Except that Tabula Rasa goes for under $10 consistently on eBay since launch. The highest I've seen the Collector's Edition go for is $26; I bought several copies for as low as $3. And you can say that it still goes for retail price at Gamestop and Walmart, but you forgot that they're brick-and-mortar retailers and they've probably paid at least $30 per box from their distributors. Amazon has been selling it for $10; when the world's biggest online retailer sells your product at fire sale prices, you know you've got a dud on your hands. From the latest earnings report, you can probably guess that there are 125-150k subscribers. They've only sold 5,000 (online) copies during that time, and are projected to sell 15,000 copies next quarter. Even if every one of those buyers subscribes, NCsoft still couldn't recoup the development costs.
I for one hope they are in it for the long haul. I think it's a great game, and I hope they get a chance to add more to it. I don't think the game has been out long enough consider it's fate sealed. I'm sure a lot of financial endeavors that looked pretty shaky 5 or 6 months in turned out to be all right in the long run.
It's going to be tough I'm sure. I don't doubt that their sales were less than expected, but I honestly don't think that has much to do with how good the game is. WoW sucks and 100 million people play it, TR kicks ass but most people will never try it to find out. The worst thing this game has going for it is inaccurate negative word of mouth... thanks for doing your part to perpetuate it.
The fact is, ONE retailer is liquidating the CE through a seller on ebay. I ordered 7 copies and they all had Best Buy price tags on them. I am not disputing the fact that the CE sold hardly any copies at all. I wouldn't have paid 70 bucks for the game either. I think those silly over priced collectors editions are generally a terrible idea... and certainly when there isn't a pre-existing fanbase for the IP of the game.
I bought the game at release and played until mid-30's in level .. about 2 weeks then quit. Its interesting to start with and has some neat features .. (i LOVED how mobs dont spawn .. they are dropshipped in .. awsome) but there just not enough in the game to grab me. There just was'ent any real challange in the game ... Mobs died too fast and I was able to solo every instance at the recomended group level ... it was far to easy.
I came back and re-tried TR about a week and a half ago .. I stayed online for about 4hrs and then quit again. They have made improvements .. that I will grant them .. but its too little too late (for me) Mobs are a little harder to kill .. which they needed to be .. I never bothered going into an Instance but I was told that its no longer possible to solo them unless you have a few levels on the instance (Ie soloing level 35 instances at 40 for example)
The Ammo costs have dropped alot, as a machine gun / flamethrower user that was huge ... Ammo costs were insane on release ... so I will grant that they are trying to patch up the game.
Population? Well I cant say for sure but the chat channels were alot less active than in the first month of the game (Which Was to be expected) .. but they do see very quiet, I was playing *prime-time* too .. 5pm till around 9pm.
I may reactivate my account again in another month or two and see how the game has progressed at that point .. for now though .. TR is still not worth playing in my opinion.
Just my opinion - and I am not going in to some long debate.
I have played most mmo's from EQ on - I have been playing TR for about a month now and I am having a really good time. It is a nice change of pace and , no it is not really indepth or involved , it is just fun.
Of course it is no EQ2 , where I go when I want that feel of fantasy role playing and I was never a fan of crafting so I am not missing anything here. It is kind of an mmo-Unreal (my favorite fps since '98) with better quests and well... a huge planet with other people on it.
It was definitely released unpolished and missing some key elements but ...I think TR , if given the time and attention from the company that it deserves , will continue evolving in to an even better game as time goes on.
*** I should have mentioned that I was not comparing it to Unreal in the sense of PvP in Unreal Tournament but just the general feel of the game and of the original Unreal . *** ( so I don't have to hear about it - tnx )
This discussion reminds me of an old adage...."One man's trash, is another man's treasure."
I played in the beta, and although the game wasn't my cup of tea, I am opened minded, and tested the game based on the merits it would have to someone who enjoys this style of gameplay. Even if I don't like a game personally, I am not going to say it's crap, as it is a well made game, just not my bag. I can see how someone can have a lot of fun with this title, even though I myself did not.
As an example, I think wow is too cartoony and shallow for me, But everyone and their mom (Literally) plays it.
Except that Tabula Rasa goes for under $10 consistently on eBay since launch. The highest I've seen the Collector's Edition go for is $26; I bought several copies for as low as $3. And you can say that it still goes for retail price at Gamestop and Walmart, but you forgot that they're brick-and-mortar retailers and they've probably paid at least $30 per box from their distributors. Amazon has been selling it for $10; when the world's biggest online retailer sells your product at fire sale prices, you know you've got a dud on your hands. From the latest earnings report, you can probably guess that there are 125-150k subscribers. They've only sold 5,000 (online) copies during that time, and are projected to sell 15,000 copies next quarter. Even if every one of those buyers subscribes, NCsoft still couldn't recoup the development costs.
I for one hope they are in it for the long haul. I think it's a great game, and I hope they get a chance to add more to it. I don't think the game has been out long enough consider it's fate sealed. I'm sure a lot of financial endeavors that looked pretty shaky 5 or 6 months in turned out to be all right in the long run.
It's going to be tough I'm sure. I don't doubt that their sales were less than expected, but I honestly don't think that has much to do with how good the game is. WoW sucks and 100 million people play it, TR kicks ass but most people will never try it to find out. The worst thing this game has going for it is inaccurate negative word of mouth... thanks for doing your part to perpetuate it.
The fact is, ONE retailer is liquidating the CE through a seller on ebay. I ordered 7 copies and they all had Best Buy price tags on them. I am not disputing the fact that the CE sold hardly any copies at all. I wouldn't have paid 70 bucks for the game either. I think those silly over priced collectors editions are generally a terrible idea... and certainly when there isn't a pre-existing fanbase for the IP of the game.
First of all, I never said the game wasn't good. In fact, I still play it and enjoy it quite a bit. All I said was that it was a retail disaster. You mentioned that Best Buy is dumping their stock through an eBay seller - but it's not just the CE, as you've stated. The regular edition goes for even lower, but for only a dollar or two more, of course people would want to purchase the CE. Let's also not forget that Amazon is dumping it for $10 and the CE for $20, as stated earlier, and they probably sell more product than Best Buy and Gamestop combined, though I could be wrong.
Still not enough to convince you? Well, here comes the coup de grace: last quarter's earnings (net profit) were a whopping 47% lower than the year before. How could that be when Auto Assault fared much worse than TR? Right at this time, Robert Garriott (Richard's brother and former President of NCsoft) was "promoted" to "a role of global business development and planning". (This is from their press release.) When Wired asked for clarification, they said, "we don’t have an official list of Robert's new specific responsibilities…we will announce those details later." (This was back in December.) Hmm... so he was promoted to a position that no one knows what his job is, at a time when he did substantially worse than the year before? To his credit, the annual revenue increased 18% from the previous year, but this was by cutting down operating costs (i.e. firing people, not printing paper manuals, etc.). Tabula Rasa, Exteel, Dungeon Runners, and Guild Wars: Eye of the North (which also reinvigorated sales of the first campaign) were all released between those two periods, and City of Heroes/Villains also experienced record subscription numbers, so shouldn't it be higher?
Now this is purely speculation, but I'm guessing a large part of removing Robert from the day-to-day operations is so that they'll be in a better position to axe Richard's baby if they need to. I'm hoping they don't myself, but I can't see many more players subscribing, and even the most stalwart of defenders for this game will tell you that this game's biggest flaw is its lack of longetivity; that is, there's really no point in playing after 30, there's no endgame content, and little reason to try the different classes. Why else would the free trials be limited to a scant 3 days when absolutely everyone else's is 14? And I mean everyone's.
You mentioned World of Warcraft and its huge subscription base. Surprisingly, its 10 million players are all active. Without going too much on a tangent, Asian players often just play at Internet cafes, where opening an account for WoW is about $4 USD. Why do I mention this? Because Asian players generally don't enjoy any kind of shooting game, so don't get your hopes when TR is released in Japan later this year.
So which part of all this is "inaccurate word of mouth"?
From the article, TR sold US$5.4M. Given that each box sells for like $40 and there are also subscriptions after the box sales in their, their Q4 sales is probably around 100k units. That is really a pretty *bad* number considering that they have pumped like $50-100M into developing it. They are not making back their investment anytime soon.
Oh, before anyone said 100k is not bad back in the EQ days, MMOs cost a lot more to develop NOW and so they are shooting for much bigger number to make back their investments.
They did say they didnt hit the numbers they expected on initial sales.
However I would dispute your 50 to 100million spent developing the game. Perhaps you could provide a official source for this - rather than the endless speculation that circulates here.
Things could be worse - it could have tanked like Vanguard which Sony spent 40 million on and is still kicking around.
Maybe you don't know how to read, but I did state that NCsoft's annual net profit increased 18% from 2006, though it should be higher considering how many new titles were released.
What I also stated - and which was the crux of my point that NCsoft is hemorrhaging money - is that Q4 profits in 2007 were 47% lower than Q4 profits in 2006, when they were also hemorrhaging money from Auto Assault. Auto Assault, if you didn't know, had less than 10k subscribers before it closed last August.
They did say they didnt hit the numbers they expected on initial sales. However I would dispute your 50 to 100million spent developing the game. Perhaps you could provide a official source for this - rather than the endless speculation that circulates here. Things could be worse - it could have tanked like Vanguard which Sony spent 40 million on and is still kicking around.
And I quote " The damage control plan was announced after the company saw only 5 billion won of revenue from the game, which is believed to have cost the firm more than 100 billion won"
That is roughly 100M US$.
And "They did say they didnt hit the numbers they expected on initial sales." is the understatement of the century. What I want to point out is that it is silly to use NCSOFT's financial statement to show that Tabula Rasa is doing fine with respect to its business. It is pretty much a disaster.
They did say they didnt hit the numbers they expected on initial sales. However I would dispute your 50 to 100million spent developing the game. Perhaps you could provide a official source for this - rather than the endless speculation that circulates here. Things could be worse - it could have tanked like Vanguard which Sony spent 40 million on and is still kicking around.
And I quote " The damage control plan was announced after the company saw only 5 billion won of revenue from the game, which is believed to have cost the firm more than 100 billion won"
That is roughly 100M US$.
And "They did say they didnt hit the numbers they expected on initial sales." is the understatement of the century. What I want to point out is that it is silly to use NCSOFT's financial statement to show that Tabula Rasa is doing fine with respect to its business. It is pretty much a disaster.
Yep and that paper and writer has written a few as they called it senationalizned news. And the writer has been caught reporting stuff he never attended.
Some people around here need to find a nice heated economics forum to argue on, so they can discus their true passion... and let the rest of us discus video games.
I'm going to quote the text of the story linked from the post above this one, just in case anyone feels like one mouse click is too much to verify the inaccurate word of mouth I mentioned earlier... and I'll say it again. The worst thing this game has going for it is the morons who repost inaccurate hearsay about the game.
Earlier this morning we posted an article from The Korea Times that -- on the surface -- seemed to herald very bad times for NCsoft and Tabula Rasa. After talking with our contacts at NCsoft, things may not be nearly as dire as the writer of that article made it seem. The cliche "take things with a grain of salt" was coined for a reason, and as you'll see... this appears to be one of them.
According to what we were able to uncover this very same Korea Times staff writer has earned a reputation for writing sensationalized articles about NCsoft. In the last year he apparently has "reported" particulars from conferences that he never actually attended.
Here are a few nuggets of knowledge that Cho Jin-seo "forgot" to mention:
NCsoft CFO Lee Jae-ho did state that some downsizing in Austin is inevitable. But he also indicated in the conference call that he has hope that TR will improve its revenue stream over time.
NCsoft has committed to putting several million dollars more into further developing TR.
TR is launching in Japan later this year. Considering that Richard Garriott's games have done well in Japan, this will only help to bolster the game's population.
There will be some reduction at the Austin Studio, but only on the TR team. This isn't shocking by the way. MMOs normally ramp up their staff during development and leading up to launch, then reduce it after. Fact is, some of the TR team has already transitioned over to other internal dev teams. It sure doesn't sound like they're shutting down the servers any time soon. With all this additional information, Jin-seo's "report" now sounds a lot like the selective reporting we've come to expect from tabloid journalists here in the States. To further solidify that this Korea Times "report" is in fact erroneous, Amy "Critters" Crider (TR's Community Coordinator), posted about it on the PlanetTR forums.
Here's another cliche to chew on: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... it must be a duck." Sure, you might think this is just NCsoft PR spin. And in this day and age of jaded, conspiracy theorists who walk around with a glass that's half empty (instead of half full) wanting immediate gratification... that's to be expected. But remember: every cliche started from truth. And truth might be the very thing lacking in this report from The Korea Times.
Maybe you don't know how to read, but I did state that NCsoft's annual net profit increased 18% from 2006, though it should be higher considering how many new titles were released.
What I also stated - and which was the crux of my point that NCsoft is hemorrhaging money - is that Q4 profits in 2007 were 47% lower than Q4 profits in 2006, when they were also hemorrhaging money from Auto Assault. Auto Assault, if you didn't know, had less than 10k subscribers before it closed last August.
Reading FTW!
The 47% drop from Q4 2006 to Q4 2007 doesn't mean what you think it means. Don't read too much into it. 2006 was a funny year, and it probably had something to do with Auto Assault. They took a loss in Q2 even though they had a nice operating profit (their only reported loss in the last 3 years), and then they reported more net profit Q4 2006 than their pre-tax net profit (the only time that has happened in 3 years). Seriously, the only drama going on in this company is in the back offices where they keep their bean counters.
They would be absolutely crazy to kill Tabula Rasa, much less through some crazy convoluted scheme to promote Robert Garriott just so it would be easier to ax the baby.
Some people around here need to find a nice heated economics forum to argue on, so they can discus their true passion... and let the rest of us discus video games. I'm going to quote the text of the story linked from the post above this one, just in case anyone feels like one mouse click is too much to verify the inaccurate word of mouth I mentioned earlier... and I'll say it again. The worst thing this game has going for it is the morons who repost inaccurate hearsay about the game.
Earlier this morning we posted an article from The Korea Times that -- on the surface -- seemed to herald very bad times for NCsoft and Tabula Rasa. After talking with our contacts at NCsoft, things may not be nearly as dire as the writer of that article made it seem. The cliche "take things with a grain of salt" was coined for a reason, and as you'll see... this appears to be one of them. According to what we were able to uncover this very same Korea Times staff writer has earned a reputation for writing sensationalized articles about NCsoft. In the last year he apparently has "reported" particulars from conferences that he never actually attended.
Here are a few nuggets of knowledge that Cho Jin-seo "forgot" to mention:
NCsoft CFO Lee Jae-ho did state that some downsizing in Austin is inevitable. But he also indicated in the conference call that he has hope that TR will improve its revenue stream over time.
NCsoft has committed to putting several million dollars more into further developing TR.
TR is launching in Japan later this year. Considering that Richard Garriott's games have done well in Japan, this will only help to bolster the game's population.
There will be some reduction at the Austin Studio, but only on the TR team. This isn't shocking by the way. MMOs normally ramp up their staff during development and leading up to launch, then reduce it after. Fact is, some of the TR team has already transitioned over to other internal dev teams. It sure doesn't sound like they're shutting down the servers any time soon. With all this additional information, Jin-seo's "report" now sounds a lot like the selective reporting we've come to expect from tabloid journalists here in the States. To further solidify that this Korea Times "report" is in fact erroneous, Amy "Critters" Crider (TR's Community Coordinator), posted about it on the PlanetTR forums.
Here's another cliche to chew on: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... it must be a duck." Sure, you might think this is just NCsoft PR spin. And in this day and age of jaded, conspiracy theorists who walk around with a glass that's half empty (instead of half full) wanting immediate gratification... that's to be expected. But remember: every cliche started from truth. And truth might be the very thing lacking in this report from The Korea Times.
And this article does NOT dispute any of the numbers put out by the earlier one. Just a lame excuse to say the downsiding is not as bad as it looks and they are throwing more good money after bad.
Modern day MMO costs an arm and a leg. Even if the $100M figure is not accurate (a figure which is NOT disputed by the follow-up-spinning-layoff-story).. take half of that ... $50M ... it is still quite a long shot to make up with a mere 100k subscriber base.
The fact that even the CE version is selling at basement prices at a few dollars on ebay further illustrate that the demand of this "product" is pretty bad.
That's cool, you want to believe totally unsubstantiated rumors, and ignore the fact that those rumors have been rebuffed directly by the company in question.. that's fine. You think the game must suck since you believe no one bought it.. I think that sales are low because a lot of sad pathetic losers have nothing else to do but bash a game they haven't given more than a superficial look, if they have even played it at all. It would be different if it was based on the game's merit... rather than intentionally inaccurate rumors about the games financial situation, and wild speculation about it's future.
This game kicks ass... if 2 people bought a copy or 2 million, the quality of the game is unchanged... It's just it's future potential that suffers. The only legitimate complaint I have seen anyone throw out about the game is a lack of end-game content.... which I believe is myth anyway. I have played a lot of MMOs and NONE of them had compelling endgame content at launch. Most still don't, years after their launch. I know.... maybe if you talk enough shit about the game it's sales will go up and all it's problems will be solved. Or maybe screaming doom and gloom about the game's sales anywhere that people will listen is self-fulfilling prophesy...
NO ONE is trying to imply that sales for the game haven't been great... not even good. But the game is getting regular, positive updates. I see plenty of other players at my level range. The sky simply isn't falling. It's funny to see how differently the game is discussed on the planet TR forums and or the stratics forums and here, and MMOHATER central. It's like tqwo totally different games.
Originally posted by nariusseldon The fact that even the CE version is selling at basement prices at a few dollars on ebay further illustrate that the demand of this "product" is pretty bad.
I guess I'm a bargin hunter then. I did the same with DDO. Saw it was on sale on amazon.com for 15 dollars about a year and half ago and figured that was one months worth of play so I bought it. Absolutely love the game and have been subscribed to DDO about year and half now.
So same thing, saw TR CE 20.00 deal on massively.com about amazon.com selling them cheap and I took advantage of it. And very glad I did, at the moment enjoying the game very much especially instances when grouped.
The game isn't perfect. I especially hate the lack of LFG tools other than a LFG chat window.
I think that TR has a good chance of having a lot of people come back when they add more things in the game that are fun to do when you cap. I never hit cap personally, but I know that myself and some other friends of mine are basically waiting for more patches before returning. I'm really on the fence for resubbing, and I think if they add enough stuff that it may turn them around somewhat since it always seemed like the combat itself was good but the content was lacking.
That's cool, you want to believe totally unsubstantiated rumors, and ignore the fact that those rumors have been rebuffed directly by the company in question.. that's fine. You think the game must suck since you believe no one bought it.. I think that sales are low because a lot of sad pathetic losers have nothing else to do but bash a game they haven't given more than a superficial look, if they have even played it at all. It would be different if it was based on the game's merit... rather than intentionally inaccurate rumors about the games financial situation, and wild speculation about it's future. This game kicks ass... if 2 people bought a copy or 2 million, the quality of the game is unchanged... It's just it's future potential that suffers. The only legitimate complaint I have seen anyone throw out about the game is a lack of end-game content.... which I believe is myth anyway. I have played a lot of MMOs and NONE of them had compelling endgame content at launch. Most still don't, years after their launch. I know.... maybe if you talk enough shit about the game it's sales will go up and all it's problems will be solved. Or maybe screaming doom and gloom about the game's sales anywhere that people will listen is self-fulfilling prophesy... NO ONE is trying to imply that sales for the game haven't been great... not even good. But the game is getting regular, positive updates. I see plenty of other players at my level range. The sky simply isn't falling. It's funny to see how differently the game is discussed on the planet TR forums and or the stratics forums and here, and MMOHATER central. It's like tqwo totally different games.
1) Yes. There is. The guy who posted NCsoft's financial info is trying to say the sales is fine .. which it is not.
2) The company does NOT rebuff the cost figure. The actual financial statement shows POOR sales (~100k in the first quarter). These are not in dispute. The only thing they rebuff is whether they are laying off everyone and kill the game.
3) I never said anything about the quality of the game (yet). But the number of subscribers (and the community) does affect the quality of the gaming experience because it is an MMO. If only two people buy the game, I can't find groups to play, can I?
4) I might actually buy a CE copy from ebay since it is so cheap and check it out. I did try the 3 days free trial and it does NOT impress me. However, at $5, i am willing to give it another chance and it is a good break from fantasy.
I think that TR has a good chance of having a lot of people come back when they add more things in the game that are fun to do when you cap. I never hit cap personally, but I know that myself and some other friends of mine are basically waiting for more patches before returning. I'm really on the fence for resubbing, and I think if they add enough stuff that it may turn them around somewhat since it always seemed like the combat itself was good but the content was lacking.
You better hope that it can rebound before the bad financial performance sinks the game. I am actually considering getting a cheap copy of ebay.
This game has potential. The developers just screwed up the implementation big time and pin their hopes on the wishful thinking that Richard Garrette's name alone can sell.
I think that TR has a good chance of having a lot of people come back when they add more things in the game that are fun to do when you cap. I never hit cap personally, but I know that myself and some other friends of mine are basically waiting for more patches before returning. I'm really on the fence for resubbing, and I think if they add enough stuff that it may turn them around somewhat since it always seemed like the combat itself was good but the content was lacking.
You better hope that it can rebound before the bad financial performance sinks the game. I am actually considering getting a cheap copy of ebay.
This game has potential. The developers just screwed up the implementation big time and pin their hopes on the wishful thinking that Richard Garrette's name alone can sell.
Well they have two goals here: (1) they want to make up for the huge cost in making the game which was above average since they scrapped it and started over and (2) they want to maintain a profit on it.
The thing is, number 2 is easy. I doubt they are "losing" money on it. You can run a crew for a MMO with a handful of subs. Let's say they have 10k people playing it. That is a pretty doomsday number. That's also 150,000 dollars a month. Average game programmer salary is like 70k a year. They're probably closer to being in the 50k-80k range of subs, which is a big difference from Auto Assault which had all it's servers worldwide consolidated into ONE server. Plus they haven't launched in Asia yet, and Asia's launch has the bonus of so far 6 more months of development.
I'd love to see TR succeed, but then again I haven't resubbed yet. It definitely failed on some levels. Besides levelling, there seemed like there was little accomplishment. It's itemization was crap, to the point of them redoing the itemization a month or two after launch. While rep grinds can be annoying in some games, the lack of reputation or, hell, even rank makes it seem like there's no progress. You can take and hold bases from the Bane but there isn't much purpose to it (similar to Planetside, but not as bad). ETc, etc, etc.
{SNIP} I think that sales are low because a lot of sad pathetic losers have nothing else to do but bash a game they haven't given more than a superficial look, if they have even played it at all. This game kicks ass... {SNIP}
Sal... we have played it. Don't kid yourself that people are somehow unaware of how "This game kicks ass, dude!"
A few people bought it. A few people have played it. A few of us even came BACK to see if the game had revived itself from the pathetic, shllow, empty, hallow game code that was launched last fall.
And by and large most people don't like it.
Most people aren't even around to complain about the game anymore. They gave it up as a lost cause and did the same thing I did today - Uninstalled it from my harddrive.
This company really didn't d justice to the potential that this game could have been. The prose on the box drew me in like a moth to a flame. It sounds wonderful! But this game is nothing but a shell.
Empty.
Repetative.
Hallow.
Shell.
People shouldn't kid themselves. The game is bad. If you are having fun with a few friends in the game it is because you are having fun with a few friends... and I am guessing that like always, doing anything with your friends can be fun.
But it isn't the game. It is the group that is merely killing time until May 20th. These same friends will be fun to play with in the next MUCH better game.
See you in that one
"The reality of the poor in America isn't the difference between The Haves and The Have Nots, it is the difference between The Haves and The Have Lots."
LOL Sal I don't know why you bother - this is MMORPG.com - troll central, it is full of losers with no clue and nothing better to do than bash games.
They keep posting rubbish and since their goal has never been veracity you will never get them to admit it, my advice don't bother. If you want a serious discussion of TR and it merits/flaws this is the last place to come.
Let the trolls /cry to each other, just thank your lucky stars these avatars of fail aren't in game with us.
Thank you, Wiccan. Spot on post. It's the devs who have really failed us. Remembering that all the great "potential" that TR has is in their hands and it just makes me sad. It's like we've been shown a blueprint for an amazing game, and a bunch of high school kids in woodworking shop 101 were given the task of creating it.
Comments
I for one hope they are in it for the long haul. I think it's a great game, and I hope they get a chance to add more to it. I don't think the game has been out long enough consider it's fate sealed. I'm sure a lot of financial endeavors that looked pretty shaky 5 or 6 months in turned out to be all right in the long run.
It's going to be tough I'm sure. I don't doubt that their sales were less than expected, but I honestly don't think that has much to do with how good the game is. WoW sucks and 100 million people play it, TR kicks ass but most people will never try it to find out. The worst thing this game has going for it is inaccurate negative word of mouth... thanks for doing your part to perpetuate it.
The fact is, ONE retailer is liquidating the CE through a seller on ebay. I ordered 7 copies and they all had Best Buy price tags on them. I am not disputing the fact that the CE sold hardly any copies at all. I wouldn't have paid 70 bucks for the game either. I think those silly over priced collectors editions are generally a terrible idea... and certainly when there isn't a pre-existing fanbase for the IP of the game.
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----
My experiance,
I bought the game at release and played until mid-30's in level .. about 2 weeks then quit. Its interesting to start with and has some neat features .. (i LOVED how mobs dont spawn .. they are dropshipped in .. awsome) but there just not enough in the game to grab me. There just was'ent any real challange in the game ... Mobs died too fast and I was able to solo every instance at the recomended group level ... it was far to easy.
I came back and re-tried TR about a week and a half ago .. I stayed online for about 4hrs and then quit again. They have made improvements .. that I will grant them .. but its too little too late (for me) Mobs are a little harder to kill .. which they needed to be .. I never bothered going into an Instance but I was told that its no longer possible to solo them unless you have a few levels on the instance (Ie soloing level 35 instances at 40 for example)
The Ammo costs have dropped alot, as a machine gun / flamethrower user that was huge ... Ammo costs were insane on release ... so I will grant that they are trying to patch up the game.
Population? Well I cant say for sure but the chat channels were alot less active than in the first month of the game (Which Was to be expected) .. but they do see very quiet, I was playing *prime-time* too .. 5pm till around 9pm.
I may reactivate my account again in another month or two and see how the game has progressed at that point .. for now though .. TR is still not worth playing in my opinion.
Just my opinion - and I am not going in to some long debate.
I have played most mmo's from EQ on - I have been playing TR for about a month now and I am having a really good time. It is a nice change of pace and , no it is not really indepth or involved , it is just fun.
Of course it is no EQ2 , where I go when I want that feel of fantasy role playing and I was never a fan of crafting so I am not missing anything here. It is kind of an mmo-Unreal (my favorite fps since '98) with better quests and well... a huge planet with other people on it.
It was definitely released unpolished and missing some key elements but ...I think TR , if given the time and attention from the company that it deserves , will continue evolving in to an even better game as time goes on.
.
Lets just hope they don't go Sony on us
*** I should have mentioned that I was not comparing it to Unreal in the sense of PvP in Unreal Tournament but just the general feel of the game and of the original Unreal . *** ( so I don't have to hear about it - tnx )
This discussion reminds me of an old adage...."One man's trash, is another man's treasure."
I played in the beta, and although the game wasn't my cup of tea, I am opened minded, and tested the game based on the merits it would have to someone who enjoys this style of gameplay. Even if I don't like a game personally, I am not going to say it's crap, as it is a well made game, just not my bag. I can see how someone can have a lot of fun with this title, even though I myself did not.
As an example, I think wow is too cartoony and shallow for me, But everyone and their mom (Literally) plays it.
I for one hope they are in it for the long haul. I think it's a great game, and I hope they get a chance to add more to it. I don't think the game has been out long enough consider it's fate sealed. I'm sure a lot of financial endeavors that looked pretty shaky 5 or 6 months in turned out to be all right in the long run.
It's going to be tough I'm sure. I don't doubt that their sales were less than expected, but I honestly don't think that has much to do with how good the game is. WoW sucks and 100 million people play it, TR kicks ass but most people will never try it to find out. The worst thing this game has going for it is inaccurate negative word of mouth... thanks for doing your part to perpetuate it.
The fact is, ONE retailer is liquidating the CE through a seller on ebay. I ordered 7 copies and they all had Best Buy price tags on them. I am not disputing the fact that the CE sold hardly any copies at all. I wouldn't have paid 70 bucks for the game either. I think those silly over priced collectors editions are generally a terrible idea... and certainly when there isn't a pre-existing fanbase for the IP of the game.
First of all, I never said the game wasn't good. In fact, I still play it and enjoy it quite a bit. All I said was that it was a retail disaster. You mentioned that Best Buy is dumping their stock through an eBay seller - but it's not just the CE, as you've stated. The regular edition goes for even lower, but for only a dollar or two more, of course people would want to purchase the CE. Let's also not forget that Amazon is dumping it for $10 and the CE for $20, as stated earlier, and they probably sell more product than Best Buy and Gamestop combined, though I could be wrong.
Still not enough to convince you? Well, here comes the coup de grace: last quarter's earnings (net profit) were a whopping 47% lower than the year before. How could that be when Auto Assault fared much worse than TR? Right at this time, Robert Garriott (Richard's brother and former President of NCsoft) was "promoted" to "a role of global business development and planning". (This is from their press release.) When Wired asked for clarification, they said, "we don’t have an official list of Robert's new specific responsibilities…we will announce those details later." (This was back in December.) Hmm... so he was promoted to a position that no one knows what his job is, at a time when he did substantially worse than the year before? To his credit, the annual revenue increased 18% from the previous year, but this was by cutting down operating costs (i.e. firing people, not printing paper manuals, etc.). Tabula Rasa, Exteel, Dungeon Runners, and Guild Wars: Eye of the North (which also reinvigorated sales of the first campaign) were all released between those two periods, and City of Heroes/Villains also experienced record subscription numbers, so shouldn't it be higher?
Now this is purely speculation, but I'm guessing a large part of removing Robert from the day-to-day operations is so that they'll be in a better position to axe Richard's baby if they need to. I'm hoping they don't myself, but I can't see many more players subscribing, and even the most stalwart of defenders for this game will tell you that this game's biggest flaw is its lack of longetivity; that is, there's really no point in playing after 30, there's no endgame content, and little reason to try the different classes. Why else would the free trials be limited to a scant 3 days when absolutely everyone else's is 14? And I mean everyone's.
You mentioned World of Warcraft and its huge subscription base. Surprisingly, its 10 million players are all active. Without going too much on a tangent, Asian players often just play at Internet cafes, where opening an account for WoW is about $4 USD. Why do I mention this? Because Asian players generally don't enjoy any kind of shooting game, so don't get your hopes when TR is released in Japan later this year.
So which part of all this is "inaccurate word of mouth"?
With friends like these who needs enemies?
Maybe you read a different article about NC Soft's finances, but this is the one I read:
http://www.ncsoft.net/global/board/view.aspx?BID=mc_press&BNo=123
Their net profit grew from from 2006 to 2007.
From the article, TR sold US$5.4M. Given that each box sells for like $40 and there are also subscriptions after the box sales in their, their Q4 sales is probably around 100k units. That is really a pretty *bad* number considering that they have pumped like $50-100M into developing it. They are not making back their investment anytime soon.
Oh, before anyone said 100k is not bad back in the EQ days, MMOs cost a lot more to develop NOW and so they are shooting for much bigger number to make back their investments.
The company is doing well because of OTHER games.
They did say they didnt hit the numbers they expected on initial sales.
However I would dispute your 50 to 100million spent developing the game. Perhaps you could provide a official source for this - rather than the endless speculation that circulates here.
Things could be worse - it could have tanked like Vanguard which Sony spent 40 million on and is still kicking around.
What I also stated - and which was the crux of my point that NCsoft is hemorrhaging money - is that Q4 profits in 2007 were 47% lower than Q4 profits in 2006, when they were also hemorrhaging money from Auto Assault. Auto Assault, if you didn't know, had less than 10k subscribers before it closed last August.
Reading FTW!
And I quote " The damage control plan was announced after the company saw only 5 billion won of revenue from the game, which is believed to have cost the firm more than 100 billion won"
That is roughly 100M US$.
And "They did say they didnt hit the numbers they expected on initial sales." is the understatement of the century. What I want to point out is that it is silly to use NCSOFT's financial statement to show that Tabula Rasa is doing fine with respect to its business. It is pretty much a disaster.
And I quote " The damage control plan was announced after the company saw only 5 billion won of revenue from the game, which is believed to have cost the firm more than 100 billion won"
That is roughly 100M US$.
And "They did say they didnt hit the numbers they expected on initial sales." is the understatement of the century. What I want to point out is that it is silly to use NCSOFT's financial statement to show that Tabula Rasa is doing fine with respect to its business. It is pretty much a disaster.
Yep and that paper and writer has written a few as they called it senationalizned news. And the writer has been caught reporting stuff he never attended.
http://www.massively.com/2008/02/18/tabula-rasa-news-not-what-it-seems/
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Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
Some people around here need to find a nice heated economics forum to argue on, so they can discus their true passion... and let the rest of us discus video games.
I'm going to quote the text of the story linked from the post above this one, just in case anyone feels like one mouse click is too much to verify the inaccurate word of mouth I mentioned earlier... and I'll say it again. The worst thing this game has going for it is the morons who repost inaccurate hearsay about the game.
Tabula Rasa not in the dumps after all?
by Eli Shayotovich Feb 18th 2008 @ 6:00PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, Interviews, MMO industry, News items, Opinion, Tabula Rasa, Legal
Earlier this morning we posted an article from The Korea Times that -- on the surface -- seemed to herald very bad times for NCsoft and Tabula Rasa. After talking with our contacts at NCsoft, things may not be nearly as dire as the writer of that article made it seem. The cliche "take things with a grain of salt" was coined for a reason, and as you'll see... this appears to be one of them.
According to what we were able to uncover this very same Korea Times staff writer has earned a reputation for writing sensationalized articles about NCsoft. In the last year he apparently has "reported" particulars from conferences that he never actually attended.Here are a few nuggets of knowledge that Cho Jin-seo "forgot" to mention:
NCsoft CFO Lee Jae-ho did state that some downsizing in Austin is inevitable. But he also indicated in the conference call that he has hope that TR will improve its revenue stream over time.
NCsoft has committed to putting several million dollars more into further developing TR.
TR is launching in Japan later this year. Considering that Richard Garriott's games have done well in Japan, this will only help to bolster the game's population.
There will be some reduction at the Austin Studio, but only on the TR team. This isn't shocking by the way. MMOs normally ramp up their staff during development and leading up to launch, then reduce it after. Fact is, some of the TR team has already transitioned over to other internal dev teams. It sure doesn't sound like they're shutting down the servers any time soon. With all this additional information, Jin-seo's "report" now sounds a lot like the selective reporting we've come to expect from tabloid journalists here in the States. To further solidify that this Korea Times "report" is in fact erroneous, Amy "Critters" Crider (TR's Community Coordinator), posted about it on the PlanetTR forums.
Here's another cliche to chew on: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... it must be a duck." Sure, you might think this is just NCsoft PR spin. And in this day and age of jaded, conspiracy theorists who walk around with a glass that's half empty (instead of half full) wanting immediate gratification... that's to be expected. But remember: every cliche started from truth. And truth might be the very thing lacking in this report from The Korea Times.
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Maybe you don't know how to read, but I did state that NCsoft's annual net profit increased 18% from 2006, though it should be higher considering how many new titles were released.What I also stated - and which was the crux of my point that NCsoft is hemorrhaging money - is that Q4 profits in 2007 were 47% lower than Q4 profits in 2006, when they were also hemorrhaging money from Auto Assault. Auto Assault, if you didn't know, had less than 10k subscribers before it closed last August.
Reading FTW!
The 47% drop from Q4 2006 to Q4 2007 doesn't mean what you think it means. Don't read too much into it. 2006 was a funny year, and it probably had something to do with Auto Assault. They took a loss in Q2 even though they had a nice operating profit (their only reported loss in the last 3 years), and then they reported more net profit Q4 2006 than their pre-tax net profit (the only time that has happened in 3 years). Seriously, the only drama going on in this company is in the back offices where they keep their bean counters.
They would be absolutely crazy to kill Tabula Rasa, much less through some crazy convoluted scheme to promote Robert Garriott just so it would be easier to ax the baby.
And this article does NOT dispute any of the numbers put out by the earlier one. Just a lame excuse to say the downsiding is not as bad as it looks and they are throwing more good money after bad.
Modern day MMO costs an arm and a leg. Even if the $100M figure is not accurate (a figure which is NOT disputed by the follow-up-spinning-layoff-story).. take half of that ... $50M ... it is still quite a long shot to make up with a mere 100k subscriber base.
The fact that even the CE version is selling at basement prices at a few dollars on ebay further illustrate that the demand of this "product" is pretty bad.
That's cool, you want to believe totally unsubstantiated rumors, and ignore the fact that those rumors have been rebuffed directly by the company in question.. that's fine. You think the game must suck since you believe no one bought it.. I think that sales are low because a lot of sad pathetic losers have nothing else to do but bash a game they haven't given more than a superficial look, if they have even played it at all. It would be different if it was based on the game's merit... rather than intentionally inaccurate rumors about the games financial situation, and wild speculation about it's future.
This game kicks ass... if 2 people bought a copy or 2 million, the quality of the game is unchanged... It's just it's future potential that suffers. The only legitimate complaint I have seen anyone throw out about the game is a lack of end-game content.... which I believe is myth anyway. I have played a lot of MMOs and NONE of them had compelling endgame content at launch. Most still don't, years after their launch. I know.... maybe if you talk enough shit about the game it's sales will go up and all it's problems will be solved. Or maybe screaming doom and gloom about the game's sales anywhere that people will listen is self-fulfilling prophesy...
NO ONE is trying to imply that sales for the game haven't been great... not even good. But the game is getting regular, positive updates. I see plenty of other players at my level range. The sky simply isn't falling. It's funny to see how differently the game is discussed on the planet TR forums and or the stratics forums and here, and MMOHATER central. It's like tqwo totally different games.
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I guess I'm a bargin hunter then. I did the same with DDO. Saw it was on sale on amazon.com for 15 dollars about a year and half ago and figured that was one months worth of play so I bought it. Absolutely love the game and have been subscribed to DDO about year and half now.
So same thing, saw TR CE 20.00 deal on massively.com about amazon.com selling them cheap and I took advantage of it. And very glad I did, at the moment enjoying the game very much especially instances when grouped.
The game isn't perfect. I especially hate the lack of LFG tools other than a LFG chat window.
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1) Yes. There is. The guy who posted NCsoft's financial info is trying to say the sales is fine .. which it is not.
2) The company does NOT rebuff the cost figure. The actual financial statement shows POOR sales (~100k in the first quarter). These are not in dispute. The only thing they rebuff is whether they are laying off everyone and kill the game.
3) I never said anything about the quality of the game (yet). But the number of subscribers (and the community) does affect the quality of the gaming experience because it is an MMO. If only two people buy the game, I can't find groups to play, can I?
4) I might actually buy a CE copy from ebay since it is so cheap and check it out. I did try the 3 days free trial and it does NOT impress me. However, at $5, i am willing to give it another chance and it is a good break from fantasy.
You better hope that it can rebound before the bad financial performance sinks the game. I am actually considering getting a cheap copy of ebay.
This game has potential. The developers just screwed up the implementation big time and pin their hopes on the wishful thinking that Richard Garrette's name alone can sell.
You better hope that it can rebound before the bad financial performance sinks the game. I am actually considering getting a cheap copy of ebay.
This game has potential. The developers just screwed up the implementation big time and pin their hopes on the wishful thinking that Richard Garrette's name alone can sell.
Well they have two goals here: (1) they want to make up for the huge cost in making the game which was above average since they scrapped it and started over and (2) they want to maintain a profit on it.
The thing is, number 2 is easy. I doubt they are "losing" money on it. You can run a crew for a MMO with a handful of subs. Let's say they have 10k people playing it. That is a pretty doomsday number. That's also 150,000 dollars a month. Average game programmer salary is like 70k a year. They're probably closer to being in the 50k-80k range of subs, which is a big difference from Auto Assault which had all it's servers worldwide consolidated into ONE server. Plus they haven't launched in Asia yet, and Asia's launch has the bonus of so far 6 more months of development.
I'd love to see TR succeed, but then again I haven't resubbed yet. It definitely failed on some levels. Besides levelling, there seemed like there was little accomplishment. It's itemization was crap, to the point of them redoing the itemization a month or two after launch. While rep grinds can be annoying in some games, the lack of reputation or, hell, even rank makes it seem like there's no progress. You can take and hold bases from the Bane but there isn't much purpose to it (similar to Planetside, but not as bad). ETc, etc, etc.
actually it failed the DAY it came out.
A few people bought it. A few people have played it. A few of us even came BACK to see if the game had revived itself from the pathetic, shllow, empty, hallow game code that was launched last fall.
And by and large most people don't like it.
Most people aren't even around to complain about the game anymore. They gave it up as a lost cause and did the same thing I did today - Uninstalled it from my harddrive.
This company really didn't d justice to the potential that this game could have been. The prose on the box drew me in like a moth to a flame. It sounds wonderful! But this game is nothing but a shell.
Empty.
Repetative.
Hallow.
Shell.
People shouldn't kid themselves. The game is bad. If you are having fun with a few friends in the game it is because you are having fun with a few friends... and I am guessing that like always, doing anything with your friends can be fun.
But it isn't the game. It is the group that is merely killing time until May 20th. These same friends will be fun to play with in the next MUCH better game.
See you in that one
"The reality of the poor in America isn't the difference between The Haves and The Have Nots, it is the difference between The Haves and The Have Lots."
LOL Sal I don't know why you bother - this is MMORPG.com - troll central, it is full of losers with no clue and nothing better to do than bash games.
They keep posting rubbish and since their goal has never been veracity you will never get them to admit it, my advice don't bother. If you want a serious discussion of TR and it merits/flaws this is the last place to come.
Let the trolls /cry to each other, just thank your lucky stars these avatars of fail aren't in game with us.
Thank you, Wiccan. Spot on post. It's the devs who have really failed us. Remembering that all the great "potential" that TR has is in their hands and it just makes me sad. It's like we've been shown a blueprint for an amazing game, and a bunch of high school kids in woodworking shop 101 were given the task of creating it.