Originally posted by viney123 Sadly, at this pace, Wildstar is more likely to be canceled entirely than even go F2P. I hate to say it, but its true. The game devs just can't appeal to a general population, and at this point if it tried to go F2P, it would likely still struggle..
People around here just love pulling shit from their ass. You actually think that with the money they're trying to recoup from the project that they would cancel before even trying f2p? You're insane. Look at SWTOR. That game is doing better then ever after a shameful performance at a sub model.
Can you explain where you came up with the idea that the game would struggle even if going f2p? Is it just because you don't like the game? Or are you just pulling poo from your bum? It sounds like poo from the bum to me. Although I won't claim to know the actual cost, I'm sure the game could be converted for f2p for far less then the hit they would take financially by just shutting it down now.
What they have invested in WIldstar up to this point is a sunk cost. Sunk costs are irrelevant when making decisions about future investments. COnverting to F2P costs more money. So NCSoft will decide if it's worth pouring yet more money to try and save th game. They will invest more money if they think the game can actually succeed and give them good returns. However, the initial investment which is LOST now is not a factor when making this decision. Economics and FInance 101 for you.
However, the reason why so many people think that Wildstar will be shut down is because NCSoft have done this in the past a few times. City of Heroes was a P2P game which was shut down. NCSoft didn't want to convert it to F2P.
Seeing as how Wildstar is a massive flop, I won't be suprised if NCSoft are unwilling to invest the money to convert it to F2P.
Statement in green, there is no way you can be sure about what you just stated because you don't know how much NCSoft have invested in the game and you don't know how much it will cost them to convert it to F2P.
Really, there's zero reason not to go F2P. I don't know how much it would cost them to convert, but chances are they would recoup whatever it cost them fairly quickly, considering the quick surge of earnings that other devs have reported when switching.. If they've already written off the initial investment as a loss, then what's the harm in putting forth the money to switch when it's almost certain you'll at least make your money back?
I don't think anyone can judge what will happen with this game based off of NCSOFT's history. CoH was simply too old to be saved (even after going F2P, DCUO and CO just killed it). TR and AA were shut down long before devs realized that you could save a dying sub game by switching to F2P.
What good is short term surge if in long terms game doesnt have almost any prospects? Yeah, if you think of money grabbing scheme like "convert to F2P with minimal costs, grab what you can and then either put game in maintenance mode (ala vanguard) or shut it down", sure F2P is a thing to do.
First and foremost NCSoft would have to see a future for WS (because another investement would just mean putting more losses on top of those that already occured). But in its current state, not even overly-enthusiastic press and fanbois seem to have that much faith in it, let alone people who have to aproove additional funding to project that already lost money.
Uh yeah, Superdata again, site that lists Heartstone as MMO rofl. Their numbers (and your claim) is as valid as any other internet number.
Again and again i ask mods to remove any superdata post as they did with xfire/raptr posts.
Without the link my claim still stands. SWTOR has made a remarkable turn around, and so have many other titles that have changed their payment model to f2p.
Yes, it had a short surge and last 3-4 quarters (OFFICIAL FROM EA and NOT random internetz numbers):
For the three months ended September 30, 2014 , service and other revenue was $454 million , primarily driven by
FIFA Ultimate Team, Titanfall, and
Battlefield 4 Premium. Service and other revenue for the three months ended September 30, 2014 increased $109 million , or 32 percent, and was driven by a $171 million increase primarily from Titanfall and the FIFA and Plants vs Zombies franchises. This increase was partially offset by a $62 million decrease primarily from the SimCity franchise and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Also already discussed to death. I wonder also why you didnt post most recent superdata numbers. Since you are so in love with those.
As usual, Superdata's 'data' is vaporised yet again by actual data from the company in question, so not surprised. Sometimes i think it would be wise to put a 'sticky' in forum threads stating that, figures/statistics obtained from sources like Xfire, Superdata etc, cannot be regarded as factual representations, and are largely opinion based
The numbers linked are for 2013. I'm not sure how a 3rd qt 2014 report that did not list revenue discredits Superdata
Originally posted by cheyane I play ESO now but the biggest problem I had with Wildstar was the combat. I liked everything else except that combat. You cannot really say it is because I dislike action combat because I play ESO alright. I was having serious pains in my shoulder,wrist and elbows as a result of the combat in Wildstar. Well too bad for the game but they need to revamp the combat.
Agreed. I've played rhythm games which required less key presses than a boss fight in Wildstar. Basically you just constantly dodge telegraphed attacks while occasionally firing off an ability. Oh, and if you fail to dodge a telegraphed attack? Pretty much dead, even if you're a class considered to be tanky.
Spending the entire encounter looking at the damned ground isn't mine, nor many other people's, idea of fun.
The fact that their engine is a buggy unoptimized piece of crap which I suspect was coded in a North Korean sweat shop doesn't help either. Guess they should have spent time and money on the game itself instead of making all those CG trailers.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
It's not that they hate their western customers. They just don't give a shit. They are ruthless as f*ck. That's business. They don't factor in goodwill.
"It's just business" should NEVER be an excuse to act like an asshole. Everyone in business should remember their customers are people not a life support system for credit cards.
if they brought City of Heroes back Wildstar would shut down cause i know 100% City of Heroes would take off big time specially if they brought it back with accounts and all info intact since Wildstar is not even near as good as City of Heroes was infact it was one of the best MMO's out in its time and it could never be considered a wow clone because it was out before wow existed i would quit wow if City came back no mmo on the market can come close to the way city was not even close. I still miss that game soooo much Ncsoft is stupid for shutting it down.
Originally posted by Salute One more evidence that P2P, with the exceptions of WoW and FFXIV, cant stand in the market anymore. If huge IP's and higly cost to make games like SWTOR, ESO etc moved to a F2P/B2P model, then imho there is no space for a mmo with sub.
FF14 don't seem to be pushing it doors any longer, it may go free to play or buy to play how people losing interest in that grind, Had many people I know been playing FF14 over a year, getting bored with the grind. But who know this year.
didnt Yoshida announce not too long ago that both FFXIV and FFXI together made up 1 million subscribers? i doubt FFXI has 500k so most of that million is playing XIV. And I remember a lot of people here discussing another topic where Square Enix supossedly said they only needed 500k concurrent subscribers for XIV to be successful.
So yeah, XIV has been showing since its ARR launch that an MMO doesnt need WoW numbers to be successful.
As for the person you quoted, i disagree with him/her. Swtor and Eso have big IPs behind them but the games' quality get stomped compared to WoW and XIV quality. I like all 4 games but it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out why two of them didnt succeed as sub-only games. Im not a big fan of sub-only business model but a high quality and fun game can still succeed with that model.
They are getting extremely close to the numbers CoH had when they were shut down.
Except CoH had a loyal player base who still miss the game even more than 2 years later. WS doesn't even have that. I'm sure CoH made its money back for NCSoft and would have continued to generate a profit (albeit a small profit) for a while longer.
if they brought City of Heroes back Wildstar would shut down cause i know 100% City of Heroes would take off big time specially if they brought it back with accounts and all info intact since Wildstar is not even near as good as City of Heroes was infact it was one of the best MMO's out in its time and it could never be considered a wow clone because it was out before wow existed i would quit wow if City came back no mmo on the market can come close to the way city was not even close. I still miss that game soooo much Ncsoft is stupid for shutting it down.
City of Heroes did go F2P and it still didn't save the game. I don't think it was as popular near the end as its fans like to think. In its heyday I'm sure it was more popular than WS, but near it's end? I doubt it, I imagine that WS as of right now is more popular than CoH was when it made the switch and if that's true then there's no reason not to do the same for WS. Then again, I could be wrong.
CoH was sundowned because NCSoft inflated its value and to cover up how much they were spending on Guild Wars 2. It's why they didn't sell it despite being offered millions, if it was sold they'd have to make public records NCSoft didn't want to be made public.
CoH was sundowned because NCSoft inflated its value and to cover up how much they were spending on Guild Wars 2. It's why they didn't sell it despite being offered millions, if it was sold they'd have to make public records NCSoft didn't want to be made public.
yeah notice that guild wars 2 was released then all of a sudden BOOM we are shutting down City of Heroes.
I do want to say I liked WS at first. It was an original IP and was sci-fi instead of another fantasy game (seriously, why is fantasy so popular, look to the future people). The bright colors and art style was a welcome change from the 50 shades of brown push for gritty realism we see in other games. But for me, like others, it was the action combat that drove me away. Playing felt more like a chore and the open world setting just didn't work for me. Call me Old Skol (or however the kids today are spelling it) but I prefer instanced areas. Still, I think occasionally about going back. There were still a few moments of genuine fun in the game.
But in the end, I think this game killed my interest in MMOs. NCSoft stuck it a serious blow when they canceled CoH and like a fool I went to WS hoping to recapture that spark. If you want to see a drop in revenue wait until it's 13 months old. That's when those of us who bought the game and paid a year's subscription will have to renew and I suspect most of us won't. A few months ago my credit card number was stolen and I haven't updated my NCSoft account with the new one. I don't want to risk auto paying for a game I haven't played in a long time.
Originally posted by borghive49 Wildstar is a boring theme park I'm not surprised.
It was not to boring when I played, was not like a new age of theme park mmo, but there target hardcore was there big misteak
Yes it was boring, linear, and generic themepark, and there was nothing hardcore in WS. People were on max level in couple of weeks from release. How is this hardcore?
Now, had they truly made WS a hardcore mmos as they promised and kept talking in public, this game might have had a chance. Action combat, dungeon finder, and cartoony art style were also mistakes if they targeted hardcore crowd.
Lesson to learn: Don't try to cater to everyone. Design your game for a certain group and stick with your design philosophy, and you may get players who keep subbing, playing, and enjoying your creation.
MMO's aren't about leveling anymore. Hardcore does not mean grindy grindy leveling.
Wildstar had a lot more problems than just being hard core. Even hard core guilds left the game because it was a buggy mess with nothing to do when you weren't raiding and piss-poor itemization.
They've been improving on all of those aspects slowly but it's a pretty big case of too-little too-late at this point.
Originally posted by viney123 Sadly, at this pace, Wildstar is more likely to be canceled entirely than even go F2P. I hate to say it, but its true. The game devs just can't appeal to a general population, and at this point if it tried to go F2P, it would likely still struggle..
People around here just love pulling shit from their ass. You actually think that with the money they're trying to recoup from the project that they would cancel before even trying f2p? You're insane. Look at SWTOR. That game is doing better then ever after a shameful performance at a sub model.
Can you explain where you came up with the idea that the game would struggle even if going f2p? Is it just because you don't like the game? Or are you just pulling poo from your bum? It sounds like poo from the bum to me. Although I won't claim to know the actual cost, I'm sure the game could be converted for f2p for far less then the hit they would take financially by just shutting it down now.
What they have invested in WIldstar up to this point is a sunk cost. Sunk costs are irrelevant when making decisions about future investments. COnverting to F2P costs more money. So NCSoft will decide if it's worth pouring yet more money to try and save th game. They will invest more money if they think the game can actually succeed and give them good returns. However, the initial investment which is LOST now is not a factor when making this decision. Economics and FInance 101 for you.
However, the reason why so many people think that Wildstar will be shut down is because NCSoft have done this in the past a few times. City of Heroes was a P2P game which was shut down. NCSoft didn't want to convert it to F2P.
Seeing as how Wildstar is a massive flop, I won't be suprised if NCSoft are unwilling to invest the money to convert it to F2P.
Statement in green, there is no way you can be sure about what you just stated because you don't know how much NCSoft have invested in the game and you don't know how much it will cost them to convert it to F2P.
economic and finance 101? I dunno what make you think you are a genius and look at peoples on your high horse when in fact a 2 brainer would know already a free to play model is already in place IF THEY WANT TO SWITCH TO F2P, guess they built all their restrictions only for this trial right? sorry dude, I just need to burst your little ego right there.
In-Game Restrictions:
Max of 3 characters slots per realm
Max character experience up to level 20 and path experience up to level 12.
Limited to Apprentice Crafting (Tier 1)
50 Gold Currency Cap.
5000 Renown Cap.
Joining or creating guilds is disabled
Creating circles is disabled, but you can join them.
Trading with other players is disabled.
Sending and Receiving mail is disabled.
Housing Restrictions:
Cannot become a neighbor or a roommate.
Cannot invite another character to be a neighbor or roommate.
Commodity Exchange Restrictions:
Cannot post, buyout, or bid on any item in the Commodity Exchange.
Originally posted by borghive49 Wildstar is a boring theme park I'm not surprised.
It was not to boring when I played, was not like a new age of theme park mmo, but there target hardcore was there big misteak
Yes it was boring, linear, and generic themepark, and there was nothing hardcore in WS. People were on max level in couple of weeks from release. How is this hardcore?
Now, had they truly made WS a hardcore mmos as they promised and kept talking in public, this game might have had a chance. Action combat, dungeon finder, and cartoony art style were also mistakes if they targeted hardcore crowd.
Lesson to learn: Don't try to cater to everyone. Design your game for a certain group and stick with your design philosophy, and you may get players who keep subbing, playing, and enjoying your creation.
MMO's aren't about leveling anymore. Hardcore does not mean grindy grindy leveling.
I'd prefer progressing slowly through the levels and spending a good chunk of hours in each zone and dungeon, rather than rush through content in couple of weeks and then grind on max level the rest of my subscription. Leveling can be meaningful content, believe it or not.
But yeah, they are not about that anymore. Now they are all about hitting max level in few days, then logging in daily to do your chores and doing again the very dungeon you did yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that..
Both ways can be considered grindy if asked from a random mmo gamer, but the former gives you a constant sense of progression and keeps you going forward, while the latter makes you repeat the same stuff over and over again until next content patch is implemented.
It's too bad NCSoft is such a horrible company and closed the NA servers. They really hate their western customers.
It's not that they hate their western customers. They just don't give a shit. They are ruthless as f*ck. That's business. They don't factor in goodwill.
And this is why I refuse to buy anything that has NCSoft's name attached to it. After Tabula Rasa and City of Heroes, I'm simply done with that POS company.
Originally posted by Torval The shift to F2P would be smart for their survival, but I think going B2P would be smarter. It's a better friendlier model. I doubt NCSoft will see it that way though.
I agree B2P can be good if they do it right, but I not sure will work out for them as they want to see fast profit. I know may work out pretty well for eso but there not worst off as wildstar is atm.
We will see this year, so far there main drive is gw2 xpack, if they put gw2 over wildstar may just not last next 2 years after they cut more and more people to bring in content in the game, who knows they may sell it off to keep it alive.
But I know for people that are out there for wildstar, that I know wildstar is not dead, but if they don't make a profit they will cut more people and be setting in dead water with out any update, maybe bug fix time to time.
I'm pretty sure they would be happy to see any profit at all, fast or otherwise. This bucket of poo must've cost NCSoft a small fortune.
The typical hardcore mmo player is a rare species these days, the casual gamer is the larger and more profitable base to milk money from. They are Wildstars last hope for survival and they should re-attune their end game and their revenue on that. It's probably too late for b2p sadly, which only leaves f2p.
I dunno, it all sounds too hard and I suspect NCSoft will just give up. Valuable lesson for future game makers tho, trying to please the hardcore gamer will send you broke!
I'm pretty sure they would be happy to see any profit at all, fast or otherwise. This bucket of poo must've cost NCSoft a small fortune.
The typical hardcore mmo player is a rare species these days, the casual gamer is the larger and more profitable base to milk money from. They are Wildstars last hope for survival and they should re-attune their end game and their revenue on that. It's probably too late for b2p sadly, which only leaves f2p.
I dunno, it all sounds too hard and I suspect NCSoft will just give up. Valuable lesson for future game makers tho, trying to please the hardcore gamer will send you broke!
I see this posted all the time and it drives me nuts. Anyone who has had a basic business course can tell you that you don't need to target the mass market segment in order to turn a profit; niche market segments are perfectly fine.
That being said, I think Wildstar's issue is that they were trying to target both and it didn't quite pan out. Plus, if the videos they developed for the game were any indication, the production costs were through the roof.
The game is flawed, but pairing the flawed game with the Subscription business model was idiocy from the start and the numbers just prove it.
Even GW2 managed 4X the revenue with only a small portion of the peak player base still playing the game, (though those numbers are definitely bolstered by China).
The WS developers were just completely out of touch with reality, a.), thinking WoW in Space, with almost identical textures and art style, was the way to go for 2014 and b.) thinking the game had any shot at financial success with a dying business model.
I keep hearing from people that the game is actually pretty fun, but the problem is that no one is playing anymore. If they had gone B2P from the start, with a well designed Cash Shop, there is no reason it couldn't have kept pace with GW2. In fact, a pair of B2P games from the same publisher might have made for exceptional synergy, with players bounces back and forth between games when they needed a change of pace and environment.
I agree with what some others have said. The numbers have fallen off the cliff so dramatically, that I'm not sure the game will even be seen as warranting a shift to F2P/B2P, (B2P is far superior, due to all the issues with true F2P), unless work has already progressed pretty far behind the scenes already on such a transition.
Tabula Rasa got the axe from NCSoft pretty quickly after it's revenue fell apart, NCSoft is not afraid to cut their losses entirely. I'd say a complete shut down isn't at all out of the question unless they can somehow transition the business model asap.
Originally posted by dreamscaper Originally posted by RivolI'm pretty sure they would be happy to see any profit at all, fast or otherwise. This bucket of poo must've cost NCSoft a small fortune. The typical hardcore mmo player is a rare species these days, the casual gamer is the larger and more profitable base to milk money from. They are Wildstars last hope for survival and they should re-attune their end game and their revenue on that. It's probably too late for b2p sadly, which only leaves f2p. I dunno, it all sounds too hard and I suspect NCSoft will just give up. Valuable lesson for future game makers tho, trying to please the hardcore gamer will send you broke!
I see this posted all the time and it drives me nuts. Anyone who has had a basic business course can tell you that you don't need to target the mass market segment in order to turn a profit; niche market segments are perfectly fine.
That being said, I think Wildstar's issue is that they were trying to target both and it didn't quite pan out. Plus, if the videos they developed for the game were any indication, the production costs were through the roof.
Yeah, but your basic business course doesnt cover NCSoft's ruthless cost cutting, especially when it comes to their Western games.
When CoH was cancelled it was pulling a profit but not enough profit.
NCSoft isnt interested in "profit" they want "PROFIT"
Even GW2 managed 4X the revenue with only a small portion of the peak player base still playing the game, (though those numbers are definitely bolstered by China).
Uhm no.
That would be royalties and as the chart states: royalties are excluded
Comments
The numbers linked are for 2013. I'm not sure how a 3rd qt 2014 report that did not list revenue discredits Superdata
*crickets*
Agreed. I've played rhythm games which required less key presses than a boss fight in Wildstar. Basically you just constantly dodge telegraphed attacks while occasionally firing off an ability. Oh, and if you fail to dodge a telegraphed attack? Pretty much dead, even if you're a class considered to be tanky.
Spending the entire encounter looking at the damned ground isn't mine, nor many other people's, idea of fun.
The fact that their engine is a buggy unoptimized piece of crap which I suspect was coded in a North Korean sweat shop doesn't help either. Guess they should have spent time and money on the game itself instead of making all those CG trailers.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
"It's just business" should NEVER be an excuse to act like an asshole. Everyone in business should remember their customers are people not a life support system for credit cards.
if they brought City of Heroes back Wildstar would shut down cause i know 100% City of Heroes would take off big time specially if they brought it back with accounts and all info intact since Wildstar is not even near as good as City of Heroes was infact it was one of the best MMO's out in its time and it could never be considered a wow clone because it was out before wow existed i would quit wow if City came back no mmo on the market can come close to the way city was not even close. I still miss that game soooo much Ncsoft is stupid for shutting it down.
didnt Yoshida announce not too long ago that both FFXIV and FFXI together made up 1 million subscribers? i doubt FFXI has 500k so most of that million is playing XIV. And I remember a lot of people here discussing another topic where Square Enix supossedly said they only needed 500k concurrent subscribers for XIV to be successful.
So yeah, XIV has been showing since its ARR launch that an MMO doesnt need WoW numbers to be successful.
As for the person you quoted, i disagree with him/her. Swtor and Eso have big IPs behind them but the games' quality get stomped compared to WoW and XIV quality. I like all 4 games but it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out why two of them didnt succeed as sub-only games. Im not a big fan of sub-only business model but a high quality and fun game can still succeed with that model.
Except CoH had a loyal player base who still miss the game even more than 2 years later. WS doesn't even have that. I'm sure CoH made its money back for NCSoft and would have continued to generate a profit (albeit a small profit) for a while longer.
Agreed
But dude, use some more periods.
CoH was sundowned because NCSoft inflated its value and to cover up how much they were spending on Guild Wars 2. It's why they didn't sell it despite being offered millions, if it was sold they'd have to make public records NCSoft didn't want to be made public.
yeah notice that guild wars 2 was released then all of a sudden BOOM we are shutting down City of Heroes.
Yeah that's not odd or nothing right?
I do want to say I liked WS at first. It was an original IP and was sci-fi instead of another fantasy game (seriously, why is fantasy so popular, look to the future people). The bright colors and art style was a welcome change from the 50 shades of brown push for gritty realism we see in other games. But for me, like others, it was the action combat that drove me away. Playing felt more like a chore and the open world setting just didn't work for me. Call me Old Skol (or however the kids today are spelling it) but I prefer instanced areas. Still, I think occasionally about going back. There were still a few moments of genuine fun in the game.
But in the end, I think this game killed my interest in MMOs. NCSoft stuck it a serious blow when they canceled CoH and like a fool I went to WS hoping to recapture that spark. If you want to see a drop in revenue wait until it's 13 months old. That's when those of us who bought the game and paid a year's subscription will have to renew and I suspect most of us won't. A few months ago my credit card number was stolen and I haven't updated my NCSoft account with the new one. I don't want to risk auto paying for a game I haven't played in a long time.
I think NcSoft should invest on relaunching Lineage 1 in NA as a free to play game since it is doing so well in Asia.
The reason they had to shut it down was because no one wanted to pay $15 a month for such an old game.
But as for Wildstar it'd be best for them to just cut their losses and shut it down F2P for it would be a waste of time.
MMO's aren't about leveling anymore. Hardcore does not mean grindy grindy leveling.
Wildstar had a lot more problems than just being hard core. Even hard core guilds left the game because it was a buggy mess with nothing to do when you weren't raiding and piss-poor itemization.
They've been improving on all of those aspects slowly but it's a pretty big case of too-little too-late at this point.
economic and finance 101? I dunno what make you think you are a genius and look at peoples on your high horse when in fact a 2 brainer would know already a free to play model is already in place IF THEY WANT TO SWITCH TO F2P, guess they built all their restrictions only for this trial right? sorry dude, I just need to burst your little ego right there.
In-Game Restrictions:
They should knock 8 bucks off the monthly fee and make all the end game content they already have more accessible to the average gamer
/armchair
I'd prefer progressing slowly through the levels and spending a good chunk of hours in each zone and dungeon, rather than rush through content in couple of weeks and then grind on max level the rest of my subscription. Leveling can be meaningful content, believe it or not.
But yeah, they are not about that anymore. Now they are all about hitting max level in few days, then logging in daily to do your chores and doing again the very dungeon you did yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that..
Both ways can be considered grindy if asked from a random mmo gamer, but the former gives you a constant sense of progression and keeps you going forward, while the latter makes you repeat the same stuff over and over again until next content patch is implemented.
And this is why I refuse to buy anything that has NCSoft's name attached to it. After Tabula Rasa and City of Heroes, I'm simply done with that POS company.
I agree B2P can be good if they do it right, but I not sure will work out for them as they want to see fast profit. I know may work out pretty well for eso but there not worst off as wildstar is atm.
We will see this year, so far there main drive is gw2 xpack, if they put gw2 over wildstar may just not last next 2 years after they cut more and more people to bring in content in the game, who knows they may sell it off to keep it alive.
But I know for people that are out there for wildstar, that I know wildstar is not dead, but if they don't make a profit they will cut more people and be setting in dead water with out any update, maybe bug fix time to time.
I'm pretty sure they would be happy to see any profit at all, fast or otherwise. This bucket of poo must've cost NCSoft a small fortune.
The typical hardcore mmo player is a rare species these days, the casual gamer is the larger and more profitable base to milk money from. They are Wildstars last hope for survival and they should re-attune their end game and their revenue on that. It's probably too late for b2p sadly, which only leaves f2p.
I dunno, it all sounds too hard and I suspect NCSoft will just give up. Valuable lesson for future game makers tho, trying to please the hardcore gamer will send you broke!
I see this posted all the time and it drives me nuts. Anyone who has had a basic business course can tell you that you don't need to target the mass market segment in order to turn a profit; niche market segments are perfectly fine.
That being said, I think Wildstar's issue is that they were trying to target both and it didn't quite pan out. Plus, if the videos they developed for the game were any indication, the production costs were through the roof.
The game is flawed, but pairing the flawed game with the Subscription business model was idiocy from the start and the numbers just prove it.
Even GW2 managed 4X the revenue with only a small portion of the peak player base still playing the game, (though those numbers are definitely bolstered by China).
The WS developers were just completely out of touch with reality, a.), thinking WoW in Space, with almost identical textures and art style, was the way to go for 2014 and b.) thinking the game had any shot at financial success with a dying business model.
I keep hearing from people that the game is actually pretty fun, but the problem is that no one is playing anymore. If they had gone B2P from the start, with a well designed Cash Shop, there is no reason it couldn't have kept pace with GW2. In fact, a pair of B2P games from the same publisher might have made for exceptional synergy, with players bounces back and forth between games when they needed a change of pace and environment.
I agree with what some others have said. The numbers have fallen off the cliff so dramatically, that I'm not sure the game will even be seen as warranting a shift to F2P/B2P, (B2P is far superior, due to all the issues with true F2P), unless work has already progressed pretty far behind the scenes already on such a transition.
Tabula Rasa got the axe from NCSoft pretty quickly after it's revenue fell apart, NCSoft is not afraid to cut their losses entirely. I'd say a complete shut down isn't at all out of the question unless they can somehow transition the business model asap.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
That being said, I think Wildstar's issue is that they were trying to target both and it didn't quite pan out. Plus, if the videos they developed for the game were any indication, the production costs were through the roof.
Yeah, but your basic business course doesnt cover NCSoft's ruthless cost cutting, especially when it comes to their Western games.
When CoH was cancelled it was pulling a profit but not enough profit.
NCSoft isnt interested in "profit" they want "PROFIT"
Uhm no.
That would be royalties and as the chart states: royalties are excluded