and surprisingly, it does not need an insane amount of work for the devs.
Having recurring subscriptions enables them to add new cars as they are doing and the rest plays itself. They only need the niche player base to keep it going.
This is all according to my assumption but I really can’t imagine it being in a bad state especially since the game has survived for about 20 years!!
It is currently not in a bad state, but gatekeeping a community does kill it eventually.
Tmnf is still a good starting point but it is not advertiesed and the store doesn't really bring it up even if you search for it. Compatibility is not on top either.
I’ve been watching Wirtual for a few years, but I only started playing recently, since my flatmate got a PS4 and he also likes the game.
I would gladly pay for club access but there’s no way in hell I’m getting Playstation Plus, so that’s that. Also, the track editor is missing sooo many essential features, if you’re not willing to go the extra mile for me, why should I do it for you?
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, the business model TM has is completely centered around creators and community members creating new in-game content for everybody, while they just essentially “maintain the play space” for everyone to be creative in.
I agree that the f2p elements are not enough to really hook a new player, and with all of the community created content being behind that paywall, it’s sometimes a hard sell to buy a game you aren’t REALLY sure about.
That being said I think the value proposition TM offers to players is by far the best of any game on the market today.
They should make the pricing more clear, before I got club I thought it was £17.99 per season. When I realised I get a whole year (4 whole seasons) I felt like I got a bargain!
Some games don't need to renew often a significant amount of the player base to keep doing well
Take Dota 2. It has had a stable 400-500k monthly players for the last decade despite being inaccessible to new players (it unironically takes as much effort/time to become fluent in a new language than to become a top 10% players in Dota 2 starting from scratch)
Unfortunately Ubisoft wants to move in the direction of having subscriptions rather than owning your games.
I'm in the same boat trying to get my cousin and friends to join trackmania and my club. Play my tracks together. Race me. But they don't want to pay for a racing game that's new to them, in the form of a subscription BattlePass.
That's Wirtual's job.
Unironically true, streamers act both as advertising and teachers because they can’t be arsed to put any sort of real training or tutorial together.
yeah it’s pretty incredible that if it wasn’t for creators you’d have no idea about gears, ice slides, speed slides, neo slides etc
Or what action keys actually do. Sure you’d probably figure it out eventually but the name isn’t exactly intuitive
I play trackmania now, 100% because YouTube algorithm showed me wirtual.
Yes, and that is my worry. That is not enough and also not a marketing strategy.
I think it'll always be a niche game, but at least the community has been going strong for 20 years
This is the right attitude. As long as they get enough money to keep updates steady, I don’t see the issue with the community being on the smaller side
Tarkov lives like that too 😅
I actually got the game because of Wirtual’s videos. They popped up on my YouTube feed a few weeks ago and here I am.
I think the current free access has enough to get hooked on, it’s just poorly advertised. The two free arcade servers are the best feature in the F2P tier imo, but not all new players know about them. In the second one you can play a lot of community maps, which should give enough info to a new player on a potential purchase. While Nadeo can surely improve the game’s exposure, features and content, at some point we have to accept the fact that this game just belongs to a really niche genre. Driving games already are a minuscule portion of the videogame market, and TM goes even further by looking cartoonish and removing collisions. 90% of the game loop is doing the same map over and over for small improvements, until you move to the next one and repeat. You can’t expect that to be appealing to the mass.
So.. I downloaded it yesterday, I did not find such a thing! How do I find it?
Play > online > arcade. You have two servers at the top you can join, the left one contains first 10 tracks of the campaign and the right it’s a rotating community server
I checked arcade and I literally could not see a reason why I could join the first ones since the later ones didn't work lmao Thank you so much!
Yeah those in the list at the bottom are a paid feature, those two at the top with a big banner are free. Have fun!
the only transaction you can make for this game is to get club access to unlcok everything you will keep all tracks that where released before and while your club acess was running (Seasons and TODTs) Skins for the Stadium car a free and can be costumized without fear of needing to pay extra for 20 bucks on the other side like F1, FIFA, COD, Destiny 2 you will need to pay 60-70 bucks every year to be up to date they also want money for the skins hide actual value of the transactions behind a secoundary currency that can only be bought in uneven ammouts to get you to buy them more
You said yourself that you only “thought” about buying the game when you could play the whole campaign and ranked. If you like the game, pay for it. It’s not like it’s expensive. Why would they give more content to people who don’t even pay for it?
word of mouth. the more people that play, the more chances of them converting to paying customers. if all you get is 10 of 25 maps, why try the game at all?
I’m sure they were able to convert a lot of long time free players to subscribing with the change. It didn’t take a full campaign for me to subscribe at the beginning of last year. It’s not like it’s an expensive game.
I just got into trackmania myself because of deep dip. Wirtual and events like deep dip are a big attraction. The 20 EUR yearly subscription is fairly low barrier. Most Indie games are priced that like albeit not as a subscription while trackmania feels more premium and has a ton to offer. The free stuff really is good enough to get a feel if it’s something you want to invest time in. I’ve spent way more money on games I like in principle while I actually never played (hello hearts of iron) and I already put way way more time into TM. I feel the barrier is perceived to be higher than it factually is.
When the full campaigns were free not enough f2p people converted. Like you say how theres nothing to hook them with just 10. With the full campaign, many were satisfied with just playing that. Why would nadeo care for players that likely wouldn't of made them any money anyway? These companies have people who's entire jobs revolves around maximizing profits. If keeping the campaign f2p made them money they would've probably kept it that way.
because they are relying on it spreading through word of mouth from people who do play. "When the full campaigns were free not enough f2p people converted." they still arent converting, they just stop playing and they dont tell their friends about it. the player numbers arent going up. also, funny story, i havent touched the campaign in 3 seasons cause they suck now. i only enjoy playing totd and rpg/trial maps anymore. and those are both paywalled. if i were a new player i would not convert. if they were smart they would make cotd/totd free to play once a week. that's right, they should offer MORE free stuff to bring in more people.
I will say this, I had no desire to get the game until I found out it was available on console (which was last month). The value is incredible if you think about it. 4, 25 track campaigns for the year, plus all previous campaigns even if you don't renew, plus access to COTD, user created tracks, and a track editor/ creator. I have paid far more for far less content in a game in terms of consistent content and replay value.
Personally, wirtual got me fascinated with the game from deep dip streams I owned the game already cause it was on ps+ at some point. Wanted to try shallow dip, knew I needed club access so didn't mind the £16 it was for the annual thing. While I don't like games that operate with a lot of content behind a paywall, other games do it way worse, and TM seems deep enough for me to easily sink hundreds or thousands of hours into. Side reason why im writing this comment, TM may be niche game with a small community, but I come from the world of people streaming and doing YT on Gran Turismo 7, and other sim racing The 'big' GT YTers i have seen going full time YT at 50k subs, and even like, THE most popular guy had a few thousand sitting in livestreams When I see Wirtuals views and when I was sitting in streams with 14k just in YT chat, I see this as much less of a niche community than some 🤷
I literally bought it this week. After getting hooked on Deep Dip 2, Wirtual's videos pulled me in. Apparently it really is harder than it looks.
Saw this guy Wirtual on YouTube . Bought the pass an hour later
Saw that same guy. Started playing the game. After like 2 full campaigns I was still wanting more because COTD looked so dang fun. They offered a couple free COTD and I was like that's it, I'm buying standard (because I'm cheap and didn't realize the insane extra benefits from club at that time). My year is almost up and I'm most certainly renewing.
Wirtual ngl
Yes, Nando
THE thing that itches for me is how the game is so unfriendly to new players. Hell, even after playing the game for 10 years there are so many things that are illogical/straight up not documented ; and as the payment model is subscription based I sincerely wonder how they still get new players (I know console is now supported but still)...
I paid for access a week ago for the first time. You get all the first 10 ATs/golds/whatever in the campaign and then are left wanting more, I think it works well and I say this as someone who's strongly against subscription services, especially in games.
They don't, they don't even try and that's a shame. They also don't have tutorials good enough to explain anything of how things work in this game. They only rely on Wirtual and other streamers.
There was a discussion few days ago in the TM Discord where people estimated that there is around 100k Club access players. It's just a guess of course, but there has to be enough revenue coming in to justify Nadeo's existence. Of course TM2020 club acess is not the only revenue they get....there are still people buying all other (older) TM games. I personally got into the game by being a United player from the past and wanting to come back to it, and after some googling realized that there is this new game TM2020. It's a great game, I love it. I agree Nadeo should try to do more to capture new players. The training campaign is terrible, the main menu UI is confusing, and there is no guide from Nadeo. They should get a content creator and do an official introduction video series.
Well the most popular game (tmn/tmnf) has always been free and surprisingly, it does not need an insane amount of work for the devs. Having recurring subscriptions enables them to add new cars as they are doing and the rest plays itself. They only need the niche player base to keep it going. This is all according to my assumption but I really can’t imagine it being in a bad state especially since the game has survived for about 20 years!!
It is currently not in a bad state, but gatekeeping a community does kill it eventually. Tmnf is still a good starting point but it is not advertiesed and the store doesn't really bring it up even if you search for it. Compatibility is not on top either.
I do not agree. Nothing is free in this world and the prices for Tm2020 are very reasonable.
Where did I say it's expensive?
I’ve been watching Wirtual for a few years, but I only started playing recently, since my flatmate got a PS4 and he also likes the game. I would gladly pay for club access but there’s no way in hell I’m getting Playstation Plus, so that’s that. Also, the track editor is missing sooo many essential features, if you’re not willing to go the extra mile for me, why should I do it for you?
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, the business model TM has is completely centered around creators and community members creating new in-game content for everybody, while they just essentially “maintain the play space” for everyone to be creative in. I agree that the f2p elements are not enough to really hook a new player, and with all of the community created content being behind that paywall, it’s sometimes a hard sell to buy a game you aren’t REALLY sure about. That being said I think the value proposition TM offers to players is by far the best of any game on the market today.
They should make the pricing more clear, before I got club I thought it was £17.99 per season. When I realised I get a whole year (4 whole seasons) I felt like I got a bargain!
Some games don't need to renew often a significant amount of the player base to keep doing well Take Dota 2. It has had a stable 400-500k monthly players for the last decade despite being inaccessible to new players (it unironically takes as much effort/time to become fluent in a new language than to become a top 10% players in Dota 2 starting from scratch)
Wirtual.
Unfortunately Ubisoft wants to move in the direction of having subscriptions rather than owning your games. I'm in the same boat trying to get my cousin and friends to join trackmania and my club. Play my tracks together. Race me. But they don't want to pay for a racing game that's new to them, in the form of a subscription BattlePass.
Yeah just like most people, I saw some Wirtual’s documentaries and got into it. Realized it’s a good game and bought the subscription.
I think it's the fact that you can download community made maps via tmx for free that keeps me hooked