"Illuvial Arena" on the Epic store and OW as a separate install

[uneven rock]

Illuvium really has just one main game that can and will be competitive to web 2 games: Arena/Gauntlet

All the other games OW, Zero and Beyond just exist to produce assets for Arena/Gauntlet, it is either fuel or Illuvials/Weapons/Suits, Illuvitars as cosmetics. These games are factories in the Illuvium economy.

But Illuvium never says this publicly. It is no surprise that we get YouTube reviews that look at OW and laugh about it.

These reviewers and even many in our community don't understand, that OW is not your usual game. It is a beautiful Illuvial factory, a business more than a game, a companion game to Arena.

When you look at it this way, then it is extremely bullish that Arena, our TFT competitor, has 3 support games, a whole economy around the main Arena game.

**Whenever Illuvium starts its big marketing push, it should market Arena/Gauntlet only and hide the support/crypto games OW and Zero from public view. **

I would rename it to "Illuvial Arena" on the Epic store and make OW a separate install and explain in big bold letters "OW and Zero are companion games to Arena, please try Arena first".

A small game studio should stick to its core competency and create as many games from it as possible, instead of venturing into completely new game types.

[humble moss]

I couldnt agree more that our game is only arena (for now)

We have had couple problems with this:

1. OW tutorial on game launch (should be fixed now since the IIP to remove it passed)

2. airdrop incentivizing OW over everything else (should get fixed for season 2 as the community gave extensive feedback on this)

3. Arena games not ready on launch --> no rewards (we are slowly getting there soon)

4. Maybe its because of point 3 but marketing as been focused on OW and our beautiful graphics. Weve got a new head of marketing now, i dont know his view but i hope they shift marketing towards arena once the games are in an ok state

As for having a separate build in Epic game store would you still have the main build where you can play whatever and then add one only for arena or make OW on its own too?

[fallen tendon]

I couldn't disagree more with both of you. I see this mistake from many people over and over, just because they prefer one game over the others, they think everyone is like them.

While OW is not a competitive game, it is a game that appeals to a different type of gamer. If you are a TFT fan, Arena might be your only game. But if you are a Pokemon (gotta catch them all) or Monster Hunter type of player, OW will be your preference.

So yes, we might need to segment our marketing to different audiences, but to hide the other games??? Come on...

[warm dagger]

This thread was already made by you.
Why double post it?
I will say it again, illuvium arena/gauntlet is a copy of tft. Tft is years ahead.
What would make players choose gauntlet instead of tft? Only by making them invested in illuvium universe through overworld
Overworld is the main game!

https://discord.com/channels/760344898200666112/1277615967547035762

[humble moss]

OW (for now) is built as a pack opening you cant make someone love a game so much that he willingly wants to pay money everyday to play it (a lot of money)

The ecosystem was built around OW you get assets, ilz you get fuel to open packs and our game is arena

We plan to have many mores other games down the line and they will be just like arena in the ecosystem. A game to play with assets you get from OW

OW could become a game on its own at some point, it would be amazing but it cant be with the core OW pack opening mechanics

[wraith wren]

I actually hope we go in the opposite direction. Overworld and Illuvium Zero are the supply games, building the basic economy within the ecosystem. Overworld is also planned to be the main hub where people can meet, flex, and even challenge each other to duels in Ascendant directly in Sanctum Mesa, or participate in other fun mini-challenges with their friends or frenemies.

I would go further and require players to log into Overworld, where they can choose to enter any future demand-driven game Illuvium might develop. For example, players could go to the PvP battle board in Sanctum Mesa to join the Ascendant or Leviathan Arena, or take another path to find the race track for Illuvium Racer. There could also be other paths leading to portals that transport players to battlegrounds for a battle royale game.

This way the Universe gets more emersive and increases the feeling of everything being connected.

[fallen tendon]

You know I like your opinion on a lot of things regarding Illuvium, but now you just keep repeating your own point of view like a stubborn kid!

Arena is not "our" game. It is one of our 3 (and a half) games. I understand that it is your preferred game but it will not be so for everyone. So please stop trying to force-feed your preference on everyone else. I like to play OW but you can also see this mentioned by others. You would also find players who are addicted to playing Zero. The whole idea of the ecosystem is to build games for a wide variety of players.

We all play games to get dopamine. You might get yours from defeating another player and I might get mine from finding a rare illuvial. Nothing wrong with that. And I would never suggest to stop developing/promoting any of the games that I don't personally play (or play less of).

I also find the whole "pack opening" description a bit shallow for OW. When you open a pack of cards, you look at what you got and that's it. Here, you can play many different strategies, you can hunt, mine, level up etc. There are many ways to play an OW run. And yes, there are people who enjoy that...

Not to mention that you forgot the other half of the equasion for OW, you don't just have to pay for it constantly, you can also sell things. There are several examples of free-to-play players grinding their way up, selling their ingots or rare illuvials. So it does not have to be just spending money endlessly.

When it comes to marketing, yes, this diversity makes it more challenging. We will likely have to create different ads for different segments of the audience. We might need to streamline the login experience so every player can quickly find their preferred game without being forced to spend too much time on others. But we should expose the variety we offer to everyone because you never know which one of our other games they might try out if they enjoy the one they came for.

[humble moss]

Perhaps i was too straight to the point. This has nothing do with me preferring arena. For the record im highly invested in all our games, i enjoy them all and i love our IBG concept

This just has to do with how i understand the ecosystem. As i see it we have the basis with ilz (creating fuel) to then go in the OW which all assets comes from. Thats the basis that all our games can connect to with their assets utility

Our fuel creator and assets creator "pack opening" base are both extremely gamified and are a game on their own which is fantastic

When i say Arena is our only game its because still, as of now, ILZ cant be a game that attracts many and fires up the ecosystem because it requires its in the form of investment

Long term plans are to make something out of F2P, have wars/guild wars and add utility inside it but for now i has a big barrier of entry and doesnt provide utility to our assets

Same can be said for OW. As it costs money to play, the barrier of entry is to big for it to be a game on its own. You can use illuvials to get more illuvials but ultimately everytime you play you are -ev and it costs money (pack opening)

OW can develop to so many things to be a game on its own but i dont see it now. OW combat, raids and many other things will bring us in that direction down the line

I totally agree that some people will come for 1 of the 3 games and then some for the IBG concept. ALL games are super important!

The only thing im trying to say is that for now Arena is the only game that provides utility to our assets and brings demand to OW and ILZ players

Sure with more features im sure OW will develop in a game on its own that will be able to attract players that can consistently play without having to spend every time to play but for now our OW players will be the players that play arena and that to show off (skins) &/or buy more assets to compete. Either they open the pack themselves or they buy off the market which creates demand for the people that love to play OW

I also agree with a lot of what you say Doooom and i truly appreciate you being active in the discord defending your ideas and helping out new people. For this one we might have to agree to disagree 🤝

[warm dagger]

I knew the idea was to build games for every gamer
I want my rpg game. Overworld should be an rpg game
When i entered the illuvium universe i did it for the overworld
I am sorry to see that overworld is getting so much hate and is being discarded like this

[unique bluff]

I think some of these posts massively downplay how sticky Zero is. There were very little rewards during Alpha and yet people played throughout the entire Alpha even through the bugs, even well after they collected all blueprints.

There is obvious incentive for land holders to play Zero, but it is still worth noting Zero is the stickiest game since launch, even though fuel revenue is low.

Idle games aren't "cool", but they are very popular. With continued content development, and maybe some kind of cheap transition to value generation (i.e. something between f2p and owning land) Zero can stand alone as a profitable f2p game.

--
All of that said I like the main idea of separating the Epic store build in to two. Not to devalue the eventual goals for OW, but simply to more clearly target the correct audience. 🙂

[lone tiger]

ngl
im more excited playing IZ than OW and arena even though im playing the F2P plot

[uneven rock]

I love Zero even in its current unfinished state. And I see all games growing into great standalone games and still playing specific roles in the overall economy.

My point is not about giving preference to a specific game in the long run, but making sure we send the right message to mainstream gamers, who don't know about Illuvium.

In the future OW can be become the metaverse hub in the way Spoon sees it, Zero plots become 3D in OW etc.

But at the moment OW is not there yet and it really is just a really good looking Illuvial business. Free S0 runs don't fulfill the purpose of onboarding, because OW feels too empty, S0 is way too crippled and as soon as players see the paywall, they shout "crypto scam".

Zero is great and fun for crypto land holders, but too basic to compete with other mobile games and does not have F2P features like Training Gyms at the moment.

This idea is simply about creating a separate install for Arena to guide new mainstream gamers to what they like to play and separate out the crypto part of Illuvium, while it is still being viewed as a negative.

This will also help with future reviews, because they have to review "Illuvial Arena" and "Illuvium Overworld" as separate games and can't just say "Illuvium sucks".

[uneven rock]

Oh shit, this was a Discord failure. It wasn't finishing the posting, so I hit Post again. Can moderators fix this ?

[lone tiger]

i agree.
i mostly play jrpg and WoW. for the longest time i thought OW was the game and arena was the mini-game.
i was so disappointed when i found out that arena was the game.
i reckon some newcomers felt the same about illuvium.
im guessing theres a misperception, missed expectation

marketing is about perception, right?

having said that, i believe we just need the lore to "guide" us to arena

when i started playing WoW back in the '17, i thought the game was just about questing and reaching max level, until the lore "took" me to raids.

[uneven rock]

Absolutely. It might even help to have a short explanation about the Illuvium ecosystem and vision on the main screen. The community does not even have that clear vision always present, how do we expect gamers and reviewers to get a clear picture ?

At the moment we have a great cinematic trailer and a jump tutorial as if OW was an AAA MMORPG and then they find themselves in a P2W gatcha box opening.

Who would not be pissed ?

I love all the passion from leadership about how great everything will be, but they might need someone with game industry experience to reign in some of their enthusiasm and help them focus on what is important now.

In hindsight: How does the trailer prepare you for Arena game play or even OW play ? Not even the Jump Tutorial is really needed.

The illuvium.io website shows Arena as the last game on its main page, you have to scroll down all the way. And the prominent button everyone sees is "Play for Free". There is not much for free in Illuvium, the good stuff is behind a paywall and is 100% DeFi crypto game. Unless you want to play Arena, but the website does not say it.

They must have thought that just the excitement of catching Illuvials and selling them later, would draw in gamers. But forgot, that they would have to convince them to pay for each run in the OW, make financial decisions every few seconds and accept crypto in general. Quite a few hurdles.

Nobody wants to be lied to. Especially not after they have downloaded a game, got excited and then learned it is not what they were told. I would separate vision and reality and tell them about the roadmap. When they know what it is and what is coming they might be more receptive to the current state of things.

[uneven rock]

This is what they see on illuvium.io when they first open the page.

A little further down they see a few small pictures of Illuvials. You can't even click on them to see full animations.

I always thought that Illuvials would be the main IP, the main reason we are all here.

Why do we not feature them more prominently ? You want me to pay to play OW and catch Illuvials, but show me a few little pictures ?

[lone tiger]

i agree with everything u said here.
we gotta stop "luring" the audience with gimmicks. nowdays players are more sophisticated. imo, ILV is free to try because you really need to spend to progress, saying otherwise is either coping or misleading

[unique bluff]

Yep, I'm in agreement with your general thrust, just noting that Zero is a lot closer to being a revenue positive f2p game than people think.

[uneven rock]

Kieran on his AMA today mentioned that NFT and crypto sentiment is at an all time low with mainstream gamers. Should that not be reason alone to make Arena a standalone game on Epic as F2P with its own web landing page, a normal web store for cosmetics etc. and present it as a „normal“ game without any crypto ? We can and should keep Arena in the existing Epic Illuvium game.