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After I win tonight! how much to make a good mmo
Kicksave321
Member CommonPosts: 262
So after I win the mega millions tonight and become almost a billionaire how much will I need to invest into making a good successful mmo. This will be a sub based game with no cash shops at all. I am not a big pvp player but would have pvp servers.
Also what would be a good ip or setting? I think Dragonlance would make a great mmo except the fantasy setting is a little over crowded.
Well a few of us here in the US will be thinking when I win, I just thought it be fun to put it in writing. Let me know what you think.
Comments
I think there'd be more money in making a multiplayer sandbox/adventure game than another mmo right now. Star citizen seems to have everyone wet to the knees right now and most of the talk I see about ESO centers around " why didn't they just make skyrim multiplayer "
Probably not the type of market research you'd want to base millions on but there does seem to be a void in that market.
Yeah I thought of that when I wrote this, but the difference would be I wouldn't spend all or most of it on video game...my wife wouldn't allow that.
The cash option is just over $300 million and you will paying about 40% of that in taxes. It'd probably cost you about 1/2 of your take home to make an mmo and there is no guarantee it will be good. Look at SWTOR for a $100 million+ example of money doesn't buy good.
How much is the winnings over there? Is it a state lottery or national?
Here in the UK get around £3million (average) twice a week. Euromillions can go in excess off £100 million if no winners.
Almost a billionaire? I'd go through the phone book and make someone a millionaire at random. On a weekly basis.
It's a multi state lottery. Right now I think it's close to $600 million they say if nobody win tonight it may hit $1billion.
Sorry you won't win because I'm going to
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
So you spend $100 million, and the game is mostly done and pretty cool, but not quite done. So you spend another $10 million and make a lot of progress, but it's still not ready for release. Then another $10 million, and another, and another. And then all of the money is gone and it's still not ready for release.
The sort of person who would see what is happening, cut his losses, and cancel the project is not the sort of person who would play the lottery in the first place.
How much did he even fund it with? I don't think he put up much himself and just wasted taxpayers and investors money? (The whole gang of three that is)
well, it depends... If you want an existing IP then you'll have to pay up or you wont be able to use it. Next thing on your list is paying for the engine you want to work in, then hiring the devs, finding the place where they'll work, keeping them and paying them every month and so on... It's a very expensive thing and I doubt someone would be successful with making an mmo if they had no experience with creation of games and MMO is a huge job which isn't easily achieved and once you've achieved it there's no guarantee that your game will be profitable enough to keep it going.
Also, every major mmo company is thinking about F2P shift or B2P shift and you'd want to make a sub game. It's not looking good for ESO and it wouldn't be great for you as well
. Cash shops aren't your enemies and it does make hell of a lot more money than just subs, not to mention it attracts more players and if you do your cash shop right it might make a difference on the final outcome. So your game might survive as a B2P or F2P with a good shop, where it could've failed miserably as a P2P game (and most of the new P2P games did so far).
It takes a lot of effort and money to make a good game that'll keep going for years and earn enough cash to pay its bills. Even tho the money, to get you started, is a huge part of getting something on its feet it isn't the key factor for success
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
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Let me know when you win, I'll have my attorney contact yours so we can setup a consulting contract. I'll be glad to tell you anything you want to hear. :-)
Anything I don't know about, I'd be glad to make up.
Yeah and 25k for me. That's all I want, to pay off my student debt.
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
Before you could even start working on the MMO you would have to use the IP. That alone could run you a good chunk of change, then you might be required to have all your content vetted through a Dragon Lance "expert" or team of "experts" (all on your dime) , If your contract is not a very good one you may also end up giving a cut of the revenue back to Hasbro/WoTC. So you may already have to budget $20M - $500M before the first piece of art or code is started. Once the IP is taken care of then comes the capital costs (Building, hardware, office equipment, ...), then the recruiting firm to hire the employee's, followed closely by those employees.
The question should not be how much, but instead "How much do I want to put into my MMO?"
I would say he went through $50M to $75M of his own money .. could be more depending on how some of the past closure lawsuits pan out.
Never has a truer phrase been spoken.
To Funny my wife and I and have talked about this before.
SWG Eq2 Housing,
Daoc stealth and wvw.
Better then Gw2 account bound everything.
Swg 2.5 of any clases of skills at a time.
Over 40 classes.
100 levels.
SWG Crafting.
Rideable fight by your side pets, mounted combat.
In a elrick the stormbringer kinda of world of real evil and wicked art work.
Some comments in this thread... my god.
People do overestimate the cost of the IP - compared to the cost of making the game it'd be nothing. "Simple changes" they'd ask you to make in the game since it's not loyal to the IP would probably cost you more (baseless guess).
This thread got me thinking though - would a decent CEO, with no experience in games be able to run an MMO project successfully? If i ever do find myself in that position, I guess it'd be worth a try...
Oh and. Anyone that wins big in a lottery and has no experience handling larger sums should probably multiply the price of any project, MMO or not, by 5x of what experienced game studios like BioWare spent.
That's all in court still isn't it ? I know rhode island is trying to get their $75 mil back. That's probably not going to end cheap for him.
Fallout would be an awesome IP - post-apocalyptic setting, quirky humor, open character development. I just don't think it would work well as a themepark. It would have to be a sandbox, with at least some form of open-world or guild PVP.
Otherwise, since you're going to be an almost billionaire, why not pick up a game that is struggling? If fantasy is your thing, then LOTRO might be had for a steal. Can't get much better than Lord of the Rings
Maybe he just wants to make a good MMORPG that somewhat pays for itself?
IMO Star Citizen is up there with EQN for big talk and promising the sun and moon. We'll see what really shakes out of it either - and when.
ESO is just a bad idea, not so much because people don't want a good MMORPG right now, but just because it's a bad idea. Skyrim is one of the most beloved and respected PvE RPG franchises and they're making a PvP heavy game with very light versions of their PvE and everything else. It's just garbage waiting to happen. You could probably retain the immersion and depth in limited co-op for elder scrolls, and still feel like a driving force in the world. That kind of stuff can be faked but is always obviously fake in MMORPGs and nothing about ESO is going to be different in that regard. Immersion is gone the first time you see 20 players huddled around an NPC with a quest marker over its head. If you take the immersion/ES out of ESO, you aren't left with much - a weak MMORPG with the umpteenth crappy attempt at "no really , this time we mean it, our PvP won't suck like all other MMORPG PvP"
IMO there's plenty of market for more good MMORPGs but the problem is, there are a few camps of thought on what that "good" is, and what mostly happens is companies create MMORPGs that try to be everything to everybody, focus way to heavily on casual and solo when MMORPGs are not casual games and are multiplayer focused, and they end up creating generic crap. If some companies would make some games focused for the particular styles of MMORPG players rather than trying to do it all, and emphasized quality MMORPG gameplay over number of players they haul in, I think theyd do a little better.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
I don't remember the exact number, but he basically said he lost everything he made playing baseball on it. Just a few months ago he was auctioning off random crap around his house, like hats and lampshades and stuff. He definitely had skin in the game.
You make me like charity
Probably not great advice right now. Activision is basically being propped up by WoW and the CoD franchise. Both of which are sort of in decline, with no clear plan or succession. It's possible that Hearthstone will really take off, and maybe Titan (whatever it actually ends up being), but you'd have as good of odds at a slot machine at this point.
You make me like charity