The longer the game takes to develop, the more money needed to sustain development. As the publisher/developer releases news and hype, it gives prospective customers an ever increasing expectation that the game will be perfect. Time is an immense factor through these subjects -- because as I said -- if the game is in DEVELOPMENT FOR YEARS and then RELEASES IN IMPERFECT CONDITION (inevitably), it will fail quite quickly upon release.
Take this for example, upon release is when a game makes most profit:
and profit dwindles over time. A game will need to have PERFECT traits to keep people playing. A game will need to be UNREALISTICALLY perfect if development time took years to make while also HYPING their product.
Most likely the prospective buyer will not enjoy the released product -- because the game took too long to develop and it makes no sense to the buyer that they feel unfulfilled with the game they waited forever to play. The longer the wait, the more "doomed" the company is to fail.
A perfect example of a company destined to fail is Cloud Imperium Games -- aka Star Citizen. They've been in development for too long. The game is now unrealistically expected to fulfill every backer's fantasy. Even if CIG releases a good game, they're still going to experience immense backlash, the developers will be stressed FURTHER after release, and Star Citizen will never be perfect.
-> continuing my first point about development and money to sustain development -> a game will release, make a profit, and hopefully continue making profit to create new content and release the content. But if the game fails at keeping promises (which long development time creates unrealistic promises and expectations), the game's revenue will look like the above graph and thus it will become a failure. Not vaporware -- but a failure in the eyes of the publisher/developer and consumer.
Thanks for playing.
-------
I would also like to mention that Grinding Gear Games is a company which defies my theory. They developed their product with minor news / updates over the years. They miraculously released it into the wild with little expectations from consumers.They created a good product, persistently added GREAT content to turn it into an AMAZING product, but unfortunately it doesn't fit the category of an MMORPG -- it's an instanced online ARPG. But GGG is definitely one of the best game developers currently.
You make a few points here. Some I'd agree with, some I don't.
First of all, sustaining development over time doesn't increase in cost. You have a finite number of seats and you pay people to sit in those seats. What MIGHT cost more is MAINTAINING that code base. However, this increased cost is dependent on the quality of code. You could have a team who has created a very efficient framework where changes are limited. However, you might also have a poorly-skilled team of developers who have lots of gotchas in the software which actually make it nightmarish to maintain as you progress.
Most games are in development for years. AAA Games are generally in development for many years. In fact, by the time it actually releases, Cyberpunk 2077 will have been in development for nearly a decade! The biggest difference between something like Star Citizen and something like Cyberpunk 2077 is transparency. We knew exactly when Star Citizen was started and we've been able to track their progress quite closely as they've given us PLENTY of insight into the process to go along with their monthly updates. What have you gotten from Cyberpunk 2077? Not so much as a release date. So we're 5 years in and Cyberpunk 2077 hasn't announced an official release date. Huh, weird, I wonder why that is!
Secondly is scope. Again, Star Citizen has a significant feature list and "proposed" feature list which is easily found through Google or your favorite MMORPG site *ahem*. In fact, I'd be willing to wager that the feature list available for Star Citizen is at least a hundred times larger than what we have for Cyberpunk 2077. Why though? I mean these games are BOTH 5 years into development, but Cyberpunk 2077 OBVIOUSLY doesn't have the same ability to plan as Star Citizen ;P Yeah! That's not the case and we know it.
What's my point? The point is that you're quite right about hype. There is actually a well-known concept of a hype curve that Gartner research published. It's actually pretty indicative of what you'd expect. Something is marketed like hell leading up until release, it sells really well and then falls off and plateaus. The biggest problem with your argument re: CIG is that they aren't waiting to collect your money, they already have it!! So, financially they won't fail. Also, the other interesting aspect of that is that they COULD have failed if they were allowed to have the hype "runneth over", but the hype for SC has been tempered by "haters", who really don't care about the game or to even play it anyway. As a result, you have a group of people who WANT to play the game who will happily accept a game that is less than what you had originally promised. Why? Easy, there are lists of hundreds of features which have "apparently" been "promised". So when the game is actually released, it will ultimately seem like a miracle. Also, I'd predict that this actually does a full reset on the hype cycle for them.
HOWEVER!!!! If Star Citizen was relying primarily on box sales for income, I would tend to agree with you that they'd be fucked. I mean that's the whole reason that Elite: Dangerous chose to release the way they did. They created a very attainable MVP and then shipped their game on a short timeline, but they're still delivering it today (and selling you all the features that you'll get for free in SC). It's, really, a take of two models.
The biggest problem with games is perception, and I think that you show that here. Your perception, like many, is that Star Citizen is taking too long and, therefore, they must be in trouble, even though there is plenty of precedent suggesting that these development timelines aren't unreasonable for the type of game. That being said, that's also usually compounded by the fact that people will often refer back to the 2014 estimated release date, which would have probably been the date, as that's what Elite did, had they not been so successful with crowdfunding. However, it does impact the PERCEPTION, and perception is the exact reason that the vast majority of companies are not open about their development process. Fact is that you don't tell ignorant people things that they don't need to know. Kinda like when my son had appendicitis and the doctor came out and led with "Ok, so it's not good..." Everything was fine, but his appendix had burst and they were going to have to watch for infection. Again, a case where someone is being open with someone who is ignorant on the subject matter and probably doesn't need to know.
Most games are in development for years. AAA Games are generally in development for many years. In fact, by the time it actually releases, Cyberpunk 2077 will have been in development for nearly a decade! The biggest difference between something like Star Citizen and something like Cyberpunk 2077 is transparency. We knew exactly when Star Citizen was started and we've been able to track their progress quite closely as they've given us PLENTY of insight into the process to go along with their monthly updates. What have you gotten from Cyberpunk 2077? Not so much as a release date. So we're 5 years in and Cyberpunk 2077 hasn't announced an official release date. Huh, weird, I wonder why that is!
Cyberpunk 2077 is not nearly decade in developement. Get your facts straight.
Biggest diffrence between Cyberpunk 2077 and Star Citizen is that one is funded by players paying $$$ years before release while other it not.
Most games are in development for years. AAA Games are generally in development for many years. In fact, by the time it actually releases, Cyberpunk 2077 will have been in development for nearly a decade! The biggest difference between something like Star Citizen and something like Cyberpunk 2077 is transparency. We knew exactly when Star Citizen was started and we've been able to track their progress quite closely as they've given us PLENTY of insight into the process to go along with their monthly updates. What have you gotten from Cyberpunk 2077? Not so much as a release date. So we're 5 years in and Cyberpunk 2077 hasn't announced an official release date. Huh, weird, I wonder why that is!
Cyberpunk 2077 is not nearly decade in developement. Get your facts straight.
Biggest diffrence between Cyberpunk 2077 and Star Citizen is that one is funded by players paying $$$ years before release while other it not.
I think you missed the point. I said WHEN it's released Cyberpunk 2077 will be nearly a decade into development. The first rumblings were from 2012 and it is supposed to released somewhere in the 2020 range based on what I understand from what people here have said.
Also, Cyberpunk was used as precedent of timeline and, also, how companies DON'T let you know how things are going. It's specifically intended to show that companies who are relying on box sales for revenue explicitly do NOT want to market the product until its like a year or two out. Actually, it used to be more like 6 months, but now it seems like you do an E3 reveal, an E3 update and then a release. The point is that SC is a bad example because it's anomalous, for reasons you expressed here (players paying for it throughout it's lifecycle). That means that it doesn't matter what it ships. It also means it will, probably, have both good and bad effects on future crowdfunding regardless whether it fails or is successful.
cant lick what you don't have... and that is one messed up looking cartoon, seems you grew older, but not up. Anyway, the games I listed are by far not fails in the least, and disprove you stand fully, also, ALL MMO's have their flaws and issues.
Assuredly I am the only person -- of my age -- who enjoys that cartoon. Yeah, I can see where you're coming from.
To be brutally honest, that looks like the stuff I used to watch in my college days when plastered clean out of my mind, that long since lost it's humor as I sobered up. But since @Nyctelios has given it a lot of praise, I'll give it a look, it might not be the toilet humor your presenting it as.
Why say all that, @CrazKanuk, when, as @Iselin has already mentioned earlier in the thread... The entire thread is attention-seeking claptrap.
I'll give it to the OP, he's stepped up the effort since I last checked in on this troll thread. Still claptrap, but at least he's going out of his way to make it exciting, what with his homoerotic insults and liberal use of visual aids. I'll bump him to a 6/10 for the effort.
Fak! I probably could have saved time by just reading. Sorry @Iselin !!!
That being said, I feel like we need one of these redundant posts on each page so that people don't need to go back and read, right?
Well, the sad thing is you lay out a reasonable argument with supporting examples... But it will likely be responded to with just more trolling and baseless assumptions.
This thread reminds me of the old nariusseldon posts!
Wow! I'm surprised I've accumulated so many followers/haters. Don't forget to smash that Like button and upvote this thread for future debates on MMO politics.
Well.. Definitely kind of snarky of me.. Guilty as charged.. My apologies if it feels like an attack.. I am quite tired of the doomsaying regarding the industry (especially as I work towards getting into it).. Naturally some games will be developed poorly and stumble.. But to torpedo their chance before it even comes into being? Just can't see it that way.. I enjoy a wait-and-see approach..
I've been coming here since the age of 10 years old. Back when the Game List only had 10 titles -- some even vaporware. /snip
----
And let me rephrase that. Dark and Light has more opportunity to succeed than an MMO because it can be played on an e-sports level with 100 players per server. But it won't succeed because as I said: it's backed by a chinese company.
yet your account was created in 2013.... yeah you got lots of street creds.... Pardon me if i dont share your "prophetic vision"... /chuckle
I apologize to the mmorpg.com community for posting my opinion. I hope this thread didn't hurt the future of any up and coming games. I'm sure everything will be O.K.
My personal take.
1. Ashes of Creation - Main dev is the leader of a multi-game community called "The White Order". Roll on the vengeance server on ArcheAge if you would like to get a feel for his leadership style / the kind of person he is. I have a strong opinion on it but I'll let people make their own decisions. "The White Order" also is a declared guild planning to play AoC. Sure there won't be any favoritism there and guilds opposing him won't find themselves receiving harsher treatment from the moderators in-game and on the forums. Not going to be buying this one admittedly because of personal issues but also because of lack of trust toward the development team. Something I consider to be a pretty legitimate reason to opt out. I'll also add I feel like the amount of positive reviews this game has gotten has a lot to do with his zerg guild upvoting the crap out of it.
2. Pantheon Rise of The Fallen - Nobody has ever really sufficiently explained to me why this game will be good other than that it appears to be a return to games that are even grindier than MMOs are today. I'm sure it has it's market but not my cup of tea.
3. Looks fun. Not enough info for any solid decisions. I'd like to try it.
4. Sounds really cool but I'm not going to freak out too hard until I play it. Could be good. Could be bad. I agree it won't meet the expectations of the fanboys however good it is though. We'll wait and see.
5. Has a lot of promising features but a lot of concerning potential problems. The biggest question to me is "Can I have a meaningful impact in hardcore campaigns and still have a life?" If the answer to that question is no, then this isn't the game for me. If it's yes, it could be a ton of fun.
6. I know someone who would defend this game to his dying breath because of his faith in the developers. I'm personally not a big fan of factional PvP and think some of the other upcoming titles look more interesting. May or may not try. Probably will never main this game unless every other game I'm looking at turns out to be an utter disappointment and this one seriously exceeds my expectations.
7. Has some exceptionally cool ideas that may or may not pan out. The graphics look like the game came out about 10 or more years ago. Unfortunately means this game will never be anything more than a niche title with a cult following. May still be fun, will never be very big though.
yet your account was created in 2013.... yeah you got lots of street creds.... Pardon me if i dont share your "prophetic vision"... /chuckle
https://arianne-project.org/ ^ This used to be a featured game on mmorpg.com -- that ended up being vaporware. They promised features such as: your character could start off a child. your character could have a mother and father -- who were other players in the game. death would be permanent.
etc. etc. etc. Vaporware.
They never released screenshots of the game -- just desired features.
Now that was funny.. "I did not say I was confused, I said you are not making any sense"..
Right? Like I followed along, identified the verbs and nouns, understood the way he chained them together to form sentences... That shit just had no bearing on what he was replying to. But that's a common theme with trolls, I guess. /shrug
Worthless, garbage post. Do you think predicting failure makes you smart?
If it turns out you're wrong, will you come back here and apologize to the developers who put thousands of hours of their lives into these projects? You know you won't. But it's so easy to post crap about how people who are trying to make something great for us will fail. And if you're wrong, there's nothing to hold you accountable for your bullshit smear post.
Posts like yours are the antithesis to value. They're a vortex that swallows value and shits out nothing on the other side.
And I view your post to be an angry, sheeple, clueless consumer post.
All games take effort to develop. Most games are destined to fail. You're triggered because I view the majority of those games to be a failure before they release? Man, I'm glad you're not developing for them because you seem like the type of person to physically assault me over an opinion.
Whelp, there's already backlash over Pantheon's exorbitant pledge page. Looking good on my predictions thus far.
And nah, I would never apologize to you -- because you come at me in an aggressive manner. But thanks for exposing your weaknesses.
Comments
You make a few points here. Some I'd agree with, some I don't.
First of all, sustaining development over time doesn't increase in cost. You have a finite number of seats and you pay people to sit in those seats. What MIGHT cost more is MAINTAINING that code base. However, this increased cost is dependent on the quality of code. You could have a team who has created a very efficient framework where changes are limited. However, you might also have a poorly-skilled team of developers who have lots of gotchas in the software which actually make it nightmarish to maintain as you progress.
Most games are in development for years. AAA Games are generally in development for many years. In fact, by the time it actually releases, Cyberpunk 2077 will have been in development for nearly a decade! The biggest difference between something like Star Citizen and something like Cyberpunk 2077 is transparency. We knew exactly when Star Citizen was started and we've been able to track their progress quite closely as they've given us PLENTY of insight into the process to go along with their monthly updates. What have you gotten from Cyberpunk 2077? Not so much as a release date. So we're 5 years in and Cyberpunk 2077 hasn't announced an official release date. Huh, weird, I wonder why that is!
Secondly is scope. Again, Star Citizen has a significant feature list and "proposed" feature list which is easily found through Google or your favorite MMORPG site *ahem*. In fact, I'd be willing to wager that the feature list available for Star Citizen is at least a hundred times larger than what we have for Cyberpunk 2077. Why though? I mean these games are BOTH 5 years into development, but Cyberpunk 2077 OBVIOUSLY doesn't have the same ability to plan as Star Citizen ;P Yeah! That's not the case and we know it.
What's my point? The point is that you're quite right about hype. There is actually a well-known concept of a hype curve that Gartner research published. It's actually pretty indicative of what you'd expect. Something is marketed like hell leading up until release, it sells really well and then falls off and plateaus. The biggest problem with your argument re: CIG is that they aren't waiting to collect your money, they already have it!! So, financially they won't fail. Also, the other interesting aspect of that is that they COULD have failed if they were allowed to have the hype "runneth over", but the hype for SC has been tempered by "haters", who really don't care about the game or to even play it anyway. As a result, you have a group of people who WANT to play the game who will happily accept a game that is less than what you had originally promised. Why? Easy, there are lists of hundreds of features which have "apparently" been "promised". So when the game is actually released, it will ultimately seem like a miracle. Also, I'd predict that this actually does a full reset on the hype cycle for them.
HOWEVER!!!! If Star Citizen was relying primarily on box sales for income, I would tend to agree with you that they'd be fucked. I mean that's the whole reason that Elite: Dangerous chose to release the way they did. They created a very attainable MVP and then shipped their game on a short timeline, but they're still delivering it today (and selling you all the features that you'll get for free in SC). It's, really, a take of two models.
The biggest problem with games is perception, and I think that you show that here. Your perception, like many, is that Star Citizen is taking too long and, therefore, they must be in trouble, even though there is plenty of precedent suggesting that these development timelines aren't unreasonable for the type of game. That being said, that's also usually compounded by the fact that people will often refer back to the 2014 estimated release date, which would have probably been the date, as that's what Elite did, had they not been so successful with crowdfunding. However, it does impact the PERCEPTION, and perception is the exact reason that the vast majority of companies are not open about their development process. Fact is that you don't tell ignorant people things that they don't need to know. Kinda like when my son had appendicitis and the doctor came out and led with "Ok, so it's not good..." Everything was fine, but his appendix had burst and they were going to have to watch for infection. Again, a case where someone is being open with someone who is ignorant on the subject matter and probably doesn't need to know.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
Cyberpunk 2077 is not nearly decade in developement. Get your facts straight.
Biggest diffrence between Cyberpunk 2077 and Star Citizen is that one is funded by players paying $$$ years before release while other it not.
I think you missed the point. I said WHEN it's released Cyberpunk 2077 will be nearly a decade into development. The first rumblings were from 2012 and it is supposed to released somewhere in the 2020 range based on what I understand from what people here have said.
Also, Cyberpunk was used as precedent of timeline and, also, how companies DON'T let you know how things are going. It's specifically intended to show that companies who are relying on box sales for revenue explicitly do NOT want to market the product until its like a year or two out. Actually, it used to be more like 6 months, but now it seems like you do an E3 reveal, an E3 update and then a release. The point is that SC is a bad example because it's anomalous, for reasons you expressed here (players paying for it throughout it's lifecycle). That means that it doesn't matter what it ships. It also means it will, probably, have both good and bad effects on future crowdfunding regardless whether it fails or is successful.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
Fak! I probably could have saved time by just reading. Sorry @Iselin !!!
That being said, I feel like we need one of these redundant posts on each page so that people don't need to go back and read, right?
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
To be brutally honest, that looks like the stuff I used to watch in my college days when plastered clean out of my mind, that long since lost it's humor as I sobered up. But since @Nyctelios has given it a lot of praise, I'll give it a look, it might not be the toilet humor your presenting it as.
Well, the sad thing is you lay out a reasonable argument with supporting examples... But it will likely be responded to with just more trolling and baseless assumptions.
This thread reminds me of the old nariusseldon posts!
http://twitch.tv/woetothevanquished
yet your account was created in 2013.... yeah you got lots of street creds.... Pardon me if i dont share your "prophetic vision"...
/chuckle
My personal take.
1. Ashes of Creation - Main dev is the leader of a multi-game community called "The White Order". Roll on the vengeance server on ArcheAge if you would like to get a feel for his leadership style / the kind of person he is. I have a strong opinion on it but I'll let people make their own decisions. "The White Order" also is a declared guild planning to play AoC. Sure there won't be any favoritism there and guilds opposing him won't find themselves receiving harsher treatment from the moderators in-game and on the forums. Not going to be buying this one admittedly because of personal issues but also because of lack of trust toward the development team. Something I consider to be a pretty legitimate reason to opt out. I'll also add I feel like the amount of positive reviews this game has gotten has a lot to do with his zerg guild upvoting the crap out of it.
2. Pantheon Rise of The Fallen - Nobody has ever really sufficiently explained to me why this game will be good other than that it appears to be a return to games that are even grindier than MMOs are today. I'm sure it has it's market but not my cup of tea.
3. Looks fun. Not enough info for any solid decisions. I'd like to try it.
4. Sounds really cool but I'm not going to freak out too hard until I play it. Could be good. Could be bad. I agree it won't meet the expectations of the fanboys however good it is though. We'll wait and see.
5. Has a lot of promising features but a lot of concerning potential problems. The biggest question to me is "Can I have a meaningful impact in hardcore campaigns and still have a life?" If the answer to that question is no, then this isn't the game for me. If it's yes, it could be a ton of fun.
6. I know someone who would defend this game to his dying breath because of his faith in the developers. I'm personally not a big fan of factional PvP and think some of the other upcoming titles look more interesting. May or may not try. Probably will never main this game unless every other game I'm looking at turns out to be an utter disappointment and this one seriously exceeds my expectations.
7. Has some exceptionally cool ideas that may or may not pan out. The graphics look like the game came out about 10 or more years ago. Unfortunately means this game will never be anything more than a niche title with a cult following. May still be fun, will never be very big though.
https://arianne-project.org/
^ This used to be a featured game on mmorpg.com -- that ended up being vaporware. They promised features such as:
your character could start off a child.
your character could have a mother and father -- who were other players in the game.
death would be permanent.
etc. etc. etc. Vaporware.
They never released screenshots of the game -- just desired features.
/chuckle
I've been here longer than you, kiddo.
http://twitch.tv/woetothevanquished
Can I get some clarification over what you're confused about?
http://twitch.tv/woetothevanquished
I'm not confused. Where did you get that idea? You just aren't making any sense. How was that not clear from my post?
Now that was funny.. "I did not say I was confused, I said you are not making any sense"..
Right? Like I followed along, identified the verbs and nouns, understood the way he chained them together to form sentences... That shit just had no bearing on what he was replying to. But that's a common theme with trolls, I guess. /shrug
And I view your post to be an angry, sheeple, clueless consumer post.
All games take effort to develop. Most games are destined to fail. You're triggered because I view the majority of those games to be a failure before they release? Man, I'm glad you're not developing for them because you seem like the type of person to physically assault me over an opinion.
Whelp, there's already backlash over Pantheon's exorbitant pledge page. Looking good on my predictions thus far.
And nah, I would never apologize to you -- because you come at me in an aggressive manner. But thanks for exposing your weaknesses.
http://twitch.tv/woetothevanquished