There a game that only has 200 playerbase total and it's better than WoW and they probly barely make enough to keep the server up. I don't give a crap how much any company earns.
Blizzard mission statement and other gaming competitors revenue is an interesting comparison. How many times have gaming companies had to focus on their revenue ( or lack there of) due to Blizzard success..I can think of one.
I really prefer if i play a game and the company of that game is filthy rich, it usually means that the company can hire enough developers and keep the game running and extending the content constantly, also a reason why i like to pay 13 bux a month, if the game is popular, then im sure people will play it and they pay 13 a month and the company gets money to partially invest that money into the game again...
I keep seeing all these arguments about "what is best for the profit of the company", or "because that's what makes them the most money". I don't care one whit about the game companies profits, surely they must realize this? So why then should I be OK with poor game designs / decisions that are justified in the name of money for their pockets? When are gaming companies going to realize that designing a MMO around nothing but making money is just going to result in another worthless product bereft of any art, passion for gaming, vision, and all of those things necessary in making a great game. All of these failing MMOs need to fire their accountants and hire some passionate game designers IMO EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm not saying that companies should not seek profits, I'm just saying that the extreme focus on profits might be suffocating the quality of gameplay in many cases.
Profit is the only driving force in business. A company that does not make a profit does not succeed. Shareholders don't care if you are happy as an individual, they care that the market AS A WHOLE is happy...
This only applies to publicly owned companies with a fiduciary duty to their shareholders. Privately owned companies are free to have any priorities that they like. If I want to set up a company who's prime goal is to increase the number of pink bunnies in Hyde Park, then I can. As long as my revenue exceeds my operating costs, then I can continue to do so.
Incidentally, the game that I play, EvE, is produced by a privately owned company, which is owned by the people that run it, who set it up for the express purpose of producing a massively multiplayer space MMO with full loot, very sandbox play, and largely FFA PvP. Which they do. Which they've been very successful at. They dont pull many of the asshole stunts that the kind of company you think is the only possible type inflict upon their customers. They're still intensely commited to realising their vision. And they're reasonably profitable. They're not making WoW money, but then again, apart from Blizzard, who is?
This idea that maximising short term profit at the expense of all other considerations is not just permissable but some kind of a moral imperative is not only sociopathic, it's a prime cause of many of the problems we see in the world today. I wonder just how long this collective delusion will be allowed to continue. Perhaps one day soon people like you will realise that not only are you not supposed to expect to be shafted by companies, you dont even have to accept it.
EVE is hardly a good example, as wonderful a game as it may be. Its got both a subscription fee and RMT. You really cant get any greedier than that...
Just to make things clear... I speak for myself and no one else, unless i state otherwise mine is just an opinion. A fact is something that can be independently verified, you may challenge such but with proof. You have every right to disagree with me through sound argument, i believe in constructive debate, but baseless aggression will warrant an unkind response.
I keep seeing all these arguments about "what is best for the profit of the company", or "because that's what makes them the most money". I don't care one whit about the game companies profits, surely they must realize this? So why then should I be OK with poor game designs / decisions that are justified in the name of money for their pockets? When are gaming companies going to realize that designing a MMO around nothing but making money is just going to result in another worthless product bereft of any art, passion for gaming, vision, and all of those things necessary in making a great game. All of these failing MMOs need to fire their accountants and hire some passionate game designers IMO EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm not saying that companies should not seek profits, I'm just saying that the extreme focus on profits might be suffocating the quality of gameplay in many cases.
Profit is the only driving force in business. A company that does not make a profit does not succeed. Shareholders don't care if you are happy as an individual, they care that the market AS A WHOLE is happy...
This only applies to publicly owned companies with a fiduciary duty to their shareholders. Privately owned companies are free to have any priorities that they like. If I want to set up a company who's prime goal is to increase the number of pink bunnies in Hyde Park, then I can. As long as my revenue exceeds my operating costs, then I can continue to do so.
Incidentally, the game that I play, EvE, is produced by a privately owned company, which is owned by the people that run it, who set it up for the express purpose of producing a massively multiplayer space MMO with full loot, very sandbox play, and largely FFA PvP. Which they do. Which they've been very successful at. They dont pull many of the asshole stunts that the kind of company you think is the only possible type inflict upon their customers. They're still intensely commited to realising their vision. And they're reasonably profitable. They're not making WoW money, but then again, apart from Blizzard, who is?
This idea that maximising short term profit at the expense of all other considerations is not just permissable but some kind of a moral imperative is not only sociopathic, it's a prime cause of many of the problems we see in the world today. I wonder just how long this collective delusion will be allowed to continue. Perhaps one day soon people like you will realise that not only are you not supposed to expect to be shafted by companies, you dont even have to accept it.
If EVE didn't make money, it would not exist. Even if it is privately held, a business makes money or it fails. Public or Private, ALL companies exist to make money. Even government run companies in communist nations need to make money so that those countries can use the money on the world market.
Yes, EVE is successful, but not as successful as it could be. It is a niche game that fulfills the need of a small portion of a much greater market. It happens all the time. In produce, organic farmers produce products that a small portion of the population buy because they feel those fruits and vegetables are somehow better for them. No organic farmer earns the same amount of income as a factory-type farmer does, however.
Niche games will always have a following, and the only way they can exist is if they have enough of a player base to continue to pay for the operation of the game. Those "private owners" of EVE aren't keeping the game around out of love, they are keeping it around because they get paid.
The more money a company makes, the more it can do. Everyone hates on Blizzard because they brought the MMO mainstream and for some reason people think this is bad. The truth is in the game. With the 150 MILLION Blizzard brings in each month in subscription fees from WoW alone, they can afford to polish releases and make sure they are done right. They can afford to hire top talent. They can R&D new ideas for the MMO community. In other words, they can be successful in a way only money can make a company successful.
You never try to maximize short term profit. Nor do you try to maximize long term profit. You strive to maximize profit...period. A company has to constantly look at itself and try to do things better, faster and leaner. Cut waste, improve efficiency, do more with a dollar than what was being done before.
Companies that try to just coast along...they might survive, but they won't shine (cough*SWG*cough).
I respect your right to voice your opinion and reserve the right to blow it right out of the water
I've been playing video games for some 25 years. You might say I'm a nerd lol, I have 5 consoles on my coffee table, and another 3 on my TV stand, and a massive library going all the way back to Super Mario Bros. I'm the guy that actually buys the soundtracks and collectors editions etc..
I've noticed a pattern in video games. Starting around the year 2000, they began to seem less and less like the works of art I had always admired. It's hard to explain, as if they weren't created by enthusiasts anymore. I've played many great games since then, but at the same time most can only be described as lackluster, even though technology and graphics has improved. For example, every single enemy in FFVII was hand-crafted, they were all completely different from each other, their moves, abilities, AI, everything. but then in FFXII (great game BTW), every enemy had the same pattern of attack, some regular attack, and some instant attack, and sometimes a special move. The only difference was the name of the instant attack (bite, fangs, etc) and the special move. I played though it, and the game was great, but it just seemed as though it was created in a classroom in comparison to its predecessors.
The same pattern seems to have emerged in MMOs from what I can tell. The original ones just seemed so much better then whats out there today, and even those just seemed to get worse as expansions and patches were released.
Maybe I'm just more into classics, maybe my standards are too high, or maybe I'm just getting too old for games, I don't know. But I've noticed this for a long time, and this is really the root of what I was posting, it's just hard to explain since all I'm going on is my own observations, which doesn't always coincide with others. I think that games are art, pure and simple, and art cannot just be simply cranked out like a product, and I feel as though a good percentage of titles these days are more of a product than they are a work of art.
I've been playing video games for some 25 years. You might say I'm a nerd lol, I have 5 consoles on my coffee table, and another 3 on my TV stand, and a massive library going all the way back to Super Mario Bros. I'm the guy that actually buys the soundtracks and collectors editions etc.. I've noticed a pattern in video games. Starting around the year 2000, they began to seem less and less like the works of art I had always admired. It's hard to explain, as if they weren't created by enthusiasts anymore. I've played many great games since then, but at the same time most can only be described as lackluster, even though technology and graphics has improved. For example, every single enemy in FFVII was hand-crafted, they were all completely different from each other, their moves, abilities, AI, everything. but then in FFXII (great game BTW), every enemy had the same pattern of attack, some regular attack, and some instant attack, and sometimes a special move. The only difference was the name of the instant attack (bite, fangs, etc) and the special move. I played though it, and the game was great, but it just seemed as though it was created in a classroom in comparison to its predecessors. The same pattern seems to have emerged in MMOs from what I can tell. The original ones just seemed so much better then whats out there today, and even those just seemed to get worse as expansions and patches were released. Maybe I'm just more into classics, maybe my standards are too high, or maybe I'm just getting too old for games, I don't know. But I've noticed this for a long time, and this is really the root of what I was posting, it's just hard to explain since all I'm going on is my own observations, which doesn't always coincide with others. I think that games are art, pure and simple, and art cannot just be simply cranked out like a product, and I feel as though a good percentage of titles these days are more of a product than they are a work of art.
But thats the thing isnt it? Art needs patrons... Look at any other art form and you will find that they were able to flourish precisely because they were able to adapt to their market. Opera was, at its height, the equivalent of todays blockbusters. There actually were plenty of musicians speaking out about how it was bringing down the world of music and killing the fine arts. Look up at reviews for when many works were released, most librettos werent thought of as serious work... And some of the great divas were dismissed in the same way you would a hollywood actress today.
Novels are now considered the literary genre par excellence. They were viewed as abominations on an age when fictional works of merit were suposed to be written in verse, an unforgivable concession to the masses. Great master painters actually got their money from comissioned works. They were all either skilled at making flattering portaits of aristocrats or doing large symbolic scenes for the church. Even in the 20th century a name like Rivera could see his work destroyed by an angry patron.
The list could go on... Even Nirvanas Kurt Cobain (one of the 20th centurys most talented purists) tried to appeal to the masses at some point. Yes, this doesnt mean a work looses any value because it does have some form of commercial intent. The difference between the accomplished master and the marketing whore is the latters work wont survive the test of time, it has no soul. The difference between the accomplished master and the emo poser is that the latter doesnt care enough about his work to try and appeal to sensibilities outside his own. To be able to do something that will succeed while keeping true to its author is what art is all about.
Granted, most people today dont consider games an art form, but gamers know what they like. MMOs require a massive audience by definition which means they should try to appeal to as many as they can. Yes they can become disfigured and dumbed down in the process, and thats where an artist should come in and find the right balance because its not a science.
A true MMO artist would care as much about launches, maintenance, updates and the living evolution of a game as he would about his original vission as a developer. Success here implies a favorable opinion of the audience but should also translate to sub numbers. Thats what companies are missing, people with the right sensibility. Artists in the true sense, not just marketing and pr people...
Just to make things clear... I speak for myself and no one else, unless i state otherwise mine is just an opinion. A fact is something that can be independently verified, you may challenge such but with proof. You have every right to disagree with me through sound argument, i believe in constructive debate, but baseless aggression will warrant an unkind response.
I've been playing video games for some 25 years. You might say I'm a nerd lol, I have 5 consoles on my coffee table, and another 3 on my TV stand, and a massive library going all the way back to Super Mario Bros. I'm the guy that actually buys the soundtracks and collectors editions etc.. I've noticed a pattern in video games. Starting around the year 2000, they began to seem less and less like the works of art I had always admired. It's hard to explain, as if they weren't created by enthusiasts anymore. I've played many great games since then, but at the same time most can only be described as lackluster, even though technology and graphics has improved. For example, every single enemy in FFVII was hand-crafted, they were all completely different from each other, their moves, abilities, AI, everything. but then in FFXII (great game BTW), every enemy had the same pattern of attack, some regular attack, and some instant attack, and sometimes a special move. The only difference was the name of the instant attack (bite, fangs, etc) and the special move. I played though it, and the game was great, but it just seemed as though it was created in a classroom in comparison to its predecessors. The same pattern seems to have emerged in MMOs from what I can tell. The original ones just seemed so much better then whats out there today, and even those just seemed to get worse as expansions and patches were released. Maybe I'm just more into classics, maybe my standards are too high, or maybe I'm just getting too old for games, I don't know. But I've noticed this for a long time, and this is really the root of what I was posting, it's just hard to explain since all I'm going on is my own observations, which doesn't always coincide with others. I think that games are art, pure and simple, and art cannot just be simply cranked out like a product, and I feel as though a good percentage of titles these days are more of a product than they are a work of art.
Your not alone. I can really relate and agree with that.
I keep seeing all these arguments about "what is best for the profit of the company", or "because that's what makes them the most money". I don't care one whit about the game companies profits, surely they must realize this? So why then should I be OK with poor game designs / decisions that are justified in the name of money for their pockets? When are gaming companies going to realize that designing a MMO around nothing but making money is just going to result in another worthless product bereft of any art, passion for gaming, vision, and all of those things necessary in making a great game. All of these failing MMOs need to fire their accountants and hire some passionate game designers IMO
Without cash companies cannot make mmo'a, make updates, patches, or expansions. People go into gaming to make money and maybe some for the passion, but never just for the passion. Bottom line. Unless the gamers have passion when making the game you will see terrible games.
(AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH Dances with Rabbid platoon...AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)
Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge.
Originally posted by SaintViktor Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge.
I think this response is second only to "It's just two lines of code."
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I keep seeing all these arguments about "what is best for the profit of the company", or "because that's what makes them the most money". I don't care one whit about the game companies profits, surely they must realize this? So why then should I be OK with poor game designs / decisions that are justified in the name of money for their pockets? When are gaming companies going to realize that designing a MMO around nothing but making money is just going to result in another worthless product bereft of any art, passion for gaming, vision, and all of those things necessary in making a great game. All of these failing MMOs need to fire their accountants and hire some passionate game designers IMO
Without cash companies cannot make mmo'a, make updates, patches, or expansions. People go into gaming to make money and maybe some for the passion, but never just for the passion. Bottom line. Unless the gamers have passion when making the game you will see terrible games.
(AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH Dances with Rabbid platoon...AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)
Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge.
**cracks knuckles**
You know what they say, right? "time is Money"
Just because you have the tools and the time doesn't mean you've got the money to play around with it. Existing in this society costs money.
Lost as you may be by this sudden realization, it is true. Everything takes money unless you don't mind being a starving artist - which doesn't work if you plan to create and design a game with 5 or 6 other people. And who'll pay the electric bill?
The Game we all want will take a lot of resources to create, it won't happen over night. It won't be made by some teenager in his mother's basement. The only way to get anything rolling is with money because there aren't many people on this planet who are intrinsically motivated.
I keep seeing all these arguments about "what is best for the profit of the company", or "because that's what makes them the most money". I don't care one whit about the game companies profits, surely they must realize this? So why then should I be OK with poor game designs / decisions that are justified in the name of money for their pockets? When are gaming companies going to realize that designing a MMO around nothing but making money is just going to result in another worthless product bereft of any art, passion for gaming, vision, and all of those things necessary in making a great game. All of these failing MMOs need to fire their accountants and hire some passionate game designers IMO
How old are you and what do you do for a living?
How old he is is highly irrelevant to the point which is a good one. Do you think that AOC would not go back and finish the game before they released it if they could? Regardless of the cost, I often hear fans of that game talk about the 40 million they have had in the bank since before launch and I seriously doubt having gone through what he has gone through Gaute Godager wouldn't have burned that money up to not have happen what in fact did happen. I wonder why it is so hard for some gamers to see that in board rooms devs and those who speak for them are being simple yes men to the suits without having the nerve to say "well look I work for you and will release but if we do that <AOC> will happen.". But again they don't stand up for the business they know release junk get canned and then blame the mmo community in the end. We are all gamers and ultimately outside of the individual conditions we set for our standard of gaming we only want to be entertained and it seems atleast half of the games being released as mmo's are not doing that.
Honestly I think the mmo space right now is over saturated, simply put it is full of people who may have always dreamed of doing this, making games and ultimately mmo's but they just really are not that good at it *shrugs*. I'm not saying games shouldn't be released without problems but really games should not be released with false advertising on the packaging,without a way to actually sell the game that makes any sense, or without entire systems that are highly critical to a game like stats or even "life" in the game world. Twelve years later we have companies releasing games upon the population outselling some console games yet these types of issues I've mentioned are still happening.
That points directly to the fact that mmo's have problems right now I'm not saying that I totally agree with the OP but I certainly am more on my own side than I am of some of the devs who allow this to happen, I mean I think some strippers are pretty but I won't be buying any of them a house anytime soon. If you in fact work in the industry I guess I can see your point if not I wonder why you'd have a problem with a consumer ultimately being for the consumer.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I keep seeing all these arguments about "what is best for the profit of the company", or "because that's what makes them the most money". I don't care one whit about the game companies profits, surely they must realize this? So why then should I be OK with poor game designs / decisions that are justified in the name of money for their pockets? When are gaming companies going to realize that designing a MMO around nothing but making money is just going to result in another worthless product bereft of any art, passion for gaming, vision, and all of those things necessary in making a great game. All of these failing MMOs need to fire their accountants and hire some passionate game designers IMO
Without cash companies cannot make mmo'a, make updates, patches, or expansions. People go into gaming to make money and maybe some for the passion, but never just for the passion. Bottom line. Unless the gamers have passion when making the game you will see terrible games.
(AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH Dances with Rabbid platoon...AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)
Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge.
**cracks knuckles**
You know what they say, right? "time is Money"
Just because you have the tools and the time doesn't mean you've got the money to play around with it. Existing in this society costs money.
Lost as you may be by this sudden realization, it is true. Everything takes money unless you don't mind being a starving artist - which doesn't work if you plan to create and design a game with 5 or 6 other people. And who'll pay the electric bill?
The Game we all want will take a lot of resources to create, it won't happen over night. It won't be made by some teenager in his mother's basement. The only way to get anything rolling is with money because there aren't many people on this planet who are intrinsically motivated.
4channers, read the italicized words.
The time is money concept is an assumption, it's counting money you do not even have yet or never will get.
I keep seeing all these arguments about "what is best for the profit of the company", or "because that's what makes them the most money". I don't care one whit about the game companies profits, surely they must realize this? So why then should I be OK with poor game designs / decisions that are justified in the name of money for their pockets? When are gaming companies going to realize that designing a MMO around nothing but making money is just going to result in another worthless product bereft of any art, passion for gaming, vision, and all of those things necessary in making a great game. All of these failing MMOs need to fire their accountants and hire some passionate game designers IMO EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm not saying that companies should not seek profits, I'm just saying that the extreme focus on profits might be suffocating the quality of gameplay in many cases.
You may not care about their profits,but do you actually think games are made to make you happy?They are nothing more than a business now,the old days when rich people twiddled in their basement or garage making a game are long gone.Now when a game design is thought of ,it is all planned out with investors,time lines,cost,pre made game engines,hiring of talented workers and hiring of influential people as well as other experienced business people,no more making games for the fun of it.
The closest i have seen to a game made for the fun of it has been the Curt Schilling ordeal,a former baseball pitcher who played MMORPG's.The problem shows it's face soon after,the other investors quickly want to turn it into a giant money making scheme that is trying to copy the Star Wars following,by selling tons of merchandise.So even a rich baseball players dream to have his own MMORPG was turned into a business,rather than just a game for the love of the genre.
Furthermore is the aged problem of WHEN to release a game.I would bet anything that ALL the developers release their game before it is actually to the state they designed it to be in from the start.A simple example...i thin k 99% of the developers at this day and age ,know how much the player base wants player housing.It is not a big deal to myself,but i know there is a huge following of people that want it.
What do all the devs say to this??It is a great idea and we are looking into it,but it will not be in the game on release.They always tell the people what they want to hear without making themselves look bad or cheap.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Originally posted by SaintViktor Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge.
I think this response is second only to "It's just two lines of code."
Really ? You do realize that they only need to spend money if they are buying brand new tools and servers, otherwise all existing tools and servers are already being supported by another source of income and are already included in the budget. Just goes to show how much some really do know.
I keep seeing all these arguments about "what is best for the profit of the company", or "because that's what makes them the most money". I don't care one whit about the game companies profits, surely they must realize this? So why then should I be OK with poor game designs / decisions that are justified in the name of money for their pockets? When are gaming companies going to realize that designing a MMO around nothing but making money is just going to result in another worthless product bereft of any art, passion for gaming, vision, and all of those things necessary in making a great game. All of these failing MMOs need to fire their accountants and hire some passionate game designers IMO
Without cash companies cannot make mmo'a, make updates, patches, or expansions. People go into gaming to make money and maybe some for the passion, but never just for the passion. Bottom line. Unless the gamers have passion when making the game you will see terrible games.
(AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH Dances with Rabbid platoon...AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)
Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge.
**cracks knuckles**
You know what they say, right? "time is Money"
Just because you have the tools and the time doesn't mean you've got the money to play around with it. Existing in this society costs money.
Lost as you may be by this sudden realization, it is true. Everything takes money unless you don't mind being a starving artist - which doesn't work if you plan to create and design a game with 5 or 6 other people. And who'll pay the electric bill?
The Game we all want will take a lot of resources to create, it won't happen over night. It won't be made by some teenager in his mother's basement. The only way to get anything rolling is with money because there aren't many people on this planet who are intrinsically motivated.
4channers, read the italicized words.
The time is money concept is an assumption, it's counting money you do not even have yet or never will get.
The post was an obvious troll. I'm sad you don't know the meme.
Actually it did have an underlying point: time is money. You exist over time and so it costs money to exist. For every moment you spend doing something, you cost somebody money (you eat food, drink water, sleep somewhere safe, etc.).
Unless you've got an infinite well of money to compensate for the resources you're consuming, you're either out on the streets and begging for stuff or already dying.
Originally posted by SaintViktor Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge.
I think this response is second only to "It's just two lines of code."
Really ? You do realize that they only need to spend money if they are buying brand new tools and servers, otherwise all existing tools and servers are already being supported by another source of income and are already included in the budget. Just goes to show how much some really do know.
On the off chance that this is not a troll post and that you simply do not understand how a business works.... Either those resources were sitting around draining money until needed, or they were assigned to other tasks, thus requiring them to be pulled from those tasks, otherwise new resources have to be added to accomplish the new tasks.
"Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge."
I don't want you to take my word for it, though. Ask your Business Management professor or Comp Sci teacher what they think of that that quote. They'd probably do a much better job of explaining it to you than I can.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I keep seeing all these arguments about "what is best for the profit of the company", or "because that's what makes them the most money". I don't care one whit about the game companies profits, surely they must realize this? So why then should I be OK with poor game designs / decisions that are justified in the name of money for their pockets? When are gaming companies going to realize that designing a MMO around nothing but making money is just going to result in another worthless product bereft of any art, passion for gaming, vision, and all of those things necessary in making a great game. All of these failing MMOs need to fire their accountants and hire some passionate game designers IMO EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm not saying that companies should not seek profits, I'm just saying that the extreme focus on profits might be suffocating the quality of gameplay in many cases.
Profit is the only driving force in business. A company that does not make a profit does not succeed. Shareholders don't care if you are happy as an individual, they care that the market AS A WHOLE is happy...
This only applies to publicly owned companies with a fiduciary duty to their shareholders. Privately owned companies are free to have any priorities that they like. If I want to set up a company who's prime goal is to increase the number of pink bunnies in Hyde Park, then I can. As long as my revenue exceeds my operating costs, then I can continue to do so.
Incidentally, the game that I play, EvE, is produced by a privately owned company, which is owned by the people that run it, who set it up for the express purpose of producing a massively multiplayer space MMO with full loot, very sandbox play, and largely FFA PvP. Which they do. Which they've been very successful at. They dont pull many of the asshole stunts that the kind of company you think is the only possible type inflict upon their customers. They're still intensely commited to realising their vision. And they're reasonably profitable. They're not making WoW money, but then again, apart from Blizzard, who is?
This idea that maximising short term profit at the expense of all other considerations is not just permissable but some kind of a moral imperative is not only sociopathic, it's a prime cause of many of the problems we see in the world today. I wonder just how long this collective delusion will be allowed to continue. Perhaps one day soon people like you will realise that not only are you not supposed to expect to be shafted by companies, you dont even have to accept it.
EVE is hardly a good example, as wonderful a game as it may be. Its got both a subscription fee and RMT. You really cant get any greedier than that...
The only thing that CCP "RMT" is... game time. The players can trade that game time amongst themselves as an in-game commodity, but that doesn't change the fact that every dollor or Euro that CCP receive from the players is in return for game time only. Players can choose to pay a sub, or buy GTCs, or buy game time from other players for in-game currency.
Please, do explain to us all how this makes CCP superlatively greedy?
This is it in a nut shell. However i would like to add that if you play a game that gets rare free updates yet you see they have a large revenue stream then its obvious they arent putting much back into the game. So you can use thier revenue as a way to gauge how much/quality of them the content they release.
I keep seeing all these arguments about "what is best for the profit of the company", or "because that's what makes them the most money". I don't care one whit about the game companies profits, surely they must realize this? So why then should I be OK with poor game designs / decisions that are justified in the name of money for their pockets? When are gaming companies going to realize that designing a MMO around nothing but making money is just going to result in another worthless product bereft of any art, passion for gaming, vision, and all of those things necessary in making a great game. All of these failing MMOs need to fire their accountants and hire some passionate game designers IMO
Without cash companies cannot make mmo'a, make updates, patches, or expansions. People go into gaming to make money and maybe some for the passion, but never just for the passion. Bottom line. Unless the gamers have passion when making the game you will see terrible games.
(AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH Dances with Rabbid platoon...AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)
Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge.
Yes of course it take not much money to fix bugs or creating content! Thats because everyone works for free right? Even if it takes 10 minutes to fix a bug, the company still pays for that bug(literally).
Comments
What game?
Blizzard mission statement and other gaming competitors revenue is an interesting comparison. How many times have gaming companies had to focus on their revenue ( or lack there of) due to Blizzard success..I can think of one.
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I really prefer if i play a game and the company of that game is filthy rich, it usually means that the company can hire enough developers and keep the game running and extending the content constantly, also a reason why i like to pay 13 bux a month, if the game is popular, then im sure people will play it and they pay 13 a month and the company gets money to partially invest that money into the game again...
big + in my opinion...
Profit is the only driving force in business. A company that does not make a profit does not succeed. Shareholders don't care if you are happy as an individual, they care that the market AS A WHOLE is happy...
This only applies to publicly owned companies with a fiduciary duty to their shareholders. Privately owned companies are free to have any priorities that they like. If I want to set up a company who's prime goal is to increase the number of pink bunnies in Hyde Park, then I can. As long as my revenue exceeds my operating costs, then I can continue to do so.
Incidentally, the game that I play, EvE, is produced by a privately owned company, which is owned by the people that run it, who set it up for the express purpose of producing a massively multiplayer space MMO with full loot, very sandbox play, and largely FFA PvP. Which they do. Which they've been very successful at. They dont pull many of the asshole stunts that the kind of company you think is the only possible type inflict upon their customers. They're still intensely commited to realising their vision. And they're reasonably profitable. They're not making WoW money, but then again, apart from Blizzard, who is?
This idea that maximising short term profit at the expense of all other considerations is not just permissable but some kind of a moral imperative is not only sociopathic, it's a prime cause of many of the problems we see in the world today. I wonder just how long this collective delusion will be allowed to continue. Perhaps one day soon people like you will realise that not only are you not supposed to expect to be shafted by companies, you dont even have to accept it.
EVE is hardly a good example, as wonderful a game as it may be. Its got both a subscription fee and RMT. You really cant get any greedier than that...
Just to make things clear...
I speak for myself and no one else, unless i state otherwise mine is just an opinion. A fact is something that can be independently verified, you may challenge such but with proof. You have every right to disagree with me through sound argument, i believe in constructive debate, but baseless aggression will warrant an unkind response.
Profit is the only driving force in business. A company that does not make a profit does not succeed. Shareholders don't care if you are happy as an individual, they care that the market AS A WHOLE is happy...
This only applies to publicly owned companies with a fiduciary duty to their shareholders. Privately owned companies are free to have any priorities that they like. If I want to set up a company who's prime goal is to increase the number of pink bunnies in Hyde Park, then I can. As long as my revenue exceeds my operating costs, then I can continue to do so.
Incidentally, the game that I play, EvE, is produced by a privately owned company, which is owned by the people that run it, who set it up for the express purpose of producing a massively multiplayer space MMO with full loot, very sandbox play, and largely FFA PvP. Which they do. Which they've been very successful at. They dont pull many of the asshole stunts that the kind of company you think is the only possible type inflict upon their customers. They're still intensely commited to realising their vision. And they're reasonably profitable. They're not making WoW money, but then again, apart from Blizzard, who is?
This idea that maximising short term profit at the expense of all other considerations is not just permissable but some kind of a moral imperative is not only sociopathic, it's a prime cause of many of the problems we see in the world today. I wonder just how long this collective delusion will be allowed to continue. Perhaps one day soon people like you will realise that not only are you not supposed to expect to be shafted by companies, you dont even have to accept it.
If EVE didn't make money, it would not exist. Even if it is privately held, a business makes money or it fails. Public or Private, ALL companies exist to make money. Even government run companies in communist nations need to make money so that those countries can use the money on the world market.
Yes, EVE is successful, but not as successful as it could be. It is a niche game that fulfills the need of a small portion of a much greater market. It happens all the time. In produce, organic farmers produce products that a small portion of the population buy because they feel those fruits and vegetables are somehow better for them. No organic farmer earns the same amount of income as a factory-type farmer does, however.
Niche games will always have a following, and the only way they can exist is if they have enough of a player base to continue to pay for the operation of the game. Those "private owners" of EVE aren't keeping the game around out of love, they are keeping it around because they get paid.
The more money a company makes, the more it can do. Everyone hates on Blizzard because they brought the MMO mainstream and for some reason people think this is bad. The truth is in the game. With the 150 MILLION Blizzard brings in each month in subscription fees from WoW alone, they can afford to polish releases and make sure they are done right. They can afford to hire top talent. They can R&D new ideas for the MMO community. In other words, they can be successful in a way only money can make a company successful.
You never try to maximize short term profit. Nor do you try to maximize long term profit. You strive to maximize profit...period. A company has to constantly look at itself and try to do things better, faster and leaner. Cut waste, improve efficiency, do more with a dollar than what was being done before.
Companies that try to just coast along...they might survive, but they won't shine (cough*SWG*cough).
I respect your right to voice your opinion and reserve the right to blow it right out of the water
I've been playing video games for some 25 years. You might say I'm a nerd lol, I have 5 consoles on my coffee table, and another 3 on my TV stand, and a massive library going all the way back to Super Mario Bros. I'm the guy that actually buys the soundtracks and collectors editions etc..
I've noticed a pattern in video games. Starting around the year 2000, they began to seem less and less like the works of art I had always admired. It's hard to explain, as if they weren't created by enthusiasts anymore. I've played many great games since then, but at the same time most can only be described as lackluster, even though technology and graphics has improved. For example, every single enemy in FFVII was hand-crafted, they were all completely different from each other, their moves, abilities, AI, everything. but then in FFXII (great game BTW), every enemy had the same pattern of attack, some regular attack, and some instant attack, and sometimes a special move. The only difference was the name of the instant attack (bite, fangs, etc) and the special move. I played though it, and the game was great, but it just seemed as though it was created in a classroom in comparison to its predecessors.
The same pattern seems to have emerged in MMOs from what I can tell. The original ones just seemed so much better then whats out there today, and even those just seemed to get worse as expansions and patches were released.
Maybe I'm just more into classics, maybe my standards are too high, or maybe I'm just getting too old for games, I don't know. But I've noticed this for a long time, and this is really the root of what I was posting, it's just hard to explain since all I'm going on is my own observations, which doesn't always coincide with others. I think that games are art, pure and simple, and art cannot just be simply cranked out like a product, and I feel as though a good percentage of titles these days are more of a product than they are a work of art.
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
But thats the thing isnt it? Art needs patrons... Look at any other art form and you will find that they were able to flourish precisely because they were able to adapt to their market. Opera was, at its height, the equivalent of todays blockbusters. There actually were plenty of musicians speaking out about how it was bringing down the world of music and killing the fine arts. Look up at reviews for when many works were released, most librettos werent thought of as serious work... And some of the great divas were dismissed in the same way you would a hollywood actress today.
Novels are now considered the literary genre par excellence. They were viewed as abominations on an age when fictional works of merit were suposed to be written in verse, an unforgivable concession to the masses. Great master painters actually got their money from comissioned works. They were all either skilled at making flattering portaits of aristocrats or doing large symbolic scenes for the church. Even in the 20th century a name like Rivera could see his work destroyed by an angry patron.
The list could go on... Even Nirvanas Kurt Cobain (one of the 20th centurys most talented purists) tried to appeal to the masses at some point. Yes, this doesnt mean a work looses any value because it does have some form of commercial intent. The difference between the accomplished master and the marketing whore is the latters work wont survive the test of time, it has no soul. The difference between the accomplished master and the emo poser is that the latter doesnt care enough about his work to try and appeal to sensibilities outside his own. To be able to do something that will succeed while keeping true to its author is what art is all about.
Granted, most people today dont consider games an art form, but gamers know what they like. MMOs require a massive audience by definition which means they should try to appeal to as many as they can. Yes they can become disfigured and dumbed down in the process, and thats where an artist should come in and find the right balance because its not a science.
A true MMO artist would care as much about launches, maintenance, updates and the living evolution of a game as he would about his original vission as a developer. Success here implies a favorable opinion of the audience but should also translate to sub numbers. Thats what companies are missing, people with the right sensibility. Artists in the true sense, not just marketing and pr people...
Just to make things clear...
I speak for myself and no one else, unless i state otherwise mine is just an opinion. A fact is something that can be independently verified, you may challenge such but with proof. You have every right to disagree with me through sound argument, i believe in constructive debate, but baseless aggression will warrant an unkind response.
Your not alone. I can really relate and agree with that.
Without cash companies cannot make mmo'a, make updates, patches, or expansions. People go into gaming to make money and maybe some for the passion, but never just for the passion. Bottom line. Unless the gamers have passion when making the game you will see terrible games.
(AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH Dances with Rabbid platoon...AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)
Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge.
I think this response is second only to "It's just two lines of code."
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Without cash companies cannot make mmo'a, make updates, patches, or expansions. People go into gaming to make money and maybe some for the passion, but never just for the passion. Bottom line. Unless the gamers have passion when making the game you will see terrible games.
(AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH Dances with Rabbid platoon...AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)
Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge.
**cracks knuckles**
You know what they say, right? "time is Money"
Just because you have the tools and the time doesn't mean you've got the money to play around with it. Existing in this society costs money.
Lost as you may be by this sudden realization, it is true. Everything takes money unless you don't mind being a starving artist - which doesn't work if you plan to create and design a game with 5 or 6 other people. And who'll pay the electric bill?
The Game we all want will take a lot of resources to create, it won't happen over night. It won't be made by some teenager in his mother's basement. The only way to get anything rolling is with money because there aren't many people on this planet who are intrinsically motivated.
4channers, read the italicized words.
How old are you and what do you do for a living?
How old he is is highly irrelevant to the point which is a good one. Do you think that AOC would not go back and finish the game before they released it if they could? Regardless of the cost, I often hear fans of that game talk about the 40 million they have had in the bank since before launch and I seriously doubt having gone through what he has gone through Gaute Godager wouldn't have burned that money up to not have happen what in fact did happen. I wonder why it is so hard for some gamers to see that in board rooms devs and those who speak for them are being simple yes men to the suits without having the nerve to say "well look I work for you and will release but if we do that <AOC> will happen.". But again they don't stand up for the business they know release junk get canned and then blame the mmo community in the end. We are all gamers and ultimately outside of the individual conditions we set for our standard of gaming we only want to be entertained and it seems atleast half of the games being released as mmo's are not doing that.
Honestly I think the mmo space right now is over saturated, simply put it is full of people who may have always dreamed of doing this, making games and ultimately mmo's but they just really are not that good at it *shrugs*. I'm not saying games shouldn't be released without problems but really games should not be released with false advertising on the packaging,without a way to actually sell the game that makes any sense, or without entire systems that are highly critical to a game like stats or even "life" in the game world. Twelve years later we have companies releasing games upon the population outselling some console games yet these types of issues I've mentioned are still happening.
That points directly to the fact that mmo's have problems right now I'm not saying that I totally agree with the OP but I certainly am more on my own side than I am of some of the devs who allow this to happen, I mean I think some strippers are pretty but I won't be buying any of them a house anytime soon. If you in fact work in the industry I guess I can see your point if not I wonder why you'd have a problem with a consumer ultimately being for the consumer.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Without cash companies cannot make mmo'a, make updates, patches, or expansions. People go into gaming to make money and maybe some for the passion, but never just for the passion. Bottom line. Unless the gamers have passion when making the game you will see terrible games.
(AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH Dances with Rabbid platoon...AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)
Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge.
**cracks knuckles**
You know what they say, right? "time is Money"
Just because you have the tools and the time doesn't mean you've got the money to play around with it. Existing in this society costs money.
Lost as you may be by this sudden realization, it is true. Everything takes money unless you don't mind being a starving artist - which doesn't work if you plan to create and design a game with 5 or 6 other people. And who'll pay the electric bill?
The Game we all want will take a lot of resources to create, it won't happen over night. It won't be made by some teenager in his mother's basement. The only way to get anything rolling is with money because there aren't many people on this planet who are intrinsically motivated.
4channers, read the italicized words.
The time is money concept is an assumption, it's counting money you do not even have yet or never will get.
You may not care about their profits,but do you actually think games are made to make you happy?They are nothing more than a business now,the old days when rich people twiddled in their basement or garage making a game are long gone.Now when a game design is thought of ,it is all planned out with investors,time lines,cost,pre made game engines,hiring of talented workers and hiring of influential people as well as other experienced business people,no more making games for the fun of it.
The closest i have seen to a game made for the fun of it has been the Curt Schilling ordeal,a former baseball pitcher who played MMORPG's.The problem shows it's face soon after,the other investors quickly want to turn it into a giant money making scheme that is trying to copy the Star Wars following,by selling tons of merchandise.So even a rich baseball players dream to have his own MMORPG was turned into a business,rather than just a game for the love of the genre.
Furthermore is the aged problem of WHEN to release a game.I would bet anything that ALL the developers release their game before it is actually to the state they designed it to be in from the start.A simple example...i thin k 99% of the developers at this day and age ,know how much the player base wants player housing.It is not a big deal to myself,but i know there is a huge following of people that want it.
What do all the devs say to this??It is a great idea and we are looking into it,but it will not be in the game on release.They always tell the people what they want to hear without making themselves look bad or cheap.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I think this response is second only to "It's just two lines of code."
Really ? You do realize that they only need to spend money if they are buying brand new tools and servers, otherwise all existing tools and servers are already being supported by another source of income and are already included in the budget. Just goes to show how much some really do know.
Without cash companies cannot make mmo'a, make updates, patches, or expansions. People go into gaming to make money and maybe some for the passion, but never just for the passion. Bottom line. Unless the gamers have passion when making the game you will see terrible games.
(AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH Dances with Rabbid platoon...AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)
Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge.
**cracks knuckles**
You know what they say, right? "time is Money"
Just because you have the tools and the time doesn't mean you've got the money to play around with it. Existing in this society costs money.
Lost as you may be by this sudden realization, it is true. Everything takes money unless you don't mind being a starving artist - which doesn't work if you plan to create and design a game with 5 or 6 other people. And who'll pay the electric bill?
The Game we all want will take a lot of resources to create, it won't happen over night. It won't be made by some teenager in his mother's basement. The only way to get anything rolling is with money because there aren't many people on this planet who are intrinsically motivated.
4channers, read the italicized words.
The time is money concept is an assumption, it's counting money you do not even have yet or never will get.
The post was an obvious troll. I'm sad you don't know the meme.
Actually it did have an underlying point: time is money. You exist over time and so it costs money to exist. For every moment you spend doing something, you cost somebody money (you eat food, drink water, sleep somewhere safe, etc.).
Unless you've got an infinite well of money to compensate for the resources you're consuming, you're either out on the streets and begging for stuff or already dying.
I think this response is second only to "It's just two lines of code."
Really ? You do realize that they only need to spend money if they are buying brand new tools and servers, otherwise all existing tools and servers are already being supported by another source of income and are already included in the budget. Just goes to show how much some really do know.
On the off chance that this is not a troll post and that you simply do not understand how a business works.... Either those resources were sitting around draining money until needed, or they were assigned to other tasks, thus requiring them to be pulled from those tasks, otherwise new resources have to be added to accomplish the new tasks.
"Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge."
I don't want you to take my word for it, though. Ask your Business Management professor or Comp Sci teacher what they think of that that quote. They'd probably do a much better job of explaining it to you than I can.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Profit is the only driving force in business. A company that does not make a profit does not succeed. Shareholders don't care if you are happy as an individual, they care that the market AS A WHOLE is happy...
This only applies to publicly owned companies with a fiduciary duty to their shareholders. Privately owned companies are free to have any priorities that they like. If I want to set up a company who's prime goal is to increase the number of pink bunnies in Hyde Park, then I can. As long as my revenue exceeds my operating costs, then I can continue to do so.
Incidentally, the game that I play, EvE, is produced by a privately owned company, which is owned by the people that run it, who set it up for the express purpose of producing a massively multiplayer space MMO with full loot, very sandbox play, and largely FFA PvP. Which they do. Which they've been very successful at. They dont pull many of the asshole stunts that the kind of company you think is the only possible type inflict upon their customers. They're still intensely commited to realising their vision. And they're reasonably profitable. They're not making WoW money, but then again, apart from Blizzard, who is?
This idea that maximising short term profit at the expense of all other considerations is not just permissable but some kind of a moral imperative is not only sociopathic, it's a prime cause of many of the problems we see in the world today. I wonder just how long this collective delusion will be allowed to continue. Perhaps one day soon people like you will realise that not only are you not supposed to expect to be shafted by companies, you dont even have to accept it.
EVE is hardly a good example, as wonderful a game as it may be. Its got both a subscription fee and RMT. You really cant get any greedier than that...
The only thing that CCP "RMT" is... game time. The players can trade that game time amongst themselves as an in-game commodity, but that doesn't change the fact that every dollor or Euro that CCP receive from the players is in return for game time only. Players can choose to pay a sub, or buy GTCs, or buy game time from other players for in-game currency.
Please, do explain to us all how this makes CCP superlatively greedy?
Give me liberty or give me lasers
if they dont make money u dont get games
This is it in a nut shell. However i would like to add that if you play a game that gets rare free updates yet you see they have a large revenue stream then its obvious they arent putting much back into the game. So you can use thier revenue as a way to gauge how much/quality of them the content they release.
Without cash companies cannot make mmo'a, make updates, patches, or expansions. People go into gaming to make money and maybe some for the passion, but never just for the passion. Bottom line. Unless the gamers have passion when making the game you will see terrible games.
(AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH Dances with Rabbid platoon...AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)
Fixing problems and creating new content requires little to no cash at all. All it needs is time, tools and knowledge.
Yes of course it take not much money to fix bugs or creating content! Thats because everyone works for free right? Even if it takes 10 minutes to fix a bug, the company still pays for that bug(literally).