SCEA Top Ten Playstation Items (By Number of Units Sold) for October 2012, and My Own Highly Opinionated Little Analysis
by Kassadee Marie, HSM team writer
1. The Green Ticket ($.99) – Mass Media Games, Inc.
2. 75 Home Tycoon Gold Coins ($2.99) – Hellfire Games, Inc.
3. Lockwood Token Pack – 80 ($.99) – Lockwood
4. 160 Home Tycoon Gold Coins ($5.99) – Hellfire Games, Inc.
5. 500 Chips ($.99) – Digital Leisure
6. Lockwood Token Pack – 480 ($4.99) – Lockwood
7. Locomotion – Super Flight ($2.99) – nDreams Ltd.
8. 330 Home Tycoon Gold Coins ($11.99) – Hellfire Games, Inc.
9. Street Moves Animation Pack 2 (Men) ($2.99) – nDreams Ltd.
10. Street Moves Animation Pack 1 (Men) ($2.99) – nDreams Ltd.
Frankly, I would rather see a list of top-ten items sold by revenue than by item. I think it would be more meaningful in a lot of ways. Also, this list lacks the essential figure of just how many of each of these items were sold, but we are unlikely to ever see numbers like that from Sony. It would also be great to see a cost-to-return analysis from developers, but we are very unlikely to ever see numbers like this, either. So we do the best we can to analyze why Home users are picking up these particular items. Here are my thoughts on the subject:
Three of the items on this list are in the one-dollar range, and they are all in the top half of the list. This is not surprising at all. Almost anyone who spends any money on Home is willing to throw a dollar at some entertainment or a cheap gift. Even those who rarely spend money on Home and don’t buy clothes or personal spaces are likely to have a dollar or so left over from downloading games from the Sony Store to spend on Home. (As in a $20.00 PSN card – $14.99 game leaves about $5.00 in play money left over.)
Four of the items are in the three-dollar range, and three of those items are brand-new locomotions. There are a lot of people on Home who want what’s new, and they want to be first to show off what’s new. The Super Flight locomotion was arguably the best of the first locomotions to be offered, hence its position as number seven on the list.
Street Moves in the ninth and tenth position? The default dances on Home are old and tired. Dances that can be done without having a full-body costume on are a very new idea. If nDreams had offered a third pack of these dances, it would probably have been item eleven.
One item is in the five-dollar range, and I believe this has to do with Lockwood’s pricing and a cost analysis any consumer would do almost automatically. In other words, a lot of the better items in the gift machine are 128 tokens. So, if you have to spend almost $2.00 to buy something, and you’ll have 32 tokens left over, what will you do with them? Once you look through the gifts, you are likely to find another item or two that you want to send or have – for 128 tokens. So, this would become an almost $4.00 purchase to cover 256 tokens. So, why not buy a pack of 480 tokens for $4.99? Now you can send items to an alternate account of your own, or gifts to several friends, or send something to impress someone special. If Lockwood sold a pack of, say, 256 coins for $3.49, I bet it would be in the top five of the top ten items — always.
Frankly, the items on this list that surprise me are the Home Tycoon Gold Coins, in second, fourth and eighth position. Three spots? That shocks me. I can’t think of a nice way to say this, so I’ll just come out with it. The game is boring. We have far better games on Home. Right off the top of my head: SodiumOne, Cutthroats, and Mercia are my choices for better games. Lots of people love the casino games, especially poker. I know there are people who love Sodium2, Novus Prime Vindication, and some of the other new games like Uproar and F.U.B.A.R. — so, who are these people that love Home Tycoon? No one that I know.
So, why aren’t some items on the list? I think the simple reason is surplus. For example, if Home users are offered a large number of new estates or clothing items in one month, there will be fewer who buy each individual item. After all, if people want to buy a new estate or outfit and they are only offered one or two, those are the estates and clothes that will be purchased and the number of each one purchased will be higher. If there are more choice, less of each item will be sold, but the total of all items sold will be the same.
But, hey – we love, love, love choices.
December 9th, 2012 by Kassadee Marie | 6 comments
Home is endlessly entertaining to this California girl. Kassadee has been in Home for about four years, and loves almost everything about it (with a few notable exceptions). She spends way too much money there, and perhaps too much time... Someday she will travel the world and write about the people she meets and the places she sees.
I think surplus is the answer for why people play home tycoon and even midway, Tycoon may be boring but theres nothing really like it available except Sim City which looks dated and is far too complex. most other games on home have a better version available to buy outside of home, I wouldnt pay to play No Mans Land or Uproar as the type of games they are, They are rubbish. I can buy a game thats several years old from the budget bins thats far better than both. Then just tell my friends where to buy it. You can currently buy all these games Uncharted 3, Red Dead, Midnight Club LA, GTA 4 for less than if you bought the top 2 bundles in both uproar and no mans land. That said home tycoon isnt innocent of a bit of decent marketing, if you want to be on leader board you have to buy the biggest tower block which costs real money. So in a way Hellfire have been clever playing with peoples need to be top, with the top users on leader boards having just rows of bought towers and nothing else. Then release a expansion pack that gives rewards for a more well rounded city. Which means you have to buy another city plot to get them rewards or lose your leader board space. Oh and also change the exclusive VIP rewards. A leader board spot and an exclusive reward. Theres home users that would sell they soul for that. FUBAR is a strange one I thought it might have the orb collector effect, turn up day after day, do what you have to do and at the end get a reward that a lot of people wont get. perhaps users are getting fed up with games that are more a chore than a game. Or perhaps the final reward isnt good enough. Mercia is fast becoming a joke, still not fully repaired from the beta testing time 3 months ago. If Lockwood are abandoning it. Of course users will as well. Which possibly is the problem with Sodium series as well, its not broken but Sodium Hub has turned into No User Land. I agree that surplus kills item sales but its my opinion, surplus is how games like Casino, Midway and Tycoon beat games like Mercia , No Mans Land and Uproar.
Nice article Kass. I think Gary here is on the right r=track though. Mercia is never going to go anywhere until they up the levels and fix the bugs in it. I have never cared for the No Mans Land or Uproar, mostly because they are shooters and not my thing, but also because people who are good at these types of games just shoot me every time I go and I never get a chance to do anything in it but die.
I like FUBAR and Tycoon though. FUBAR because it is easy and quick, and Tycoon because they are changing it all the time and adding great new features, like the new ability to move rather than destroy buildings. They have issues with these games of course, they aren’t perfect, but they are easy to do and fun.
As for the token packs and tickets, those will always be in the top ten. People love to gift friends and that’s a good thing. And Midway games are challenging yet fun.
In my opinion, Home Tycoon is for those who like to build things. Something like tinker toys and Lincoln logs or even decorating an apartment.
As to how much people spend on Tycoon, well… choice, choice choice.
Animations, if roller skates count, I like those maybe in part because I never had a pair when young.
F.U.B.A.R.. although not on the list is mentioned in the article is fun to play, even for free although one won’t get too far I don’t think without spending.
I loved the atmosphere of Midway but didn’t spend a cent there.
As for Sodium, after buying bricks as shoes to stomp scorpions, I asked myself what am I doing this for, it got to be no fun. But hey! It’s a wonderful looking game.
Leader boards were mentioned and I’m not likely to make many, although I’m happy to say I was #20 recently in Cutthroats and apparently so were a few others from what they said.
To each their own. We have different tastes sometimes.
Nice article.
Burbie and Kid Fleetfoot have it right about Home Tycoon — we designed the game to offer plenty of choices plus new content every week, so you can play the game the way YOU want to. Even after you’re done with the free missions (we just released a new free expansion pack, by the way), there’s still a ton of things to do in Home Tycoon. Here’s just a few:
-- Race online with up to 16 friends
-- Compete on the leaderboards (we just added a new one!)
-- Design your own racetracks with the Stunt Pack
-- Visit other players’ cities
-- Create hilarious postcards
-- Socially promote your city to raise Tourism revenue
-- Craft a perfectly balanced city
-- Participate in Home Tycoon contests on the forums
The list goes on. We can’t please everyone, but we’re humbled and honored to have reached such a large audience with the game already, and we’re hard at work on even more content for the future.
-Novus-Cooldown, Hellfire Games Community Manager
Nice article Kass, it’s one of those that would never be forgotten. WTG
I’m one of those people spending money on Home Tycoon. I really enjoy the game…it’s a good, pop in and make some adjustments to see where that goes kind of thing, and the benefits of some of the paid add-ons more than justify the price, if you’re a fan.
I recently picked up a football stadium and the Winter expansion pack, and I love both. Setting up a swath of those Winter houses fills the air around them with snow and changes the character of the city quite a bit. The stadium delivers great tax revenue.
As a freemium model, this is one of the better ones I’ve seen in Home. None of the add-ons are necessary, but a lot of them can be very beneficial, and figuring out how to use them as part of an overall strategy is a nice little challenge.