Fraises (or "strawberries" in French) are a form of micro-currency purchasible with real world cash that can currently only be found in Transformice and Dead Maze, which is an inter-game micro currency that transfers between games that use them, not requiring a special exclusive micro-currency for each Atelier 801 game[1]. They may be introduced to other Atelier 801 games should they become popular enough to warrant fraise-only content for[1]. Fraise were released on 14 June 2012.[2][3]
History[]
Public mentions of Fraises being added to game were mentioned 13 February 2015 via a Transformice news post by Sydoline[4] and were released 3 months later on May 2015, which started with a beta test at the beginning of the month and being officially released at the end of the month.[5]. While fraises had some initial controversy / concern about the game becoming pay-to-play, fraises where a welcome / accepted addition to the game by most.
The initial cause that drove Transformice from an ad-supported game to an in-game transaction one, was an issue with Google Adsense within the first year of Transformice's release (resulting in a loss of at least 15,000€).[6] While it initially worked fine, the Atelier 801 Google Adsense was terminated without warning, and less / no income came in within the following 6 month period. While Atelier 801 tried other ad channels, none of them were as good. While the issue was eventually resolved, the solution was unsatisfactory, and the experience left them bitter, so rather than rely on advertisements, they choose to rethink their monetization strategy, and use Fraise so as not to depend on advertisements anymore and get money directly from the players.[2]
On 13 June 2012, the beta test ended and players living in France could buy fraises.[7]
On 22 July 2016 Fraise became available for non-Transformice content with the release of the name change update.
Fraises were finally introduced in another Atelier 801 game with the release of Dead Maze in 2017 (beta) / 2018 (public release).
Fraise in other games[]
Even though fraises were released on Transformice in 2012, did not for a long time make their way into any other Atelier 801 games, with the reason stated by Melibellule being that "We want to drive new players to [our other games], that might have never played Transformice before, and micro-transactions can be a turning down reason for a lot of new players. That’s why we want to give the game its chance completely free, and see if it catches enough interest to develop fraises for it."[1]
Trivia[]
- During the initial beta-test for Fraise, all money from purchases went towards the Red Cross.[8]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 http://meli-blog.tumblr.com/post/93025028470/have-you-considered-having-peoples-fraises-work
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MelanieChristin/20150527/241206/The_Story_of_Transformice_the_60_million_players_indie_game.php
- ↑ https://atelier801.com/topic?f=5&t=13701
- ↑ http://www.transformice.com/transformices-future-free-to-play/
- ↑ http://www.transformice.com/fraise-update-is-really-close/index.php
- ↑ http://meli-blog.tumblr.com/post/115302462170/whats-the-worst-thing-that-youve-ever-happened
- ↑ https://atelier801.com/topic?f=5&t=12040
- ↑ http://www.transformice.com/the-beta-test-has-now-begun/index.php