We've been brainstorming a lot lately. We brainstormed the architecture of a Persistent/Seasonal server separation in our Kubernetes cluster. We brainstormed how decorations system should be themed and organized. We brainstormed the financial aspect of Screeps as a business. We brainstormed what would be the mechanic or our first season on the Seasonal World. We also brainstormed a math model for the player rating in Arena, but it's a whole another story... What is really important here is that eventually, when all the coffee was drunk, we came up with a new streamlined concept of in-game account resources that we want to announce in this post.
The most important announcement to begin with: recurrent subscriptions will be discontinued, and 60-day tokens will be replaced with 24-hour tokens. Yes, there will be no subscriptions in the game anymore. If you have an active subscription, it will remain active indefinitely, but you will not be able to activate a new one. The only method to unlock full CPU in your account will be using a CPU token. This will unlock your CPU for 24 hours. All current 60-day tokens will be converted to 60x 24-hours tokens automatically. Moreover, we will introduce a game API method to activate a CPU token, and a way to check whether your CPU is unlocked or not currently. This way, you can program an auto-renew mechanism on your own based on your preference, using CPU tokens stored in your account. The CPU unlocking system is needed to compensate for the server resources spent on running your script, but the recurrent subscription system turned out to be a suboptimal way to achieve this. Many people are unhappy with recurrent payments nowadays. Using CPU tokens, you can buy bundles of 10, 30, or 90 tokens, and control how your CPU is used according to your in-game circumstances. Along with this, we will introduce two new account resources: Pixels and Access Keys. Pixels are needed to pixelate (create) decorations for your rooms and your creeps. Also, you can convert any decoration back to pixels. Access Keys are used to join a season in the Seasonal World, or a special event in the Persistent World. One season may require, say, 5 Access Keys to enter. And season rewards will also yield Access Keys, Pixels and CPU tokens to those who made it to the top of the season. All these account resources can be obtained in two ways:

• Purchased at our official store, which is currently under development.
• Traded on the in-game market or Steam Community Market.

We're going to provide a fixed amount of all account resources on the in-game market by NPC orders as well. It will not be huge, but the one who's willing to participate in these mechanics using only in-game credits will always be able to do so. We believe that this system has very appealing qualities in its design. First, it is reasonable:

• We sell CPU Tokens because we allow you to rent real server CPU time in our cluster.
• We sell Pixels because our designer worked hard on the graphics that enable this "hat economy."
• We sell Access Keys because they unlock more game content that we regularly develop, add, and maintain for your fun and benefit.

Second, it is fair: although we sell it at our official store, but we also provide a legitimate way to be involved using in-game mechanics only. And third, it is simple: it's just resources! No subscriptions, no recurrent payments, no pay walls. The only three things that we're going to sell are these three resources. And they are tradable in-game entities, not some licenses or privileges. We will release all these 3 resources in the next major Decorations update. Access Keys will be discounted for 50% until the first season starts. We are deeply convinced that this system will streamline our business model and secure further development of the game so that Screeps will continue its story.

[ 2020-03-08 14:01:55 CET ] [ Original post ]