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New President for Turbine, Ohhh goodbye AC.
bezado
Member UncommonPosts: 1,127
With no official say so of this happening anywhere they changed out the ceo president to a new guy. Wonder whats happened that they decided to keep this under lock and key. The front page of Turbine doesn't mention it.
Can we expect AC to fall soon? A analyst for this sort of thing would say a CEO is changed because of poor gains for the company or that they are in trouble financially. I just wonder if this is true when you always read about a new CEO is to try and get the companies out of the hole that they could pull the plug on AC. I think AC is at best just paying their server and salary bills, hardly any real profit comes from AC.
If this is true as a new CEO I would first clean house on anything that isn't making a good profit vs cost, that would mean AC going bye bye. 
Comments
I wouldn't think it would effect AC's future. I think the the former CEO was booted due to the last 3 games Turbine has come out with. They aren't exacly stellar. Heck, one even went under. I'm sure DDO doesn't have many more subscribers than AC.
A large coorporation such as this does not get a new CEO unless something is going on with the financial future of the company. SO yes this has everything to do with AC and also DDO.
To gain money you need to cut your losses. AC and DDO are not making enough profit to keep the large amount of workforce they have to sustain them all and keep profits up.
Its very cheap to run MMO's. Its very expensive to create an MMO based off an IP. I have no doubts they've lost millions on DDO, and LOTRO is not bringing in the "millions of players" they claimed. Yes, they did indeed claim that you would "play with millions of players" on the back of the LOTRO box.
I have no doubts they are not doing as well as they thought they would when they were at the table negotiating over the IP deals.
Profit is profit. You don't get rid of profits just because you wish the numbers were higher.
No no no no no! It is very expensive to run MMO's. Who told you this?
The cost to run an MMO is ridiculously high, ask anyone else here who may of worked for a large game coorporation who has a top rated MMORPG out to date.
The costs to keep server farms up is huge, the cost to keep all the people who keep the game alive and make new content for monthly updates is a big financial draw. Blizzard alone probably spends 20 million a month just on server farms and salaries.
Well has LOTRO died now or somthing? Because even so im sure AC has more subs then DDO because its a classic just like Everquest has subs. because unless there numbers drop below 10,000 which is a $100,000 gain for the month then the bills im sure they make a few thousand still off AC. And if they have low numbers the old CEO would of sacked AC. They just need to devolop there mmos over a period of time so they are good. DDO and LOTRO dont have nothing truely evil to get those gamers to want to play. Im sorry i want to be a bad guy when i play a game not a damn goodie good person. Im good in life i want to act bad in my games. Kill people and generally make people mad. AWWW good ole EQ training days. Well anywoot yeah AC wont go no where if its still here now.
The cost to keep servers up is extremely low. That is why we have free MMOs, and free multiplayer games that host their own servers at no charge.
Not sure if you were being sarcastic or not. Sorry if you were.
If your made up number of 20 million is accurate (not sure how you'd be privy to that knowledge), that means they spend 16% of revenue to keep the game going forward.
If she goes, well it was a great ride. AC was my first mmo. Everything after her Turbine has done a less impressive job for me. AC2 was ok, if they would of just stuck around with it instead of going for stupid IPs.
Sheez guys, Lord of the Rings Online is doing just fine. You make it sound as if its on its last gasp already.
Asheron's Call was my first MMORPG as well. I truely miss the evolving plot and monthly updates that was part of that game. I also enjoyed the unique setting and lore. Fantasy without elves, lots of players (back in the day) and a relatively friendly community.
I personally believe that there are concepts in AC that current MMORPGs could learn from. Alas, I haven't found a game that drew me in as fully as AC for a while.
Nobody mentioned LOTRO on last gasp of air, I think what is shown is that LOTRO takes a ton of money to keep going and the lesser of the games like DDO and AC have far to little income coming in to keep the companies profits up.
I agree that LOTRO is a fantastic game and I enjoy it also.
This post is kind of pointless. AC is in better shape now then it has been for a while and it should still be making Turbine a profit. Do you have any credible source that AC would somehow be in trouble?
The CEO change could be for any number of reasons. Turbine is still a privately held company and this move could have been made to make Turbine a more attractive acquisition target or to get ready to become a publicly traded corp. Until any announcements are made its all just speculation.
I would assume that James J. Crowley's association with Highland Capital Partners (Turbines investors) and now president of Turbine will lead to an I.P.O. or corporate buyout.
Something very wrong is happening over at Turbine, we are still unaware of any details. Warcry still can not get any responses from Turbine and lots of talk is that they plan to shut down AC and possibly DDO or do another server merge there. Any info anyone may have please post an update if your in the game industry thanks.
There is rumors out that their new project they are working on needs more funds and that is why they need a new CEO who can undertake this to give them a more stable financial future. One thing everyone is saying now is AC and DDO could be abandoned to make room for the new project MMO they are making. Mind you the lead designer developer they just hired worked on UO and DAOC, lets see what thats going to make.
If your leaving ... : ) come join us in EQ1 it's the best Pve game out. I enjoy it alot more than Wow.
www.myspace.com/solidwhitetuna
Here we go again ........
As soon something is happening with Turbine, posts pop up announcing the "death" of AC. I am so tired from these messages ......
I will not even take the trouble to give it a vote .......
If you know the history of Turbine a bit, you have seen many changes in employees. It never lead to a downfall and probably will not do this time .....
And no one of us knows the exact cost to run this kind of games .... so all is speculative. Stop starting rumors ...... please .... please .......
I guarantee you AC will not see 2009 unless something changes (eg. making it free or partly free).
LotRO took a nice chunk of AC players. Also the content updates have become increasingly weaker. The end game mechanics, land control, never made it into the game to keep people playing. Instead Turbine tried to hook people with repeated Colosseum runs, which is no substitute.
100% agree here, although the game is still fun it seems the general direction they been taking is limited content additions that make little to no sense. People are not going to go back and do the content they add after they get the rewards or buy them. Why do they even bother making content that most people won't run. Who in AC has 3-4hrs anymore to run these stupid quests they are introducing then on top of it make it very hard to do. What about the neglect to the player base under level 150?
When AC stops making a profit, AC will be shut down...irrelevant of who Turbines president is.
I think for the overall health of the franchise I hope AC doesn't make 2009. I think its great that AC has made it this far but hopefully down the road they can reinvent Asheron's Call and get out of the stale MMO formula that everyone seems to be in. Now that Turbine has their engine working pretty darn well, and with all the tech they can leverage from Both DDO and LoTRO, I would love to see them get to work on the one franchise that they would have no limitations on developing.
AC has a lot going for it that make it alot different then DDO and LoTRO.
Its not based on standard fantasy chars ie elf dwarf orc and so on.
It would have full pvp implemented.
It could actually be a sandboxy type game which alot of people would like to see again.
My suspicion is the new CEO is there to find a buyer or merger partner.
Depending on how it all shakes out AC's future could go either way. It is a developed and paid for product. Unlike LoTRo and DDO its development costs have been full recovered by this point. So its only financial costs are the server and staff. Given its status as a well regarded older game, it is also a prime piece of property to be sold off to a retro or classic gaming site such as Gametap. So I would suspect that regardless of what heppens to Turbine itself AC will probably live on in some form.