u/grasshopper241

I discovered Subnautica when I picked up the original for $7.50 on Steam last month. Played it through obsessively 4 times. Allowed myself quite a few spoilers in the form of maps and hints.

For Below Zero I just relied on my own hippocampus. It was challenging and frustrating at times, but very satisfying. I just looked at the map after finishing and I missed so much! A whole wreck, multiple zones and several treasure troves.

Some thoughts compared to v1:

- The seatruck is brilliant! It's like a mini cyclops and seamoth in one. Take your mobile base with you, detach the modules somewhere convenient, then swim around freely. Great mix of utility and fun.

- I barely touched my prawn suit this game. Didn't seem as necessary. Super cool that it attaches to the seatruck though so you can take all your vehicles with you at once.

- Two things I couldn't figure out: how to harvest snow stalker fur (only hint I looked up) and where to find spiral plants. I was looking for something red. I just kept finding enough synthetic fiber lying around that I didn't need to make my own.

- The map shape was...unexpected. Spent too long trying to swim in directions I couldn't go, so ran out of patience to explore all the directions I could have gone.

- I didn't care much for the land part. A decent bit of variety in theory, but didn't have the same majestic quality as the water. Got bored of it after the bridge.

- The main story wasn't as exciting as v1, but good enough, and less stressful. Finding another character's base was a huge wow moment though!

Overall an awesome expansion to the game. The new vehicles, recipes and base components were worth it alone. I don't understand why so many were disappointed with it. My expectations were way too low going in.

For those who run ads, how do you choose your spending limits? Do you only spend when you can attribute enough revenue to the ad clicks to pay for the ads? Or do you assume some amount of unattributable revenue as well?

I have a freemium B2C product with very low per-user LTV. The SEO well has dried up and I grow almost exclusively by word of mouth now, which is half the rate it was 5 years ago.

I've had bad luck with Facebook and Reddit ads in the past, returning 10% or less of what I spent. But I recently tried ChatGPT ads and I'm seeing around 60% return so far.

Besides short-term revenue, users frequently try the free product, leave, and come back months or years later to become long-term paying customers. They also tend to tell others about it. All that unattributed benefit makes me think 60% attributable ROI is enough to justify a larger spend. But I don't know if I'm being naive.