"recession" is being a nice excuse for many people, but i don't see it in Blizzard or CCP. WAR has failed. Bugs aren't fixed, RVR is crap, the downfall is inevitable and obvious.
Didn't know people were actually having issues with this game FPS wise. The game runs rediculously smooth for me on my Q9450 OC'd to 3.2ghz. With 2 Ati 3870s in CFX and 3 gbs of riznam. WAR to me failed because it just got boring when u got to tier 3. Doing the same stuff over and over again isn't fun and just renaming the quest because ur killing something else isnt unique quests. PQ's were fun thats about it. But that became the same crap after awhile. The game needed to have a good PvE side i would agree because sometimes u just dont feel like seiging the SAME FREAKING CITY!!!
I'm convinced that for some reason many MMO forumites have some kind of long-term memory problems when it comes to recalling the performance of other games.
Take release bugginess - WoW was an awful mess when it released, it took - what - a year to iron most of the worst out? WAR had a much smoother launch than that - and genuinely the smoothest I've personally been part of - and yet it's epic fail because Altdorf stutters on some machines. Anyone remember the laggy hell that was Bree in the first month or two of LOTRO?
LOTRO is actually an excellent example. Does anyone not remember the "fact" that LOTRO was epic fail about six months in? That it wouldn't live out the year? The end game was non-existant, there were no good raids, PvMP was horribly broken, people were quitting as soon as they hit Angmar, and so on. And yet with the Moria release LOTRO is being lauded as one of the best options for a PvE game out there. This from a game that was claimed to have 100K subs at best about a year ago, and hadn't added servers since shortly after launch.
It's nuts. So many fanciful tales made up to suit the way the wind blows.
CCP damn near failed right out of the gate. It went months with subs in the thousands. The only thing that saved it was that the original dev team was on a shoestring budget and had a huge passion for it - more like garage developers than a professional game house. Bungled release, huge exploits and a massively unfriendly game experience to new players could have sank it right there - but their secret weapon was the single game server.
MMO players all judge a game's success by feel of population. In EVE you could see the population of the entire game all at once - right on the splash screen at that. Instant feed back that the game wasn't dying and so the herd panic never really took hold.
Rant aside....
WAR will be fine. It'll stabilize (if it hasn't already) and the remaining devs will continue to improve the game (the team's still huge for an MMO live team - I'd expect many more to move on or get let go in the near future TBH). It's pure wishful (and malicious at that) thinking to doomsay anything about doors closing at year's end.
Just to add, recession is effecting MMORPG's. Do a google search, and you can find that out. This layoff should show you that if the search doesnt. This layoff doesn't suprise me with the quater losses they had. Mythic should be ok, as long as they continue forward and dont let bad times get them down. People sitting here thinking recession doesnt effect gaming in general are just putting on blinders. EA and Sony are only the start of things to come. Blizzard, or shall I say Activision Blizzard merged before they recession hit. They restructed at the right time and since they pretty much rape the online industry, they can afford to keep people on. Plus thier company size is so huge, they just move them on to other projects, where other companys like EA dont have the option.
Put it this way, Activision = smart. The rest of the gaming developers are playing catch up.
Facts:
Activision Blizzzard owns a 20% stake in NBC Universal
They also own stake in several advertising companies.
They have deals with several magazine companies.
They also have deals with smaller gaming companies and thier projects.
In essence, Activision Blizzard is to gaming like Microsoft is to Operating Systems, at the lead of the pack.
People give it a rest, WAR is doing fine and isn t going anywhere. There are plenty of games out there, that operate with 30-50k subs.
But there aren't plenty of games that had the budget WAR had. The budget is important here, though I'm not 100% on the exact amount invested in this project. One way or another, EA has declared that it's taking a loss not just within WAR, but across their entire product line.
If the budget for WAR didn't exceed 60 million, I'd say 300k subs is fairly healthy, but if it were more then i'd question it.
Did you take box sales into account in your analysis there? I'm just asking because if we assume 750,000 (it's either that or assume that mythic was paid fior the 1.5 million units sold to retailers... which they actually might have) as the number of boxes sold (that's how many registered users they said they ahd at one point), then you're looking at like 37 mil right there in recovered cost.
Now, I too have no diea what was spent on WAR, but you seem to be talking apples and oranges? Were the cuts made because EA had a loss across the board, or because WAR doesn't have enough subscribers... And I present to you this thought: If WAR were losing money and not recouping... Don't you think EA would shut it down rather than cut just a few jobs?
I'm just saying.
I did not take box sales into account, but we also have to remember that EA picked up Mythic during a close-to-release (year, to a year and a half?) period of development. That said, who funded Mythic originally? Was it totally based off of the profits generated from DAoC, or were there third-parties involved? We don't know, but if a third party(s) was involved they would've either been bought out by EA (which isn't very likely), or remained as share holders. This can pose a bit of a problem especially when factoring in box sales (pre-existing agreements and what not).
I hate making assumptions but to answer your question about whether or not EA would shut down WAR if it were loosing profits and not recouping; this is tricky, but I have a couple of possible answers.
1. EA definitely is not going to shut down WAR prematurely; most people understand that these games can (and often do) take time to evolve/mature. EA i'm sure understood this going in, they would have been fools not to. It would take serious losses to shut WAR down, especially due to the invested time, energy and money in the project.
2. Morale; I find this to be rather intriguing because while EA is a business that operates like any other for-profit business (seeks to increase profits), I believe it's very likely that EA would continue to take a loss with WAR (if there is a loss to be had) to maintain morale and their reputation within the industry. I say this because WAR is not an ordinary game developed by an ordinary studio, and EA is still fairly new to the MMO space (I realize they've owned UO for quite some time, but that's not necessarily a 'competitive' game in the current market).
We have reached a end of an age, and developers are begginning to realize that if they continue to target the WoW audience then the future is quite bleak. The late adopters (AoC, WAR) however, would absolutely never admit to this, but I believe it's evident in their financial reports.
As cutthroat as we know EA to be , Do you think for 1 minute that they would launch the Russian servers this week if they had the smallest inclanation of War failure,shutdown etc..
To the contrary they are supporting it 100%
They knew these #s long before this weeks Financial report ..and it hasnt stopped them ..
Now onto Russia , as i said before this is a huge untapped market..And is really a very smart move .. None of the other games we talk about have dedicated Russian servers .. West, Asian and Oceanic is the norm..
Russia is a hotbed of some PC gamings hottest developers in the business today and has a huge playerbase screaming for an "A" title MMO like War to give them some love.
Apparently the servers are swamped from what ive read ..No #s have been out out yet but lets assume , they can get modestly 100k subs from Russia...
Standing at 400k with a free exp coming 2nd qtr ,should generate some more subs...and many will return with the Darkness Falls mechanic.. I said it from day 1 it was needed and many agree, and are waiting for these mecanhics to be implemented into War...
Now lets consider the Asian launch they are promising for June.. does anyone here think EA would launch Russia and continue support for an Asian launch if they didnt believe in War..
How many subs do you think War will get in Asia, i think in excess of 500k in Asia is very attainable and a modest # again...
People need to just enjoy there games and Have fun and stop wishing bad fortune on others , As much as SOE has poed me i really dont troll around gigglin like a jackass hopin for a failure .. I voice my opinion ,{cancal sub} and move on ,and really could care less ....
IMO opinion War has established a great playerbase and is taking all the steps in the right direction with updates, patches ,content and mechanics to be successful , they are also taking the proper marketing steps..
If the falter in these things and make the game UNFUN ill voice my opinion and move on ..
As cutthroat as we know EA to be , Do you think for 1 minute that they would launch the Russian servers this week if they had the smallest inclanation of War failure,shutdown etc..
To the contrary they are supporting it 100%
Of course they would, it is a recognized global business strategy to start off-loading failing First World Products on Third World countries ... ha! It's called GREED. McDonald's profits are falling dramatically in the West, so they concentrate their efforts on other under developed markets. Please note that McDonalds does not sell at all in the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Estonia) because the indigenous people find the burger to be vile and evil. In the Ukraine many of them think McDonald's is a German product. ha!
Originally posted by hauj0bb 2. Morale; I find this to be rather intriguing because while EA is a business that operates like any other for-profit business (seeks to increase profits), I believe it's very likely that EA would continue to take a loss with WAR (if there is a loss to be had) to maintain morale and their reputation within the industry. I say this because WAR is not an ordinary game developed by an ordinary studio, and EA is still fairly new to the MMO space (I realize they've owned UO for quite some time, but that's not necessarily a 'competitive' game in the current market).
Well, its certainly not an extraordinary game from an extraordinary studio, lol. It really is just an average gaming company. They don't stand heads and shoulders above Blizzard, Turbine or many other companies. Their products to date have been right (not counting Warhammer) in line with other products in the market. They've made a GOOD game in the past but they've by no means owned the genre or anything.
Mythic is a 50/50 company with a great PR team, that's all they've ever been. Here's their work. What's extraordinary in it, save DAOC? What do you see here that would inspire a company like EA to hold onto this property?:
Dragon's Gate (1985)
Tempest (1991)
Castles II Online (1996)
Rolemaster: Magestorm (1996)
Splatterball (1996)
Invasion Earth (1997)
Darkness Falls (1997)
Rolemaster: Bladelands (1997)
Aliens Online (1998)
Starship Troopers: Battlespace (1998)
Godzilla Online (1998)
Silent Death: Online (1999)
Darkness Falls: The Crusade (1999)
Darkstorm: The Well of Souls (1999)
Spellbinder: The Nexus Conflict (1999)
Independence Day Online (2000)
Dark Age of Camelot (2001)
Imperator Online (Canceled 2005)
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (2008)
AO Game (October 18, 2008)
Noting half of those didn't even launch. Vaporware.
EA, A multinational company holding onto a game performing barely above water for "morale" purposes? When you read it for what it is, without emotions tied in, that reason really doesn't make sense, does it? A sentimental investment in today's economic times. Sounds even worse. EA has nothing to worry about except for one thing: that is shareholder satisfaction, pure and simple. This is not a local company in the neighborhood where the owner walks down Main Street and people point fingers. This company owns tons of stuff and morale is not their worry. Does this line below make sense to anyone here about a giant company?
I believe it's very likely that EA would continue to take a loss with WAR..to maintain morale and their reputation within the industry.
By comparison, look at Blizzard before WoW (Online) and what they did. Now that's an extraordinary company. With their record, EA would surely keep them for "morale" because they have a pretty good record and likely could turn it around. Warhammer's biggest problem? Unbelievably, it's coding. With their "record" and "experience". Doesn't inspire confidence.
Ultima Online once was at 250k subs, where Warhammer is now and that was back in 2003. Now that is at 100k if that, so why would they hold onto TWO of these? Ultima mades sense.. it was paid for already. Warhammer is not, and then you figure in today's costs for Mythic employees- healthcare, benefits, etc... and it may already be a foregone conclusion when/if they decide. Ultima as a game is in maintainance mode with a small crew.
Not trying to knock you, but maybe you mistyped this or it came out wrong from your original thoughts?
I actually closed three accounts with WAR last week and went to Age of Conan (which seems to be on an upswing). We have been with WAR since beta and are huge fans of the IP. I'm not saying we will never play WAR again, but right now I'm disappointed with it, and so are my two sons.
In my mind the problem is that Mythic has continued to release new content (live events, 2 new classes and 2 more new classes have been announced) without fixing some of the major and even minor issues with the game. They screwed up resists for casters and there are some glaring balance issues right now. Add to that the next patch is making some sweeping changes they can't even preview to us yet for some reason. I'm not being negative here, I'm just being honest with how I feel about the game. They should stop trying to create new content and run live events with any budget at all until they fix the current game completely. Yes, these new announcements are going to get some folks to stick with it, but after 1/29 I saw a major dropoff on my server, in my guild and even I was not able to defend the game anymore.
Everyone wanted something more concrete from Mythic on 1/29. How are we supposed to feel about adding 2 new classes and the problems with balance that brings, when the team can't even fix a chat box bug that has existed since beta and many other little issues like this? I want them to fix these things, and I want them to succeed! Still, I'm not going to be lead like a rabbit after a carrot for the next great content when the game itself has so many issues.
The engine itself is very poorly designed. As others have said, it uses more CPU power than GPU power and this causes a bottleneck even on the newest systems. Another issue is that the engine just can't handle the number of people fighting in the zones that they planned. They have capped zone population to fix it, and that seems fine, but its not the only issue. How often do you get stuck on a corner or a small item sticking out of the ground? Do you feel the responsiveness of the user interface is good? I can't in good faith sit here and say it is, when I can play LOTRO or even AoC and the interface reacts exactly when I press buttons and even ques skills properly. How many times have you seen a castbar in WAR just stop for no reason? How many skills are just broken completely?
In my eyes, it isn't the recession doing this to the game. It could be the next WoW and it would still have layoffs at this time due to so many (400) people on the team. Obviously, since it isn't the success they had hoped, some of those folks aren't needed. This has no correlation on the population in the game, at this time, but the problems with the game are in fact related to the heavy losses in subscriptions. People far less patient than I am left long ago. For me, these are the same people I've been playing MMOs with since Ultima Online. They lost interest a long time ago.
I never tried Age of Conan before, but it seemed to go through a similar situation that WAR is going through right now. I don't ever think WAR is going to completely fail. Look at DAOC - they keep that game alive with just 10,000 or less accounts. On the other hand, we have already seen a delay in content and patches. At the game's release we saw tons of hotfixes and quite a bit more patches. Obviously, the reduction in work force is slowing things down.
The difference is that Age of Conan's lead was fired and replaced by someone with a proven track record of taking a failing MMO and making it profitable and fun again. Instead of going crazy with new content, new races and classes and all these live events, this lead decided to go back to the beginning and concentrate on his current and future subscribers by fixing what is wrong with the game first and foremost. From what I understand, Age of Conan isn't near the bad game (as much as people thought it to be) it was when first released. Personally, I've been playing it for a week and I'm very impressed with the engine itself which runs flawlessly for me. I've not had one crash or been stuck on one corner. When I press a button it reacts, when I hit the next one it is qued and fires off. The combat feels fierce. The game still has a long way to go, but its in a lot better shape than WAR is - like it or not - that's the truth (its also been out longer).
Last, I would have to say that Mythic and EA are going to continue seeing people leave until they fix the basics and bugs. They need to do something with PVP (RVR) to entice players to actually engage eachother instead of seeking easy conquest from unmanned keeps and objectives. PVE needs a shot in the arse and even the little things like crafting need to be improved. If you can do these things and improve the issues with the engine, Mythic can grow WAR into a powerhouse... If they can't do these things, it will continue to decline to a game with a loyal following of the IP but be as neglected as some of the previous MMOs of the same ilk (Matrix Online anyone?).
All of the above is my opinion and only my opinion.
I am sure this is not all related directly to WAR's performance, lack thereof, or failure to meet the expectations of EA execs (not MJ, the actual EA suits. There was an obvious disconnect between EA and Mythic about the games expected performance. Mythic seemed to realize it was a niche product, while EA very clearly expected something in WoW's league.)
Lets not forget EA is getting battered on several fronts right now. The ecoomy is souring, limiting the purchase of overpriced console games. They do not have alot of the huge cash cow console games outside of EA sports. Several of those huge non EA non sports franchise games are now owned and operated by their largest competitor, Activision Blizzard.
And they are facing either a major settlement or a probable court decision regarding their largest and most profitable franchise, Maden. Some rather damning smoking gun documents have surfaced indicating some collusion between the NFL Players Association (the players union) and EA regarding screwing retired NFL players out of payments and royalties for their likenesses and records. While EA is not yet a direct defendant in the lawsuit, the new documents will probably send a sh@tstorm their way. Enough to trigger a hugely expensive settlement.
Given that and given EA's tendancy to cut and gut underperforming online games (they have closed more MMO's and online games then any other company), It is likley that Mythic will see some heavy handed cuts. Personally I give MJ to April. After that if Mythic survives as a studio it will be with any independence gutted.
I just can't think that any good can come from layoffs 4 months after launch. Obviously the game is not that successful and Mythic needs to chnge their approach on how they do things or it is going to be a long uneventful year for them. You also have to factor in that there will be newer mmos soon. If people honestly think gamers will stick around with a game and a company that is having major issues while better games are on the way they are sorely mistaken. Gamers will always flock to the next best thing because they want their moneys worth.
I hope War will continue to exist and evolve. On my list it is far behind Wow on second place, but ALL others are even farther on third, fourth, .... It has its share of problems, but overall i like it.
Mythic have yet to release a trial. They have yet to release mass cross-product marketing. They have yet to release in Korea (which WILL see a population increase). In short, this 300,000+ sub number isn't counting Russia and/or Korea.
WAR launched to 750,000 box sales and dropped down to 300,000+ subscribers, which represents roughly a 55% retention percentage. World of Warcraft has a 40% retention percentage on average. AOC sold 1.6 million copies and dropped down to just under 300,000+ subscribers... All in all, Warhammer hasn't got a poor retention ratio.
One of the major problems with WAR was that lack of mainstream marketing. Mythic and EA relied heavily on product relation to sell the game. What I mean by that is they relied heavily on the relation between the MMO and the other Warhammer products popularity to get subscribers. That was a really bad tactic. They felt that because (a) it was so similar to WoW and (b) it was already a successful franchise in other respects, the product would sell itself. Sales were not poor, but they could have been better. EA have stated that they are going to pile money into studios and Mythic will be one of those studios. If EA are wise, some of that money will go into mainstream advertising and product placement on par with World of Warcraft. If EA can put a good marketing campaign in place and Mythic can fix the end game problems, there is no reason what-so-ever why Warhammer Online wouldn't grow. In fact, I'm going to assume that by December next year, Warhammer Online will be north of 500,000 subs... maybe even 1,000,000 if they pull their fingers out.
All this doom and gloom is getting boring, not just at WAR but right across the board.
I just thought I'd also point out that class balance is off so badly because the 4 new classes they've "added" recently were suppose to be there from teh start. Mythic chose to leave them out as they weren't ready yet. Now that they are going back in, we may well see improvements.
Mythic have yet to release a trial. They have yet to release mass cross-product marketing. They have yet to release in Korea (which WILL see a population increase). In short, this 300,000+ sub number isn't counting Russia and/or Korea. WAR launched to 750,000 box sales and dropped down to 300,000+ subscribers, which represents roughly a 55% retention percentage. World of Warcraft has a 40% retention percentage on average. AOC sold 1.6 million copies and dropped down to just under 300,000+ subscribers... All in all, Warhammer hasn't got a poor retention ratio
Wow..... just wow
Almost everything you just said is wrong
300k out of 750k in 3 month is a 55% retention rate? Its 41.5% and I didn't need a calculator, 70% monthly retention or so. World of Warcraft has never given any numbers that would make anyone able to know their retention rate, why are you inventing them? The closest I saw was Mark Jacob saying that the industry is guessing WoW has over 75% monthly retention rates.
AoC sold 1.6 million copies? What the hell, where do you get your numbers? They sold half of that, 800k, 4 months after launch.
Russia? Unknown factor, we don't know how much they will account for
Asia? Useless, for every 1 million asian player you only get the profit of 100k american/euro players (guesstimate) because of their payment model. I don't know if this applies to Korea as well though. You also have to comply with the insane chinese laws, recode some of your game etc.
I quit WAR a couple of months ago and am now back down to just playing EVE. I generally like my SCI-FI with a dose of fantasy on the side so I am left for the first time in years without a fantasy game to play.
Am I the only one who thinks this is a really poor use of the Warhammer IP? I mean... since when did all these various races becomes such good friends that they could draw up two sides?
What happened to Lizardmen and Skaven and Tomb Kings and... ?
This should have been a free-for-all RvR game with each race struggling for domination.
And now with all these layoffs at EA/Mythic I wonder if this will be one of those MMO's that just continues along year after year with few changes and fewer players until it becomes a cheap or F2P game used to get users into the latest EA/Mythic. game like SOE does with their neglected games.
Feel bad for these people, rough time to try to find work...
If I wanted to use the word monthly, I would have used the word monthly. There is a reason I did not. Also, forgive me for not being a wiz at maths. I admit my percentages were off. Sadly, your information about AoC and WoW is incorrect as far as I have seen. I saw Mark Jacobs make the comment about WoWs retention ratio now, but I read a study into projected sales of WoW in the west and overall retention ratio that suggests the actualy figure per total copies sold is something in the region of 40%-50%. As far as AoC is concerned, they sold over 700,000 copies in 4 weeks, so why you believe they'd sold 800,000 in 4 months is beyond me.
Whats strange is WAR is a lot more fun then most mmos out right now especially WOW. I think a lot of people get turned off by WAR after they get their butts handed to them in pvp. They start crying about balance and bugs and lack of "war" but when I play there is ALWAYS something going on. The only downfall I see to it is by having only 2 realms there is a higher chance of one team being overpopulated.
"I'm sorry but your mmo has been diagnosed with EA and only has X number of days to live."
Whats strange is WAR is a lot more fun then most mmos out right now especially WOW. I think a lot of people get turned off by WAR after they get their butts handed to them in pvp. They start crying about balance and bugs and lack of "war" but when I play there is ALWAYS something going on. The only downfall I see to it is by having only 2 realms there is a higher chance of one team being overpopulated.
No, I don't think people quit because they suck in PvP. Well some maybe but just a few.
The reason I don't play it is that I don't like what they did to my favorite pen and paper RPG game, they cut out all the dark horror of it, took away the backstabbing and corruption of the empire...
I would love to be able to walk Middenheims streets, to take a boat up the river Reik, to spend an evning in Brettonia with duels and drinking but this game just don't give me the same rush as the pen and paper game. I guess it is not bad for what it is but it could have been so much more.
But I think the main reason many quited was that it is still to close to Wow, and they already have a high level char or more there.
Mythic should have kept the original system of Warhammer and not made it level based. Being close to Wow isn't good, Wow already have it's fans and WAR would have been better if it was closer to the fantastic RPG and tabletop games.
If I wanted to use the word monthly, I would have used the word monthly. There is a reason I did not. Also, forgive me for not being a wiz at maths. I admit my percentages were off. Sadly, your information about AoC and WoW is incorrect as far as I have seen. I saw Mark Jacobs make the comment about WoWs retention ratio now, but I read a study into projected sales of WoW in the west and overall retention ratio that suggests the actualy figure per total copies sold is something in the region of 40%-50%. As far as AoC is concerned, they sold over 700,000 copies in 4 weeks, so why you believe they'd sold 800,000 in 4 months is beyond me. Apologies for the mistakes however.
I'm guessing that the WoW retention ratio you mention is more complex than this. It might be the retention after 2-3 months or it would be the actual number of people playing now out of all the boxes sold. 4.5 million players (America/Europe) out of 9-10 million total box sale not including expansions alone. That would be possible although there's never been any official information on this. Mark Jacobs said that their retention rate after the initial free month was 72%+ and that DAoC was 72%. Why would you think that WoW has any less than that when its the most successful MMO there is?
Your right that AoC sold 700k in 3 weeks... no, I had to look it up because I forgot
Originally posted by Grunch Whats strange is WAR is a lot more fun *( FOR ME) then most mmos out right now especially WOW. I think a lot of people get turned off by WAR after they get their butts handed to them in pvp. They start crying about balance and bugs and lack of "war" but when I play there is ALWAYS something going on. The only downfall I see to it is by having only 2 realms there is a higher chance of one team being overpopulated.
*Fixed... because apparently over 500k people and dropping, who tried it don't think Warhammer is worth paying for right now.
Ahh the infamous waves of Doomsayers and I told you so. WAR will end soon by 2012 I tell you if it doesnt make it thru 2009.
I love the locals on this forum and their predictions of WAR and what the future holds for Mythic as they post their thoughts.
Honestly, 300k subscribers sounds pretty damn good to me and with the opening of WAR into Mother Russia, yeah this game sure sounds like it wont make it to 2010.
And I love the other posters that stated they want WAR to survive, but now they have their doubts.. I never saw so many hypocrits on this website and double talk.
Comments
QFT
Didn't know people were actually having issues with this game FPS wise. The game runs rediculously smooth for me on my Q9450 OC'd to 3.2ghz. With 2 Ati 3870s in CFX and 3 gbs of riznam. WAR to me failed because it just got boring when u got to tier 3. Doing the same stuff over and over again isn't fun and just renaming the quest because ur killing something else isnt unique quests. PQ's were fun thats about it. But that became the same crap after awhile. The game needed to have a good PvE side i would agree because sometimes u just dont feel like seiging the SAME FREAKING CITY!!!
I'm convinced that for some reason many MMO forumites have some kind of long-term memory problems when it comes to recalling the performance of other games.
Take release bugginess - WoW was an awful mess when it released, it took - what - a year to iron most of the worst out? WAR had a much smoother launch than that - and genuinely the smoothest I've personally been part of - and yet it's epic fail because Altdorf stutters on some machines. Anyone remember the laggy hell that was Bree in the first month or two of LOTRO?
LOTRO is actually an excellent example. Does anyone not remember the "fact" that LOTRO was epic fail about six months in? That it wouldn't live out the year? The end game was non-existant, there were no good raids, PvMP was horribly broken, people were quitting as soon as they hit Angmar, and so on. And yet with the Moria release LOTRO is being lauded as one of the best options for a PvE game out there. This from a game that was claimed to have 100K subs at best about a year ago, and hadn't added servers since shortly after launch.
It's nuts. So many fanciful tales made up to suit the way the wind blows.
CCP damn near failed right out of the gate. It went months with subs in the thousands. The only thing that saved it was that the original dev team was on a shoestring budget and had a huge passion for it - more like garage developers than a professional game house. Bungled release, huge exploits and a massively unfriendly game experience to new players could have sank it right there - but their secret weapon was the single game server.
MMO players all judge a game's success by feel of population. In EVE you could see the population of the entire game all at once - right on the splash screen at that. Instant feed back that the game wasn't dying and so the herd panic never really took hold.
Rant aside....
WAR will be fine. It'll stabilize (if it hasn't already) and the remaining devs will continue to improve the game (the team's still huge for an MMO live team - I'd expect many more to move on or get let go in the near future TBH). It's pure wishful (and malicious at that) thinking to doomsay anything about doors closing at year's end.
Just to add, recession is effecting MMORPG's. Do a google search, and you can find that out. This layoff should show you that if the search doesnt. This layoff doesn't suprise me with the quater losses they had. Mythic should be ok, as long as they continue forward and dont let bad times get them down. People sitting here thinking recession doesnt effect gaming in general are just putting on blinders. EA and Sony are only the start of things to come. Blizzard, or shall I say Activision Blizzard merged before they recession hit. They restructed at the right time and since they pretty much rape the online industry, they can afford to keep people on. Plus thier company size is so huge, they just move them on to other projects, where other companys like EA dont have the option.
Put it this way, Activision = smart. The rest of the gaming developers are playing catch up.
Facts:
Activision Blizzzard owns a 20% stake in NBC Universal
They also own stake in several advertising companies.
They have deals with several magazine companies.
They also have deals with smaller gaming companies and thier projects.
In essence, Activision Blizzard is to gaming like Microsoft is to Operating Systems, at the lead of the pack.
But there aren't plenty of games that had the budget WAR had. The budget is important here, though I'm not 100% on the exact amount invested in this project. One way or another, EA has declared that it's taking a loss not just within WAR, but across their entire product line.
If the budget for WAR didn't exceed 60 million, I'd say 300k subs is fairly healthy, but if it were more then i'd question it.
Did you take box sales into account in your analysis there? I'm just asking because if we assume 750,000 (it's either that or assume that mythic was paid fior the 1.5 million units sold to retailers... which they actually might have) as the number of boxes sold (that's how many registered users they said they ahd at one point), then you're looking at like 37 mil right there in recovered cost.
Now, I too have no diea what was spent on WAR, but you seem to be talking apples and oranges? Were the cuts made because EA had a loss across the board, or because WAR doesn't have enough subscribers... And I present to you this thought: If WAR were losing money and not recouping... Don't you think EA would shut it down rather than cut just a few jobs?
I'm just saying.
I did not take box sales into account, but we also have to remember that EA picked up Mythic during a close-to-release (year, to a year and a half?) period of development. That said, who funded Mythic originally? Was it totally based off of the profits generated from DAoC, or were there third-parties involved? We don't know, but if a third party(s) was involved they would've either been bought out by EA (which isn't very likely), or remained as share holders. This can pose a bit of a problem especially when factoring in box sales (pre-existing agreements and what not).
I hate making assumptions but to answer your question about whether or not EA would shut down WAR if it were loosing profits and not recouping; this is tricky, but I have a couple of possible answers.
1. EA definitely is not going to shut down WAR prematurely; most people understand that these games can (and often do) take time to evolve/mature. EA i'm sure understood this going in, they would have been fools not to. It would take serious losses to shut WAR down, especially due to the invested time, energy and money in the project.
2. Morale; I find this to be rather intriguing because while EA is a business that operates like any other for-profit business (seeks to increase profits), I believe it's very likely that EA would continue to take a loss with WAR (if there is a loss to be had) to maintain morale and their reputation within the industry. I say this because WAR is not an ordinary game developed by an ordinary studio, and EA is still fairly new to the MMO space (I realize they've owned UO for quite some time, but that's not necessarily a 'competitive' game in the current market).
We have reached a end of an age, and developers are begginning to realize that if they continue to target the WoW audience then the future is quite bleak. The late adopters (AoC, WAR) however, would absolutely never admit to this, but I believe it's evident in their financial reports.
As cutthroat as we know EA to be , Do you think for 1 minute that they would launch the Russian servers this week if they had the smallest inclanation of War failure,shutdown etc..
To the contrary they are supporting it 100%
They knew these #s long before this weeks Financial report ..and it hasnt stopped them ..
Now onto Russia , as i said before this is a huge untapped market..And is really a very smart move .. None of the other games we talk about have dedicated Russian servers .. West, Asian and Oceanic is the norm..
Russia is a hotbed of some PC gamings hottest developers in the business today and has a huge playerbase screaming for an "A" title MMO like War to give them some love.
Apparently the servers are swamped from what ive read ..No #s have been out out yet but lets assume , they can get modestly 100k subs from Russia...
Standing at 400k with a free exp coming 2nd qtr ,should generate some more subs...and many will return with the Darkness Falls mechanic.. I said it from day 1 it was needed and many agree, and are waiting for these mecanhics to be implemented into War...
Now lets consider the Asian launch they are promising for June.. does anyone here think EA would launch Russia and continue support for an Asian launch if they didnt believe in War..
How many subs do you think War will get in Asia, i think in excess of 500k in Asia is very attainable and a modest # again...
People need to just enjoy there games and Have fun and stop wishing bad fortune on others , As much as SOE has poed me i really dont troll around gigglin like a jackass hopin for a failure .. I voice my opinion ,{cancal sub} and move on ,and really could care less ....
IMO opinion War has established a great playerbase and is taking all the steps in the right direction with updates, patches ,content and mechanics to be successful , they are also taking the proper marketing steps..
If the falter in these things and make the game UNFUN ill voice my opinion and move on ..
Of course they would, it is a recognized global business strategy to start off-loading failing First World Products on Third World countries ... ha! It's called GREED. McDonald's profits are falling dramatically in the West, so they concentrate their efforts on other under developed markets. Please note that McDonalds does not sell at all in the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Estonia) because the indigenous people find the burger to be vile and evil. In the Ukraine many of them think McDonald's is a German product. ha!
Well, its certainly not an extraordinary game from an extraordinary studio, lol. It really is just an average gaming company. They don't stand heads and shoulders above Blizzard, Turbine or many other companies. Their products to date have been right (not counting Warhammer) in line with other products in the market. They've made a GOOD game in the past but they've by no means owned the genre or anything.
Mythic is a 50/50 company with a great PR team, that's all they've ever been. Here's their work. What's extraordinary in it, save DAOC? What do you see here that would inspire a company like EA to hold onto this property?:
Noting half of those didn't even launch. Vaporware.
EA, A multinational company holding onto a game performing barely above water for "morale" purposes? When you read it for what it is, without emotions tied in, that reason really doesn't make sense, does it? A sentimental investment in today's economic times. Sounds even worse. EA has nothing to worry about except for one thing: that is shareholder satisfaction, pure and simple. This is not a local company in the neighborhood where the owner walks down Main Street and people point fingers. This company owns tons of stuff and morale is not their worry. Does this line below make sense to anyone here about a giant company?
By comparison, look at Blizzard before WoW (Online) and what they did. Now that's an extraordinary company. With their record, EA would surely keep them for "morale" because they have a pretty good record and likely could turn it around. Warhammer's biggest problem? Unbelievably, it's coding. With their "record" and "experience". Doesn't inspire confidence.
Ultima Online once was at 250k subs, where Warhammer is now and that was back in 2003. Now that is at 100k if that, so why would they hold onto TWO of these? Ultima mades sense.. it was paid for already. Warhammer is not, and then you figure in today's costs for Mythic employees- healthcare, benefits, etc... and it may already be a foregone conclusion when/if they decide. Ultima as a game is in maintainance mode with a small crew.
Not trying to knock you, but maybe you mistyped this or it came out wrong from your original thoughts?
"TO MICHAEL!"
I actually closed three accounts with WAR last week and went to Age of Conan (which seems to be on an upswing). We have been with WAR since beta and are huge fans of the IP. I'm not saying we will never play WAR again, but right now I'm disappointed with it, and so are my two sons.
In my mind the problem is that Mythic has continued to release new content (live events, 2 new classes and 2 more new classes have been announced) without fixing some of the major and even minor issues with the game. They screwed up resists for casters and there are some glaring balance issues right now. Add to that the next patch is making some sweeping changes they can't even preview to us yet for some reason. I'm not being negative here, I'm just being honest with how I feel about the game. They should stop trying to create new content and run live events with any budget at all until they fix the current game completely. Yes, these new announcements are going to get some folks to stick with it, but after 1/29 I saw a major dropoff on my server, in my guild and even I was not able to defend the game anymore.
Everyone wanted something more concrete from Mythic on 1/29. How are we supposed to feel about adding 2 new classes and the problems with balance that brings, when the team can't even fix a chat box bug that has existed since beta and many other little issues like this? I want them to fix these things, and I want them to succeed! Still, I'm not going to be lead like a rabbit after a carrot for the next great content when the game itself has so many issues.
The engine itself is very poorly designed. As others have said, it uses more CPU power than GPU power and this causes a bottleneck even on the newest systems. Another issue is that the engine just can't handle the number of people fighting in the zones that they planned. They have capped zone population to fix it, and that seems fine, but its not the only issue. How often do you get stuck on a corner or a small item sticking out of the ground? Do you feel the responsiveness of the user interface is good? I can't in good faith sit here and say it is, when I can play LOTRO or even AoC and the interface reacts exactly when I press buttons and even ques skills properly. How many times have you seen a castbar in WAR just stop for no reason? How many skills are just broken completely?
In my eyes, it isn't the recession doing this to the game. It could be the next WoW and it would still have layoffs at this time due to so many (400) people on the team. Obviously, since it isn't the success they had hoped, some of those folks aren't needed. This has no correlation on the population in the game, at this time, but the problems with the game are in fact related to the heavy losses in subscriptions. People far less patient than I am left long ago. For me, these are the same people I've been playing MMOs with since Ultima Online. They lost interest a long time ago.
I never tried Age of Conan before, but it seemed to go through a similar situation that WAR is going through right now. I don't ever think WAR is going to completely fail. Look at DAOC - they keep that game alive with just 10,000 or less accounts. On the other hand, we have already seen a delay in content and patches. At the game's release we saw tons of hotfixes and quite a bit more patches. Obviously, the reduction in work force is slowing things down.
The difference is that Age of Conan's lead was fired and replaced by someone with a proven track record of taking a failing MMO and making it profitable and fun again. Instead of going crazy with new content, new races and classes and all these live events, this lead decided to go back to the beginning and concentrate on his current and future subscribers by fixing what is wrong with the game first and foremost. From what I understand, Age of Conan isn't near the bad game (as much as people thought it to be) it was when first released. Personally, I've been playing it for a week and I'm very impressed with the engine itself which runs flawlessly for me. I've not had one crash or been stuck on one corner. When I press a button it reacts, when I hit the next one it is qued and fires off. The combat feels fierce. The game still has a long way to go, but its in a lot better shape than WAR is - like it or not - that's the truth (its also been out longer).
Last, I would have to say that Mythic and EA are going to continue seeing people leave until they fix the basics and bugs. They need to do something with PVP (RVR) to entice players to actually engage eachother instead of seeking easy conquest from unmanned keeps and objectives. PVE needs a shot in the arse and even the little things like crafting need to be improved. If you can do these things and improve the issues with the engine, Mythic can grow WAR into a powerhouse... If they can't do these things, it will continue to decline to a game with a loyal following of the IP but be as neglected as some of the previous MMOs of the same ilk (Matrix Online anyone?).
All of the above is my opinion and only my opinion.
/salute
ColdSun
I am sure this is not all related directly to WAR's performance, lack thereof, or failure to meet the expectations of EA execs (not MJ, the actual EA suits. There was an obvious disconnect between EA and Mythic about the games expected performance. Mythic seemed to realize it was a niche product, while EA very clearly expected something in WoW's league.)
Lets not forget EA is getting battered on several fronts right now. The ecoomy is souring, limiting the purchase of overpriced console games. They do not have alot of the huge cash cow console games outside of EA sports. Several of those huge non EA non sports franchise games are now owned and operated by their largest competitor, Activision Blizzard.
And they are facing either a major settlement or a probable court decision regarding their largest and most profitable franchise, Maden. Some rather damning smoking gun documents have surfaced indicating some collusion between the NFL Players Association (the players union) and EA regarding screwing retired NFL players out of payments and royalties for their likenesses and records. While EA is not yet a direct defendant in the lawsuit, the new documents will probably send a sh@tstorm their way. Enough to trigger a hugely expensive settlement.
Given that and given EA's tendancy to cut and gut underperforming online games (they have closed more MMO's and online games then any other company), It is likley that Mythic will see some heavy handed cuts. Personally I give MJ to April. After that if Mythic survives as a studio it will be with any independence gutted.
aha...lol...
I just can't think that any good can come from layoffs 4 months after launch. Obviously the game is not that successful and Mythic needs to chnge their approach on how they do things or it is going to be a long uneventful year for them. You also have to factor in that there will be newer mmos soon. If people honestly think gamers will stick around with a game and a company that is having major issues while better games are on the way they are sorely mistaken. Gamers will always flock to the next best thing because they want their moneys worth.
Hello!
I would be laying off Play tester's too.
Did you see the Horrible Class balancing?
If they tested this game and did not see any problem then they sure had no reason
To be employed in the first place!
Duh!
Anyone thats payed to sit on his ass and test a game, should at least be good at it!
I hope War will continue to exist and evolve. On my list it is far behind Wow on second place, but ALL others are even farther on third, fourth, .... It has its share of problems, but overall i like it.
Mythic have yet to release a trial. They have yet to release mass cross-product marketing. They have yet to release in Korea (which WILL see a population increase). In short, this 300,000+ sub number isn't counting Russia and/or Korea.
WAR launched to 750,000 box sales and dropped down to 300,000+ subscribers, which represents roughly a 55% retention percentage. World of Warcraft has a 40% retention percentage on average. AOC sold 1.6 million copies and dropped down to just under 300,000+ subscribers... All in all, Warhammer hasn't got a poor retention ratio.
One of the major problems with WAR was that lack of mainstream marketing. Mythic and EA relied heavily on product relation to sell the game. What I mean by that is they relied heavily on the relation between the MMO and the other Warhammer products popularity to get subscribers. That was a really bad tactic. They felt that because (a) it was so similar to WoW and (b) it was already a successful franchise in other respects, the product would sell itself. Sales were not poor, but they could have been better. EA have stated that they are going to pile money into studios and Mythic will be one of those studios. If EA are wise, some of that money will go into mainstream advertising and product placement on par with World of Warcraft. If EA can put a good marketing campaign in place and Mythic can fix the end game problems, there is no reason what-so-ever why Warhammer Online wouldn't grow. In fact, I'm going to assume that by December next year, Warhammer Online will be north of 500,000 subs... maybe even 1,000,000 if they pull their fingers out.
All this doom and gloom is getting boring, not just at WAR but right across the board.
I just thought I'd also point out that class balance is off so badly because the 4 new classes they've "added" recently were suppose to be there from teh start. Mythic chose to leave them out as they weren't ready yet. Now that they are going back in, we may well see improvements.
http://www.themmoquest.com - MMO commentary from an overly angry brit. OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED!
Wow..... just wow
Almost everything you just said is wrong
300k out of 750k in 3 month is a 55% retention rate? Its 41.5% and I didn't need a calculator, 70% monthly retention or so. World of Warcraft has never given any numbers that would make anyone able to know their retention rate, why are you inventing them? The closest I saw was Mark Jacob saying that the industry is guessing WoW has over 75% monthly retention rates.
AoC sold 1.6 million copies? What the hell, where do you get your numbers? They sold half of that, 800k, 4 months after launch.
Russia? Unknown factor, we don't know how much they will account for
Asia? Useless, for every 1 million asian player you only get the profit of 100k american/euro players (guesstimate) because of their payment model. I don't know if this applies to Korea as well though. You also have to comply with the insane chinese laws, recode some of your game etc.
I quit WAR a couple of months ago and am now back down to just playing EVE. I generally like my SCI-FI with a dose of fantasy on the side so I am left for the first time in years without a fantasy game to play.
Am I the only one who thinks this is a really poor use of the Warhammer IP? I mean... since when did all these various races becomes such good friends that they could draw up two sides?
What happened to Lizardmen and Skaven and Tomb Kings and... ?
This should have been a free-for-all RvR game with each race struggling for domination.
And now with all these layoffs at EA/Mythic I wonder if this will be one of those MMO's that just continues along year after year with few changes and fewer players until it becomes a cheap or F2P game used to get users into the latest EA/Mythic. game like SOE does with their neglected games.
Feel bad for these people, rough time to try to find work...
If I wanted to use the word monthly, I would have used the word monthly. There is a reason I did not. Also, forgive me for not being a wiz at maths. I admit my percentages were off. Sadly, your information about AoC and WoW is incorrect as far as I have seen. I saw Mark Jacobs make the comment about WoWs retention ratio now, but I read a study into projected sales of WoW in the west and overall retention ratio that suggests the actualy figure per total copies sold is something in the region of 40%-50%. As far as AoC is concerned, they sold over 700,000 copies in 4 weeks, so why you believe they'd sold 800,000 in 4 months is beyond me.
Apologies for the mistakes however.
http://www.themmoquest.com - MMO commentary from an overly angry brit. OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED!
The new Live Event start today, supposed to be VERY good, we will see..
Whats strange is WAR is a lot more fun then most mmos out right now especially WOW. I think a lot of people get turned off by WAR after they get their butts handed to them in pvp. They start crying about balance and bugs and lack of "war" but when I play there is ALWAYS something going on. The only downfall I see to it is by having only 2 realms there is a higher chance of one team being overpopulated.
"I'm sorry but your mmo has been diagnosed with EA and only has X number of days to live."
Bad news
If things continue like this we will just see the Sims, Fifa and Guitarr hero games from EA
I knew it was crap that they bought Mythic and Bioware.
No, I don't think people quit because they suck in PvP. Well some maybe but just a few.
The reason I don't play it is that I don't like what they did to my favorite pen and paper RPG game, they cut out all the dark horror of it, took away the backstabbing and corruption of the empire...
I would love to be able to walk Middenheims streets, to take a boat up the river Reik, to spend an evning in Brettonia with duels and drinking but this game just don't give me the same rush as the pen and paper game. I guess it is not bad for what it is but it could have been so much more.
But I think the main reason many quited was that it is still to close to Wow, and they already have a high level char or more there.
Mythic should have kept the original system of Warhammer and not made it level based. Being close to Wow isn't good, Wow already have it's fans and WAR would have been better if it was closer to the fantastic RPG and tabletop games.
I'm guessing that the WoW retention ratio you mention is more complex than this. It might be the retention after 2-3 months or it would be the actual number of people playing now out of all the boxes sold. 4.5 million players (America/Europe) out of 9-10 million total box sale not including expansions alone. That would be possible although there's never been any official information on this. Mark Jacobs said that their retention rate after the initial free month was 72%+ and that DAoC was 72%. Why would you think that WoW has any less than that when its the most successful MMO there is?
Your right that AoC sold 700k in 3 weeks... no, I had to look it up because I forgot
www.joystiq.com/2008/06/30/age-of-conan-reaches-700-000-players/
Roughly 5 weeks
The 800k comes from their quarterly report from Q2 or 3, I'm not sure which
*Fixed... because apparently over 500k people and dropping, who tried it don't think Warhammer is worth paying for right now.
Doubt all those people got "pwned" and left.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Ahh the infamous waves of Doomsayers and I told you so. WAR will end soon by 2012 I tell you if it doesnt make it thru 2009.
I love the locals on this forum and their predictions of WAR and what the future holds for Mythic as they post their thoughts.
Honestly, 300k subscribers sounds pretty damn good to me and with the opening of WAR into Mother Russia, yeah this game sure sounds like it wont make it to 2010.
And I love the other posters that stated they want WAR to survive, but now they have their doubts.. I never saw so many hypocrits on this website and double talk.