Industry Idle's server will soon enter its sixth year of service. Last year, I posted a proposal to reduce server costs. However, the community did not reach a consensus, so I moved on to work on my other games.
A month ago, our hosting company increased our server costs by almost 300%. This is devastating for a free-to-play game with optional paid content. The game has been operating at a loss for almost three years and has relied on proceeds from CivIdle to stay afloat.
To further reduce server costs, I have to shut down all leaderboards. The game currently relies on a Steam API - which requires a public Steam profile - to "verify" accounts. This API has not been working correctly for some time, so I have to use an alternative: only players who own at least one expansion pack will be "verified" on Steam. To help offset the impact, I have relaxed the trading limits for unverified accounts:
- The trade cooldown has been reduced from one trade per minute to one trade every 30 seconds.
- The trade limit has been changed from an amount of 1M and a value of 1B to a value of 1T (the amount is no longer limited).
If you have any questions, join our Discord Server.
Cheers,
FishPond