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Simutronics' other games
Renian
Member Posts: 152
As the Bi-weekly questions thread seems to be in regard to questions more oriented toward Hero's Journey and not toward their other games, I felt a different topic was necessary.
Anyway, I was curious about what will happen to the pricing of Simutronics' other games if Hero's Journey is a success (which it probably will be). The price raises were supposedly to fund HJ. In a FAQ for the price raises when the first one was introduced (from $10 to $12), there was this Q and A that went something like this:
Q: Is this money going towards Hero's Journey?
A: Yes! We are a gaming company, not a swiss bank.
So, will all of Simu's other games perhaps go down to $10 a month again, as soon as the HJ profits become greater than the cost of HJ's development?
Also, HJ is supposed to feature a vast army of GameMasters that will continuously expand the future version of Elanthia. With the extra money that they will most likely obtain, will Simu hire more GameMasters to expand their old games more? If the GameMaster team for DR and GS was doubled, and AoH and MO's staff quadrupled...*drool*
I only want MO's and AoH's staff to be quadrupled because those are games with great potential and not nearly enough people played them. MO rocks, as it is a very, very rare type of MMO - The Modern Era MMO. It must be improved!
Final question: If Hero's Journey is a success, will Simutronics develop other 3D MMOs to satisfy the tastes of the gamers who want a Modern day MMO, or perhaps a Sci-Fi MMO? Perhaps one based in the world of Cyberstrike, if that's at all doable considering the world?
Comments
No-one will really know until HJ is released, but it's probably rare that a company has ever reduced their rates once they have gone up. I would suspect the pricing isn't at a threshold that is causing people to leave. Look at the recent merchant events in gemstone where players dropped close to 300$ for special access. (search for information on the Wavedancer quest.)
Simu has always had excellent support of their popular games, although I have never even bothered to play anything beyond GS or DR. I would suspect that GS and DR are at the decline of the product lifecyce, but they've been doing an excellent job of slowing the decline down.
I think that the lives of the MUDs will depend on the following factors:
1. If they remain profitable/sustainable, and/or 2. if the administration, for sentimental reasons, decides to keep the game around. From what I have read, simu's done quite a bit to re-assure their customers that there are no current plans to close down their MUDS, but only time will tell.
In any business this question must be answered about a product, is it valuable enough asset to support?
If it is, they will, otherwise, there's honestly no point.
I would place my chips on the answer YES. They just need to take the same formulas, and apply them to other genres, perhaps changing things here and there, but as Gemstone was the flagship for their other MUD's, I would hedge a bet that HJ is a flagship for a slew of niche MMO's. (although, don't most MMO's fulfill a niche).
A well said response, Yswithe.