Anyone notice the happy hour today...it was offered on the cpu but not on mobile. Not cool! its getting worse and worse

I don't think you get the point of the boycott. Who cares if there is, or isn't a happy hour. Don't buy any ambrosia.

The point in (not) buying ambrosia is that now, at these inflated prices, you can do less than half the things you could do before.... in other words... not very smart to buy any until the prices go down to at least what they used to be.

Yeeee boycott all.....

Many of my friends left this game because there is no benefit in this game. Iranians players can't buy ambo easily. The price is very high.
We are protesting this situation and we join you.

Same here, haven't spend ambro, haven't bought and I'm feeling good...
https://youtu.be/D5Y11hwjMNs

I purchased ambrosia expecting to get x many days of premium mode. Now I get far less.

How is this not a bait and switch?

I didn't used to buy much, but I'll not be buying or spending anything with the prices at the current inflated levels.

I'd also like to point out to the naysayers, whom to a cynical person might appear to be shills for Gameforge, that some people may still keep using Ambrosia but that does not defeat the object of the boycott. Whining on the forums does nothing, complaining to your friends does nothing, but boycotting hits a company on their bottom line and is the most reliable way to make them take notice. Realistically people are going to react to the price increase in one of a few ways.
Some people will keep spending ambrosia on the same perks at the same rate as they always did. The increase in prices will result in them spending more cash.
Some people will keep spending ambrosia but will cut back on how much they spend so that their cash spends will be about the same as before.
Some people will limit their ambrosia spends substantially, so their cash spend will go down.
Some people will boycott and stop spending altogether, so their cash spends will reduce to zero.

The only way Gameforge benefits from their price increase is if the extra cash spends from the people in the first group are greater than the reduction in cash spends from everybody else. Based on the evidence in this thread, and from what other people have been saying, it seems that this will not be the case.

I can't say if i'm a low, medium or a high ambro user.. because i cant compare my use next to others if i dont know what they use

I had 4 accounts... note i said HAD.

I purchased ambrosia in UK at 150 + 10 bonus @ £9.99 true i could get more ambrosia for my money if i had purchased larger amounts

but when you are purchasing for 4 accounts thats £39.96 at a time

If i purchased that every week thats £159.76 in a 4 week period which is £2077.92 a year

I don't play Piracy never have never will dont like the game and piracy was the cause of many people quitting the game in the past

What did i use ambrosia for... did you notice i said DID ?

I used it to convert resources particularly after pillages when i had more of one resource and less of another so i could use the resources to build because i'm a pillager/fighter type of player

I used it to buy extra ships from the Mercenaries to transport goods to other towns and Triton engines to get them there quicker... you see i did it again i said USED TO

I used padlock to increase my warehouse protection... USED TO

If and when i occasionally mined resources when i needed some extra i would increase production ... NOT NOW

All those things i used ambrosia for i no longer do

2 of my 4 accounts have gone i dont have them anymore... well thats halved my ambro use already

But the cost even for those 2 accounts is more than for the 4 accounts because the amounts of ambrosia have increased so i need more ambrosia to do the same job

I got less for my money so i needed to buy more often

No way i would afford to increase from over £2000 per annum to nearly £6000 per annum if i kept all 4 accounts and even with only 2 accounts instead of 4 its going to be over £3000 per annum

Sorry GF but if you had maybe increased the price of buying the ambrosia to £12 for 150 + 10 Bonus instead of £9.99 or even just gave the 150 ambro and no + 10 bonus for the £9.99 i might still have 4 accounts and still be buying ambrosia

I've joined the boycott

I wont be buying any more ambrosia now that i have used what i had

Imagine if there were only 9 other users in one server that used the same amount as i did and stopped buying it ... £20,779.20 in revenue lost

If that happened in 10 servers... £207,792.00 in revenue lost

thats only 10 players in each server with an average use

I cant imagine how much GF will lose in revenue but i can imagine it will be enough to make a difference

many players in many countries who have a much lower income will have been priced out of the game and all those small amounts will mount up

It's like the railways and train fares... it doesnt run right and it's too expensive so less people use it.. so they put the prices up and squeeze more out of the people who do and less people can afford to use it so use alternatives and go elsewhere and so they lose even more customers .. pretty soon no one is using it so you close the line (or merge a server) and it gets no better... you just keep squeezing like toothpaste out of the tube.. till there's none or no one left

As for those with the big mouths telling everyone to quit complaining...

just for the record .. i'm not complaining... just stating the fact I'M NOT BUYING AMBROSIA ANYMORE

What of my remaining two accounts

well in one i'm logging in every day and making sure it has wine... i'm not building or improving or mining or moving resources apart from wine once a week ... i'm just letting it sit there for now i might even stop logging in every day just log in once a week knowing it has enough wine and eventually i might even get rid of that account too

OK i'm playing one account... but without ambrosia for how long.. ?? ( no that doesnt mean for how long till i buy ambrosia again it means for how long till i quit playing it ) Time will tell

I think i've covered everything and said what i wanted to say

I wrote an elaborated post about this issue, but the forum logged me out and the crappy software doesn't even store what has been written. I'm not used to this anymore, otherwise I had written my text elsewhere and copied it in here, like I did so many times years ago.

I'll not write everything again, but will shortly explain why your ambrosia boycott doesn't change anything, and what you should do instead.

Those who make up most income for Gameforge, the whales, don't care about increased prices. They have the money and they are willing to pay for the extra advantage. If anything, the new prices make them happy, because possible competitors get kicked out of the race. If you were a millionaire who likes to drive his sports car, would it make you sad or happy if the price for gas quadrupled? Think about the free roads you could use.

It's a bit different in an online game though, and that's where you have power. The millionaire with the sports car likes empty streets, the whale in an online game hates an empty world. He needs you as content, to get his ROI. Yes, you are not only a player, you are game content. Without you, those who make profit for Gameforge get bored and leave. If you only stop using ambrosia, you are still making money for the company by existing for the whales to play with. They are happy, Gameforge is happy. You are not.

The only way to use your power is to refuse to be game content. Get people to use vacation mode to boycott. That, or deleting your account, is the only way to get attention, because it affects the company's bottom line. This is all about money, and if the whales have no content: no players to trade with, to fight with, to pillage, to compete with, except other whales, they move on. Gameforge knows this, and they have to address a vacation mode boycott if you get enough people on board.

Good luck, and enjoy the last day of the year, party as hard as you play games.

Hello Everyone,

Happy New Year! I hope you guyz had amazing vacations.

I came back to Ikaraim after a year break, lot has been changed but what i have observed in other games. Ikariam is still better than that & the reasons are

1. No bugs, atleast i haven't encountered any in last few weeks.
2. Prices are VERY reasonable if we compare to other online games.
3. Game is balanced for everyone, coiner or non coiner.

Ok for a sec, let's assume prices are very high etc. But if you are enjoying a bug free, balanced games, Gameforge does deserve it.

NSW_YOYO wrote:

Did any of you hear whether GF are planning to reduce the prices of ambrosia to what they were?

Not going to happen. Some adjustments might happen, this is still under observation. However, the prices will never be completely reverted, that much can be said for certain. Compared to other online games we're still quite ok-ish. While I personally agree that for example the trader is far too pricy now, the overall price ranges are acceptable imho and noone in their right state of mind can expect prices to remain stable for all eternity. That doesn't happen out there in the real world so don't expect it to happen in a game either. Prices will always be subject to change over the years, we've just been majorly lucky that it so far happened VERY rarely in Ikariam, that's all.

NSW_YOYO wrote:

almost no one is investing any $ in buying new ambrosia

That is simply not true and a completely false assumption on your part.

NSW_YOYO wrote:

I wonder if GF is taking notice to this protest of the players.

Yes, I noticed the 4 pages here. Hardly a riot, sorry.
I understand that price changes are never liked and never heartily welcomed. However...with the exception of one or two things (such as aforementioned trader) the changes are by far not unreasonable.

Where I come from there is an expression that seems very appropriate to that which is happening.

When things are off, rather than pout and complain it is easier to vote with one's feet.

In other words, as somebody pointed out a few posts up, and as was indirectly confirmed in the previous post to this one, the only thing which truly affects Game Forge's plan is to no longer participate and serve as 'user-provided content'.

Of course, right on cue, I have noted a significant increase in the number of notifications received regarding players who have "disappeared". Perhaps Game Forge could try to shrug it off as a seasonal thing. They could yet return (I doubt it but you never know).

The thing is that expressions tend to come to be as a result of reality. 4 pages of complaints do not make a riot - its true - but if a single player on a single server notices a few players dropping off their Cultural Treaties list and does not presume this to be merely a fluke, then one could draw the conclusion that such is evidence of a contraction of the player base...

Voting without riots but with their feet...

And, incidentally, I do wonder how a database-skin like Ikariam could even inspire some players to pay in excess of £1000 per annum - its the whale effect I guess. But a more pertinent thing to wonder is what kind of maintenance such a setup could possibly incur that would require such 'mark-ups' (after all - if one is going to continue making 'out-there' comparisons then one should hear of Game Forge's side of things. The bottom-rank decency of an explanation.

Perhaps something along the lines of 'Sorry guys but taxes are, like, a thing and our dev team requires expansion for permitting other gripping updates in like... you know... the usual frequency ... and to continue delivering excellance in this game we, like, need your cash... totally for this project and not to fund our other new games that you may or may not play.... um... who-cares?-certainly-not-me... um... y'know? So like... pay up more ambrosies dudes and you like can get pictures of dudettes as advisors for a few days because its so expensive changing those Pee Enn Gees... if you use your ambrosies for it... y'know...?'

No - I could not muster a straight-face professional tone while writing that. The alternative tone would have gone the way of the artful dodger.

I can see that only moderators and operators dont care about rising prices for ambrosia, because they got it for free Poor world, poor GF, poor Admins operators and moderators

wow man really? you are big experience player why dont you apply and find out then share with us how many ambro they get, interesting!