The playercount seems to have dipped below 1000 consistantly, even on the busy times (evenings of weekends).

I would classify myself as a 'social' supcom2 player. I am far from the single-player/skirmish/AI 'casual' player, but not quite a 'competitive' player (though I do 1v1 occasionally, even against top level players, I do not enjoy it as much as just kicking back having a 'fun' game with an online 'friend' or two, or even just a 3 randoms). As such it has become increasingly hard to find multiplayer games(especially with decent settings; assassination, normal speed and no exclusions).

I am wondering at what point it would make sense for the publisher to make parts of this game free-to-play in order to garner more interest. Personally, I could see something like making the vanilla multiplayer and skirmish completely free (silver account), and have it so that if you purchase the game (gold account), you get the campaign and all the DLC content for that cost.

This game's player pool took a big hit when both Battlefield 3 and The Old Republic came out, but had a small resurgance with the Christmas/New Years sale, which prooves to a point that people still have an interest in playing your product. It has been suprisingly resiliant in the face of opposition, but it's profitable time has past and the amount of new blood coming in seems to have all but withered away.

Star Trek:Online recently moved to the free-to-play model, offering free silver accounts, but players can still purchase gold accounts if they want extra officers or inventory space. GPG's current WIP, AOE:Online offers free-to-play I believe.

Do you think SupCom2 would see a resurgence of people if made F2P (at least the parts that you made free, hopefully the multiplayer)?

I don't think it can hurt, but it might not help much either at this point.

I stand corrected the peak this weekend was actually about 1400 people, but the dips are down to ~300 now, which is an all time low since release (barring Steam downtime).

Still with a free-to-play offer that was marketed properly (even just a news story on each of pcgamer, gamespot, 1up, rps, etc etc etc) that could easily still be 5000+ in 6 more months to a year.

A man can dream.

Dont kid yourself. Steam has pretty much given the game away for free several times in sales. Everyone who wanted to try it, already has. Unless there is a lot of added content and balancing done, F2P wont attract a lot of new players.

Dont forget, the genius of Steam is that "discounts are better than free". A free game implies lack of quality, whereas a temporary sale tends to motivate people to buy (and buy *right away*!), just because of the imaginary bargain they are getting.

There have been plenty of games on Steam that have come on sale that I have bought, but also some I would not ever buy. Even if they had ever gone on sale, I would not have purchased them, but because I saw they were free I gave them a try (Alien Swarm, Memoir '44 come to mind).

As far as the game being on sale over and over and over on Steam, it seems to boost player numbers each time it happens, and all those people have to have credit cards with room to buy on them. Imagine if that restriction was eliminated and you did not have to have a credit card or any money to play. How many people do you think have said 'Man I want to try that game but I don't have a credit card, or mommie doesn't have a credit card, or my best friend doesn't have a credit card'. They may find a way to make it happen, and they may not, but if that restriction was not there in the first place they wouldn't have to bother climbing that hurdle.

The problem is: GpG has pretty much given up on this game and moved on. Despite there being multiple people I can think of trying to make this game better,(as depressing as it is) their efforts will never be made official and therefore the game will remain unbalanced. Like the friend you used to have that used to be cool before they got pregnant at 16 and became a middle aged balding weirdo.

Unfortunatly it seems to be a Catch 22 where they will not invest time to make it better (or change it, or make parts of it free) because they do not think it is worth it, but players would not come flocking in/back without it being improved/changed/free.

On the same note as your quote; it's too bad we only ever got 1 DLC. There are so many crazy things that could still go into this game that would make people's head's turn (Cybran Factories with legs and or jump jets come to mind, or add back the Tempest and Fatboy).

Plus MORE MAPS! Hell I would even settle for 'official' versions of the same maps we have with different mass deposits. Powderhorn Mesa could be used as a 1v1 north vs south/east vs west or 2v2 like it is now, OR a 2v2 with spots on the outside rim instead of inside, a 2v2 north vs south, a 2v2 east vs west, a 3v3 north vs south, a 3v3 east vs west, a 4-way FFA if you all started in the corners. All by just adjusting mass deposits and updating the lobbies properly. Sinorok would make a cool duelish 4v4 if you all started on a 'wing', or even did 2 in front 2 in back for each team. Coalition shipyard could be a very fun 2v2. Even patching together more maps by mirroring/kalaedoscoping existing single player like what was done previously would be great, and quite cost effective (like moving mass deposits and offering more variations of the same maps would also).

The Starcraft2 Expansion got delayed to 2013; here is your chance GPG to market yourself at the premier sci-fi RTS game of 2012. A September-December release of a new DLC and a free-to-play program to get it out to the masses could still turn into a cash cow if marketed properly (especially if people try a free-to-play basic skirmish/multiplayer instead of the horrific demo that does the current version of the economy, and game otherwise, no justice at all).

I can actually make you that, if you want. I have done that with multiple maps, as you no doubt know. Still, resizing is impossible, severely limiting the possibilities.