Well, the funny part is that some actually talented RL "Chads" exist in this world. Yeah, guys that have a great understanding, logic and imagination even if they haven't worked 20 years in game development. And guys that can most likely do better than "old school" devs that are stuck in the past, or new ones that are directing their every effort in copying exising mechanics that are proved to "work" - aka fool the gamers and get profit. That is, assuming the Chads get the required support/guidance.
I'm not saying there are no con-Chads over there. What I'm saying is that there are a few guys like you and me, who play games, love them and may be able to bring in the required change we're all waiting for. A spark. A breakthrough. The next step. Evolution.
Something new.
But seriously guys. I can fully understand that you want some background/experience as an assurance. But will that be enough ? So far, it looks to me like Kickstarter will eventually end up destroying the trust of gamers and the concept of crowdfunding, Star Citizen being the deciding factor.
I mean, so far, crowdfunding has already turned out to be a money grab for the most part (sure, a few games were successful, but too few). The concept as I see it, has already been tarnished.
Shouldn't Kickstarter be a place where people with awesome ideas can get some initial support ? (instead of a place where people that already have funds would rather risk your money than theirs).
P.S: If any of you would create an MMO, would you need more than 50... or 77 million dollars?
"The big thing is the thing that we didn't do," Roberts told Wired. "Most crowdfunding campaigns engage some people, convince them to become backers, and then the campaign stops. We didn't stop."
I, for one, would focus getting the game done. The profits and further enhancements would come from the success of the first release.
I agree with your first bit. I think that there can be just regular Chad's who have great ideas. Actually, The Repopulation is a great example of that, I think. Uber small team working on something crazy. However, it's all in the presentation. Even the best-laid plans fail. Even the dude at Yogcast (sp?) failed, and they gave him a half million dollars!!!!! If someone had limited experience, I'd like to see very clear, specific data on risks they've identified and how they'll mitigate it, how the money will be spend, etc., etc. If there's thought there and it's coherent then I'll definitely consider it. Otherwise, run another KS when you're further along. I backed The Repop during their second round. Show some results and go back to the well. I'm ok with that.
Now, as far as the second half. There aren't "too few" good games that have gone through Kickstarter. There are almost 100 projects on Steam right now that started as KS Campaigns. Of those, 75% of them have positive reviews from the community. That's probably as good or better than most published games. Since Steam hasn't always been a vessel for KS games, I think this number will increase and we may actually start to be able to get more measurable data on KS campaign successes.
If you looked at KS at the beginning versus KS now, I think you'd see a drastically different quality of project and presentation. Part of that is that people ARE coming to the table with more. They have demos now. Your assumption that these people have money already is ridiculous!!! We're probably talking about developers, artists, designers, working for free to get some sort of demo done so they can actually show people. Shoot, look at Shards Online. They asked for 50K a year ago and they already had the game, basically, done. For these projects, it might be more about marketing than funding the project itself, but don't fool yourself thinking that they don't "need" the money. There comes a time when developing a game costs more than just your time. There are actual, real, expenses involved. So they may not need 50 million, but 50K is awesome, and they also get some PR, and why not?
As for the 50-75 million budget. SWTOR cost 300 million. SC has 250 people working on the game right now. SC is ALSO multiple games in one. If it was about generating a space flight sim, then they probably wouldn't need all that money. As it stands right now, their monthly burn is probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2-2.5 million dollars, for salaries alone (for developers), not sure whether the entire CIG is included in that 250 number or not. In addition, you've got costs associated with setting up an office, furnishing it, paying your lease, utilities. Sooooooooo, when a game gets to this scale, yes, it's difficult to get away with a budget under 50 million. Feel free to ask Curt Schilling how much it costs to make an MMORPG. Even a cookie-cutter one at that.
You could literally stream burning all the kickstarter money live and theirs nothing the pledges could do about it, aside from let the Secret Service know you're destroying government property
Originally posted by Thebeasttt You could literally stream burning all the kickstarter money live and theirs nothing the pledges could do about it, aside from let the Secret Service know you're destroying government property
Completely inaccurate. There's already been lawsuits, soooooooo, yeah, you're wrong.
However, you could set up a Kickstarter to raise money to burn during a live stream and I'm sure people would back it.
Originally posted by Thebeasttt You could literally stream burning all the kickstarter money live and theirs nothing the pledges could do about it, aside from let the Secret Service know you're destroying government property
Completely inaccurate. There's already been lawsuits, soooooooo, yeah, you're wrong.
And the result was... ? Yeah, thought so.
Meh, Might kinda be like someone reporting that 0% of video games funded through Kickstarter were completed...... as of June 2009. As far as I know, the lawsuit I'm talking about was filed less than a year ago, so it's entirely possible it hasn't even gone to court yet.
Originally posted by Thebeasttt You could literally stream burning all the kickstarter money live and theirs nothing the pledges could do about it, aside from let the Secret Service know you're destroying government property
Completely inaccurate. There's already been lawsuits, soooooooo, yeah, you're wrong.
However, you could set up a Kickstarter to raise money to burn during a live stream and I'm sure people would back it.
My thought exactly when i read the post.
Give me your money and ill burn it live KS would be backed
But that aside, yes both sides are learning, those who post projects as well those who back them. And thats a good thing.
Originally posted by Thebeasttt You could literally stream burning all the kickstarter money live and theirs nothing the pledges could do about it, aside from let the Secret Service know you're destroying government property
Completely inaccurate. There's already been lawsuits, soooooooo, yeah, you're wrong.
And the result was... ? Yeah, thought so.
Meh, Might kinda be like someone reporting that 0% of video games funded through Kickstarter were completed...... as of June 2009. As far as I know, the lawsuit I'm talking about was filed less than a year ago, so it's entirely possible it hasn't even gone to court yet.
Well there was a case where the lawsuit forced the KS project leader to go into bankruptcy.
That was a physical product though that he promised to deliver, but couldn't. (plus the KS project owner went on KS without making a company for it, which is a huge rookie mistake)
One of the backers was a lawyer who basically sued him because "It just ticked him off".
Originally posted by Thebeasttt You could literally stream burning all the kickstarter money live and theirs nothing the pledges could do about it, aside from let the Secret Service know you're destroying government property
Completely inaccurate. There's already been lawsuits, soooooooo, yeah, you're wrong.
And the result was... ? Yeah, thought so.
Meh, Might kinda be like someone reporting that 0% of video games funded through Kickstarter were completed...... as of June 2009. As far as I know, the lawsuit I'm talking about was filed less than a year ago, so it's entirely possible it hasn't even gone to court yet.
Well there was a case where the lawsuit forced the KS project leader to go into bankruptcy.
That was a physical product though that he promised to deliver, but couldn't. (plus the KS project owner went on KS without making a company for it, which is a huge rookie mistake)
One of the backers was a lawyer who basically sued him because "It just ticked him off".
"On November 28, Quest admitted defeat. There were too many internal conflicts and engineering problems to bring Hanfree to life. Quest notified all of the backers, Singh included, that they would not be receiving the iPad stand, and their money would be returned to them.
Singh wasn't satisfied. He sued Quest and Cespedes, although the suit against Cespedes was eventually dropped.
"Seth just stalled, and stalled, and stalled," Singh explained to Inc. "For me, this is why I became a lawyer. I guess I'm more of an idealist than anything else. It just ticked me off."
The lawsuit made Quest bankrupt. He spent last year in Brooklyn, dealing with lawsuit-induced anxiety and trying to find part-time work, which he says was difficult given his tainted reputation from Hanfree. Now he's in Costa Rica figuring out what to do next.
"When you fail on Kickstarter, it's a very public failure," Quest tells Inc. "It definitely derailed my career substantially. Your backers can give you massive support, but they can also tear you down if you fail."
Kickstarter, of course, took no hit. It's technically not to blame if a product fails to deliver or if someone isn't qualified to create a product.
For Quest, it was a very tough lesson to learn. But Singh isn't sympathetic.
"I'm convinced this was more stupidity than it was fraud," Singh says. "He just didn't think this through."
So, even if he got the money back the lawyer still sued author. And when he lost he claims "it was just for the kicks"
As for the 50-75 million budget. SWTOR cost 300 million. SC has 250 people working on the game right now. SC is ALSO multiple games in one. If it was about generating a space flight sim, then they probably wouldn't need all that money. As it stands right now, their monthly burn is probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2-2.5 million dollars, for salaries alone (for developers), not sure whether the entire CIG is included in that 250 number or not. In addition, you've got costs associated with setting up an office, furnishing it, paying your lease, utilities. Sooooooooo, when a game gets to this scale, yes, it's difficult to get away with a budget under 50 million. Feel free to ask Curt Schilling how much it costs to make an MMORPG. Even a cookie-cutter one at that.
Come on... You're not really comparing this to arguably of the biggest failures in the industry right ?
I call SWTOR a failure because:
- It had 200-300 million $ invested in it and did not deliver in the end. Seriously, no MMO should cost that much unless it's something REALLY innovative (and it's not). All in all, it's the voice acting and marketing which were a considerable part of the costs. People loved the story and perhaps the combat.. but that's pretty much it. And heck those PS3-like graphics... seriously?
- Went free to play - There's no reason to even start debating here.
What is really shocking is that the majority of people have no freaking idea on what the real costs are pretty much and encourage this phenomenon.
"Yeah sure... it's an MMO and it costs trillions to produce!" Keep encouraging that and see where you'll end.
As for the 50-75 million budget. SWTOR cost 300 million. SC has 250 people working on the game right now. SC is ALSO multiple games in one. If it was about generating a space flight sim, then they probably wouldn't need all that money. As it stands right now, their monthly burn is probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2-2.5 million dollars, for salaries alone (for developers), not sure whether the entire CIG is included in that 250 number or not. In addition, you've got costs associated with setting up an office, furnishing it, paying your lease, utilities. Sooooooooo, when a game gets to this scale, yes, it's difficult to get away with a budget under 50 million. Feel free to ask Curt Schilling how much it costs to make an MMORPG. Even a cookie-cutter one at that.
Come on... You're not really comparing this to arguably of the biggest failures in the industry right ?
I call SWTOR a failure because:
- It had 200-300 million $ invested in it and did not deliver in the end. Seriously, no MMO should cost that much unless it's something REALLY innovative (and it's not). All in all, it's the voice acting and marketing which were a considerable part of the costs. People loved the story and perhaps the combat.. but that's pretty much it. And heck those PS3-like graphics... seriously?
- Went free to play - There's no reason to even start debating here.
What is really shocking is that the majority of people have no freaking idea on what the real costs are pretty much and encourage this phenomenon.
"Yeah sure... it's an MMO and it costs trillions to produce!" Keep encouraging that and see where you'll end.
I still giggle a little that like 5 years later, SWTOR still doing well today, and people are still calling it a failure, but sure.
As for the "real" cost of developing a AAA MMORPG, please feel free to toss out some references. WoW cost like 60 million to make back in the late 90s 2000s. Possibly the cheapest I can think of is Allods online, which cost 10-15 million and it was developed in Russia where people get paid with bread and Vodka. So please enlighten me. Please note, you should probably try to find something in America for contextual reasons.
Originally posted by Thebeasttt You could literally stream burning all the kickstarter money live and theirs nothing the pledges could do about it, aside from let the Secret Service know you're destroying government property
Completely inaccurate. There's already been lawsuits, soooooooo, yeah, you're wrong.
And the result was... ? Yeah, thought so.
Meh, Might kinda be like someone reporting that 0% of video games funded through Kickstarter were completed...... as of June 2009. As far as I know, the lawsuit I'm talking about was filed less than a year ago, so it's entirely possible it hasn't even gone to court yet.
Well there was a case where the lawsuit forced the KS project leader to go into bankruptcy.
That was a physical product though that he promised to deliver, but couldn't. (plus the KS project owner went on KS without making a company for it, which is a huge rookie mistake)
One of the backers was a lawyer who basically sued him because "It just ticked him off".
"On November 28, Quest admitted defeat. There were too many internal conflicts and engineering problems to bring Hanfree to life. Quest notified all of the backers, Singh included, that they would not be receiving the iPad stand, and their money would be returned to them.
Singh wasn't satisfied. He sued Quest and Cespedes, although the suit against Cespedes was eventually dropped.
"Seth just stalled, and stalled, and stalled," Singh explained to Inc. "For me, this is why I became a lawyer. I guess I'm more of an idealist than anything else. It just ticked me off."
The lawsuit made Quest bankrupt. He spent last year in Brooklyn, dealing with lawsuit-induced anxiety and trying to find part-time work, which he says was difficult given his tainted reputation from Hanfree. Now he's in Costa Rica figuring out what to do next.
"When you fail on Kickstarter, it's a very public failure," Quest tells Inc. "It definitely derailed my career substantially. Your backers can give you massive support, but they can also tear you down if you fail."
Kickstarter, of course, took no hit. It's technically not to blame if a product fails to deliver or if someone isn't qualified to create a product.
For Quest, it was a very tough lesson to learn. But Singh isn't sympathetic.
"I'm convinced this was more stupidity than it was fraud," Singh says. "He just didn't think this through."
So, even if he got the money back the lawyer still sued author. And when he lost he claims "it was just for the kicks"
Says more about lawyers than anything else.
I read some of the comments on the article and one claimed that the story is incomplete and thus misleading. Allegedly Quest never paid out the promised refunds and the bankrupty was actually caused by a number of other lawsuits the guy was facing for unpaid credit card bills. Frankly, this version makes more sense to me than what the article claimed.
Originally posted by Thebeasttt You could literally stream burning all the kickstarter money live and theirs nothing the pledges could do about it, aside from let the Secret Service know you're destroying government property
Completely inaccurate. There's already been lawsuits, soooooooo, yeah, you're wrong.
And the result was... ? Yeah, thought so.
Meh, Might kinda be like someone reporting that 0% of video games funded through Kickstarter were completed...... as of June 2009. As far as I know, the lawsuit I'm talking about was filed less than a year ago, so it's entirely possible it hasn't even gone to court yet.
Well there was a case where the lawsuit forced the KS project leader to go into bankruptcy.
That was a physical product though that he promised to deliver, but couldn't. (plus the KS project owner went on KS without making a company for it, which is a huge rookie mistake)
One of the backers was a lawyer who basically sued him because "It just ticked him off".
"On November 28, Quest admitted defeat. There were too many internal conflicts and engineering problems to bring Hanfree to life. Quest notified all of the backers, Singh included, that they would not be receiving the iPad stand, and their money would be returned to them.
Singh wasn't satisfied. He sued Quest and Cespedes, although the suit against Cespedes was eventually dropped.
"Seth just stalled, and stalled, and stalled," Singh explained to Inc. "For me, this is why I became a lawyer. I guess I'm more of an idealist than anything else. It just ticked me off."
The lawsuit made Quest bankrupt. He spent last year in Brooklyn, dealing with lawsuit-induced anxiety and trying to find part-time work, which he says was difficult given his tainted reputation from Hanfree. Now he's in Costa Rica figuring out what to do next.
"When you fail on Kickstarter, it's a very public failure," Quest tells Inc. "It definitely derailed my career substantially. Your backers can give you massive support, but they can also tear you down if you fail."
Kickstarter, of course, took no hit. It's technically not to blame if a product fails to deliver or if someone isn't qualified to create a product.
For Quest, it was a very tough lesson to learn. But Singh isn't sympathetic.
"I'm convinced this was more stupidity than it was fraud," Singh says. "He just didn't think this through."
So, even if he got the money back the lawyer still sued author. And when he lost he claims "it was just for the kicks"
Says more about lawyers than anything else.
I read some of the comments on the article and one claimed that the story is incomplete and thus misleading. Allegedly Quest never paid out the promised refunds and the bankrupty was actually caused by a number of other lawsuits the guy was facing for unpaid credit card bills. Frankly, this version makes more sense to me than what the article claimed.
Aside from all that, this is why God created the LLC.
If people sue you, they are limited by the funds in the company, beyond that, they do not get a piece of your personal worth (thus, "Limited Liability").
And they only cost a few hundred dollars to set up in most US states.
Originally posted by Thebeasttt You could literally stream burning all the kickstarter money live and theirs nothing the pledges could do about it, aside from let the Secret Service know you're destroying government property
Completely inaccurate. There's already been lawsuits, soooooooo, yeah, you're wrong.
And the result was... ? Yeah, thought so.
Meh, Might kinda be like someone reporting that 0% of video games funded through Kickstarter were completed...... as of June 2009. As far as I know, the lawsuit I'm talking about was filed less than a year ago, so it's entirely possible it hasn't even gone to court yet.
Well there was a case where the lawsuit forced the KS project leader to go into bankruptcy.
That was a physical product though that he promised to deliver, but couldn't. (plus the KS project owner went on KS without making a company for it, which is a huge rookie mistake)
One of the backers was a lawyer who basically sued him because "It just ticked him off".
"On November 28, Quest admitted defeat. There were too many internal conflicts and engineering problems to bring Hanfree to life. Quest notified all of the backers, Singh included, that they would not be receiving the iPad stand, and their money would be returned to them.
Singh wasn't satisfied. He sued Quest and Cespedes, although the suit against Cespedes was eventually dropped.
"Seth just stalled, and stalled, and stalled," Singh explained to Inc. "For me, this is why I became a lawyer. I guess I'm more of an idealist than anything else. It just ticked me off."
The lawsuit made Quest bankrupt. He spent last year in Brooklyn, dealing with lawsuit-induced anxiety and trying to find part-time work, which he says was difficult given his tainted reputation from Hanfree. Now he's in Costa Rica figuring out what to do next.
"When you fail on Kickstarter, it's a very public failure," Quest tells Inc. "It definitely derailed my career substantially. Your backers can give you massive support, but they can also tear you down if you fail."
Kickstarter, of course, took no hit. It's technically not to blame if a product fails to deliver or if someone isn't qualified to create a product.
For Quest, it was a very tough lesson to learn. But Singh isn't sympathetic.
"I'm convinced this was more stupidity than it was fraud," Singh says. "He just didn't think this through."
So, even if he got the money back the lawyer still sued author. And when he lost he claims "it was just for the kicks"
Says more about lawyers than anything else.
I read some of the comments on the article and one claimed that the story is incomplete and thus misleading. Allegedly Quest never paid out the promised refunds and the bankrupty was actually caused by a number of other lawsuits the guy was facing for unpaid credit card bills. Frankly, this version makes more sense to me than what the article claimed.
Aside from all that, this is why God created the LLC.
If people sue you, they are limited by the funds in the company, beyond that, they do not get a piece of your personal worth (thus, "Limited Liability").
And they only cost a few hundred dollars to set up in most US states.
So the originator of the KS was a moron.
Yeah, that's what I take away from it: You have to be kinda clumsy to not get away with scamming on KS.
Even more so for MMOs and other digital products where it's even much muddier and you can't always clearly define if something was shipped or not and if failure or very long delays were intentional or not.
As for the 50-75 million budget. SWTOR cost 300 million. SC has 250 people working on the game right now. SC is ALSO multiple games in one. If it was about generating a space flight sim, then they probably wouldn't need all that money. As it stands right now, their monthly burn is probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2-2.5 million dollars, for salaries alone (for developers), not sure whether the entire CIG is included in that 250 number or not. In addition, you've got costs associated with setting up an office, furnishing it, paying your lease, utilities. Sooooooooo, when a game gets to this scale, yes, it's difficult to get away with a budget under 50 million. Feel free to ask Curt Schilling how much it costs to make an MMORPG. Even a cookie-cutter one at that.
Come on... You're not really comparing this to arguably of the biggest failures in the industry right ?
I call SWTOR a failure because:
- It had 200-300 million $ invested in it and did not deliver in the end. Seriously, no MMO should cost that much unless it's something REALLY innovative (and it's not). All in all, it's the voice acting and marketing which were a considerable part of the costs. People loved the story and perhaps the combat.. but that's pretty much it. And heck those PS3-like graphics... seriously?
- Went free to play - There's no reason to even start debating here.
What is really shocking is that the majority of people have no freaking idea on what the real costs are pretty much and encourage this phenomenon.
"Yeah sure... it's an MMO and it costs trillions to produce!" Keep encouraging that and see where you'll end.
I still giggle a little that like 5 years later, SWTOR still doing well today, and people are still calling it a failure, but sure.
It's been about 3 years, and nobody in their right mind would say SWTOR is doing well.
You don't shut down 2 companies and fire 80% of the staff of the third company, close 75% of your servers down, and restructure your entire payment scheme if you're "doing well".
It was the most expensive MMO ever made, with the biggest IP around, and it didn't even last a month before imploding.
With the entire company restructured it's making enough money to slowly earn back its investment, but it's far from a success story.
It's been about 3 years, and nobody in their right mind would say SWTOR is doing well.
You don't shut down 2 companies and fire 80% of the staff of the third company, close 75% of your servers down, and restructure your entire payment scheme if you're "doing well".
It was the most expensive MMO ever made, with the biggest IP around, and it didn't even last a month before imploding.
With the entire company restructured it's making enough money to slowly earn back its investment, but it's far from a success story.
Pretty sure they announced that it had recouped its money ~6 months after launch (I ran numbers estimated ~2 months after launch and used a conservative player retention value, and my numbers put them at about ~6 months to break even too.)
Certainly they didn't have enough income to maintain their full launch team, so it wasn't a resounding success, but it's been profitable since the first year.
Sure, this doesn't mean you can't argue against it "doing well" (which is a fairly vague phrase), but big launch teams which are let go isn't unheard of (Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, Red Dead Redemption, etc) even with all of these games being pretty darn successful. With a huge MMORPG team that's even more true.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Originally posted by Thebeasttt You could literally stream burning all the kickstarter money live and theirs nothing the pledges could do about it, aside from let the Secret Service know you're destroying government property
Completely inaccurate. There's already been lawsuits, soooooooo, yeah, you're wrong.
And the result was... ? Yeah, thought so.
Meh, Might kinda be like someone reporting that 0% of video games funded through Kickstarter were completed...... as of June 2009. As far as I know, the lawsuit I'm talking about was filed less than a year ago, so it's entirely possible it hasn't even gone to court yet.
Well there was a case where the lawsuit forced the KS project leader to go into bankruptcy.
That was a physical product though that he promised to deliver, but couldn't. (plus the KS project owner went on KS without making a company for it, which is a huge rookie mistake)
One of the backers was a lawyer who basically sued him because "It just ticked him off".
"On November 28, Quest admitted defeat. There were too many internal conflicts and engineering problems to bring Hanfree to life. Quest notified all of the backers, Singh included, that they would not be receiving the iPad stand, and their money would be returned to them.
Singh wasn't satisfied. He sued Quest and Cespedes, although the suit against Cespedes was eventually dropped.
"Seth just stalled, and stalled, and stalled," Singh explained to Inc. "For me, this is why I became a lawyer. I guess I'm more of an idealist than anything else. It just ticked me off."
The lawsuit made Quest bankrupt. He spent last year in Brooklyn, dealing with lawsuit-induced anxiety and trying to find part-time work, which he says was difficult given his tainted reputation from Hanfree. Now he's in Costa Rica figuring out what to do next.
"When you fail on Kickstarter, it's a very public failure," Quest tells Inc. "It definitely derailed my career substantially. Your backers can give you massive support, but they can also tear you down if you fail."
Kickstarter, of course, took no hit. It's technically not to blame if a product fails to deliver or if someone isn't qualified to create a product.
For Quest, it was a very tough lesson to learn. But Singh isn't sympathetic.
"I'm convinced this was more stupidity than it was fraud," Singh says. "He just didn't think this through."
So, even if he got the money back the lawyer still sued author. And when he lost he claims "it was just for the kicks"
Says more about lawyers than anything else.
I read some of the comments on the article and one claimed that the story is incomplete and thus misleading. Allegedly Quest never paid out the promised refunds and the bankrupty was actually caused by a number of other lawsuits the guy was facing for unpaid credit card bills. Frankly, this version makes more sense to me than what the article claimed.
And maybe he lost because he was refunding money and couldnt afford a lawyer and was driven to bancrupcy because the other lawyer saw good opportunity to kick someone.
It's been about 3 years, and nobody in their right mind would say SWTOR is doing well.
You don't shut down 2 companies and fire 80% of the staff of the third company, close 75% of your servers down, and restructure your entire payment scheme if you're "doing well".
It was the most expensive MMO ever made, with the biggest IP around, and it didn't even last a month before imploding.
With the entire company restructured it's making enough money to slowly earn back its investment, but it's far from a success story.
Pretty sure they announced that it had recouped its money ~6 months after launch (I ran numbers estimated ~2 months after launch and used a conservative player retention value, and my numbers put them at about ~6 months to break even too.)
Certainly they didn't have enough income to maintain their full launch team, so it wasn't a resounding success, but it's been profitable since the first year.
Sure, this doesn't mean you can't argue against it "doing well" (which is a fairly vague phrase), but big launch teams which are let go isn't unheard of (Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, Red Dead Redemption, etc) even with all of these games being pretty darn successful. With a huge MMORPG team that's even more true.
Nope, they never ever said any offcial numbers on SWTOR, and any projection showed its deep in the red.
but thats all water under the bridge now, they clumped SWTOR with FIFA in world cup year, thats more telling than anything else.
Originally posted by Thebeasttt You could literally stream burning all the kickstarter money live and theirs nothing the pledges could do about it, aside from let the Secret Service know you're destroying government property
Completely inaccurate. There's already been lawsuits, soooooooo, yeah, you're wrong.
And the result was... ? Yeah, thought so.
Meh, Might kinda be like someone reporting that 0% of video games funded through Kickstarter were completed...... as of June 2009. As far as I know, the lawsuit I'm talking about was filed less than a year ago, so it's entirely possible it hasn't even gone to court yet.
Well there was a case where the lawsuit forced the KS project leader to go into bankruptcy.
That was a physical product though that he promised to deliver, but couldn't. (plus the KS project owner went on KS without making a company for it, which is a huge rookie mistake)
One of the backers was a lawyer who basically sued him because "It just ticked him off".
"On November 28, Quest admitted defeat. There were too many internal conflicts and engineering problems to bring Hanfree to life. Quest notified all of the backers, Singh included, that they would not be receiving the iPad stand, and their money would be returned to them.
Singh wasn't satisfied. He sued Quest and Cespedes, although the suit against Cespedes was eventually dropped.
"Seth just stalled, and stalled, and stalled," Singh explained to Inc. "For me, this is why I became a lawyer. I guess I'm more of an idealist than anything else. It just ticked me off."
The lawsuit made Quest bankrupt. He spent last year in Brooklyn, dealing with lawsuit-induced anxiety and trying to find part-time work, which he says was difficult given his tainted reputation from Hanfree. Now he's in Costa Rica figuring out what to do next.
"When you fail on Kickstarter, it's a very public failure," Quest tells Inc. "It definitely derailed my career substantially. Your backers can give you massive support, but they can also tear you down if you fail."
Kickstarter, of course, took no hit. It's technically not to blame if a product fails to deliver or if someone isn't qualified to create a product.
For Quest, it was a very tough lesson to learn. But Singh isn't sympathetic.
"I'm convinced this was more stupidity than it was fraud," Singh says. "He just didn't think this through."
So, even if he got the money back the lawyer still sued author. And when he lost he claims "it was just for the kicks"
Says more about lawyers than anything else.
I read some of the comments on the article and one claimed that the story is incomplete and thus misleading. Allegedly Quest never paid out the promised refunds and the bankrupty was actually caused by a number of other lawsuits the guy was facing for unpaid credit card bills. Frankly, this version makes more sense to me than what the article claimed.
Aside from all that, this is why God created the LLC.
If people sue you, they are limited by the funds in the company, beyond that, they do not get a piece of your personal worth (thus, "Limited Liability").
And they only cost a few hundred dollars to set up in most US states.
So the originator of the KS was a moron.
Yeah, that's what I take away from it: You have to be kinda clumsy to not get away with scamming on KS.
Even more so for MMOs and other digital products where it's even much muddier and you can't always clearly define if something was shipped or not and if failure or very long delays were intentional or not.
Same as RL, but in RL it happens much more often.
If he wanted to scam he would do what he did. You can theorize what happened till tomorrow, the only fact is that lawyer drove him to bancrupcy and im pretty sure most of them got nothing.
Nope, they never ever said any offcial numbers on SWTOR, and any projection showed its deep in the red.
but thats all water under the bridge now, they clumped SWTOR with FIFA in world cup year, thats more telling than anything else.
Nah, my projection showed it would definitely have made the money back ~6 months after release with the box sales and the subscription numbers they posted for the first few months. I forget where I thought I saw them confirm it though, maybe I was wrong on that part.
The only things I didn't account for was box sale retailer cut (I couldn't find exact margins apart from "they're narrow",) and the ongoing burn for keeping the live team during those 6 months. We don't have any data on ongoing burn, but estimates like $139 mil revenue in 2013 (src) would make it pretty hard to not be profitable unless you're running an absolutely gigantic team still (which they wouldn't be, since they had layoffs in 2012 and I think some more in 2013.) They're on the typical slow decline of most games ($106 mil in 2014), but they'd have to really be doing something wrong not to be profitable.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Nope, they never ever said any offcial numbers on SWTOR, and any projection showed its deep in the red.
but thats all water under the bridge now, they clumped SWTOR with FIFA in world cup year, thats more telling than anything else.
Nah, my projection showed it would definitely have made the money back ~6 months after release with the box sales and the subscription numbers they posted for the first few months. I forget where I thought I saw them confirm it though, maybe I was wrong on that part.
The only things I didn't account for was box sale retailer cut (I couldn't find exact margins apart from "they're narrow",) and the ongoing burn for keeping the live team during those 6 months. We don't have any data on ongoing burn, but estimates like $139 mil revenue in 2013 (src) would make it pretty hard to not be profitable unless you're running an absolutely gigantic team still (which they wouldn't be, since they had layoffs in 2012 and I think some more in 2013.) They're on the typical slow decline of most games ($106 mil in 2014), but they'd have to really be doing something wrong not to be profitable.
They never did give any sub numbers. the "best2 they did is 1,7m accounts with some number over half actually being subscribers. But numbers were falling so fast that at 3 months mark there were only handful of non deserted servers and even those werent all that healthy with fast fallign trend. they had to do 2 rounds of server merges and close oceanic serevrs that leaves them at 17 servers out of initial 216 servers. That all happened before 1 year mark. they also had 2 eounds of layoffs of CORE team before 1 year mark.
And those estimated numbers are as good as any other internet numbers, they estimated LOTRO made over 100m, but LOTRO already had small team and is in deep shit, they even cut raids because of lack of devs (they had to cut something and since raids are just a black hole on dev resources, never returning what is invested it was easy choice)
They never did give any sub numbers. the "best2 they did is 1,7m accounts with some number over half actually being subscribers. But numbers were falling so fast that at 3 months mark there were only handful of non deserted servers and even those werent all that healthy with fast fallign trend. they had to do 2 rounds of server merges and close oceanic serevrs that leaves them at 17 servers out of initial 216 servers. That all happened before 1 year mark. they also had 2 eounds of layoffs of CORE team before 1 year mark.
And those estimated numbers are as good as any other internet numbers, they estimated LOTRO made over 100m, but LOTRO already had small team and is in deep shit, they even cut raids because of lack of devs (they had to cut something and since raids are just a black hole on dev resources, never returning what is invested it was easy choice)
They gave quite a few reports of sub numbers and sales. Tons of reference links from the wiki (more than typical games.) And I think the one that validated the numbers I ran the most was this one calling out that they only needed 500k to remain "substantially profitable" (for context, $90 million per year is 500k subscriptions at $15/mo, and their revenue was $106 mil in 2014) while pointing out they had only recently slipped below 1 million subscribers (which matched the numbers I ran, which included a harsher-than-normal player drop per month, and assumed that not a single additional player purchased the game. It was a very conservative, brutal model.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
As for the 50-75 million budget. SWTOR cost 300 million. SC has 250 people working on the game right now. SC is ALSO multiple games in one. If it was about generating a space flight sim, then they probably wouldn't need all that money. As it stands right now, their monthly burn is probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2-2.5 million dollars, for salaries alone (for developers), not sure whether the entire CIG is included in that 250 number or not. In addition, you've got costs associated with setting up an office, furnishing it, paying your lease, utilities. Sooooooooo, when a game gets to this scale, yes, it's difficult to get away with a budget under 50 million. Feel free to ask Curt Schilling how much it costs to make an MMORPG. Even a cookie-cutter one at that.
Come on... You're not really comparing this to arguably of the biggest failures in the industry right ?
I call SWTOR a failure because:
- It had 200-300 million $ invested in it and did not deliver in the end. Seriously, no MMO should cost that much unless it's something REALLY innovative (and it's not). All in all, it's the voice acting and marketing which were a considerable part of the costs. People loved the story and perhaps the combat.. but that's pretty much it. And heck those PS3-like graphics... seriously?
- Went free to play - There's no reason to even start debating here.
What is really shocking is that the majority of people have no freaking idea on what the real costs are pretty much and encourage this phenomenon.
"Yeah sure... it's an MMO and it costs trillions to produce!" Keep encouraging that and see where you'll end.
I still giggle a little that like 5 years later, SWTOR still doing well today, and people are still calling it a failure, but sure.
As for the "real" cost of developing a AAA MMORPG, please feel free to toss out some references. WoW cost like 60 million to make back in the late 90s 2000s. Possibly the cheapest I can think of is Allods online, which cost 10-15 million and it was developed in Russia where people get paid with bread and Vodka. So please enlighten me. Please note, you should probably try to find something in America for contextual reasons.
No MMO has gone F2P out of generosity Even if we assume that it's "doing well" as you claim, it's nowhere on the top list of choices.
As much as I hate to admit it, the only old MMO that is really doing well is WoW. And that's that.
Other remarks:
- in Russia where people get paid with bread and Vodka - That's a bit mean. It's like saying people in Canada are paid with blankets and hot water. See my point?
- Please note, you should probably try to find something in America for contextual reasons - Why should I choose the U.S? Do you think that the best game devs can only be found there?
Not really.
While I won't deny that America has it's fair share of talents, I can safely state that you can find those in Europe also. The advantage is that you can find the same or better talented people there, at half the price. So developing anything in the US is more expensive not because it has talent that you won't be able to find anywhere else, but it's because they have really high living standards.
They also take advantage of their monopoly. And while they respect their U.S. customers, they sure don't do the same for the other regions.
CD Project Red (Polish developer) is rising up to the challenge, even if it's not an MMO dev. I really hope they will be able to set a new landmark in terms of gaming standards.
I honestly hope we'll see more development in EU for the MMO market. I'm tired of having to rely on U.S. devs that spit on anything else that's outside their fairy land while wasting tens of millions of dollars and claiming that "it's as it should be".
They never did give any sub numbers. the "best2 they did is 1,7m accounts with some number over half actually being subscribers. But numbers were falling so fast that at 3 months mark there were only handful of non deserted servers and even those werent all that healthy with fast fallign trend. they had to do 2 rounds of server merges and close oceanic serevrs that leaves them at 17 servers out of initial 216 servers. That all happened before 1 year mark. they also had 2 eounds of layoffs of CORE team before 1 year mark.
And those estimated numbers are as good as any other internet numbers, they estimated LOTRO made over 100m, but LOTRO already had small team and is in deep shit, they even cut raids because of lack of devs (they had to cut something and since raids are just a black hole on dev resources, never returning what is invested it was easy choice)
They gave quite a few reports of sub numbers and sales. Tons of reference links from the wiki (more than typical games.) And I think the one that validated the numbers I ran the most was this one calling out that they only needed 500k to remain "substantially profitable" (for context, $90 million per year is 500k subscriptions at $15/mo, and their revenue was $106 mil in 2014) while pointing out they had only recently slipped below 1 million subscribers (which matched the numbers I ran, which included a harsher-than-normal player drop per month, and assumed that not a single additional player purchased the game. It was a very conservative, brutal model.)
Nope, only official numbers are 1,7 million sld at launch, of which "somewhat more than half are subs", 1,3 million comes from where they made a "return month" and gave everyone free month of play right before quarterly report. Yes, they gave free month to everyone in march 2012.
That article is wrong, 1m was needed for "substantially profitable" and 500k was needed for breaking even. All LONG TERM subs, so it has required some passage of years, id say 3-5 years. Next official nuber was from september 2012 where "subs were between 500k-1m", then next was "we dont want to discuss subs" and next was F2P annoucement.
Thats article is from JULY 2012. they didnt "slip under 1m subs recently" they slipped under 1m subs less than 6m after release.
If you want a breakdown on optimistic side:
1,7m sold, average box price 70$ (to include deluxe and collector editions, were on optimistic side here) and revenue at 55% so 1,7m*70*0,55=65,45m (65,5)
So lets say that they started with 1,3m subs and had linear decline (optimistic here remember, decline was more a curve steeper at beginning than at the end) to 400k at november 2012 (F2P), so we have a span of 11 months -2 months (first and free one), with all long therm subs and taxes and fees lets say they got 10$ revenue/month (again optimistic) thats 850k*9*10=76,5m
65,5+76,5=142m total revenue
If we tak that budget was 300m and that there were ongoing costs of maintaining 216 servers, 400 people at start (which was BOTH reduced gradually during those 11 months) lets say that was another 100m
Revenue: 142m
Expense: 400m
On optimistic side. Even if you dont believe 300m and take it down to 200 they maybe broke HALF of that.
Also theres a matter of Star Wars licensing which is far from free.
Of course, now running with skeleton crew, 17 servers and selling mostly recolored stuff in cash shop, they may break even some day.
And 106m is random internet number, as good as any other.
It's been about 3 years, and nobody in their right mind would say SWTOR is doing well.
You don't shut down 2 companies and fire 80% of the staff of the third company, close 75% of your servers down, and restructure your entire payment scheme if you're "doing well".
It was the most expensive MMO ever made, with the biggest IP around, and it didn't even last a month before imploding.
With the entire company restructured it's making enough money to slowly earn back its investment, but it's far from a success story.
Pretty sure they announced that it had recouped its money ~6 months after launch (I ran numbers estimated ~2 months after launch and used a conservative player retention value, and my numbers put them at about ~6 months to break even too.)
Certainly they didn't have enough income to maintain their full launch team, so it wasn't a resounding success, but it's been profitable since the first year.
Sure, this doesn't mean you can't argue against it "doing well" (which is a fairly vague phrase), but big launch teams which are let go isn't unheard of (Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, Red Dead Redemption, etc) even with all of these games being pretty darn successful. With a huge MMORPG team that's even more true.
Nope, they never ever said any offcial numbers on SWTOR, and any projection showed its deep in the red.
but thats all water under the bridge now, they clumped SWTOR with FIFA in world cup year, thats more telling than anything else.
This. SWTOR is all but ignored in the earnings reports now. If its lucky it gets a HALF SENTENCE BLIP.
Not only that, but traditionally successful MMORPGs GROW their teams over time and continue to expanding. You don't have 2 partner companies go bankrupt, shut them down, and STILL fire 80% of your development force if your game is a success.
That means, your game failed at its main goal (dethroning WoW), and you have to majorly downscale and rearrange your targets to survive with what success you do have. It's settled into its niche now, but given everything that was behind the game, that niche is a failure state.
Comments
I agree with your first bit. I think that there can be just regular Chad's who have great ideas. Actually, The Repopulation is a great example of that, I think. Uber small team working on something crazy. However, it's all in the presentation. Even the best-laid plans fail. Even the dude at Yogcast (sp?) failed, and they gave him a half million dollars!!!!! If someone had limited experience, I'd like to see very clear, specific data on risks they've identified and how they'll mitigate it, how the money will be spend, etc., etc. If there's thought there and it's coherent then I'll definitely consider it. Otherwise, run another KS when you're further along. I backed The Repop during their second round. Show some results and go back to the well. I'm ok with that.
Now, as far as the second half. There aren't "too few" good games that have gone through Kickstarter. There are almost 100 projects on Steam right now that started as KS Campaigns. Of those, 75% of them have positive reviews from the community. That's probably as good or better than most published games. Since Steam hasn't always been a vessel for KS games, I think this number will increase and we may actually start to be able to get more measurable data on KS campaign successes.
If you looked at KS at the beginning versus KS now, I think you'd see a drastically different quality of project and presentation. Part of that is that people ARE coming to the table with more. They have demos now. Your assumption that these people have money already is ridiculous!!! We're probably talking about developers, artists, designers, working for free to get some sort of demo done so they can actually show people. Shoot, look at Shards Online. They asked for 50K a year ago and they already had the game, basically, done. For these projects, it might be more about marketing than funding the project itself, but don't fool yourself thinking that they don't "need" the money. There comes a time when developing a game costs more than just your time. There are actual, real, expenses involved. So they may not need 50 million, but 50K is awesome, and they also get some PR, and why not?
As for the 50-75 million budget. SWTOR cost 300 million. SC has 250 people working on the game right now. SC is ALSO multiple games in one. If it was about generating a space flight sim, then they probably wouldn't need all that money. As it stands right now, their monthly burn is probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2-2.5 million dollars, for salaries alone (for developers), not sure whether the entire CIG is included in that 250 number or not. In addition, you've got costs associated with setting up an office, furnishing it, paying your lease, utilities. Sooooooooo, when a game gets to this scale, yes, it's difficult to get away with a budget under 50 million. Feel free to ask Curt Schilling how much it costs to make an MMORPG. Even a cookie-cutter one at that.
Crazkanuk
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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
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Completely inaccurate. There's already been lawsuits, soooooooo, yeah, you're wrong.
However, you could set up a Kickstarter to raise money to burn during a live stream and I'm sure people would back it.
Crazkanuk
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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
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Meh, Might kinda be like someone reporting that 0% of video games funded through Kickstarter were completed...... as of June 2009. As far as I know, the lawsuit I'm talking about was filed less than a year ago, so it's entirely possible it hasn't even gone to court yet.
Crazkanuk
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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
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My thought exactly when i read the post.
Give me your money and ill burn it live KS would be backed
But that aside, yes both sides are learning, those who post projects as well those who back them. And thats a good thing.
not being a corrupt politician?
not being a criminal asshat?
being an honest company which wants do a project and pay their employees?
Well there was a case where the lawsuit forced the KS project leader to go into bankruptcy.
That was a physical product though that he promised to deliver, but couldn't. (plus the KS project owner went on KS without making a company for it, which is a huge rookie mistake)
One of the backers was a lawyer who basically sued him because "It just ticked him off".
( http://www.businessinsider.com/how-one-stupid-mistake-and-35000-from-kickstarter-made-an-average-guy-bankrupt-2013-1 )
"On November 28, Quest admitted defeat. There were too many internal conflicts and engineering problems to bring Hanfree to life. Quest notified all of the backers, Singh included, that they would not be receiving the iPad stand, and their money would be returned to them.
Singh wasn't satisfied. He sued Quest and Cespedes, although the suit against Cespedes was eventually dropped.
"Seth just stalled, and stalled, and stalled," Singh explained to Inc. "For me, this is why I became a lawyer. I guess I'm more of an idealist than anything else. It just ticked me off."
The lawsuit made Quest bankrupt. He spent last year in Brooklyn, dealing with lawsuit-induced anxiety and trying to find part-time work, which he says was difficult given his tainted reputation from Hanfree. Now he's in Costa Rica figuring out what to do next.
"When you fail on Kickstarter, it's a very public failure," Quest tells Inc. "It definitely derailed my career substantially. Your backers can give you massive support, but they can also tear you down if you fail."
Kickstarter, of course, took no hit. It's technically not to blame if a product fails to deliver or if someone isn't qualified to create a product.
For Quest, it was a very tough lesson to learn. But Singh isn't sympathetic.
"I'm convinced this was more stupidity than it was fraud," Singh says. "He just didn't think this through."
So, even if he got the money back the lawyer still sued author. And when he lost he claims "it was just for the kicks"
Says more about lawyers than anything else.
Come on... You're not really comparing this to arguably of the biggest failures in the industry right ?
I call SWTOR a failure because:
- It had 200-300 million $ invested in it and did not deliver in the end. Seriously, no MMO should cost that much unless it's something REALLY innovative (and it's not). All in all, it's the voice acting and marketing which were a considerable part of the costs. People loved the story and perhaps the combat.. but that's pretty much it. And heck those PS3-like graphics... seriously?
- Went free to play - There's no reason to even start debating here.
What is really shocking is that the majority of people have no freaking idea on what the real costs are pretty much and encourage this phenomenon.
"Yeah sure... it's an MMO and it costs trillions to produce!" Keep encouraging that and see where you'll end.
I still giggle a little that like 5 years later, SWTOR still doing well today, and people are still calling it a failure, but sure.
As for the "real" cost of developing a AAA MMORPG, please feel free to toss out some references. WoW cost like 60 million to make back in the late 90s 2000s. Possibly the cheapest I can think of is Allods online, which cost 10-15 million and it was developed in Russia where people get paid with bread and Vodka. So please enlighten me. Please note, you should probably try to find something in America for contextual reasons.
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
----------------
I read some of the comments on the article and one claimed that the story is incomplete and thus misleading. Allegedly Quest never paid out the promised refunds and the bankrupty was actually caused by a number of other lawsuits the guy was facing for unpaid credit card bills. Frankly, this version makes more sense to me than what the article claimed.
Aside from all that, this is why God created the LLC.
If people sue you, they are limited by the funds in the company, beyond that, they do not get a piece of your personal worth (thus, "Limited Liability").
And they only cost a few hundred dollars to set up in most US states.
So the originator of the KS was a moron.
Yeah, that's what I take away from it: You have to be kinda clumsy to not get away with scamming on KS.
Even more so for MMOs and other digital products where it's even much muddier and you can't always clearly define if something was shipped or not and if failure or very long delays were intentional or not.
It's been about 3 years, and nobody in their right mind would say SWTOR is doing well.
You don't shut down 2 companies and fire 80% of the staff of the third company, close 75% of your servers down, and restructure your entire payment scheme if you're "doing well".
It was the most expensive MMO ever made, with the biggest IP around, and it didn't even last a month before imploding.
With the entire company restructured it's making enough money to slowly earn back its investment, but it's far from a success story.
Pretty sure they announced that it had recouped its money ~6 months after launch (I ran numbers estimated ~2 months after launch and used a conservative player retention value, and my numbers put them at about ~6 months to break even too.)
Certainly they didn't have enough income to maintain their full launch team, so it wasn't a resounding success, but it's been profitable since the first year.
Sure, this doesn't mean you can't argue against it "doing well" (which is a fairly vague phrase), but big launch teams which are let go isn't unheard of (Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, Red Dead Redemption, etc) even with all of these games being pretty darn successful. With a huge MMORPG team that's even more true.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
And maybe he lost because he was refunding money and couldnt afford a lawyer and was driven to bancrupcy because the other lawyer saw good opportunity to kick someone.
Nope, they never ever said any offcial numbers on SWTOR, and any projection showed its deep in the red.
but thats all water under the bridge now, they clumped SWTOR with FIFA in world cup year, thats more telling than anything else.
Same as RL, but in RL it happens much more often.
If he wanted to scam he would do what he did. You can theorize what happened till tomorrow, the only fact is that lawyer drove him to bancrupcy and im pretty sure most of them got nothing.
Nah, my projection showed it would definitely have made the money back ~6 months after release with the box sales and the subscription numbers they posted for the first few months. I forget where I thought I saw them confirm it though, maybe I was wrong on that part.
The only things I didn't account for was box sale retailer cut (I couldn't find exact margins apart from "they're narrow",) and the ongoing burn for keeping the live team during those 6 months. We don't have any data on ongoing burn, but estimates like $139 mil revenue in 2013 (src) would make it pretty hard to not be profitable unless you're running an absolutely gigantic team still (which they wouldn't be, since they had layoffs in 2012 and I think some more in 2013.) They're on the typical slow decline of most games ($106 mil in 2014), but they'd have to really be doing something wrong not to be profitable.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
They never did give any sub numbers. the "best2 they did is 1,7m accounts with some number over half actually being subscribers. But numbers were falling so fast that at 3 months mark there were only handful of non deserted servers and even those werent all that healthy with fast fallign trend. they had to do 2 rounds of server merges and close oceanic serevrs that leaves them at 17 servers out of initial 216 servers. That all happened before 1 year mark. they also had 2 eounds of layoffs of CORE team before 1 year mark.
And those estimated numbers are as good as any other internet numbers, they estimated LOTRO made over 100m, but LOTRO already had small team and is in deep shit, they even cut raids because of lack of devs (they had to cut something and since raids are just a black hole on dev resources, never returning what is invested it was easy choice)
They gave quite a few reports of sub numbers and sales. Tons of reference links from the wiki (more than typical games.) And I think the one that validated the numbers I ran the most was this one calling out that they only needed 500k to remain "substantially profitable" (for context, $90 million per year is 500k subscriptions at $15/mo, and their revenue was $106 mil in 2014) while pointing out they had only recently slipped below 1 million subscribers (which matched the numbers I ran, which included a harsher-than-normal player drop per month, and assumed that not a single additional player purchased the game. It was a very conservative, brutal model.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
No MMO has gone F2P out of generosity
Even if we assume that it's "doing well" as you claim, it's nowhere on the top list of choices.
As much as I hate to admit it, the only old MMO that is really doing well is WoW. And that's that.
Other remarks:
- in Russia where people get paid with bread and Vodka - That's a bit mean. It's like saying people in Canada are paid with blankets and hot water. See my point?
- Please note, you should probably try to find something in America for contextual reasons - Why should I choose the U.S? Do you think that the best game devs can only be found there?
Not really.
While I won't deny that America has it's fair share of talents, I can safely state that you can find those in Europe also. The advantage is that you can find the same or better talented people there, at half the price. So developing anything in the US is more expensive not because it has talent that you won't be able to find anywhere else, but it's because they have really high living standards.
They also take advantage of their monopoly. And while they respect their U.S. customers, they sure don't do the same for the other regions.
CD Project Red (Polish developer) is rising up to the challenge, even if it's not an MMO dev. I really hope they will be able to set a new landmark in terms of gaming standards.
I honestly hope we'll see more development in EU for the MMO market. I'm tired of having to rely on U.S. devs that spit on anything else that's outside their fairy land while wasting tens of millions of dollars and claiming that "it's as it should be".
Nope, only official numbers are 1,7 million sld at launch, of which "somewhat more than half are subs", 1,3 million comes from where they made a "return month" and gave everyone free month of play right before quarterly report. Yes, they gave free month to everyone in march 2012.
That article is wrong, 1m was needed for "substantially profitable" and 500k was needed for breaking even. All LONG TERM subs, so it has required some passage of years, id say 3-5 years. Next official nuber was from september 2012 where "subs were between 500k-1m", then next was "we dont want to discuss subs" and next was F2P annoucement.
Thats article is from JULY 2012. they didnt "slip under 1m subs recently" they slipped under 1m subs less than 6m after release.
If you want a breakdown on optimistic side:
1,7m sold, average box price 70$ (to include deluxe and collector editions, were on optimistic side here) and revenue at 55% so 1,7m*70*0,55=65,45m (65,5)
So lets say that they started with 1,3m subs and had linear decline (optimistic here remember, decline was more a curve steeper at beginning than at the end) to 400k at november 2012 (F2P), so we have a span of 11 months -2 months (first and free one), with all long therm subs and taxes and fees lets say they got 10$ revenue/month (again optimistic) thats 850k*9*10=76,5m
65,5+76,5=142m total revenue
If we tak that budget was 300m and that there were ongoing costs of maintaining 216 servers, 400 people at start (which was BOTH reduced gradually during those 11 months) lets say that was another 100m
Revenue: 142m
Expense: 400m
On optimistic side. Even if you dont believe 300m and take it down to 200 they maybe broke HALF of that.
Also theres a matter of Star Wars licensing which is far from free.
Of course, now running with skeleton crew, 17 servers and selling mostly recolored stuff in cash shop, they may break even some day.
And 106m is random internet number, as good as any other.
This. SWTOR is all but ignored in the earnings reports now. If its lucky it gets a HALF SENTENCE BLIP.
Not only that, but traditionally successful MMORPGs GROW their teams over time and continue to expanding. You don't have 2 partner companies go bankrupt, shut them down, and STILL fire 80% of your development force if your game is a success.
That means, your game failed at its main goal (dethroning WoW), and you have to majorly downscale and rearrange your targets to survive with what success you do have. It's settled into its niche now, but given everything that was behind the game, that niche is a failure state.