Originally posted by Obraik Originally posted by Wildcat84 Originally posted by Obraik Originally posted by Wildcat84 I never said a lot came back, just some old names from pre-NGE did, for a brief time, and left. The overall population has been down and going lower, ever since the CU came out.
Let's just say that May-June was the time when they were losing the fewest subscribers.
The current time is probably another period of least loss, because of all the free trials, and the fact that the lower the water level in the leaking bucket, the slower the drip.
The bottom line: The population I personally witnessed in the game isn't enough to adequately support 3 servers, much less 25. That is WAY the hell down from CU and Pre-CU.
For there to have been a peak, people had to have came back. However, back then you were saying basically what you're saying now in this post and when I posted that I was noticing more people around you (and others) started a 50 page thread on how I was wrong Notice I put the word "peak" in quotes. I meant it sarcastically.
May-June was it for them. They had the summits. They had people somewhat excited about Restuss and expertise.
Then they failed to deliver on both. Plus, hundreds and hundreds of us went to summits, and 6 months later, see that once again we were lied to and overpromised.
And what about this statement you made then:
"I played steadily from the NGE inception until early last month, and I can tell you that other than a brief period between the Restuss buildup and Jedi expertise, there was a small increase on Bloodfin, ".
While you say it was only small (although not sure I'd call 3 months brief), it's still the complete opposite of what you were saying back then...
Quit harping on a very minor point. I never said that there was a net gain, only that that was the only time I saw ANYONE come back that I knew. You have lost this argument and you know it. My numbers paint a disasterous, untenable position for NGE, and you know it. I notice that you have made no attempt whatsoever to argue with my theory. I even overestimated to SWG's benefit, and used a lower percentage of total subs that are active at peak times than Koster himself has given, which results in a higher assumed total sub number.
In other words, giving NGE every possible benefit of the doubt the picture is still uglier than Rosie O'Donnel.
Originally posted by Wildcat84 I never said a lot came back, just some old names from pre-NGE did, for a brief time, and left. The overall population has been down and going lower, ever since the CU came out.
Let's just say that May-June was the time when they were losing the fewest subscribers.
The current time is probably another period of least loss, because of all the free trials, and the fact that the lower the water level in the leaking bucket, the slower the drip.
The bottom line: The population I personally witnessed in the game isn't enough to adequately support 3 servers, much less 25. That is WAY the hell down from CU and Pre-CU.
For there to have been a peak, people had to have came back. However, back then you were saying basically what you're saying now in this post and when I posted that I was noticing more people around you (and others) started a 50 page thread on how I was wrong
Notice I put the word "peak" in quotes. I meant it sarcastically.
May-June was it for them. They had the summits. They had people somewhat excited about Restuss and expertise.
Then they failed to deliver on both. Plus, hundreds and hundreds of us went to summits, and 6 months later, see that once again we were lied to and overpromised.
And what about this statement you made then:
"I played steadily from the NGE inception until early last month, and I can tell you that other than a brief period between the Restuss buildup and Jedi expertise, there was a small increase on Bloodfin, ".
While you say it was only small (although not sure I'd call 3 months brief), it's still the complete opposite of what you were saying back then...
Quit harping on a very minor point. I never said that there was a net gain, only that that was the only time I saw ANYONE come back that I knew. You have lost this argument and you know it. My numbers paint a disasterous, untenable position for NGE, and you know it. I notice that you have made no attempt whatsoever to argue with my theory. I even overestimated to SWG's benefit, and used a lower percentage of total subs that are active at peak times than Koster himself has given, which results in a higher assumed total sub number.
In other words, giving NGE every possible benefit of the doubt the picture is still uglier than Rosie O'Donnel.
A minor point? My overall point here is that you make all these wild claims and then 5 months down the track you completely back track on your statements and say the opposite of what you were saying back then. It's like the boy who cried wolf, why is what you say now any more believable then what you were saying back then?
I understand you are trying to parse out his language to suggest the current statement isn't unbelievable, but its not like he is the only person saying the game population is extremely low. Certainly only SOE knows exactly how many paying subs they have, so what he is saying is obviously an educated guess not the gospel truth. But that doesn't change the fact population in SWG is way down. There are lots of people complaining about empty servers.
Can you honestly say SWG is at healty population level right now? If you do, I respect your opinion, but please understand that is the minority view both here and on the heavily moderate official forums.
So I guess my point is even if you are right about the OP's arguably inconsitent statments, that doesn't mean the servers are aren't barren.
Originally posted by Wildcat84 I never said a lot came back, just some old names from pre-NGE did, for a brief time, and left. The overall population has been down and going lower, ever since the CU came out.
Let's just say that May-June was the time when they were losing the fewest subscribers.
The current time is probably another period of least loss, because of all the free trials, and the fact that the lower the water level in the leaking bucket, the slower the drip.
The bottom line: The population I personally witnessed in the game isn't enough to adequately support 3 servers, much less 25. That is WAY the hell down from CU and Pre-CU.
For there to have been a peak, people had to have came back. However, back then you were saying basically what you're saying now in this post and when I posted that I was noticing more people around you (and others) started a 50 page thread on how I was wrong
O your funny.... I saw your comment on the suck boards....
TH watches me like a hawk to put out my fires on a constant basis.... as you saw today.
See the difference between you and me is that no matter what you say or try to, people do know and see what is really going on.
You can try to fluff them all you want but they are not that stupid... they just arn't.
Your comments are made in "worry", if half of what I said or others said did not bother you , you would not post.
So far as I said there it's isk 11 -- SOE devs 0 -- 11 months of me being right and 0 months of them being successful.
I can back mine up... can you back yours up?
Worry about you? Lol, you think too highly of yourself
By that definition, I must have you worried since you came here posting about it in a thread that has nothing to do with what you're talking about...
Yes but you do watch... I like that. Again.... can your back up your success with anything?
Show me the NGE was any kind of a success.
______________________________ I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process..... SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
Originally posted by ShiloFields Obraik, I understand you are trying to parse out his language to suggest the current statement isn't unbelievable, but its not like he is the only person saying the game population is extremely low. Certainly only SOE knows exactly how many paying subs they have, so what he is saying is obviously an educated guess not the gospel truth. But that doesn't change the fact population in SWG is way down. There are lots of people complaining about empty servers. Can you honestly say SWG is at healty population level right now? If you do, I respect your opinion, but please understand that is the minority view both here and on the heavily moderate official forums. So I guess my point is even if you are right about the OP's arguably inconsitent statments, that doesn't mean the servers are aren't barren.
If they were doing great, not alot of talk would even be about this. In fact they would be busy playing and worried about load and adding servers even.
It went backwards...
Any person can go in the game and look around and see for himself. It does not take some special skill or ability to see where the game is.
______________________________ I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process..... SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
Originally posted by Wildcat84 5% of the subs being active would be way too low. Really, 10% is the lowest realistically.
Keep in mind, these numbers I posted are VERY conservative, and are being overly generous. They put the range of SWG subs (paying and trials) at somewhere between 20 and 40K. That is not good.
I could have used Koster's figure of % of subs are on at peak times and it would have looked even worse.
Take away the trial users, and you might be looking at less than 20K actual subscribers left. That is most definitely not good at all. They are certainly not making money at that subscriber level, not with 25 servers running and being maintained, and with any development/support at all going on. Only way they make money with that is cut the servers to no more than 3, get rid of all but 2-3 CSR's, get rid of all but about 4 Devs, and fire all but one of the forum mods. If they did all that the sub level would drop even lower, as you'd basically end up only with the remaining subs from the 3 servers you kept, most of the rest on the servers that were yanked would quit.
If what youre saying here is close the actual numbers then the question is: Why doesnt SWG sunset? business-wise it should have been ended allready. I mean SOE's pride regarding SWG cant justify the financial situation for the game if it has near to none income, or if its even worse; generating red numbers.
Originally posted by Wildcat84 I think my earlier estimates of SWG's sub decline progression was too optimistic (in SOE's favor) based on my experience looking around the 5 so-called "medium" population servers over the last 4 days. I quit playing the game back in early September, and the population has seen another big drop since even then.
Based on what I saw, there couldn't have been 150-250 concurrent players on each of those 5 servers. ANd that is being generous, as I couldn't head count more than 30 after going to all the main gathering areas. Extrapolating to the other 20 "light and very light" servers, my guess is that I'd be overly generous to say they have an average of 125-150 concurrent users.
These are estimates that, IMHO are overly generous.
All this was at peak time on Saturday night.
So, 20 x 150= 3000 concurrent players on the light servers.
5 x 250= 1250 concurrent players on the medium servers.
That is a total of about 4250 concurrent players at peak time on a weekend. Formulae for MMO's state that between 10 and 20% of your total sub base will be logged in at any given peak time.
If 4250 was 10% of SWG's total sub base, then they have about 42,500 subs left.
If 4250 was 20% of SWG's total sub base, then they have about 21,250 subs left.
Keep in mind that my observation was done at peak time during a time where they have an open free vet trial, AND a free open to everyone 14 day trial in which you can now leave the station, and that I extrapolated my estimates ABOVE what I actually think were present. On Bloodfin, for example, a server I played on for 2+ years, I know the habits of the guilds and populations, having only recently quit. I went to all those places, and I could not see more than 30 people, yet I calculated the concurrent users at 250.
With this being the case, it's pretty easy to see why they suddenly offered the vet trial and opened the new player trial to the whole game (not just the station).
And it's also easy to see why you are seeing irrational "F-YOU" rants by ChrisCao, Helios posting in a drunken stupor, and the normally mild mannered TH acting testy and "throwing forum posters out the airlock" as he's stated.
They are about to get axed, en masse, and they know it. This upcoming publish, the boxed set, and the holiday season is it.
I like my chances of winning the Powerball better than theirs.
But Wildcat, it's common knowledge that only 1%... err... 0.5% of the playerbase plays at primetime. Plus, there's like a lot of English people on the game now. They probably just left before you got on.
And space is filled with people. It's just that it's so big, you hardly ever run across them.
Originally posted by Morlan Originally posted by Wildcat84 5% of the subs being active would be way too low. Really, 10% is the lowest realistically.
Keep in mind, these numbers I posted are VERY conservative, and are being overly generous. They put the range of SWG subs (paying and trials) at somewhere between 20 and 40K. That is not good.
I could have used Koster's figure of % of subs are on at peak times and it would have looked even worse.
Take away the trial users, and you might be looking at less than 20K actual subscribers left. That is most definitely not good at all. They are certainly not making money at that subscriber level, not with 25 servers running and being maintained, and with any development/support at all going on. Only way they make money with that is cut the servers to no more than 3, get rid of all but 2-3 CSR's, get rid of all but about 4 Devs, and fire all but one of the forum mods. If they did all that the sub level would drop even lower, as you'd basically end up only with the remaining subs from the 3 servers you kept, most of the rest on the servers that were yanked would quit.
If what youre saying here is close the actual numbers then the question is: Why doesnt SWG sunset? business-wise it should have been ended allready. I mean SOE's pride regarding SWG cant justify the financial situation for the game if it has near to none income, or if its even worse; generating red numbers. The answer is, they have been given to the end of combat expertise (note they changed their plan to rush out the last 3 combat expertise revamps), the boxed set, and the holidays to turn it around.
If it doesn't start ticking up after that, they will sunset it. They may have been given to the end of crafter/entertainer expertise/revamps early next year, but I doubt they will be given the time or money at that point.
This IS in line with everything I've consistently said. For months I've predicted cancellation after this holiday season, and final shutdown in 1Q `07. They may do some minor publishes between the next one and the shutdown announcement, but I don't expect anything big (such as the crafter and entertainer revamps), and definitely no real content (note that new content that was to be added as per the publish plan has consistently been dropped, after the Restuss gimmick).
The Devs are angry and nervous over this, and it shows. Expect the better ones (there are a couple left I still have some respect for, Hanse and Addy for instance) to jump ship for other jobs as soon as they can. The ones who are stuck with the fate of SWG, the senior guys, Chris Cao, Helios, and Thunderheart (who will never be employed for another MMO again as he's unqualified) are the ones showing their asses on the forums.
At this point the only thing that saves SWG from sunset in 3-6 months maximum are classic servers.
They know this by now, or fear it. Really, the two sides hate each other so much right now (the Devs hate us as much as we hate them) they don't want to give us what we REALLY want any more than we want to give them what they want (money and subscriptions). It's really sank that low.
I used to respect Obraik, and I would intentionally leave him out of my criticisms of fanbois on these forums that ruined the General Forums and turned it into a flame pit. But, I'm taking that back now. Since the split, he has been contrarian to the point of rude. Picking out symantics, ignoring the general point of threads, just to make a Pro-SOE stand. I'm disappointed, but not really surprised. I've even seen some genuine trolling from him lately. I'm tiring of this site in general, but watching the behavior of the pro-SOE people on this vet board, and the lack of moderator action on it compared to their specially protected safe-haven habitat, sickens me.
Originally posted by Morlan If what youre saying here is close the actual numbers then the question is: Why doesnt SWG sunset? business-wise it should have been ended allready. I mean SOE's pride regarding SWG cant justify the financial situation for the game if it has near to none income, or if its even worse; generating red numbers.
Good question. Basiclly, once an MMO pays back it's development costs, all it does is make money. Lets be critical and say the total subs are 25k. At an avaerage of $14.25 month per customer they're making $4,275,000 a year, more than enough to cover it's opperating costs.
That said, It's a HUGE decrease from Pre-CU & even the CU, and MUCH less royalties for LA. The real question for LA is will they pull the license knowing they can make 50 times more with a company that has a clue.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
Once the decision was made to produce and market the "SWG Complete" set as their shelf-stocker for the holiday season, sunsetting was highly unlikely until after the end of Q4 2006.
Now, I think we all find it rather incoomprehensible that they'll make back their investment on 'Complete' given the reputation of this particular product, but an irrational, desparate grab for a few bucks is never beyond the realm of possibility with the SWG team, is it?
However, once yet another product on the shelves underperforms below the most modest expectations, you have to wonder how far into 2007 this turkey can stumble along.
SWG complete cost them nothing but packaging and discs. Well, and about 1 hour of Dev time to add in a stupid vehicle. It contains no new content at all. It's a naked cash grab.
It's hard to lose money on something like that, but if they produce an excessive number of boxes they may manage it.
Keep in mind that they are already offering everything except TOOW free to trial users who at the end of their 14 days, puts in a credit card and continues their sub. The new trial includes ROTW and JTL...
Originally posted by Morlan If what youre saying here is close the actual numbers then the question is: Why doesnt SWG sunset? business-wise it should have been ended allready. I mean SOE's pride regarding SWG cant justify the financial situation for the game if it has near to none income, or if its even worse; generating red numbers.
Good question. Basiclly, once an MMO pays back it's development costs, all it does is make money. Lets be critical and say the total subs are 25k. At an avaerage of $14.25 month per customer they're making $4,275,000 a year, more than enough to cover it's opperating costs.
That said, It's a HUGE decrease from Pre-CU & even the CU, and MUCH less royalties for LA. The real question for LA is will they pull the license knowing they can make 50 times more with a company that has a clue.
SOE was hardly able to justify their revenue stream from SWG when it had 200k-250k subscribers. With 180k subscribers they were able to re-cop their operating expenses with "loss".
Corporate environments are ineresting. Factoring in profit margins you'll be hard pressed to find a corporate business model that views any project that's generating less then 4 times the operating costs as sucessful - Be sure to factor in legal and licenesing fees. I believe there was a post a while back by John Smedley that detailed the number of people working on SWG. If you extrapolate those figures you'll see they were not performing even with 250k subscribers. Sorry, but the ref is buried and I'm not digging it up.
SWG has been a "research project" for a long time now. There's a lot of results that will be carried through the industry for years to come. One thing that I'm absoultey amazed to see is the ill-witted fools who clamor to their belief in SOE; Obraik. The only thing SOE has going for it is training for kids fresh out of school who need some experiance under their belts to get a break in the industry. Other then that, SOE is dead.
Originally posted by Morlan Originally posted by Wildcat84 5% of the subs being active would be way too low. Really, 10% is the lowest realistically.
Keep in mind, these numbers I posted are VERY conservative, and are being overly generous. They put the range of SWG subs (paying and trials) at somewhere between 20 and 40K. That is not good.
I could have used Koster's figure of % of subs are on at peak times and it would have looked even worse.
Take away the trial users, and you might be looking at less than 20K actual subscribers left. That is most definitely not good at all. They are certainly not making money at that subscriber level, not with 25 servers running and being maintained, and with any development/support at all going on. Only way they make money with that is cut the servers to no more than 3, get rid of all but 2-3 CSR's, get rid of all but about 4 Devs, and fire all but one of the forum mods. If they did all that the sub level would drop even lower, as you'd basically end up only with the remaining subs from the 3 servers you kept, most of the rest on the servers that were yanked would quit.
If what youre saying here is close the actual numbers then the question is: Why doesnt SWG sunset? business-wise it should have been ended allready. I mean SOE's pride regarding SWG cant justify the financial situation for the game if it has near to none income, or if its even worse; generating red numbers.
According to whatever that Lucasfilm magazine is (I don't remember the name), SOE is paying a yearly licensing fee. They have to pay that until their contract expires regardless wether or not the game is running. The servers will be merged early next year and they will continue the game with less than the ten people who are currently working oon it to at least offset the loss they will incur from the licensing fee alone.
There is also the major PR hit they would take by closing a Star Wars MMORPG because it was losing money. That, in itself, could inflict serious harm to SOE as a company. The reason MxO and Planetside are still running is that they feel it would damage their company. Star Wars has an extremely larger profile than those and it would not escape the notice of both the media (gaming and otherwise) and potential investors (a majority of companies don't use their own money to develop new products or expand opperations).
One thing I have noticed in this numbers thread is that Station access isn't mentioned, which SOE would definately use to boost their subscriptions... Personally, I believe that in total, this game in total has 70-100k subscribers, but that number does include station access... last I heard, the amount of people on station access was 50k+, showing as has been said before in this thread, how badly SWG is performing, and even worse, the $25 that the station access costs per month has to be split between the running costs of all the Station access games, while (you'd hope) that the single game subscriber's money is spent on that particular game.
Originally posted by Kaairn One thing I have noticed in this numbers thread is that Station access isn't mentioned, which SOE would definately use to boost their subscriptions... Personally, I believe that in total, this game in total has 70-100k subscribers, but that number does include station access... last I heard, the amount of people on station access was 50k+, showing as has been said before in this thread, how badly SWG is performing, and even worse, the $25 that the station access costs per month has to be split between the running costs of all the Station access games, while (you'd hope) that the single game subscriber's money is spent on that particular game.
I doubt station access is that high.
While they may use that to pad the numbers, the beancounters won't let them get away with counting that $25 x all their games as revenue. Neither will the Securities and Exchange Commission
Station access is not enough of a factor here to matter.
SOE was hardly able to justify their revenue stream from SWG when it had 200k-250k subscribers. With 180k subscribers they were able to re-cop their operating expenses with "loss".
Corporate environments are ineresting. Factoring in profit margins you'll be hard pressed to find a corporate business model that views any project that's generating less then 4 times the operating costs as sucessful - Be sure to factor in legal and licenesing fees. I believe there was a post a while back by John Smedley that detailed the number of people working on SWG. If you extrapolate those figures you'll see they were not performing even with 250k subscribers. Sorry, but the ref is buried and I'm not digging it up.
SWG has been a "research project" for a long time now. There's a lot of results that will be carried through the industry for years to come. One thing that I'm absoultey amazed to see is the ill-witted fools who clamor to their belief in SOE; Obraik. The only thing SOE has going for it is training for kids fresh out of school who need some experiance under their belts to get a break in the industry. Other then that, SOE is dead.
Well, not to argue with you but I must disagree on GM must = 4x Opp costs. I currently work as a Corp Monkey, and I've never heard of a GM that high (400% vOpp), or a PM (300% vOpp) that high. Granted, I do not work in the MMO industry, so I'm not completely familar with their SOP's or Fiscal Plans. However, I do work in the Tech Industry, and development is similar on the Software side... sort of,(we actually beat deadlines, go figure) hehe.
It's well known that a moderatly successful MMO makes HUGE profits FY3, but that just seems like flawed business strat to me to set it so high.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
Originally posted by Wildcat84 I doubt station access is that high.
While they may use that to pad the numbers, the beancounters won't let them get away with counting that $25 x all their games as revenue. Neither will the Securities and Exchange Commission
Station access is not enough of a factor here to matter.
I agree with you about the bean counters and the SEC, but there is a whole heck of a lot of difference between information in an audited financial statement or filing with the SEC and vague statements made in the context of marketing. Everyone expects a certain amount of sales talk. As long as its in the context I don't think they would have any problems.
If I remember correctly, this spring SOE publicly stated they had 60k Station Passes, and expected to cap 100k by year's end. Personally, I believe them. Almost everyone I know personally who plays SOE games has the pass to play SWG, EQ, EQ2 & PS. Some even play Mxo as well... go figure.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
This is such old news it is unreal .... but still very news worthy LOLOL.
I posted a while back thatsub numbers were just over 7K. Considering that other players have been going back and posting sceenies of how empty the servers are at primetime, this number seem pretty accurate.
Amazing how far SWG has fallen. Maybe we need to go after LA and all SW products as passionately as be have $ONY and $OE? Maybe LA needs to get spanked a little too.
Any number over 20K is a GROSSLY inflated number. 10K and below would be more accurate. Anything between 10K and 20K is just being nice.
Originally posted by Morlan If what youre saying here is close the actual numbers then the question is: Why doesnt SWG sunset? business-wise it should have been ended allready. I mean SOE's pride regarding SWG cant justify the financial situation for the game if it has near to none income, or if its even worse; generating red numbers.
Because $OE made tons of money (including the entire cost of development was recovered in the first year) in the 2 and one half years before they unleashed the New Game Experiment.
They made their money back plus more. Now they can sit back and just run the servers while offerring no new content or expansions. They may make a few bucks ... they may break even .... Let's hope neither.
Comments
Notice I put the word "peak" in quotes. I meant it sarcastically.
May-June was it for them. They had the summits. They had people somewhat excited about Restuss and expertise.
Then they failed to deliver on both. Plus, hundreds and hundreds of us went to summits, and 6 months later, see that once again we were lied to and overpromised.
And what about this statement you made then:
While you say it was only small (although not sure I'd call 3 months brief), it's still the complete opposite of what you were saying back then...
Quit harping on a very minor point. I never said that there was a net gain, only that that was the only time I saw ANYONE come back that I knew. You have lost this argument and you know it. My numbers paint a disasterous, untenable position for NGE, and you know it. I notice that you have made no attempt whatsoever to argue with my theory. I even overestimated to SWG's benefit, and used a lower percentage of total subs that are active at peak times than Koster himself has given, which results in a higher assumed total sub number.
In other words, giving NGE every possible benefit of the doubt the picture is still uglier than Rosie O'Donnel.
Notice I put the word "peak" in quotes. I meant it sarcastically.
May-June was it for them. They had the summits. They had people somewhat excited about Restuss and expertise.
Then they failed to deliver on both. Plus, hundreds and hundreds of us went to summits, and 6 months later, see that once again we were lied to and overpromised.
And what about this statement you made then:
While you say it was only small (although not sure I'd call 3 months brief), it's still the complete opposite of what you were saying back then...
Quit harping on a very minor point. I never said that there was a net gain, only that that was the only time I saw ANYONE come back that I knew. You have lost this argument and you know it. My numbers paint a disasterous, untenable position for NGE, and you know it. I notice that you have made no attempt whatsoever to argue with my theory. I even overestimated to SWG's benefit, and used a lower percentage of total subs that are active at peak times than Koster himself has given, which results in a higher assumed total sub number.
In other words, giving NGE every possible benefit of the doubt the picture is still uglier than Rosie O'Donnel.
A minor point? My overall point here is that you make all these wild claims and then 5 months down the track you completely back track on your statements and say the opposite of what you were saying back then. It's like the boy who cried wolf, why is what you say now any more believable then what you were saying back then?
Obraik,
I understand you are trying to parse out his language to suggest the current statement isn't unbelievable, but its not like he is the only person saying the game population is extremely low. Certainly only SOE knows exactly how many paying subs they have, so what he is saying is obviously an educated guess not the gospel truth. But that doesn't change the fact population in SWG is way down. There are lots of people complaining about empty servers.
Can you honestly say SWG is at healty population level right now? If you do, I respect your opinion, but please understand that is the minority view both here and on the heavily moderate official forums.
So I guess my point is even if you are right about the OP's arguably inconsitent statments, that doesn't mean the servers are aren't barren.
O your funny.... I saw your comment on the suck boards....
TH watches me like a hawk to put out my fires on a constant basis.... as you saw today.
See the difference between you and me is that no matter what you say or try to, people do know and see what is really going on.
You can try to fluff them all you want but they are not that stupid... they just arn't.
Your comments are made in "worry", if half of what I said or others said did not bother you , you would not post.
So far as I said there it's isk 11 -- SOE devs 0 -- 11 months of me being right and 0 months of them being successful.
I can back mine up... can you back yours up?
Worry about you? Lol, you think too highly of yourself
By that definition, I must have you worried since you came here posting about it in a thread that has nothing to do with what you're talking about...
Yes but you do watch... I like that. Again.... can your back up your success with anything?
Show me the NGE was any kind of a success.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
If they were doing great, not alot of talk would even be about this. In fact they would be busy playing and worried about load and adding servers even.
It went backwards...
Any person can go in the game and look around and see for himself. It does not take some special skill or ability to see where the game is.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
And space is filled with people. It's just that it's so big, you hardly ever run across them.
A** Still Raw From Your Last SWG Subscription? Come join us at RLMMO.com
The answer is, they have been given to the end of combat expertise (note they changed their plan to rush out the last 3 combat expertise revamps), the boxed set, and the holidays to turn it around.
If it doesn't start ticking up after that, they will sunset it. They may have been given to the end of crafter/entertainer expertise/revamps early next year, but I doubt they will be given the time or money at that point.
This IS in line with everything I've consistently said. For months I've predicted cancellation after this holiday season, and final shutdown in 1Q `07. They may do some minor publishes between the next one and the shutdown announcement, but I don't expect anything big (such as the crafter and entertainer revamps), and definitely no real content (note that new content that was to be added as per the publish plan has consistently been dropped, after the Restuss gimmick).
The Devs are angry and nervous over this, and it shows. Expect the better ones (there are a couple left I still have some respect for, Hanse and Addy for instance) to jump ship for other jobs as soon as they can. The ones who are stuck with the fate of SWG, the senior guys, Chris Cao, Helios, and Thunderheart (who will never be employed for another MMO again as he's unqualified) are the ones showing their asses on the forums.
At this point the only thing that saves SWG from sunset in 3-6 months maximum are classic servers.
They know this by now, or fear it. Really, the two sides hate each other so much right now (the Devs hate us as much as we hate them) they don't want to give us what we REALLY want any more than we want to give them what they want (money and subscriptions). It's really sank that low.
Temploiter
WDMKR | Incarnate
Good question. Basiclly, once an MMO pays back it's development costs, all it does is make money. Lets be critical and say the total subs are 25k. At an avaerage of $14.25 month per customer they're making $4,275,000 a year, more than enough to cover it's opperating costs.
That said, It's a HUGE decrease from Pre-CU & even the CU, and MUCH less royalties for LA. The real question for LA is will they pull the license knowing they can make 50 times more with a company that has a clue.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
Now, I think we all find it rather incoomprehensible that they'll make back their investment on 'Complete' given the reputation of this particular product, but an irrational, desparate grab for a few bucks is never beyond the realm of possibility with the SWG team, is it?
However, once yet another product on the shelves underperforms below the most modest expectations, you have to wonder how far into 2007 this turkey can stumble along.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
SWG complete cost them nothing but packaging and discs. Well, and about 1 hour of Dev time to add in a stupid vehicle. It contains no new content at all. It's a naked cash grab.
It's hard to lose money on something like that, but if they produce an excessive number of boxes they may manage it.
Keep in mind that they are already offering everything except TOOW free to trial users who at the end of their 14 days, puts in a credit card and continues their sub. The new trial includes ROTW and JTL...
Good question. Basiclly, once an MMO pays back it's development costs, all it does is make money. Lets be critical and say the total subs are 25k. At an avaerage of $14.25 month per customer they're making $4,275,000 a year, more than enough to cover it's opperating costs.
That said, It's a HUGE decrease from Pre-CU & even the CU, and MUCH less royalties for LA. The real question for LA is will they pull the license knowing they can make 50 times more with a company that has a clue.
SOE was hardly able to justify their revenue stream from SWG when it had 200k-250k subscribers. With 180k subscribers they were able to re-cop their operating expenses with "loss".
Corporate environments are ineresting. Factoring in profit margins you'll be hard pressed to find a corporate business model that views any project that's generating less then 4 times the operating costs as sucessful - Be sure to factor in legal and licenesing fees. I believe there was a post a while back by John Smedley that detailed the number of people working on SWG. If you extrapolate those figures you'll see they were not performing even with 250k subscribers. Sorry, but the ref is buried and I'm not digging it up.
SWG has been a "research project" for a long time now. There's a lot of results that will be carried through the industry for years to come. One thing that I'm absoultey amazed to see is the ill-witted fools who clamor to their belief in SOE; Obraik. The only thing SOE has going for it is training for kids fresh out of school who need some experiance under their belts to get a break in the industry. Other then that, SOE is dead.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
saying here is close the actual numbers then the question is: Why
doesnt SWG sunset? business-wise it should have been ended allready. I
mean SOE's pride regarding SWG cant justify the financial
situation for the game if it has near to none income, or if its even
worse; generating red numbers.
According to whatever that Lucasfilm magazine is (I don't remember the
name), SOE is paying a yearly licensing fee. They have to pay
that until their contract expires regardless wether or not the game is
running. The servers will be merged early next year and they will
continue the game with less than the ten people who are currently
working oon it to at least offset the loss they will incur from the
licensing fee alone.
There is also the major PR hit they would take by closing a Star Wars
MMORPG because it was losing money. That, in itself, could
inflict serious harm to SOE as a company. The reason MxO and
Planetside are still running is that they feel it would damage their
company. Star Wars has an extremely larger profile than those and
it would not escape the notice of both the media (gaming and otherwise)
and potential investors (a majority of companies don't use their own
money to develop new products or expand opperations).
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
While they may use that to pad the numbers, the beancounters won't let them get away with counting that $25 x all their games as revenue. Neither will the Securities and Exchange Commission
Station access is not enough of a factor here to matter.
SOE was hardly able to justify their revenue stream from SWG when it had 200k-250k subscribers. With 180k subscribers they were able to re-cop their operating expenses with "loss".
Corporate environments are ineresting. Factoring in profit margins you'll be hard pressed to find a corporate business model that views any project that's generating less then 4 times the operating costs as sucessful - Be sure to factor in legal and licenesing fees. I believe there was a post a while back by John Smedley that detailed the number of people working on SWG. If you extrapolate those figures you'll see they were not performing even with 250k subscribers. Sorry, but the ref is buried and I'm not digging it up.
SWG has been a "research project" for a long time now. There's a lot of results that will be carried through the industry for years to come. One thing that I'm absoultey amazed to see is the ill-witted fools who clamor to their belief in SOE; Obraik. The only thing SOE has going for it is training for kids fresh out of school who need some experiance under their belts to get a break in the industry. Other then that, SOE is dead.
Well, not to argue with you but I must disagree on GM must = 4x Opp costs. I currently work as a Corp Monkey, and I've never heard of a GM that high (400% vOpp), or a PM (300% vOpp) that high. Granted, I do not work in the MMO industry, so I'm not completely familar with their SOP's or Fiscal Plans. However, I do work in the Tech Industry, and development is similar on the Software side... sort of,(we actually beat deadlines, go figure) hehe.
It's well known that a moderatly successful MMO makes HUGE profits FY3, but that just seems like flawed business strat to me to set it so high.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
I agree with you about the bean counters and the SEC, but there is a whole heck of a lot of difference between information in an audited financial statement or filing with the SEC and vague statements made in the context of marketing. Everyone expects a certain amount of sales talk. As long as its in the context I don't think they would have any problems.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
If I remember correctly, this spring SOE publicly stated they had 60k Station Passes, and expected to cap 100k by year's end. Personally, I believe them. Almost everyone I know personally who plays SOE games has the pass to play SWG, EQ, EQ2 & PS. Some even play Mxo as well... go figure.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
This is such old news it is unreal .... but still very news worthy LOLOL.
I posted a while back thatsub numbers were just over 7K. Considering that other players have been going back and posting sceenies of how empty the servers are at primetime, this number seem pretty accurate.
Amazing how far SWG has fallen. Maybe we need to go after LA and all SW products as passionately as be have $ONY and $OE? Maybe LA needs to get spanked a little too.
Any number over 20K is a GROSSLY inflated number. 10K and below would be more accurate. Anything between 10K and 20K is just being nice.
Because $OE made tons of money (including the entire cost of development was recovered in the first year) in the 2 and one half years before they unleashed the New Game Experiment.
They made their money back plus more. Now they can sit back and just run the servers while offerring no new content or expansions. They may make a few bucks ... they may break even .... Let's hope neither.