No free levels in Backwoods Forest?

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24

ok thanks for letting me know

25

I followed the advice of @Watamelon and created a new account through a proxy in the US. However, the new account only allows 5 levels in Kithgard Dungeon, not even the 19 I had earlier. This must be a sign of inflation :wink:

Seems it is true: no more free base campaign in CC :frowning:

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Kinda beats the purpose of this platform/method/game. It is supposed to help kids learn coding but those arenā€™t really the usual ones who will be able to pay for a premium subscription. And I say that as an adult coding learner who bought a lifetime subscription a few years back and can invest a bit here and there. I think what the platform offers is good enough for that money but I donā€™t think a lot of parents would be so happy about these costs and especially not a monthly subscription that just adds to the gazillion other subscription models they have already signed up for. Also, I think there a serious lack of quality control at least in terms of spelling and grammar in the later maps, and a bit of a rough transition from Mountain to Glacier, that should be adressed better if everyone is going to have to pay for this product. But, who am I, nobody cares. These companies usually do whatever they want and do not look for any real input. Some of them, like Duolingo, are even closing down their forums and kinda defeating the purpose of what made their platforms great in general (in their case mostly the being able to comment on every part of their lessons). CC is much smaller of course but I havenā€™t read any requests for feedback here either. Might be wrong there of course or missed something but I donā€™t think this is a smart move

Maybe CC just wants to focus on selling their product to education institutions like primary or secondary schools where kids donā€™t have to pay to play.

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Yes, I thought what a cool concept. I can let the kids explore this and if they like it and progress with the base levels, it makes sense for me to invest in the subscription.

But now Iā€™m faced with the decision to start a subscription without even knowing if theyā€™ll pick it up. While I may just do it as I donā€™t care too much about this amount, it kinda defeats the purpose of spreading by word of mouth and then let kids beg their parents until they get them a premium account.

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I agree with @HeiroP2 and @Lanto

CodeCombat all thinks about making money now. But what they didnā€™t thought of what would people feel. Imagine a new kid heard about this game, and they just tried it out, but then know that you need a subscription to play, theyā€™ll probably just quit anyways. First off, the players playing CodeCombat would therefore drop, and the CoCo team probably makes less profit. Second, if CodeCombat all thinks of making money, that totally defeats the purpose to learn code.

Hereā€™s a history of how the subscription level rised:

Before 2015
Monthly deal: $1.99
Lifetime access: $19.9

Before 2017
Monthly deal: $3.99
Lifetime access: $39.9

Before 2021
Monthly deal: $9.99
Lifetime access: $99.9

From now on, the lifetime access has been replaced with a yearly deal. CodeCombat kept rising its standards for a subscription, and before 2017, you have more free levels than subscription levels. But from now on, you only get access to 5. CodeCombat has completely fell into the money pit, where they only focus on making money and not even teaching players to code anymore. A subscription should helps the player to learn more coding, but it only focus on giving players better armor/heroes and equipments to give them an unfair advantage in multiplayer, which is totally unfair to free players. Furthermore, CodeCombat is slowly turning into a action/RPG game now, not a learning game where you code anymoreā€¦

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29

Also, before, most of the good equipments/heroes are earned through getting pass a certain level with clear code, this will encourage players to code more to get better stuff. This is what a learning game should be.

Now, all you have to do is to pay $100 for a subscription and you get everything you want. Imagine players that donā€™t have money to get subscriptions or they arenā€™t allowed to purchase, they wouldnā€™t be interested in playing anymore, and this also pulls away the purpose to gain players for CodeCombat.

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30

CodeCombat couldnā€™t afford to keep it free. They needed more money, so they took away the free campaign. It would be great, however, if they at least lowered their prices a good deal. Or allowed you to play for free until you finish the forestā€™s main campaign, so you get a real taste of coding skills.

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31

I think itā€™s good to allow you get pass the campaign of desert. At least there, you can learn basically all syntax of codes. The mountain and the glacier is about advanced code.

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Thanks for the link so that I could read more context. At least they responded to the criticism there, even though I donā€™t trust their words and their marketing (should have thought about proper monetization and economic model earlier, but lazy solutions are easier). In any case, I wish CC the best and Iā€™m sure everyone here hopes that they will somehow expand the contentā€¦ and if it was really that necessary to cut out free access to continue then Iā€™d like to see that invested in new content of course :smiley:

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Thanks too, @Alexbrand. Not sure why this did not show up when I searched prior to posting.

I recommend this change be advertised more. I was referred to CC as a freemium offering and feel stupid having signed up and being sent to the paywall almost immediately. For me this created a negative sentiment towards CC.

I totally agree with @Bryukh that they need to pay their bills. But is this the right approach? How many basic levels do you need to like the platform and sign up for premium? 5 or 14 levels is not enough to hook someone up in my experience.

For private users, there are 2 key variables that determine CCs financial success.

  1. How many new users come to the platform and sign up? This can be driven by marketing as paid adverts or by word-of-mouth.
  2. How many of those convert to premium?

If 1) Creates less sign-ups or becomes more costly, better conversion in 2) may not be sufficient. But I still doubt that conversion is truly better.

I hope you did your math right and wish you good luck:

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35

Yes we did. Thank you.

Maybe your experience from gamedev and edtech is different than our, however you would be surprised if you talk with liveops from gamedev studios (i was), most of decisions those are from data are opposite from what we suggest.

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