The Story of Fantage: Is the End Near?

1 update on the bottom: a short conversation with dragon_iron

Several years ago, Nons could barely do anything in comparison to Mems. The only way they could get Mem clothes was with the meager 500 they received as newbies. Back then, you could immediately tell who was a Non and who was a Mem simply by how they dressed. Because of this huge difference, Nons vs Mems fights frequently broke out.

Fantage heard this and replied. They created the Earn Free Ecoins button. Now, Nons had a lot more things on Fantage available to them. The gap between Nons and Mems closed a bit.

This was the first change that triggered several more.

Less than half a year later, Trade n Sell opened. Both nons and mems alike were delighted with this new change. Items began to have “value” and “rarity.” It was no longer impossible for Nons to obtain the items they wanted. The gap between Nons and Mems closed even more, and people forgot all the Nons vs. Mems nonsense.

But, it took very little time for people (should we even consider them “people,” or would “immature douche-bags” be a more appropriate term?) to take advantage of Trade n Sell. Yep, the scammers. People became unhappy again because they were losing their best items. They directed their anger toward these scammers (rightfully), and eventually toward Fantage, who remained silent while people were being scammed left and right.

Fantage heard this and replied. They closed Trade n Sell and replaced it with Vintage Gold, hoping that it would solve the scamming problem and, at the same time, help boost their low profits. But we all know what an utter failure that was. Betas and users with rare items quit because all their items had become worthless. People who had bought item with real money quit too, because they had wasted their money for nothing. Fantage lost the gamble.

~~~~~

So do you see the pattern? We’re unhappy, then Fantage makes a change to make us happy. We’re happy again for a little while, but it’s ruined very quickly. So, Fantage has to make the decision whether to take the risk to find a way and solve the problem, or simply ignore it.

Each time, they’ve taken the risk to solve the problem, but they paid the price for trying. They’ve cornered themselves.

Yes, I’ve posted things like “Fantage is so greedy” and “all they focus on is getting money.” I gotta say now that it was somewhat mindless. Yes, Fantage has been making updates that appear to be very greedy, but they aren’t evil people trying to steal your money. They are struggling to maintain business, to earn money and feed their families. These people don’t even look like rich upper class based on their clothing, much less evil, greedy, money-hoarders.

Many of you are complaining about the Bonus Level Medal. Believe me, I hate it too, and I think it was their worst idea so far.

BUT. If you think about it, they had no choice. Think about it: what are the things on Fantage that had value and kept the game going?

Ecoins. Not that much anymore. Nons can get them for free from the Earn Free Ecoins button. And then there’s those people with hundreds of thousands of ecoins, who got their fortune from Trade n Sell.

Stars. Not very much anymore either. There are people with hundreds of billions of stars, thanks to Trade n Sell decreasing the value of stars.

“Rare” Items. Not anymore at all. Vintage Gold made every item worthless now, like BB Hair, Frisky, CC.

Beta Items. Nope. Vintage Gold has sold most of them, and they were shuffled around, scammed, and hacked when Trade n Sell was here.

FGC Items. Not really. People bought them when Trade n Sell was around to show them off and exchange them for super rare items. Well, Trade n Sell is gone now, and nobody is going to spend $200 to get them.

Levels. This is my point. This is the only thing left that had any value. But I’ll have to cross this off too, because of the Bonus Level Medal.

Now, nothing has value anymore. Fantage no longer has purpose. Notice how the things I bolded and highlighted in red above are things that Fantage created to make us happy, but instead worked in reverse and slowly destroyed their profits.

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I know that Fantage was a childhood game for many of us. But now, so many of us are abandoning it, like a toy that was fun while it lasted, but has finally exhausted itself. It seems a little callous to abandon a game that made us happy for so many years, and even more so to talk crap about it.

Now, I’m not defending them for some of the things they’ve done, like the scam with Himani, or those more-than-suspicious charities. These actions, in fact, lessen my sympathy for them. All I’m saying is that they did it because they are trying to get by and make a living–NOT because they are evil people.

So what now? We could just abandon Fantage altogether; it doesn’t affect us. But I’m sure that many of you, especially the younger ones, silently wish that Fantage could somehow go back to its old self and become fun again.

Why don’t we all come up with a list of suggestions as to what Fantage should do to bring itself back up? I’ll start. (Me too ~Angela)

1. Remove Vintage Gold. This is why so many people quit in the first place, because all of their good items became worthless once they got sold there.
2. Bring back Trade n Sell. This time, lower the maximum selling value from 9,999,999 to maybe 999,999, so the value of stars won’t become deflated again. And of course, take a smarter approach to prevent scamming: put a “value” on items, and only allow items of similar “value” to be traded. Make sure that this “value” is based on OUR opinions, not on yours. Last, punish those who take advantage of your system. Don’t cut them slack just because they are family of one of your workers, like angelwish12.
3. Put more effort into the events, make them fun. Don’t just reuse an old event and pretend it’s a “Part 2.” Make challenging scavenger hunts and more interaction between players.
4. Branch out your User-Inspired Items idea. Perhaps make a store out of it, and put statues of the creator inside, just like the Hall of Fame. Release User-Inspired Item contests regularly.
5. Cut it out with those glaringly-obvious, desperate moves, like the Bonus Level Medal and Lucky Bot “special sales.” We don’t like it, and I’m guessing it’s doing you more harm than good in terms of business.
6. Make use of those free ecoin buttons. I know you get profits out of those, why aren’t they available for most of us? You could get big money from those.
7. I know that listening to us has gotten you into this mess in the first place, but that’s not completely true. I feel that we have very often incorrectly communicated what we wanted. For example, we wanted you to get rid of scamming, not to replace Trade n Sell with some “Vintage” shop. You created this game for us, so it seems pointless if you don’t even listen to our suggestions. Well here they are, even in pretty little sticky notes. I hope you’re going to read these.

1. Bring back Trade n Sell, like Princess_Moomoo said. I actually loved Trade n Sell a lot because even though you can trade rare items in there, the items still had “value” to them. Now with Vintage Gold, everything is worth basically nothing. I also loved being able to get any item I wanted by buying or trading for it. With Vintage Gold, not only is everything now completely valueless, but you only have 1 chance to get them anyway. And I do think Princess_Moomoo is right when she said the selling limit is way to high, much inflation.

2. MUCH more user interaction. I don’t just mean user-inspired items, but also things like making fanart contests a bigger deal than just a page in the Comet, items that are inspired by real life people and events (like Frozen costumes or Miley Cyrus), etc. It would be cool if everyone could not only be connected within the game, but also be connected through mass culture and trends of dominant society.

3. Stop treating users like 8 year olds, even though some of us are actually 8 years old. As much as we don’t want kids to grow up, younger generations know much more about mass society than older generations did before. What I mean by this is that 8 year olds are already engaged in things such as fashion, Instagram, Twitter, MTV, etc, when we before only thought about cooties and playing jump rope at age 8. What I am saying is that now that the younger generations aren’t as interested in things such as hopscotch and stuff, why not make events and items for THIS generation, like related to iPhones, memes, Youtube, etc. You get my jig?

That’s pretty much all I got.

Also, I saw dragon_iron at Vintage today, and I asked him “So are you high levels going to stop playing Fantage?” and he replied “No.” Although dragon_iron is just one of the several well-known Fantagians in the Hall of Fame, I’d like to think that many of them are keeping their heads and hopes up high.