Tower’s community is no longer thriving like it was in the past and the player count is steadily waning with each passing day. I remember the days where even Virus had multiple servers with full player counts, nowadays, I struggle to find anyone who wants to play with me or even hang out with in my condo. I literally haven’t made a genuine friend in Tower in a couple of years. This hurts me as a Tower player, ‘cause even though some people (especially on Steam reviews) love to shit-talk this game and it’s community, I’m still a proud Tower player and I will always love this game no matter what. We just need an incentive to bring in more players and convince them to either come back to tower, or if they’re new, give them a reason to want to play in the first place.
The only real solution to this is if the game got media coverage by a large youtuber. There was the recent General Sam video, but the main content in the video gives the game a real bad look (Although the video did try and show some of the fun and not disgusting bits at the end, the video overall is gonna leave most people thinking Tower is 90% gooners). Maybe if we had another thing on scale similar to how back in the day the Yogscast played GMT and had a condo decorating competition between themselves (Gmod Tower Design Star).
But as far as player retention goes, I can’t really think of any way to keep players here longer. They already have the weekend/daily bonuses that change month by month but this hardly gets people off minigolf and casino into playing any other games because minigolf and casino are just that much better for payouts.
A big problem with player retention I think is that this is the type of game people will play nonstop for like a week or two then dip. Its a lot like Minecraft, Lethal Company, and many other flavor of the week multiplayer games. This would need some sort of Burnout solution, which really is more in the hands of individual players.
My experience with this game over the last couple years is that people only see the surface of this game, and are unwilling to dip their toes in. The surface being plaza, minigames and arcade etc. But the iceberg being stuff like custom condos, intricate condo design etc.
Most new players will join the plaza and make a beeline for the casino, because it’s the first thing they see upon emerging from the subway station, particularly if it’s a server with a high WOM jackpot which will be evident with high player pop, thinking that from it they will make from it a few hundred thousand units that they believe that will be enough to reach endgame content - of all of the plaza buildings visible from the under the canopy, the casino is one that is given all if not the most prominence, it stands out like a sore thumb
Most new players don’t stick around because of the grind, dear lord the grind… Time and again the devs have been recommended to buff the exp and payouts for various non-casino activities, which seldom see any players, with Typing Derby and Laser Tag being by and large by far the worst offenders
If it isn’t the grind or the repetitiveness of casino that causes new players to dip, it’s the bugs…let’s not shy away from the fact
Get people out of the casino
Alleviate the grind
Fix bugs