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Well that didnt last long.
rodarin
Member EpicPosts: 2,611
in Conan Exiles
Talk about a flame out.
This game is probably the end for Funcom.
While they get touted for already making their money back (which from looking at the game and its quality shouldnt have taken more than a few hundred units sold to accomplish), the REAL metric is how many people are playing it? People buy every new game that comes along and when its green lit on Steam and has name recognition a lot more people buy a title than 'should'.
There have been obvious issues, some will claim outside Funcoms control. But not really since they made those decisions in the first place. But that can be debated. The server issue being the most obvious. But that has been worked around, not exactly 'fixed' but definitely better than it was. Not ot mention that server hosting for private servers (where the vast majority of players who played were playing) werent having nearly the issues the official servers were, and some hosts had zero issues.
Now on its face Conan should have been awesome. But with Ark and Rust and Arma III and all the other 'sand box' games it is a very weak knock off. It took people about 2 days to see that.
Now we can debate numbers all we want and people will cite STEAM as 'official' but even they cant manipulate the numbers enough to make this game look like it has any staying power. I dont think they ever peaked above 60K, which includes solos and all servers and any logging in through stream which AFAIK is 100% of the ownership.. The source I use had the highest peak ONLINE at around 33600, that was last Saturday. That was also when around 250K or so units had been sold (with an obvious margin of error) since then the units sold has risen to around 340K. But peak numbers have declined all week. Yesterday the peak was around 35K on Steam and 19K on the source I use to see online players. Again we can debate the numbers all we want but the graph on that site shows a clear pattern, its dropping.
https://topconanservers.com/stats#
Click on the 7 Day option.
Today they might peak higher since its a weekend, but last night was Friday night and they couldnt hit 20K so not sure if a Sat night will be all that different but we will see.
Steam stats show that people are playing an average of 10 hours a day. So the ones that are playing it are playing the crap out of it. But that more than likely means once their burn out point comes it will come faster.
Now I am not solely targeting Conan itself but the idea it perpetuates. Where developers (indie or 'known') think they can just put out a basic cut and paste job of something they have seen and hope they can catch the same lightening in a bottle. Especially if they add some 'unique' mechanic to it. Developers have gotten lazy and desperate I think. Not daring to spend money and hoping that if they do by some miracle make something people will stick with they will make some profits and also make enough to update the game.
Now with all this being said the thing that saved ARK is now in Conan, namely the mod kit. We will see if the free developing and enhancements the mod makers do with it can help Conan like it helped Ark. Possible but to many people who are burnt out on ARK as well its just more of the same thing.
There will of course be a tournament of some kind once they fix the major bugs, that is assuming they CAN fix those bugs, which is also out of the 'how can we appease players for longer than 2 days' handbook.
But right now this game to me looks to be in serious trouble and its longevity, at least getting anything more than rudimentary patches here and there is dicey.
ARK has sold nearly 5 million copies AND a DLC. Not to mention all the free content mod makers have done, along with hiring some of the better ones to be official team members. As well as 'borrowing' some of the better mod principles and ideas and adding them to the game officially(in some cases unsuccessfully)And that game still has issues, at least on the developmental side. But they have been fairly regular with the official patches and additions which has also obviously help retain or bring back players. But it shows just what you have to do to simply maintain. Once that game officially releases and the updates arent nearly as regular that will be the true test of its longevity.
I think that is what Conan was hoping for to seize those players. Problem is they released this game too early and too buggy and by the time the disenfranchised Ark players were ready to move to a new game this one will be dead.
Time will tell and its all relative at least short term. And the fans will say "I am having fun". Which is all well and good but without players and without revenue there is no new additions and without new additions the fun factor goes away quickly, even if youre hardcore RP, and even with a rabid mod community. It all eventually stagnates.
This game is probably the end for Funcom.
While they get touted for already making their money back (which from looking at the game and its quality shouldnt have taken more than a few hundred units sold to accomplish), the REAL metric is how many people are playing it? People buy every new game that comes along and when its green lit on Steam and has name recognition a lot more people buy a title than 'should'.
There have been obvious issues, some will claim outside Funcoms control. But not really since they made those decisions in the first place. But that can be debated. The server issue being the most obvious. But that has been worked around, not exactly 'fixed' but definitely better than it was. Not ot mention that server hosting for private servers (where the vast majority of players who played were playing) werent having nearly the issues the official servers were, and some hosts had zero issues.
Now on its face Conan should have been awesome. But with Ark and Rust and Arma III and all the other 'sand box' games it is a very weak knock off. It took people about 2 days to see that.
Now we can debate numbers all we want and people will cite STEAM as 'official' but even they cant manipulate the numbers enough to make this game look like it has any staying power. I dont think they ever peaked above 60K, which includes solos and all servers and any logging in through stream which AFAIK is 100% of the ownership.. The source I use had the highest peak ONLINE at around 33600, that was last Saturday. That was also when around 250K or so units had been sold (with an obvious margin of error) since then the units sold has risen to around 340K. But peak numbers have declined all week. Yesterday the peak was around 35K on Steam and 19K on the source I use to see online players. Again we can debate the numbers all we want but the graph on that site shows a clear pattern, its dropping.
https://topconanservers.com/stats#
Click on the 7 Day option.
Today they might peak higher since its a weekend, but last night was Friday night and they couldnt hit 20K so not sure if a Sat night will be all that different but we will see.
Steam stats show that people are playing an average of 10 hours a day. So the ones that are playing it are playing the crap out of it. But that more than likely means once their burn out point comes it will come faster.
Now I am not solely targeting Conan itself but the idea it perpetuates. Where developers (indie or 'known') think they can just put out a basic cut and paste job of something they have seen and hope they can catch the same lightening in a bottle. Especially if they add some 'unique' mechanic to it. Developers have gotten lazy and desperate I think. Not daring to spend money and hoping that if they do by some miracle make something people will stick with they will make some profits and also make enough to update the game.
Now with all this being said the thing that saved ARK is now in Conan, namely the mod kit. We will see if the free developing and enhancements the mod makers do with it can help Conan like it helped Ark. Possible but to many people who are burnt out on ARK as well its just more of the same thing.
There will of course be a tournament of some kind once they fix the major bugs, that is assuming they CAN fix those bugs, which is also out of the 'how can we appease players for longer than 2 days' handbook.
But right now this game to me looks to be in serious trouble and its longevity, at least getting anything more than rudimentary patches here and there is dicey.
ARK has sold nearly 5 million copies AND a DLC. Not to mention all the free content mod makers have done, along with hiring some of the better ones to be official team members. As well as 'borrowing' some of the better mod principles and ideas and adding them to the game officially(in some cases unsuccessfully)And that game still has issues, at least on the developmental side. But they have been fairly regular with the official patches and additions which has also obviously help retain or bring back players. But it shows just what you have to do to simply maintain. Once that game officially releases and the updates arent nearly as regular that will be the true test of its longevity.
I think that is what Conan was hoping for to seize those players. Problem is they released this game too early and too buggy and by the time the disenfranchised Ark players were ready to move to a new game this one will be dead.
Time will tell and its all relative at least short term. And the fans will say "I am having fun". Which is all well and good but without players and without revenue there is no new additions and without new additions the fun factor goes away quickly, even if youre hardcore RP, and even with a rabid mod community. It all eventually stagnates.
Comments
And I used 800 less words.
Take a chill pill my man. It's okay if you think the game is dying. That's your opinion and hell, that could be the case. But it has frequent patches and if they keep the content on the rise it will skyrocket. Nobody likes a doomsayer a week in an early access title. I mean what are you trying to accomplish here?
"Unfinished game not active like a fully functional finished game." No shit bro. The fact they've recouped during their first week on early access is plenty of success. It's barebones at the moment. Come on man. I honestly think you're better than this.
I'm really grooving on the game and I didn't play last night. There are those of us who still like to socialize outside of gaming especially on a Friday night.
Old School as it is
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Nioh will follow the exact same path in less than a month.
IMO it shows a much bigger picture,gamer's are bored stiff willing to buy anything in hopes it makes them happy.The entire market should be ashamed at the crap they are selling people.
IMO games have barely got 20% better in the last 20 years,some nicer graphics but VERY little creativity.
With Conan instead of seeing the obvious right away "what do i do" seemed all were just happy building their hut/home and forgot the game really offered very little.
I believe i mentioned it in another thread awhile back,Funcom is hurting for cash ,this was exactly what Landmark was ,a go to cash grab to keep things afloat.
I am a very firm believer that early access games have NO intention of further development,they are feeler games,let's see what attention we can get fro ma bare minimum game and if goes well,then we continue developing,if not,thanks for coming out.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
And yes I have played plenty of 'early access' games some I paid for some I got for free some were free to begin with.
The only one I wanted a refund on was Of Kings and Men, and if you have played that you probably know why.
Despite some of the rhetoric here about ARK is also an 'early access' game even though its been out for 18 months and has released a DLC already. So that EA terms gets used when people see fit to use it, so its basically meaningless. Because it means they can still sell it (usually on Steam) with little to no reprisals if they fail to finish it. And Wildcard also started a trend (which others havent tried to exploit yet) of also being able to sell DLCs to games that arent even officially released. but the next so called "early access'' game that has even a modicum of 'success' you can bet your ass they will do the same thing.
Conan is literally ARK with different skins. And 18 less development and mod presence.
No matter what they do it is still ARK. Unless they add quests then its ARK with quests.
So they suffer greatly with the comparisons. The 'retention' (or more realistically the extreme lack thereof) is a sign of that.
Games best hope is Twitch guys and streamers fall in love with it and they use it as an option instead of ARK. But even that more than likely isnt enough.
Its a cycle, ARK was Rust with Dinosaurs. And while I will admit ARK definitely built momentum after a very rocky start it still didnt have itself to compete with like Conan does. So while it was cool to say Ark was Rust its now cool to say CE is ARK. But the latter is much more literal.
And as I said its all well and good for the short term and them making their money back might entice them to release more than what they already had canned. But if you want it to be even a shadow of what ARK offers you better hope more than 350K people buy it and 10K people play it. There are literally more servers than players right now. That is pretty amazing.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/That's what she said
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
That describes every single Early Access game. That's literally the definition of early access. This game is doing exactly what it says on the tin.
People who buy into this game, or any early access title, are paying for a bare bones product. Not a finished game. It may or may not not even work some of the time, be really buggy and all sorts of other problems. YOU KNOW THAT GOING IN.
If you want to avoid these issues, wait till it releases. Then complain if it still doesnt work. ( which lets be real here - its Funcom. Shits bound to go wrong at some point).
But until then..... *shrug*
Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!
Unreleased yet a paid DLC available?
Releasing a paid!! DLC when the core game is still broken, players outrage but all complaints are replied with "you can not complain, this game is still beta, can we have your money?" excuse. Hint: A game can not be beta when there is a paid DLC, simple as that.
Majority of the official servers are barely populated.
Stealth nerfs galore
67% structure timer nerf unannounced and patched in, leaving the majority of the playerbase to lose ALL their stuff they grinded for. Devs reverted the change, not the patch.
Bugs galore
Grindfest
Content gone due to bugs or a patch? "Sorry, better luck next time"
Gamebreaking bugs not fixed since release
PVP players killing off all your stuff from shooting UNDER the map.
Awful PVP system
Awful lag spikes, since release. (The 15min save system)
The only way ARK boosts their servers a bit was by releasing to consoles.
Prior to that the official PC servers were ALL like 15/70 populated in Prime Time.
ARK is only great when played on UNofficial servers, with mods that negate the bad patches and gameplay issued by the developers.
You don't have to say to me this game is great, I played since day 1, and I know this game can be great, but is moderated and patched into the ground by devs that have no clue what they are doing.
Other then coding in a
"tame dino A, fetch eggs, make kibble, tame dino B, fetch eggs, make kibble, tame Dino C........on to Dino ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ" system.
Just to lenghten THE GRIND to keep ppl logging in every day.
ARK official: sucks 100%
ARK Unofficial: can be good with the correct server admins and good mods.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"