I think Tanki used this approach for the first seven or eight years. Then they got greedy...who knows why. The greed started showing itself around the time of the paint separation....about when what's-his-name, ponytail boy got hired. All the little niceties started to get shut down and the "You will enjoy Tanki the way we say to enjoy it" regime came into existence. One example is a return bonus if your account had been idle a month or so. That was one of the first to go. There were quite a few ways that Tanki showed that they valued the players and appreciated the players continuing to play. But, sadly that all got tossed out in the name of greed. Then they started gearing up towards Matchmaking; the ultimate "do it our way". MM got rid of all choice in how you play Tanki...then it became time to really pour on the greed pressure with drones, alts, magic hulls, Tankions, constant re-balance of turrets and hulls, and a bunch of others...you know what they have done. IMO Tanki started out as a customer oriented company, but tossed it all away for quick, maximized profits in the last three years regardless of the consequences.

There are probably more like 65,000 players playing throughout the 24 hour day, but they log on at different times. The 9000 is at peak times which is the only thing we can actually track without some serious OCD issues. 9000 at peak equates to about 65,000 overall if you assume an average player plays for about three hours a day (my guess based on my best math). Tanker's day will bring out thousands more players and some of those will linger after the celebration. So peak numbers will shoot up to maybe even 20K if there is a super drop gold box day and maybe 15.000 during regular Tanker's day festivities, but then it will start to shrink back down to 10K or 11K quickly and then dwindle back into the 9Ks again. The thing is, when numbers drop this low it is pretty easy to get huge increases percentage wise. If you have one player and get a second, you just had a 100% increase in players. Getting another 6000 players logged on at peaks shouldn't be that hard when there are millions of registered accounts and Tanki had 19,000 at peaks just four months ago. What is telling is the rapid attrition of players with every stupid update like 6X XP...oops there goes a few thousand...Flash sabotage...oops there go many thousands more. The main point is Tanki is bleeding players very very quickly. It is obviously not school and work since there has always been school and work. Also, bare in mind this loss of players has happened during Covid lockdowns for pity sake. If anything way more people should be playing...but instead of Tanki getting higher numbers during Lockdowns and all the gamers stuck at home, their numbers are plummeting. Quite telling...one awaits the next brilliant update in the steady march towards Tanki oblivion.

From what I've gleaned over the last couple of years, I'm pretty sure Tanki has been making more money than they ever did in the first 7 or 8 years. For awhile, while paints and bundles were a relatively new thing and Tanki still had 40,000 players at peak times, I think they were rolling in dough. But now, as numbers die off and the bundles are just another old bundle, I think they must be starting to feel the pain of bleeding the golden goose too quickly. Maybe they knew they couldn't make an HTML game that could come up to the standards of Flash and they have timed their demise to the termination of Flash...who knows other than them. I'm pretty sure the big money days are done for Tanki and it's all downhill from here unless they can adequately fix HTML or pull off some magic stunt with the mobile market. My hope is someone will buy them out and start to improve the game instead of this constant downgrading in the name of abject greed. Offer a good product and the money will come. Tanki had it, but squandered it in a few short years in a frenzy of greed without concern for the future. Well the future is knocking on their door now.

Very insightful and spot on. Thank you for this post.

Title kinda says it all really. Tanki was getting 19,000 players online at peak time back in May. Less than four months later, with the massive XP boost of the summer, the constant doubling of that obnoxious summer boost (basically 6X XP almost all summer), and now the sabotage to Flash, Tanki is just barely breaking 9000 players at peak. More than half of the few players left after all the other toxic updates (MM, drones, ODs, augments, Tankoins, etc) over the last couple of years stopped playing Tanki...or at the very least play way way way less Tanki. A 50% drop is shocking. But Tanki will tell you that it is because of how Flash games are dated and no one wants to play them anymore...player base erosion from natural attrition is their stance. But you, me, and all the players who love the real Tanki know that it was a great game but what they have done to it makes it almost unplayable at worst and absolutely frustrating at best. 50% of your players don't get tired of playing a game within a span of four months...impossible. They get disgruntled and quit because of toxic changes to the game...like the really stupid 6X XP and now the assault on Flash. We can't access missions from within Flash...ridiculous! And these Tanki dev fools apparently plan even more sabotage to Flash in the future. They just don't see (or don't care is more likely) the writing on wall with a drop of 50% in four months. The good thing is with such low numbers it is not hard to increase the player count by percentage. Maybe that's what Tanki-AP is going for in the future. Maybe they are going to try to sell the company and will be able to pitch "Brand new platform, latest HTML design, and player base doubling every month"...yeah doubling from the 1000 players it eventually gets down to. ?

It's the lobby/garage interface and the battle interface along with the missing features of flash, the poor movement, the inaccuracy, the washed out faded colors, the tiny fonts, the misspellings, and a few dozen more problems...mostly small things that add up to make HTML trash. Tanki could fix 90% of the problems with almost no coding time, but they just don't care. They are more concerned about shop access, shop sales, bundles, selling passes, etc.

Fix HTML....stop harassing Flash Turn Flash back to complete again and get to work on HTML. If Flash takes up too much time , shut it down now and fix HTML. The main point is FIX HTML.

Sigh...so Tanki

I think Nives was very unhappy with AP and Tanki management when he left. He was a good guy and cared about the players so naturally there was lots of conflict between Tanki and him (Tanki being so very Tanki and all). I'm pretty sure he does not give a rat's patute about the Nives account. He did have at least one other alt account that I know of and if ever plays any more at all, I would guess it would be on that account. Hey, now you could run a tribute account to Nives since you own the account name! Better use Isida and black paint though ?

Why is that? Just shut it down. Can you give me any reason other than this is what the lost and ignorant Tanki dev are doing? Why? Just shut it down...done. The players that are going to stop playing Tanki because HTML is terrible and unplayable will stop playing Tanki and the rest will migrate to HTML...it's simple. Why ruin the last few months of Flash...like I said it's just stupid, but it is exactly the kind of thing one would expect from the misled devs, Tanki, and AP. Remember these are the people that shrunk their game from 130,000 players at peaks to less than 10,000 players today. The same people that lost Tanki-X, a huge Latin following, a large Chinese following and brought toxic Matchmaking, drones, ODs, Tankoins, stars, and augments among other poorly thought out updates into a thriving game community....and killed the community with their foolish ideas. Do they need to degrade Flash on purpose? No. Think for a minute...it's just another stupid Tanki idea.

True, they did. Which is patently STUPID.

Can you lend some insight as to WHY Flash "must be dismantled piece by piece"? You can't. You can't possibly, because there is no reason what-so-ever in any realm other than in the twisted and tainted brains of the Tanki devs. Just shut it down now. Or shut it down in Dec...which ever....but why degrade it and make it harder to use? It isn't going to motivate anyone to switch to HTML, it's just an annoyance made by a sociopathic company that has no clue as to how to handle human beings. Leave Flash alone or shut it down. It is pointless and futile to degrade it on purpose...in fact it is just outright stupid.

Instead of making Flash worse, why not spend development time in trying to make HTML better? ...or is that too complex of an idea for the devs?

Wow, so well said. I couldn't agree more. Tanki devs need to spend time actively trying to make HTML better. And by better I mean feel and function with at least the same features as Flash...at a minimum. If HTML was even close to Flash, they would have no problem getting people to migrate to HTML...why would they? By the fact that they have to use coercion to try to motivate players to switch very plainly shows HTML is still very inferior to Flash. If HTML played well people would use it, but it's still pretty lame (in all respects in my opinion). But instead of trying to fix HTML, the devs spend their time with contests, promotions, Ares, and code to punish the hold-out Flash players. This mission blocking in Flash is as despicable as it is ignorant of any business savvy what-so-ever. If Tanki had any competition they would have been out of business long ago. Even with no competition, they are obviously getting into real trouble as player numbers keep dropping. They had a golden, exclusive product that was well placed in the market and they have turned it into a mediocre game that may be able to squeak by if they can develop a new mobile market soon enough...just a marketing train wreck and ensuing tragedy.

Thanks Alex. It's kinda cool to see what you got for your efforts. It's like I did the missions myself (without having to do the actual grind) and got to see the rewards ? You are right, not great luck with the containers, but then it is just luck. We have all gotten great containers from time to time. Better luck next set of Specials.

Tanki is about to become exactly like Tanki-X ...dead Why in all the god's names would you spend your coding and development time creating crap like this mission thing and the popup timer instead of trying to make your trash HTML more playable?

Do you developers actually think you will convert me to playing HTML by blocking my access to missions in Flash? If you want to get rid of Flash, shut it down today. Now, discontinue Flash and players will either quit the game or go to HTML. Can't you see you are just making people angry with your poorly thought out antics? At least you are making me angry. Stop these abusive, inconsiderate half measures that only make players angry and cause them inconvenience. Just shut down Flash...easy... In fact, I'm basically done with Tanki today because of this moronic crap you keep throwing up in the feeble attempt to convert players to HTML. I would have been fine changing over to HTML Dec 1st, but I don't like the way you are going about this. It's insulting. I'm going to clean up a few things on my alt accounts and that's it for me. This will be my last week playing Tanki. Good work chumps. I didn't think the 20 references I made to the intellectual capabilities of the Tanki devs was inappropriate...just true, but you're the boss ? I guess attacking the devs lack of intelligence constitutes inappropriate language. I think foolish should be OK, don't you? Foolish pretty well cover's it. After all, they probably are smart enough to feed themselves...probably. Although, they may be having to find other means in which to "bring home the bacon" when Tanki does the Tanki-X thing. And foolish doesn't really say they are mentally deficient, just unthinking in a silly and clownish way. Yeah, foolish kinda gets it.

I am so underwhelmed. Ho hum. Not even a sale in the garage. Yawn. Only the burden of double XP...again for the un-teenth time. I am sick of not being able to really play, only on newbie alt accts....especially since there are only a few months left to play on Flash. Could you jerk devs PLEASE stop with the monstrous XP.? This constantly huge XP with disproportionately small battle funds has to be hurting the player count badly. I've seen a few days already where Tanki can't even break 10,000 at peak. How can they be so absolutely blind and uncaring? Don't they get it that players don like all this XP (well, except for Alex and possibly other Legends) If your player numbers go down, you did something the players don't like. If your numbers go up, you did something players like. This is not rocket science...it's not even first grade math...it's just obvious to all but Tanki devs.

OK, fair enough, but....Do we need to be reminded every two minutes and eleven seconds? ...with a pop-up...every day, every login, every pause, every time it takes more than a couple of minutes to load a battle? The obvious answer is NO WE DO NOT! My beef is not the HTML notice, it's the fact that it is on a needless an truly obnoxious timer...and it even has a five second countdown timer to click it off. How crass is that? It is causing coding conflicts with the pause timer that Tanki won't bother to fix because it is flash and flash is bound to start having problems...but they caused the glitch with their timer pop-up! Leave a one click-away notice like any other information notice in Tanki, but get rid of the idiotic and insulting timer and incessant pop-up.

They have to have Freebie players or MM won't have enough of a player pool to create battles without very long wait times. Freebies also provide easy targets for buyers. I kinda doubt that Tanki could survive with no freebie players. So do your part; go out there and get shot. ?

Yeah, it's really too bad since I'm sure Tanki could limp Flash along for quite a long time after Dec 31, but they have drawn a line in the sand. So be it. I just hate this idiotic pop-up...so unnecessary and just a pointed jab-hassle. Another lame thing is their bad coding has impacted the timer on the pause function, but they won't bother to fix their compromised code, ..."Because Flash is bound to have some glitches" ...even though their obnoxious pop-up is causing the glitches. It's sabotaging their own game...dummies. I tried five battles in a row on HTML today. Previously I would play one battle, dislike it, and go back to Flash but I decided to give HTML some time today. It's actually much worse than I had thought. The movement is just terrible. It feels like an old old Nintendo game...nah, not that good. It just feels cheap...and kind of superficial in a way. I think there is going to be a big big percentage drop in player number when Flash is trashed. I would say Tanki will lose a lot of players, but there aren't many players left, so percentage is the only way to compare the devastation. About a month after MM was finally implemented there was an overall drop of around 40% at peak times. When the magic ODs came out there was about a 35% drop off from the normal population at peak times. The missions got harder and longer to complete there was another 30% drop from normal population at peak times. There have been a couple of other times when Tanki has done some update and driven off 25% or 30% of the players at that time. I think Flash's demise will cut at least 30% or more of the player base again. Even now we are just breaking 10,000 players at peak so if the loss of Flash knocks off 30% that is starting to get into critical territory for MM to generate battles without long waits. Already in off hours waiting time are way up and the rank spread is ridiculous. I've been put in battles with Rank4 fighting against Rank17. The one possible saving grace might actually be the buyers. I think there is a much higher concentration of buyers now compared to the percentage of freebie players. I think it's mostly the freebies that get disgusted with the misguided antics of the devs and they just quit where the buyers are more invested (literally) in the game so they tend to hang on. If I am right an there is a much higher concentration of buyers now, the devastation from the loss of Flash will be mitigated. It will be interesting to see what happen, but I'm pretty sure Tanki will be consistently below 10K players at peaks and very likely 7K or 8K players. Unfortunately we players will never really know since Tanki is getting rid of the player count figure on the home page. We will only be able to tell by longer waiting times and bigger rank spread.

My opinion? Someone gave me a quizzical emoticon so maybe I need to be more clear: I think the idea of this popup is STUPID....so I put the "stupid" stamp on it for Tanki....maybe they missed this obvious stamp before they implemented this pointless and yet truly obnoxious popup. I also think this kind of inconsiderate behavior typifies Tanki's regard for their player base and the direction Tanki has been heading for quite some time. Tanki is deteriorating at an accelerating pace and the number of players illuminates this fact. The player numbers are getting so bad that Tanki's new "web site" (it's really a home page) is devoid of the player count that they once proudly displayed. They realize that their numbers are dropping precariously low so they locked the population graph as of July 13th. It is still online but locked into a loop. Players are tired of being mistreated and disappointed in a game that was once dynamic, innovative, unique, and truly fun to play. Now it's just a monotonous grind of the same old thing over and over...16 players, bland homogenized maps, no place for strategy, win/lose doesn't matter just get the stars. The devs have crushed the life out of this game by squeezing for every ruble they can possibly extract from their buyer pool before the game goes down the tubes completely...probably not long after HTML goes away. Unless they can get Tanki converted to a viable mobile game, then maybe the game might stand a chance at a new life.

The flash is dead pop-up notification is causing the game to lock intermittently, not often, but it is happening. It also causes a problem with the pause timer. If prevents the timer from starting a 2 minutes. Many times when you do use the pause, it shows that you will get kicked in two or three seconds, so you must click pause twice to reset the time to two minutes. This can be worked around, but why not just get rid of the damn obnoxious poorly coded (so typical for Tanki) Flash pop-up? Your coders just can't ever get anything right in an initial release and something like this will just get left to keep causing problems. Your idiotic retort will be, "Well, flash is going to have buggy problems as we concentrate on HTML" But the fact is your obnoxious popup is what is causing the problem...it wasn't a problem before you added the pop-up. It's you sabotaging your own game intentionally with the popup and unintentionally with poor codeing for the popup.

The flash is dead pop-up notification is causing the game to lock intermittently, not often, but it is happening. It also causes a problem with the pause timer. If prevents the timer from starting a 2 minutes. Many times when you do use the pause, it shows that you will get kicked in two or three seconds, so you must click pause twice to reset the time to two minutes. This can be worked around, but why not just get rid of the damn obnoxious poorly coded (so typical for Tanki) Flash pop-up? Your coders just can't ever get anything right in an initial release and something like this will just get left to keep causing problems. Your idiotic retort will be, "Well, flash is going to have buggy problems as we concentrate on HTML" But the fact is your obnoxious popup is what is causing the problem...it wasn't a problem before you added the pop-up. It's you sabotaging your own game intentionally with the popup and unintentionally with poor codeing for the popup.