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Funcom Investor Update - Bad News for TSW
Nephaerius
Member UncommonPosts: 1,671
No surprises really. It's a mixed bag. Large drop in stock price. Underperforming box sales (less than 1/2 what they expected from my reading), mixed player retention, lower Metacritic score than they wanted. Hopeful about player retention and in-game store cosmetic sales and that this will not be an AoC sized catastrophe. Overall I read this as them trying to make things sound a lot better than the reality is.
Things are in full on scramble mode and the game will probably be F2P within the year. Believe it or not I actually think that's awesome because then I will actually have a chance to play what I perceive as a decent title with prohibitive box and subscription cost barring my entry.
Read it all here: http://www.funcom.com/investors/
Steam: Neph
Comments
I personally don't play it as I find it to expensive for what it has to offer. I don't mind buying the box, paying either a monthly fee or have a cash shop with cosmetic items but not both.
Not sure if it will end up as F2P but they either have to make content which is worth the fee + cash shop or delete one of the two.
Yea, I caught that too. I spit coffee all over my monitor at work, and i've been spending the past 15minutes cleaning it up -.-.
After seeing what TSW had to offer in almost all the stages of Beta I'm not surprised. There's a reason I didn't get retail for this one, and that reason is longevity & crap combat. 70% of TSW is surprisingly combat related, and the other 30% is mediocre crafting coupled with amazingly well written stories.
Sad really
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
I'm assuming you're laughing because you think I find it prohibitive because I don't have enough money. However, being 29, having a master's degree, and working a well paying full time job for god only knows how long makes that a non-issue. The fact is with the entire market moving F2P NO GAME IS GOOD ENOUGH TO REQUIRE A SUBSCRIPTION. Subs are going the way of the dodo. If it was just the box price I'd buy it in a heart beat like any other game.
Steam: Neph
This pretty much, I pre-ordered the game and played for the first week. It is a good game and the mission system is interesting, however the sub cost AND cash shop reeally put me off. I don't want to support a game that tries to milk their player-base for everything they've got.
this is the best themepark MMORPG on the market at the moment, there is a reason why most people who play the game rate it really high.
I guess they didnt get as many initial sales because of how badly some people think they messed up AOC, this leaves people not trusting the company and its a big shame really.
TSW had a great launch only a few bugs and the main one being a caht issue that stopped some people being able to chat to each other in game. I guess I was lucky and enver had the issue. Also a few bugged missions but it was easy enough to get around by grouping with people on other servers.
Sure combat wise its more of your average tab based MMORPG but the world setting and the different types of quests are a breath of fresh air to the stale MMORPG industry.
As for it being too expensive.. not at all the game is worth every penny if you have the time to play it. Also as for the cash shop you dont even need to look at it as there is nothing in there that you would need. There are a few clothing sets that actually look silly compared to the stuff you can buy in the london shops for in game cash.. and also some pets that dont do anything.. so yeah kind of pointless unless you like stuff like that.
Also subs are not going the way of the dodo.. f2p is usually a sign that a game is bad, there are not many f2p mmorpgs that I have really spent much time playing because of that. NEarly everything in f2p games revolve around cash shops and needed to buy nearly every nice feature in the game.
I would choose a sub model over the f2p or even b2p one any day.
Do we get to make claims that they planned to be F2P all along or is that only when it becomes official?
£2.50 a week for something that you enjoy is prohibitive to you? o.0
Even if you spent 2 hours a week in game after the first free month that's £1.25 an hour...
Prohibitive lol
TSW didn't not do well because of the sub, just like no game fails for that reason. It didn't do well IMO because it looks visually shoddy, is focused on a minority interest theme, and isn't built on a well known existing IP. There simply was not any buzz for it outside the MMORPG community, and only a small percentage of that were all that interested for whatever reason.
Very much this.
I wish more people would understand this perception and a reason what is so attractive and beneficial about F2P model..
They made a very expensive game, and had to get as much money back as possible, but due to the Age of Conan disappointment they dared not believe The Secret World was a good game - and so viewing low sales estimates by the marketing men they upped the box price and the subsciption price, and added a Cash Shop and expensive 'upgrades' - ultimately driving away people who would otherwise have tried it and doing even worse then expected.
If they had only trusted in their product, it would probably have sold many more initially, and seen a steady uptake - as it is a good solid fun game.
Theres still time to salvage it though, they just need to plan the marketting and price structures a little better. Box sales and a cash shop maybe.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
It's prohibitive because I don't see the value in it. It could be $0.01 per week and I would still laugh in your face and go play the 10000's of quality games that don't require a subscription. This game nor any other is not worth a subscription fee. I'm glad you've decided to focus on whether or not I purchase or sub to the game rather than the topic at hand of its disappointing launch.
Steam: Neph
Haven't noticed that at first.
anyway LOL
+1
Well I was considering TSW, three thing made me not to.
1. Sub AND CS - srlsly? btw. Don't care if WoW and other games introduced that as well.
2. I am reluctant nowadays to even start playing when I see all those gemes going freemium / f2p and TSW CS reek of freemium. Don't want to invest my time & money and then have freemium bomb thrown at me. I got that with Lotro and don't want to experience this again thank you. Besides nowadays it seems it can happen anytime - look Swtor.
Prefer to not play mmorpg at all tbh. Than that.
3. Combat - keeping traditional hot-bar / tab tactical combat AND cutting down skills to 7 is bollocks. Did not like it at all in Betas. Either make traditional combat and make around 20-25 skills to mess arond with or make less but make it more actiony.
This isn't about money but money worth.
Why spending a dime when you can have it free? Sure you can spend a dime but why would you do that if there is no need to?
If sub can buy me cash shop / rmah free enviroment & devs actively fighting with bots, exploiters and gold sellers in real mmorpg I am willing to pay it and pferfer it that way.
If that is not possible cause sub game still have Cash Shop, whenever it is p2p+cs or freemium does not matter - then yeah I don't see value in it.
Because to enjoy playing TSW, if that's what I wanted, there WAS a need to.
I simply would not consider a £2.50/ week payment a barrier to doing something I enjoyed.
TBH, if a game isn't good enough to make me want to pay that kind of inconsequential money to enjoy it it really probably isn't going to be worth my time even if it is 'free'. Not paying £2.50 dosen't make it any funner, personally speaking.
The sky is falling.... The sky is falling....
no seriously it hit me on the head.
TSW is well worth the box price. As far as the sub goes... well I guess the depends on the individual.
F2P? OP i would think that with a master's degree almost in the bag, that you would know what a tripe that term is.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Sure, up to each own but currently you represent a minority of potential customers.
For most people there is nothing a subscription price can offer to justify the value, therefore the market is moving towards F2P model.
Sure, the problem is there is less and less people like you. The preferences had changed and customers vote with their wallets and spend their money in cash shops rather than on subscriptions.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I am aware of that.
Thing is mmorpg western playerbase will get smaller due to significant part of playerbase flocking more into CORPG's, MOBA-s, mmofps, social, mobile and various other online and single player games (indie market growing + 'active' like dancing or fitness games). Consoles will quickly follow on same / simialr pattern - as I know some devs are betting on mmropg's and consoles, but other online games will be more popular than mmorpg's there - even more than on pc's.
I still will be miniority but I have a feeling that mmorpg market in few years will be hugely diffrent and smaller unless you will expand mmorpg genre "definition" to accomodate games like Diablo 3, GW1, World of Tanks, Marvel Heroes or Forge and many more.
That is topic for another discussion, and I don't mean to de-rail so I finish it here.
Why do people always bring up the cash shop as amassive negative. WOW has one and people dont go on and on about it..
Plus as i stated before other than some silly clothing items, stupid pets, and silly titles there is nothing else in the cash shop. The clothing items are boring compared to the stuff available in london.. the pets and titles are worthless.
The funny part is you consider all these P2W games quality. Do you really think that after the game goes full P2W that it will give the same experience as the P2P subscription model?
I doubt it will. Considering that it is highly story driven my guess is that it will be designed similar to LOTRO and DDO. You will need to pay access for a majority of the content.
a lot of people don't like there being stuff you NEED real money to get certain items(even if just cosmetic) in a sub based game. Yes many others do the same but the complaints about it are in all games that have it.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
the game hasnt even been full released and they throw a FULL cash shop from day one hell from beta's lol
do they really think modern gamers are retards ?
p2p mmo witha full cash shop from day one...screw that fail company.