constructive criticism of The Tetris Company

[caffeine]

I agree with what blink was saying. Right now the trendy thing is the Farmville model. It's about finding every which way to extract as much cash from the consumer as frequently as possible. They're doing it to the extent that it's hurting the quality of their game. This only really applies to Tetris Battle, but it seems to be the only thing they're interested in right now. And, TB will likely serve as a standard to future non-Facebook releases.

What we'd much rather see is a commitment to the quality of gameplay. Otherwise, they're just going to keep cheapening the IP's image. The paying consumer will eventually no longer be those who have fond memories of oldschool Tetris or competitive multiplayer. The remaining demographic will be those of the generation y-ers who will only have memories of something that quickly became repetitive after inevitably reaching the skill ceiling of its very shallow gameplay.

This point is amplified by TTC's failure to seek out feedback from top players. The TB devs had asked for this on HD, but we've seen very little in terms of results so far. I met Henk Rogers at TWC '011 and asked if I could email him with some feedback. He seemed interested, but I've yet to hear back. I think TTC believes they know more about Tetris than they should give themselves credit for. They don't seem to think they actually need feedback about the deeper aspects of the game from those who've proven themselves in terms of high scores and winning tournaments. As a result, they limit the quality and depth of their game to the level of which their best-Tetris-skilled game-designer happens to be at. Just look at the state of marathon mode over the last several years. It shows a complete ignorance of how scoring mechanics  work.

[exchliore]

Building good software costs money and it doesn't come cheap. If you don't have money then your only viable option is to contract/license out your IP to a studio that actually has the resources and can afford to make a game on the side. Six to twelve months of development from a real studio is far more affordable and logical than hiring an entire dev team when you have no money.

Comparisons to the big studios doesn't help because they had millions up front for their projects. I also find it unlikely that Tetris's current revenue could support a full in-house dev team. Maybe if the game can generate more revenue, then more money can be poured into a better product.

Also, microtransactions is the current meta. You can't get angry at companies for jumping on the bandwagon. People love hats.

[caffeine]

I also find it unlikely that Tetris's current revenue could support a full in-house dev team.

Tetris has sold over 100 million copies for cell phones alone. Most of the gameplay changes that we want are subtle--not requiring a six month overhaul. Money is not the issue here.

[yotipo91]

Realistically, what incentive could you give them to listen to players? I doubt they can fathom the amount of time and dedication any of us put into it. The reason I don't dislike them is because they are a business and I have the Tetris clients I enjoy with the small community I enjoy.

I'd probably have more to rant about if I cared about more aspects that don't interest me.

[XaeL]

Tetris has sold over 100 million copies for cell phones alone. Most of the gameplay changes that we want are subtle--not requiring a six month overhaul. Money is not the issue here.

Most of the changes could be implemented by a sole developer in under a week by tweaking code...

[Wojtek]

reasons why i hate TTC? i guess there is is only one. people who care about tetris waste to much time thinking how their shitty games could be better, instead of thinking how to support games that are not shit. there are so many. tgm, nullpomino, toj/top, c2 - to name a few.

i agree that tetris battle is shittiest game so far. but i don't agree it has no community. there are lot of people who enjoy it and are enthusiastic about it. in taiwan and philippines tb is pretty big. i don't know what this means, but i guess you can have fun even with bad game if you try hard enough.

anyway, after reading first post, i think this topic is mistitled. if you want to talk about how your dream game would be i don't see why you want ttc to be involved with it. ttc is last thing good tetris game needs.

but it is not big deal because every discussion on this forum seems to alway converge to same discussion. i you guys realize how you keep repeating yourself and how pointless is what you say. well i am aware this apply to me too!

you know this joke in which prisoners memorized all jokes to the point they just say numbers of jokes and then laugh. we could totally do same. nothing ever changes, so let's just enumerate our views and points, and talk just with numbers!

let me start:
1 -- current ttc game sucks
2 -- it dons't matter if current ttc game suck sucks, it is popular
3 -- if only devs of current ttc game make changes to it (which they will never do) it would be good
4 -- i hope next ttc game would be good
5 -- only ttc games can be big competive tetris, but they won't for some reason i think it is minor.
6 -- ttc do not care or know about what it is doing.
7 -- i think my vision of tetris game would be best thing ever if ttc made it.
8 -- i think tetris mutli player game should be ballenced in way that skills i think i am best with would matter most
9 -- current clone has no players
10 -- current clone is not appealing to casual players
11 -- current clone developer don't understand needs of casual players as well as ttc.
12 -- ttc don't undertard needs of serious player as well as current clone developer.
13 -- current clone sucks.
14 -- tf arena is best quality/popularity compromise, so let's best choice for tournament
15 -- clone developers will never understand why their games are so unpopular
16 -- ttc will never understand why their games are so poor quality
17 -- curent ttc game lags
18 -- it is easy to fix current ttc game flaws
19 -- it is impossible to get more players on current clone
20 -- i want tetris to be e-sport
21 -- tetris can't be e-sport because it is diffrent from lol and sc2 in some way
22 -- i enjoy current ttc game, despite it is so broken
23 -- i enjoy current clone, despite there is nobody to play with
24 -- ttc does what their audience wants
25 -- i only care about other aspect of tetris
26 -- i don't actually play tetris, but i like to talk about it, because i think i am most knowledgeable
27 -- ttc owns tetris gameplay mechanics
28 -- ttc do not owns tetris gameplay mechanics
29 -- ttc needs to listen to me, if they want to go anywhere
30 -- ttc is not going anywhere
31 -- i assume other people want same things as i do
32 -- you don't undersand what other people want
33 -- things will  be better over time
34 -- nothing will ever change
[wip]

[vipjun]

35-- Caffeine is never wrong

[exchliore]

Tetris has sold over 100 million copies for cell phones alone. Most of the gameplay changes that we want are subtle--not requiring a six month overhaul. Money is not the issue here.

Once a game has been made, it's been made and no one will overhaul it. Getting a company to revisit a game is tough so the changes you want to see can only be realized through creating a new game. Depending on how TTC licenses out their IP, the publishers and individual studio may have their own creative control over the game. Any feedback that makes it to the new team may be ignored as it comes from <0.1% of potential customers.

100 million copies is also a useless statistic because we don't know how much revenue TTC sees of that. What if only 5% of each game sale goes to TTC? After taxes and operational costs, you'll make profit, but we're not looking at amazing numbers here. Also, it doesn't grab the timespan either. If you can make that many sales in a year, sure, it's great! If it's over a few years, probably not so great.

Game sales are also one time transactions. It's possible that they're seeing very little revenue now since everyone bought a copy already and there are few consumers left in the market. The prospects don't look great here.

Most of the changes could be implemented by a sole developer in under a week by tweaking code...

These changes are probably more complicated than just a week of tweaking code. Let's take the normal estimating logic. Double the number and increment the time unit. We're now looking at 2 months. Also, you can't just put a sole guy on the project. Let's say you need a team of maybe 4 people (manager, dev, qa). Chances are, the guys who made this game have moved on, so you have a fresh set of 4 people. That 2 months just turned into 4 months due to ramp up time. What are the base costs of this one project? Let's estimate that 4 guys cost maybe 200k/year so a baseline cost of such a project is $267k to work on a game that's probably already made its sales and profits. Studios are often strapped for cash and there are probably other projects that are more important.

Keep in mind that all my numbers are optimistic. When a game company decides to actively add features to a game after release, it's often because they own the IP and/or made a promise.

[caffeine]

100 million copies is also a useless statistic because we don't know how much revenue TTC sees of that. What if only 5% of each game sale goes to TTC? After taxes and operational costs, you'll make profit, but we're not looking at amazing numbers here. Also, it doesn't grab the timespan either. If you can make that many sales in a year, sure, it's great! If it's over a few years, probably not so great.

Really? Okay let's look at some figures and see if we can't get a conservative ballpark estimate of how much Tetris is raking in.

Let's run with your ball and assume TTC charges their licensees 5% of their revenue. EA currently pays for the mobile rights.

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]The Associated Press reports that the 100 million milestone [of paid downloads] will be officially announced on Thursday, but that EA Mobile and Blue Planet did not reveal revenue. Tetris is reportedly available on more than 64,000 mobile platforms worldwide, ranging from $1.99 USD via EA Mobile to $4.99 USD on the iPhone and iPod Touch.
- Source
[/quote]

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]The industry standard for how much income app stores take is 30%.
- Source
[/quote]

The first quote was from 2010. EA's Tetris hit the app store in July of 2008. Let's assume sales dropped by 25% since then per your reasoning. Let's also weight the lower price bound by 3/4ths the upper bound to be conservative.

Code Select Expand


// Find total revenue, with weighted price.
(100000000*(.75*1.99+.25*4.99)) = 274000000

// Find average annual revenue for that period.
274000000/(560 days / 365) = 178589285.71

// Assume they're currently making 25% less.
178589285.71-(.25*178589285.71) = 133941964.28

// Pay 30% to the app store.
133941964.28-(.3*133941964.28) = 93759375.00

// TTC gets their 5%.
93759375*.05 = 4687968.75

Conservative estimated annual revenue from EA mobile Tetris to TTC  (app store costs already deducted): $4,687,968.75


[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]The developer reports that Tetris Battle earns close to the puzzle game average of 1 to 2 cents in average revenue per daily active user, or ARPDAU. (Tetris Online declines to state specific ARPDAU for their game.)
- Source[/quote]

DAU = Daily Active Users. Tetris Battle currently serves around 1630461 DAU, and Tetris Friends currently serves around 9700 DAU. Let's again weight the lower bound earnings by 3/4ths to the upper bound for both sites. TTC sub-licenses the brand to Tetris Online (the developer of both sites), but in reality it's just a sister company (that operates out of the same office of BPS--the licensing sub-company of TTC) whose profits, more or less, go to the same people.

Code Select Expand


// Find daily revenue for both websites with weighted earnings.
(1630461+9700)*(.01*.75+.02*.25) = 20502.01

// Convert to annual revenue.
20502.01*365 = 7483233.65

Conservative estimated annual revenue from TF and TB: $7,483,233.65


With the (very) rough estimates for mobile license and TF/TB revenues combined, TTC is conservatively making around $12 million annually. This doesn't even account for the dozens of other games currently on the market that they license out. With that included, it would be no surprise to me if their annual profits (after taxes, labor, office lease, etc.) are well within the eight figure range.

[XaeL]

These changes are probably more complicated than just a week of tweaking code.

No, they really aren't.

Here is a list of features that can be tweaked with minimal code changing:

• Instant DAS
• IHS
• IRS
• Coloured garbage
• Garbage/combo tables
• Max number of players

Here is a list of features that only requires a UI and minimal code changing:

• Stats display (num tspins, tpm etc)
• Better spectator support (just UI changes)

Here is a list of features that require significant overhaul:

• Adding a game lobby/chat functions

Here is a list of lag reducing features that do not require a moderate overhaul:

• Network independent gameplay (AKA shove networking in a thread, if you don't receive messages the players gui is unaffected)

Here is a list of lag reducing features that may require a significant overhaul:

• Fps independent gameplay (AKA model/view/controller framework)
• Improving networking performance (using UDP/TCP for relevant things, optimizing centralized/player based game servers, etc etc)

Obviously due to existing code/framework these are just estimates.

The majority of changes that players ask for can be fixed in the *quick fix* section....

[benmullen]

I think the issue, for me at least, with regards to the OP: I'm already perfectly happy with what i have in tetris... so I'm unlikely to play anything else substantially.

Now i have enjoyed me some cultris II from time to time (although recent pahse of it only last about a week, i know i will be back, perhaps tonight now that i am writing this.  

[mobuco]

Let's see. In my opinion that are the flaws that all old games made:

• no ghost piece: The ghost piece feature is a big help for both beginners and veterans. It's interesting how late it was introduced
• no harddrop: The origninal Tetris game had harddrop. Why didn't games have it additionally to softdrop from 1988 onwards? It would have been so easy to bind harddrop to cursor up.
• no alternating falling speeds: Let's take NES Tetris for example: Level 28 -> 2 frames per gravity step/gridcell, Level 29 -> 1 frame per gravity step. That means pieces fall double as fast on level 29 (instant death). Why not making level 29 alternating: 1 frame for 1st step, 2 frames for 2nd step, 1 frame for 3rd step, 2 frames for 4th step and so on...
• S and Z pieces don't stay in the middle when being rotated: I think this origates from the original game (right alignment/righthanded, down spawining orientation, just one rotation direction, namely anticlockwise). It's what frustrates me most in old games.

no ghost piece - I feel this is not needed and makes the game easier, like being able to hold
no harddrop - at high speeds it isn't needed
no alternative falling speed - I like how you die at some point and are forced to play well to max points
z and s piece rotation - yeah the way gameboy did it sucked, but I don't think the rotation in NES is that bad

Basically, like everything in life, there is no pleasing everyone. Some people like some features that others don't. I don't know a lot about it, but nullpomino seems to be totally customizable and that is great because you can play how you like. I guess the tough part is then trying to compare yourself against people using different settings.

[Integration]

no alternative falling speed - I like how you die at some point and are forced to play well to max points

Level 19 is same speed as level 28, but award different points. They could have inserted a new speed level at levels 19 to 23 (a bit slower than current level 19) with the method I mentioned.

z and s piece rotation - yeah the way gameboy did it sucked, but I don't think the rotation in NES is that bad

LOL. I could say the same, just the other way around. You say it sucks only because you aren't used to it. Actually, Gameboy is completely mirrored to NES. In both versions you need to move the S piece 5 steps to get to the other wall.

Probably, NES Tetris is a decent game. The biggest flaw is the missing 2 player modus. 2 player Marathon's would make organizing Classic World Championship easier, right?

Basically, like everything in life, there is no pleasing everyone. Some people like some features that others don't. I don't know a lot about it, but nullpomino seems to be totally customizable and that is great because you can play how you like. I guess the tough part is then trying to compare yourself against people using different settings.

There should be only one Marathon implemantation. Customizing spawning orientations doesn't make much difference. The best spawning orientation still should be the down orientation we all are used to. Of course, you'd be forced to use the fastest available autorepeat rate.

[Paul676]

Love TTC but hate Tetris? Try Bubble Pop Battle at https://apps.facebook.com/bubblepopbattle!

Also Wojtek, your post is legendary - I don't think I've ever seen a better post on HD than that one.

Also, 3, seemingly 6. I have faith that not 6. But definitely, and I have received assurance, that 3.

[benmullen]

A few thoughts:

Ghost peice in classic tetris doesnt really do anything either helpful or hurtfull since at its highest, and only difficult level it wont hit the correct spot until the very end anyway.

Hard drop in classic tetris would be uneeded for basically the same reason; it would make level 0 faster paced, but why play that anyway.  By the time you hit 19it would be unused and unessesary.

Hold would be confusing to the process, without hard drop you could hold just as you are about the MD and game the system.  It would also ruin the timing and feel of the game, making it far slower on its hardest level.

the difference in S and Z spin is really just academic.  I hate the way game boy does it but like NES... I think its basically the same reason native french speakers have an easy time with french and native english speakers an easier time with english.  Its not that one is easier, your just used to it.

a spped between 19 and 29 would be less awesome than it might seem.  For 19, 19 is already very hard and a speed between the 2 would be jerky.  I suppose it could be made fluid on something with a higher refresh rate (that would actually be interesting).