A series of changes are in progress to create a better onboarding experience for new users joining WWII Online and shaping an appropriate set of expectations for what our game service is all about. As of today, perpetual Free Play access will no longer be offered and has been replaced with a 30 day free trial account which gives you all infantry and a truck. We have 5 subscription options available and we will no longer be selling downloadable content. Continue reading this article to receive full details and an explanation for why CRS has made these necessary changes to our game service experience.
FREE PLAY - NO LONGER OFFERED
Since 2012 CRS has experimented with several forms to make perpetual Free Play access a viable business model. We are grateful to the many thousands who signed up to try this and their time we had with them in-game. The good news is, for the time being those of you who have Free Play will continue to be able to login and play and use the forums until October 1st 2019, when it will be completely phased out. As of now, if you are currently a Free Player you'll notice you can no longer: Capture depots, use infantry binoculars or create missions. All other access remains as-is and will stay until October 1st.
Our decision to end perpetual Free Play comes from a recognition that we have been unable to effectively convert users in the manner that WWII Online needs. We did look at the possibility of serving in-game advertisements, but this just takes away from the experience and implementing that would've been a hellacious task to achieve. We even tried downloadable content on Steam* to appeal to the markets demands, and while we did see a little traction, it eroded the value of our subscription plans. We have had to design limitations to the number of features and access available to Free Players intentionally to protect the value of our subscriptions, a decision while valid actually took away from the best experience they could've had and we need to be able to do better than that.
DLC OWNERS RETAIN THEIR ACCESS
*Steam users who purchased a DLC will continue to have access and be able to play with them.
All DLC owners received the riflemen units, capture capability , binocs and mission creation. We are grateful for their support and want them to remain engaged.
We have made a series of changes to our subscription offerings to enable any budget to be able to obtain it:
- Starter Subscription: $4.99/mo
- Premium Subscription: $14.99/mo
You can compare available subscriptions in detail here: https://www.wwiionline.com/subscriptions
We are absolutely certain that users who are currently Free Play, transitioning to Starter accounts will be much happier with their access and privileges.
30 DAY FREE TRIAL - NOW AVAILABLE
We are now offering a 30 day "all infantry and basic trucks" trial as the initial path for users signing up to the game both at www.wwiionline.com and on Steam. For anyone new signing up to the game this is what they'll receive, and at the end they'll need to make a decision to subscribe to one of our available subscription plans. We believe the 30 day trial will offer a lot of good access and the best experience possible. Most importantly, the re-shaping of the onboarding process will better help to set expectations for new players joining, not take away from the value and experience of subscriptions, and also make CRS' business model more clear and understood without confusion to everyone.
- 30 days (only) of game and forum access
- All infantry
- Trucks: Bedford, Laffly, Opel Blitz
- Subscribe: Upgrade-able to Starter --> Premium
NEW PLAYER ONBOARDING EXPERIENCE
This is a focal point throughout this process. We need to ensure the best possible success of new players joining our game and that's a huge equation of considerations.
- What equipment do they have access to?
- Are they receiving adequate information / training to succeed?
- Are they joining squads?
- Are they joining voice comms (Discord)?
- Are they participating in the forums?
- Are they experiencing WWII Online's "Moment" to capture their interest?
- What can we do as a community and developer to achieve the best of all this?
It's a discussion that will soon come to the community for us all to talk about because it's the most vital of considerations. As with any organization, community / team, we need to be sure that we are all pitching in and doing our part. Be prepared for side based communications with your squad, high commanders and CRS, to rally around achieving the best outcomes of these goals.
ALL IN ON SUBSCRIPTIONS
While it may be unpopular with most of today's games, the RATS recognize that WWII Online isn't just one of those other games, and the more we have tried to make ourselves like one, the more backfire it has had. WWII Online is a "GaaS/SaaS" which is Games as a Service or Software as a Service. We are responsible for hosting all of our game services, managing our infrastructure upkeep and networking, along with our own development and production requirements. Everything you access through WWII Online like Combat Stats, Webmap, Forums, Squad Tools, High Command tools and much more are our services. Other games offload most of these requirements on other people, including customers responsible for managing their own servers. We do all of that for you and it's part of the total package of the game.
The single most important decision that has kept WWII Online in operations (outside of compelling game play and the development of an outstanding gaming community) was to be a subscription based game.
Many services offer subscriptions, like: Netflix, Apple Music, HBO Now, Hulu, YouTube Red, the list goes on. They offer an upfront trial and no perpetual access. The point of mentioning this is to make it clear that this is not out of place or uncommon, but WWII Online as a game exceeds the upkeep and operational cost of most other games. CRS understands clearly we need to continue to offer a trial period upfront for a user to test if they enjoy our game, and we remain committed to doing that.
WWII Online & CRS are 100% community funded. The paying subscribers of WWII Online are the primary reason as to why all of these great experiences have been able to happen and continue to after all of these years. If you enjoy WWII Online and have been a Free Player, we are asking you directly to step up, subscribe, and support the cause for a very small monthly cost so that you can continue to enjoy these moments and actually help further develop the game and its community.
SUPPORT / HELP / QUESTIONS
If you need any support or have questions with your account, you may submit a new support ticket and have our team assist you.