35k is barely mininum wage in CA. To get a decent developer with an acceptable amount of experience, I would think that you would at least have to start them out around 90 - 100k if not a lot more. That's just base salary. People that don't run businesses or manage people have no clue of the hidden costs that go into hiring an employee.
while I agree this isn't exactly breaking news. Vanguard is a dead game. Anybody who thinks it will survive LotR, WAR and AoC is out of their mind. VG wasn't released to compete with what's coming. They simply are trying to recover as much money as possible before they eventually have to pull the plug. Let's face it VG had a terrbile launch. MMOs cannot recover from bad launches - they just can't. Sure the game "may" become somewhat decent in a years time but consumers will hardly walk into a game store and ask for a good MMO that's a couple of years old. People want new products and by the time VG has the slightest chance of being decent it will get clobbered by above mentioned titles.
In regards to WAR and AoC, the verdict is still out in these games, isn't it? In some ways they are being hyped just as hard and heavy as VSoH was. Now, possibly they will be successful and possibly they won't. Time will tell, but I find it somewhat tiresome to assume anything about MMO's that have little or no track record for game play.
As to LotRo, we have a history here, don't we? Today, they go Open Beta and we'll have even more data about game play. LotRo may very well be the hottest game for the next several months, I think.
All I want is the truth Just gimme some truth John Lennon
Originally posted by MX13 Well, although I'm not in the industry myself, I have 2 friends with 2 seperate companies in it. 35k is average. Interns, a large % of most teams make JACK, and due to saturation in the industry wages are lower then most expect. Also, not all employees are coders, there are acocuntants, etc. It all depends on where you're located, your rep and the market. But let's say they are all paid like Kings and are paid $70k a year, at $7 Mil in total expenses, they're still turning a base profit, even while paying down D&A. As far as game career guides, I'd rather hear from some in the industry...
Sigil is located in Carlsbad, California where the cost of living is through the roof. Trust me I know. I live in Southern California myself. A salary of $35K will get you a hovel of an apartment which you will have to share. Even a simple high school grad can usually find an office job that makes $35K annually. Anyone who considers themselves a professional in their field (ie programmers, artists) will earn substantially more. I'd venture to guess over $60K to start and around $50K for those who came straight out of college. Those numbers seem like a lot but it's not. There are people who make 6 figures who have trouble buying homes here.
Health insurance, benefits and such are extremely expensive to a company, almost doubling the costs of retaining an employee. Honestly, for a competitve company with 100 employees in Southern California, I'd have to say the company would have to generate at least $8-10 million to sustain itself. Is it any wonder why so many businesses are fleeing California for other states?
The truth is, the game is not in a good position. It's also true that the game can survive on only 75k subs, and it has much more then that.
Exactly how can it survive on only 75k subs when even Brad threw around the 200-300k numbers as his barometer of success, with 500k being his ideal after one year of release?
75k is a pittance compared to any of those numbers, and taking into account the expenses that they probably have on a month to month basis, I'm curious how they would magically be able to survive on so few players.
Success & Survival are two different things.
Let's say over the next year they sell 500k units, with average profit of $15 per unit (actually, that's a LOW estimate). That's $7.5 Million from boxes.
Now, add to that 75k Subs average over the year, at a clean $10 per Sub, per Month. Add to that $7.5 Mil another $9 Mil, for a total of $16.5 Mil.
Now, considering you can easily run a full 100 man team for $3.5 Mil with all Benefits & expenses, you can see how they can survive.
MMO's are EXTREAMLY profitable, that's why you see every Developer and teir Brother jumping into the MMO arena.
A 100 man team of programmers, artists and coders for an MMO on $3.5 million total? LOL! You're not serious, are you? That would give each employee an average salary of $35,000 a year. In California, which is expensive as hell to live in. I've got friends there who spend that much on housing payments every year because real estate prices are insane.
And if you think that would take into account employee benefits, like health insurance, 401(k) and other IRA plans, etc., you're fooling yourself. That's not possible. Not for that little amount of money, and certainly not in California.
Considering that Sillicon Valley is right there, and that there are jobs for skilled professionals available there, and at much higher salaries than that, I *highly* doubt Sigil is only spending $35k a year total on each employee in order to keep them around.
And you're making the same mistake that other guy who was throwing numbers around made-- you're looking at those figures as pure profit, when there are things like office space, overhead, salaries, benefits, bandwith and server costs, taxes, etc. that also have to be considered. It's not nearly as simple as all that.
1) Wages are determined by market, not individual expenses.
2) Benefits does not neccessarily include 401k or IRA's.
3) Not all employees are Programers, Coders & Artists.
4) Interns are paid jack.
5) Start-up companies usually pay jack and offer Options as future compensation.
6) California is not all expensive. It depends where you are.
7) The Market is currently over-saturated in the gaming field. Having friends in the industry, I can tell you this as fact.
8) They are pure incoming revenue (AKA - Pure revenue from those sources). Operational expenses are not $10 mil a year.
9) I never said they ALL get paid the same amount.
10) I said they COULD, not they DO. I'd be surprised if their team was more then 60 people. I was attempting to show viability, not entertaining their Fiscal Plan.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
I wonder how this game would've been if they could've stayed with Microsoft...
It would have been pre-packaged with Windows Vista, and thus, only seven people would be running Windows Vista.. and five of them would have deinstalled Vanguard to install the Barbie Dress Up game
sorry, silly threads with little to no factual evidence deserve silly responses with little sanity or relevance.
Vanguard will die, I have no doubt of that, but instead of inventing information, just have the patience to wait and see for yourself
Well, although I'm not in the industry myself, I have 2 friends with 2 seperate companies in it. 35k is average. Interns, a large % of most teams make JACK, and due to saturation in the industry wages are lower then most expect. Also, not all employees are coders, there are acocuntants, etc.
It all depends on where you're located, your rep and the market. But let's say they are all paid like Kings and are paid $70k a year, at $7 Mil in total expenses, they're still turning a base profit, even while paying down D&A.
As far as game career guides, I'd rather hear from some in the industry...
Your friend's companies are not in California.
Perhaps interns worked on the game and that would explain why the game was in such bad shape at
release, however assuming most of the companies' employees are interns seems extreme at best.
Some were managers and upper level managers, some were lawyers, and other highly paid
professionals. I am sure Brad was pulling in a tidy sum that would pull up the average quite a bit.
Where you are located is indeed important - In this case it is California.
The market in California is pricey to pay for the taxes and real estate and commensurate salaries,
benefits, insurance, etc.
Being paid 70K a year is not being paid a King's salary in California - better try 140K.
35k is barely mininum wage in CA. To get a decent developer with an acceptable amount of experience, I would think that you would at least have to start them out around 90 - 100k if not a lot more. That's just base salary. People that don't run businesses or manage people have no clue of the hidden costs that go into hiring an employee. [edit] Sorry I just realized the fundamental flaw in my post. I said "experienced" developers...it's obvious that Sigil's devs are not very experienced, given the poor quality of their product, so they may have bargain basement devs...who knows
Minimum Wage is $16.82 and hour in CA? Anyways we're talking averages here. I'll admit, now that I think about it their aveage salary is probably closer to $45k, not $35k. That said, Preogramers & Coders just don't make as much as most think.
I have two friends in Austin. Both are actually Head-hunted because of their experience. They've both said Austin expense match SC now, and they pay is still not that high. Why? Thier opinion is it's becase there has been a FLOOD of Programers, Artists & Coders flooding in over the last 5 years.
These guys don't drive BMW's, they drive Hondas. They make payments on Condos & small houses. They do not make 70k a year.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
Terrible launch, terrible game, ummm..... 8 millions playing 6 of them are kids (worst community EVER), omw to vanguard. EQ folks another one otw...
This attitude is why VG will fail and why the VG community is trash. Brad made the same mistake about WoW; he referred to the game as a 'beer and peanuts' game. The reason WoW has 8 million subs has nothing to do with kiddies. As a matter of fact, I bet if the data were out there, the age range of the average WoW player is in their 20's and 30's.
What a wonderful community indeed; full of "we're too good for other MMO" stick-up-the-ass conceited snobs.
Its a shame, but I think I have to agree here that Vanguard is definitely on its way out. I'm one of those who have stood by through every nerf and screw up and patch that keeps breaing things since the beginning, but after this most recent stupidity I think I'm about done. Last night I logged on and saw mages using the 'wand' exploit to essentially instakill, crafting npcs running marathons sprinting around the towns not stopping to talk to me...so disgusted with adventuring AND crafting I logged off and haven't had any desire to log in since. I've taken nerf after nerf in stride but now they're alienating legit players to try and weed out a handful of bots, and they add change after change but the game STILL fails to run smoothly even on a computer that far exceeds their recommended specs, still crashes unpredictably, etc. This week, there was a bug causing you to fall from the sky and die instantly when portalling to New Targanor. This is unacceptable for a game post release, guys. Even more unacceptable is a GM telling you they can't reimburse your xp loss even though you died to a bug in a game. So, yeah, I think they had a great idea, a great concept, and a great vision, they're just failing to pull it together. There's too many new games on the horizon to keep crutching along with VG.
Gaming? That's not gaming! That's just people sat 'round in costumes drinking...
Minimum Wage is $16.82 and hour in CA? Anyways we're talking averages here. I'll admit, now that I think about it their aveage salary is probably closer to $45k, not $35k. That said, Preogramers & Coders just don't make as much as most think. I have two friends in Austin. Both are actually Head-hunted because of their experience. They've both said Austin expense match SC now, and they pay is still not that high. Why? Thier opinion is it's becase there has been a FLOOD of Programers, Artists & Coders flooding in over the last 5 years. These guys don't drive BMW's, they drive Hondas. They make payments on Condos & small houses. They do not make 70k a year.
Did anyone say the minimum wage was $16.82? We're talking about a company of 100 employees. Sure, the bottom level guys make less than $35K but the executives and managers make way more than that which ups the average significantly. Do you actually think the top execs at Sigil only make $70K?
The reason programmers are getting shafted in Austin is because all the gaming companies are moving there. Look around. Check out some MMOs in development. They are all heading to Austin so yes, the computer market in Austin is saturated causing the salaries to drop. Ever wonder why companies are going to Austin and not California? Because it's incredibly expensive to maintain a company in California.
The fact that they can afford condos and small houses with a $70K income tells me a lot. You cannot buy a small condo with that income in Southern California unless you have an enormous down payment (like 50% but even then it'll be difficult). I don't think you understand the economics and cost of living in California. The closest comparision is New York. It's that bad.
I have two friends in Austin. Both are actually Head-hunted because of their experience. They've both said Austin expense match SC now, and they pay is still not that high. Why? Thier opinion is it's becase there has been a FLOOD of Programers, Artists & Coders flooding in over the last 5 years. These guys don't drive BMW's, they drive Hondas. They make payments on Condos & small houses. They do not make 70k a year.
I'm sorry, but your friends are completely wrong. I live here in Austin, and I'm quite sure that there's no way it costs as much to live here as it does in Southern California. That's an out and out lie.
I work in real estate for a living. Looking at my listings now, I could buy myself a decent sized single story home for less than $140k, and a much nicer two story for less than $200k. And a really swank home in a master planned, gated community from one of the builders I work with would run around $350k. Those prices won't even get you in the door in some parts of California.
I don't drive a BMW either. I drive a Saturn VUE. But I make enough to live comfortably without getting raked over the coals every month in bills. There's no way I could do that in CA at all.
Vanguard is finished, I'm not familiar with the financials of Sigil, their investors, or the arrangement with SOE, but it is painfully obvious that the game will not be able to make return on the investment sunk into its creation.
That has to be greatest part of this post. It translates to "I have NO idea about anything to do with Sigil and SOE as far as financials, but in my totaly uneducated oppinion, the game will fail." Yeah, thanks for that.
Pulling some numbers from the V:SOH website, going to use data for characters level 20 or higher as at this point 2 months after release most people have reached this milestone. I know this will exclude some extremely casual subscriptions, but these numbers don't account for alts, either :
Total : 47,328 characters over 20th level ACROSS ALL SERVERS.
Now yes, there are a number of people below 20th lvl adventuring who only craft. However, there are many people who have more than 1 lvl 20+ character per account. If we assume these even moderately account for each other (stretching) ..well, this is what we have.
Less than 50,000 players have reached level 20, despite 2 double xp weekends. Level 20, which I can reach on an alt in about 12 hours.
To further illustrate this :
Across all servers,
Artificers over lvl 20 : 1526 Blacksmiths over lvl 20 : 1598 Outfitters over lvl 20 : 1349
Granted, there may be many subscriptions who do not meet this lvl 20 mark - I chose it somewhat arbitrarily to suggest activity. However, there are also many people who have 1 or more of these things, I'm a weekend casual player and I have a lvl 40 adventurer, a lvl 30 adventurer, a lvl 30 crafter, and a lvl 20 crafter, so just myself I would account for 4 of the above characters - all one one subscription.
This leads me to suggest that the actual number of active accounts in game is somewhere between 12,500 (Assuming an account like mine, and I'm not even that active) and 50,000 (assuming that each of these is an individual player, which is a biiiiig stretch.)
12.5k to 50k characters.
And that's before you subtract anyone who has already cancelled, as cancelled characters still show up in the list.
The real number could be much lower.
It could be betweeen 6250 and 25000, if you assume half the people have left, and I think that's being very generous.
Look @ the character listings on the official site for yourself.
Or go stand in a town like Khal and see 4 other people pass you in several hours.
Type /who all (anyclass) and have it not even reach the maximum # for that class.
Do a find players and see only a couple of hundred people online even in the evening.
75k active subs? I seriously doubt it.
Gaming? That's not gaming! That's just people sat 'round in costumes drinking...
Note : I'm not trying to suggest with the above analysis that the game isn't FUN. Its very fun. When its working. When you're not chunk crashing or dying or lagging or losing xp/items to bugs in the software, its VERY fun. And it could be great. Still could be great. But they have a long way to go. If you enjoy the game, play it, they need your subscription fee to keep it active, lol.
For me myself tho, it has become more of a frustration than anything else trying to progress in a game that gets nerfed to unthinkabilitty every patch and more and more game breaking bugs are introduced than are being fixed. I like VG, I really wish for the best, but I guess like many here, I don't have much hope left.
Gaming? That's not gaming! That's just people sat 'round in costumes drinking...
The problem with all the doom-sayers, is that they do not look at the whole picture. Yes, you've been able to make a lot of assumptions on some favorable figures, but you've still ignored looking at from SOE's point of view as a company with XX number of other games on their platform. Yes, Vanguard has it's issues and it's competition coming up will put it and it's team to the test. But in today's market, the game as it currently is (and it's potential) still adds value to SOE's offering, and allows them to charge more per S. Access customer. I'm sure they are on Sigil's arse to get the game improved, but higher monthly sub rates are obviously part of SOE's plans as they take on more MMO's under their offering.
The problem with this is, the current Station Access player base have not embraced the new higher priced Station Access fee. The majority of the SA players were EQ2 players that wanted more character slots and an easy way to get all the adventure packs. SOE raised the SA price from 21.95 to 24.95 last Summer. Then they announced it would go up to 29.95 on April 2 this year.
There is a massively long thread over on the EQ2 forums where players are announcing they are dropping the SA and going to individual subscriptions for the SOE game that they play the most.
Originally posted by MX13 Originally posted by satael Originally posted by MX13 Now, considering you can easily run a full 100 man team for $3.5 Mil with all Benefits & expenses, you can see how they can survive.
I really doubt you can easily run a full 100 man team for $3.5m yearly budget (35k/employee). (www.gamecareerguide.com/features/266/are_you_in_demand_2006_game_.php to give you an idea of average wages in gaming industry, nevermind other expenses and benefits you have in addition to the basic wages)
Well, although I'm not in the industry myself, I have 2 friends with 2 seperate companies in it. 35k is average. Interns, a large % of most teams make JACK, and due to saturation in the industry wages are lower then most expect. Also, not all employees are coders, there are acocuntants, etc. It all depends on where you're located, your rep and the market. But let's say they are all paid like Kings and are paid $70k a year, at $7 Mil in total expenses, they're still turning a base profit, even while paying down D&A. As far as game career guides, I'd rather hear from some in the industry...
Here is a good baseline document to start from; it was compiled from responses to a survey Gamasutra sent out.
I know they have sent out more recent surveys (because I received one via email), but I haven't seen any compilation of the data. It may be that they haven't received enough response.
The numbers there are pretty accurate as an industry average, although as has been stated, you can have some major differences in salaries depending on numerous variables, particularly the heavy saturation of the industry in the past four years.
I have used these figures recently in design documents to make estimates for salary costs over the length of development and no one I've submitted to provided any feedback that my conclusions based on these numbers were wildly inaccurate. So they should still have some merit.
Just food for thought.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq Adnihilo Beorn Judge's Edge Somnulus Perfect Black ---------------------- Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2 Everquest / Everquest 2 Anarchy Online Shadowbane Dark Age of Camelot Star Wars Galaxies Matrix Online World of Warcraft Guild Wars City of Heroes
The big difference between the WoW launch and the Vanguard launch is that WoW was basically allright, but Blizzard didn’t expect the amount of people and that caused some trouble during the first three weeks.
Exactly. You have to love people who try to re-write history by saying WoW had a poor launch because of the game performance.
WoW was SOLID in the beta, just ask anyone who tested it. I tested it and it was solid *months* before the release. Preview articles kept saying how the beta was completely ready for release.
I'm not talking about things like class or item balance issues. I mean fundamental game engine performance and WoW had that resolved.
The problems with the launch were with the incredibly overloaded servers because tons of people bought the game as other people have pointed out. I think Vanguard would have loved to have problems like that with their launch.. Their launch problems were all solely due to their mismanagement, not from rampant popularity.
Some people think Vanguard the game cost 30 mil. some people come up with all sort of strange wierd calculations. And since we going in to this al i will say is
Art, Animation Developer(s) / Level Designers / Business Developer(s) / Analyst / Legal / Creative Director(s) / Marketing PR, Customer Service, Tech Support, Communications / Programmer / Sales / Audio, Music, Sound Engineers / Executive Management / Network / System Admin / IT / Producer / Director / Project Manager. Lets pay all these people and see whats would be left of that 30mil.
I'm not saying that all these people are actualy working for Sigil, but its a estemate of what a basic setup can be for a game the size of Vanguard, size is not how big Telon is but the size of a full project like Vanguard.
First: You can't find a publisher if you have no track record. So your attempt to insult me is just silly.
Second: It's much easier to redo textures than it is object models and new animations. If LOTR already has "high rez textures" in place, then where could they go from there? Super duper hi rez? VG models do have a substantially higher poly count... redoing textures over time will be easy.
Actually what people are seeing and playing right now is the normal client, they do have a Hi-Res client which will be available for release, so it can get better in LOTRO.
Originally posted by MX13 Now, considering you can easily run a full 100 man team for $3.5 Mil with all Benefits & expenses, you can see how they can survive.
I really doubt you can easily run a full 100 man team for $3.5m yearly budget (35k/employee).
Well, although I'm not in the industry myself, I have 2 friends with 2 seperate companies in it. 35k is average. Interns, a large % of most teams make JACK, and due to saturation in the industry wages are lower then most expect. Also, not all employees are coders, there are acocuntants, etc.
It all depends on where you're located, your rep and the market. But let's say they are all paid like Kings and are paid $70k a year, at $7 Mil in total expenses, they're still turning a base profit, even while paying down D&A.
As far as game career guides, I'd rather hear from some in the industry...
Here is a good baseline document to start from; it was compiled from responses to a survey Gamasutra sent out.
I know they have sent out more recent surveys (because I received one via email), but I haven't seen any compilation of the data. It may be that they haven't received enough response.
The numbers there are pretty accurate as an industry average, although as has been stated, you can have some major differences in salaries depending on numerous variables, particularly the heavy saturation of the industry in the past four years.
I have used these figures recently in design documents to make estimates for salary costs over the length of development and no one I've submitted to provided any feedback that my conclusions based on these numbers were wildly inaccurate. So they should still have some merit.
while I agree this isn't exactly breaking news. Let's face it VG had a terrbile launch. MMOs cannot recover from bad launches - they just can't. Sure the game "may" become somewhat decent in a years time but consumers will hardly walk into a game store and ask for a good MMO that's a couple of years old. People want new products and by the time VG has the slightest chance of being decent it will get clobbered by above mentioned titles.
Many games had a worse launch and survived. IE... Anarchy Online. It was in much worse shape than VG at launch, and here six years after, it's still around... has a good player base and is a great game. Don't agree? Well the successes of AO has funded the development of Age of Conan… both as a revenue maker and an example of game making that has secured FunCom funding from new sources. VG isn’t as bad as many here would have you believe. Take graphics for example... VG models have a high polygon count that stress today’s machines, where as LOTR has lower poly models with great textures. LOTR is as good looking as it will ever get... VG on the other hand has much room for improvement because the models are already complex and textures are easier to redo. Hence three years from now LOTR will look old and VG can and probably will look outstanding. Also because it is not based on very narrowly defined lore, VG can go any way the devs want to take it without fear of crossing the line of some franchise. While it was launched unfinished the dev team is working very hard to fix this... An example is game performance which has improved significantly recently. If you haven’t played since launch, you would be surprised.
Ahhh I was waiting for somebody to bring out the AO skeleton. Great! Let's face it AO had the second worst launch in MMO history (behind VG). The game NEVER recovered from it. Did it survive? Yes. But how many MMOs were out at the time of AO and how many were on the Horizon (no pun intended)? Exactly - I can count those on one hand. See the thing with today's MMO market is that it is saturated. There are tons of MMOs out there and even more in development. AO was able to stay alive simply because it was the only Sci-Fi MMO on the market. If VG was the only fantasy MMO or if it had something that was truly unique I'd say it has a chance. But it has nothing going for it. And with new MMOs being released almost monthly now you just can't crap the bed anymore and hope to make up for it a year.
Comments
35k is barely mininum wage in CA. To get a decent developer with an acceptable amount of experience, I would think that you would at least have to start them out around 90 - 100k if not a lot more. That's just base salary. People that don't run businesses or manage people have no clue of the hidden costs that go into hiring an employee.
As to LotRo, we have a history here, don't we? Today, they go Open Beta and we'll have even more data about game play. LotRo may very well be the hottest game for the next several months, I think.
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
John Lennon
Health insurance, benefits and such are extremely expensive to a company, almost doubling the costs of retaining an employee. Honestly, for a competitve company with 100 employees in Southern California, I'd have to say the company would have to generate at least $8-10 million to sustain itself. Is it any wonder why so many businesses are fleeing California for other states?
75k is a pittance compared to any of those numbers, and taking into account the expenses that they probably have on a month to month basis, I'm curious how they would magically be able to survive on so few players.
Success & Survival are two different things.
Let's say over the next year they sell 500k units, with average profit of $15 per unit (actually, that's a LOW estimate). That's $7.5 Million from boxes.
Now, add to that 75k Subs average over the year, at a clean $10 per Sub, per Month. Add to that $7.5 Mil another $9 Mil, for a total of $16.5 Mil.
Now, considering you can easily run a full 100 man team for $3.5 Mil with all Benefits & expenses, you can see how they can survive.
MMO's are EXTREAMLY profitable, that's why you see every Developer and teir Brother jumping into the MMO arena.
A 100 man team of programmers, artists and coders for an MMO on $3.5 million total? LOL! You're not serious, are you? That would give each employee an average salary of $35,000 a year. In California, which is expensive as hell to live in. I've got friends there who spend that much on housing payments every year because real estate prices are insane.
And if you think that would take into account employee benefits, like health insurance, 401(k) and other IRA plans, etc., you're fooling yourself. That's not possible. Not for that little amount of money, and certainly not in California.
Considering that Sillicon Valley is right there, and that there are jobs for skilled professionals available there, and at much higher salaries than that, I *highly* doubt Sigil is only spending $35k a year total on each employee in order to keep them around.
And you're making the same mistake that other guy who was throwing numbers around made-- you're looking at those figures as pure profit, when there are things like office space, overhead, salaries, benefits, bandwith and server costs, taxes, etc. that also have to be considered. It's not nearly as simple as all that.
1) Wages are determined by market, not individual expenses.
2) Benefits does not neccessarily include 401k or IRA's.
3) Not all employees are Programers, Coders & Artists.
4) Interns are paid jack.
5) Start-up companies usually pay jack and offer Options as future compensation.
6) California is not all expensive. It depends where you are.
7) The Market is currently over-saturated in the gaming field. Having friends in the industry, I can tell you this as fact.
8) They are pure incoming revenue (AKA - Pure revenue from those sources). Operational expenses are not $10 mil a year.
9) I never said they ALL get paid the same amount.
10) I said they COULD, not they DO. I'd be surprised if their team was more then 60 people. I was attempting to show viability, not entertaining their Fiscal Plan.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
Just that fact that the subscripton based on 75k subscribers would bring on 9m/year in fees, counting his 10$/month fee.
That thing makes me wonder if his example was retorical.
So is it possible for Sigil to run his operations based on the yearly income he presented (not if it is possible for Sigil to manage on 3.5m/yearly) ?
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
It would have been pre-packaged with Windows Vista, and thus, only seven people would be running Windows Vista.. and five of them would have deinstalled Vanguard to install the Barbie Dress Up game
sorry, silly threads with little to no factual evidence deserve silly responses with little sanity or relevance.
Vanguard will die, I have no doubt of that, but instead of inventing information, just have the patience to wait and see for yourself
(www.gamecareerguide.com/features/266/are_you_in_demand_2006_game_.php to give you an idea of average wages in gaming industry, nevermind other expenses and benefits you have in addition to the basic wages)
Well, although I'm not in the industry myself, I have 2 friends with 2 seperate companies in it. 35k is average. Interns, a large % of most teams make JACK, and due to saturation in the industry wages are lower then most expect. Also, not all employees are coders, there are acocuntants, etc.
It all depends on where you're located, your rep and the market. But let's say they are all paid like Kings and are paid $70k a year, at $7 Mil in total expenses, they're still turning a base profit, even while paying down D&A.
As far as game career guides, I'd rather hear from some in the industry...
Your friend's companies are not in California.Perhaps interns worked on the game and that would explain why the game was in such bad shape at
release, however assuming most of the companies' employees are interns seems extreme at best.
Some were managers and upper level managers, some were lawyers, and other highly paid
professionals. I am sure Brad was pulling in a tidy sum that would pull up the average quite a bit.
Where you are located is indeed important - In this case it is California.
The market in California is pricey to pay for the taxes and real estate and commensurate salaries,
benefits, insurance, etc.
Being paid 70K a year is not being paid a King's salary in California - better try 140K.
$7M doesn't go very far in California.
Minimum Wage is $16.82 and hour in CA? Anyways we're talking averages here. I'll admit, now that I think about it their aveage salary is probably closer to $45k, not $35k. That said, Preogramers & Coders just don't make as much as most think.
I have two friends in Austin. Both are actually Head-hunted because of their experience. They've both said Austin expense match SC now, and they pay is still not that high. Why? Thier opinion is it's becase there has been a FLOOD of Programers, Artists & Coders flooding in over the last 5 years.
These guys don't drive BMW's, they drive Hondas. They make payments on Condos & small houses. They do not make 70k a year.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
What a wonderful community indeed; full of "we're too good for other MMO" stick-up-the-ass conceited snobs.
Its a shame, but I think I have to agree here that Vanguard is definitely on its way out.
I'm one of those who have stood by through every nerf and screw up and patch that keeps breaing things since the beginning, but after this most recent stupidity I think I'm about done. Last night I logged on and saw mages using the 'wand' exploit to essentially instakill, crafting npcs running marathons sprinting around the towns not stopping to talk to me...so disgusted with adventuring AND crafting I logged off and haven't had any desire to log in since. I've taken nerf after nerf in stride but now they're alienating legit players to try and weed out a handful of bots, and they add change after change but the game STILL fails to run smoothly even on a computer that far exceeds their recommended specs, still crashes unpredictably, etc. This week, there was a bug causing you to fall from the sky and die instantly when portalling to New Targanor. This is unacceptable for a game post release, guys. Even more unacceptable is a GM telling you they can't reimburse your xp loss even though you died to a bug in a game. So, yeah, I think they had a great idea, a great concept, and a great vision, they're just failing to pull it together. There's too many new games on the horizon to keep crutching along with VG.
Gaming? That's not gaming!
That's just people sat 'round in costumes drinking...
The reason programmers are getting shafted in Austin is because all the gaming companies are moving there. Look around. Check out some MMOs in development. They are all heading to Austin so yes, the computer market in Austin is saturated causing the salaries to drop. Ever wonder why companies are going to Austin and not California? Because it's incredibly expensive to maintain a company in California.
The fact that they can afford condos and small houses with a $70K income tells me a lot. You cannot buy a small condo with that income in Southern California unless you have an enormous down payment (like 50% but even then it'll be difficult). I don't think you understand the economics and cost of living in California. The closest comparision is New York. It's that bad.
I work in real estate for a living. Looking at my listings now, I could buy myself a decent sized single story home for less than $140k, and a much nicer two story for less than $200k. And a really swank home in a master planned, gated community from one of the builders I work with would run around $350k. Those prices won't even get you in the door in some parts of California.
I don't drive a BMW either. I drive a Saturn VUE. But I make enough to live comfortably without getting raked over the coals every month in bills. There's no way I could do that in CA at all.
-Currently looking forward to FFXIV
-Currently playing EvE and Global Agenda
I think 75k is a little high, myself.
Pulling some numbers from the V:SOH website, going to use data for characters level 20 or higher as at this point 2 months after release most people have reached this milestone. I know this will exclude some extremely casual subscriptions, but these numbers don't account for alts, either :
Bard : 3247
Blood Mage : 2441
Cleric : 5503
Disciple : 2051
Dreadknight : 3469
Druid: 2547
Monk : 1794
Necromancer : 2948
Paladin: 2867
Psionicist: 2929
Ranger: 4413
Rogue: 1775
Shaman : 4193
Sorcerer : 3930
Warrior : 3221
Total : 47,328 characters over 20th level ACROSS ALL SERVERS.
Now yes, there are a number of people below 20th lvl adventuring who only craft.
However, there are many people who have more than 1 lvl 20+ character per account. If we assume these even moderately account for each other (stretching) ..well, this is what we have.
Less than 50,000 players have reached level 20, despite 2 double xp weekends.
Level 20, which I can reach on an alt in about 12 hours.
To further illustrate this :
Across all servers,
Artificers over lvl 20 : 1526
Blacksmiths over lvl 20 : 1598
Outfitters over lvl 20 : 1349
Granted, there may be many subscriptions who do not meet this lvl 20 mark - I chose it somewhat arbitrarily to suggest activity. However, there are also many people who have 1 or more of these things, I'm a weekend casual player and I have a lvl 40 adventurer, a lvl 30 adventurer, a lvl 30 crafter, and a lvl 20 crafter, so just myself I would account for 4 of the above characters - all one one subscription.
This leads me to suggest that the actual number of active accounts in game is somewhere between 12,500 (Assuming an account like mine, and I'm not even that active) and 50,000 (assuming that each of these is an individual player, which is a biiiiig stretch.)
12.5k to 50k characters.
And that's before you subtract anyone who has already cancelled, as cancelled characters still show up in the list.
The real number could be much lower.
It could be betweeen 6250 and 25000, if you assume half the people have left, and I think that's being very generous.
Look @ the character listings on the official site for yourself.
Or go stand in a town like Khal and see 4 other people pass you in several hours.
Type /who all (anyclass) and have it not even reach the maximum # for that class.
Do a find players and see only a couple of hundred people online even in the evening.
75k active subs? I seriously doubt it.
Gaming? That's not gaming!
That's just people sat 'round in costumes drinking...
Note : I'm not trying to suggest with the above analysis that the game isn't FUN. Its very fun. When its working. When you're not chunk crashing or dying or lagging or losing xp/items to bugs in the software, its VERY fun. And it could be great. Still could be great. But they have a long way to go. If you enjoy the game, play it, they need your subscription fee to keep it active, lol.
For me myself tho, it has become more of a frustration than anything else trying to progress in a game that gets nerfed to unthinkabilitty every patch and more and more game breaking bugs are introduced than are being fixed. I like VG, I really wish for the best, but I guess like many here, I don't have much hope left.
Gaming? That's not gaming!
That's just people sat 'round in costumes drinking...
Thank you Nynniva for providing actual facts and taking the time to gather all this information.
I agree with you 100%.
I just wasn't seeing near 75k subs in game, so 150k subs? Absurd. 150k registered users? More likely.
Currently Playing: Everything but MMORPGs
Cancelled: L2, FFXI, VSoH, LotRO, WAR, WoW
Looking Forward To: SW:TOR
There is a massively long thread over on the EQ2 forums where players are announcing they are dropping the SA and going to individual subscriptions for the SOE game that they play the most.
Vanguard.. one more week of being the 100% hype game...
"The death spiral has begun"... makes you wonder what the agenda of that guy is.
What will be your next post? "Cluedo, the death spiral has begun"?
(www.gamecareerguide.com/features/266/are_you_in_demand_2006_game_.php to give you an idea of average wages in gaming industry, nevermind other expenses and benefits you have in addition to the basic wages)
Well, although I'm not in the industry myself, I have 2 friends with 2 seperate companies in it. 35k is average. Interns, a large % of most teams make JACK, and due to saturation in the industry wages are lower then most expect. Also, not all employees are coders, there are acocuntants, etc.
It all depends on where you're located, your rep and the market. But let's say they are all paid like Kings and are paid $70k a year, at $7 Mil in total expenses, they're still turning a base profit, even while paying down D&A.
As far as game career guides, I'd rather hear from some in the industry...
Here is a good baseline document to start from; it was compiled from responses to a survey Gamasutra sent out.
Game Salary Survey 2003
I know they have sent out more recent surveys (because I received one via email), but I haven't seen any compilation of the data. It may be that they haven't received enough response.
The numbers there are pretty accurate as an industry average, although as has been stated, you can have some major differences in salaries depending on numerous variables, particularly the heavy saturation of the industry in the past four years.
I have used these figures recently in design documents to make estimates for salary costs over the length of development and no one I've submitted to provided any feedback that my conclusions based on these numbers were wildly inaccurate. So they should still have some merit.
Just food for thought.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq
Adnihilo
Beorn Judge's Edge
Somnulus
Perfect Black
----------------------
Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2
Everquest / Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Matrix Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
City of Heroes
Exactly. You have to love people who try to re-write history by saying WoW had a poor launch because of the game performance.
WoW was SOLID in the beta, just ask anyone who tested it. I tested it and it was solid *months* before the release. Preview articles kept saying how the beta was completely ready for release.
I'm not talking about things like class or item balance issues. I mean fundamental game engine performance and WoW had that resolved.
The problems with the launch were with the incredibly overloaded servers because tons of people bought the game as other people have pointed out. I think Vanguard would have loved to have problems like that with their launch.. Their launch problems were all solely due to their mismanagement, not from rampant popularity.
Funny topic yet again
Some people think Vanguard the game cost 30 mil. some people come up with all sort of strange wierd calculations. And since we going in to this al i will say is
Art, Animation Developer(s) / Level Designers / Business Developer(s) / Analyst / Legal / Creative Director(s) / Marketing PR, Customer Service, Tech Support, Communications / Programmer / Sales / Audio, Music, Sound Engineers / Executive Management / Network / System Admin / IT / Producer / Director / Project Manager. Lets pay all these people and see whats would be left of that 30mil.
I'm not saying that all these people are actualy working for Sigil, but its a estemate of what a basic setup can be for a game the size of Vanguard, size is not how big Telon is but the size of a full project like Vanguard.
I really doubt you can easily run a full 100 man team for $3.5m yearly budget (35k/employee).
(www.gamecareerguide.com/features/266/are_you_in_demand_2006_game_.php to give you an idea of average wages in gaming industry, nevermind other expenses and benefits you have in addition to the basic wages)
Well, although I'm not in the industry myself, I have 2 friends with 2 seperate companies in it. 35k is average. Interns, a large % of most teams make JACK, and due to saturation in the industry wages are lower then most expect. Also, not all employees are coders, there are acocuntants, etc.
It all depends on where you're located, your rep and the market. But let's say they are all paid like Kings and are paid $70k a year, at $7 Mil in total expenses, they're still turning a base profit, even while paying down D&A.
As far as game career guides, I'd rather hear from some in the industry...
Here is a good baseline document to start from; it was compiled from responses to a survey Gamasutra sent out.
Game Salary Survey 2003
I know they have sent out more recent surveys (because I received one via email), but I haven't seen any compilation of the data. It may be that they haven't received enough response.
The numbers there are pretty accurate as an industry average, although as has been stated, you can have some major differences in salaries depending on numerous variables, particularly the heavy saturation of the industry in the past four years.
I have used these figures recently in design documents to make estimates for salary costs over the length of development and no one I've submitted to provided any feedback that my conclusions based on these numbers were wildly inaccurate. So they should still have some merit.
Just food for thought.
Your link requires a password to see.Think you better check out http://www.masteringthecraft.com oriented at online game, gamesutra is more the typical pc game.more
Many games had a worse launch and survived. IE... Anarchy Online. It was in much worse shape than VG at launch, and here six years after, it's still around... has a good player base and is a great game. Don't agree? Well the successes of AO has funded the development of Age of Conan… both as a revenue maker and an example of game making that has secured FunCom funding from new sources. VG isn’t as bad as many here would have you believe. Take graphics for example... VG models have a high polygon count that stress today’s machines, where as LOTR has lower poly models with great textures. LOTR is as good looking as it will ever get... VG on the other hand has much room for improvement because the models are already complex and textures are easier to redo. Hence three years from now LOTR will look old and VG can and probably will look outstanding. Also because it is not based on very narrowly defined lore, VG can go any way the devs want to take it without fear of crossing the line of some franchise. While it was launched unfinished the dev team is working very hard to fix this... An example is game performance which has improved significantly recently. If you haven’t played since launch, you would be surprised.
Ahhh I was waiting for somebody to bring out the AO skeleton. Great! Let's face it AO had the second worst launch in MMO history (behind VG). The game NEVER recovered from it. Did it survive? Yes. But how many MMOs were out at the time of AO and how many were on the Horizon (no pun intended)? Exactly - I can count those on one hand. See the thing with today's MMO market is that it is saturated. There are tons of MMOs out there and even more in development. AO was able to stay alive simply because it was the only Sci-Fi MMO on the market. If VG was the only fantasy MMO or if it had something that was truly unique I'd say it has a chance. But it has nothing going for it. And with new MMOs being released almost monthly now you just can't crap the bed anymore and hope to make up for it a year.