I think that history has pointed out that full pvp games don't do very well once the bloom is off. I would think that potential buyers would be quite wary of that.
2 of those are mine, one NA, and one EU...should have only gotten EU. I'm not paying anymore money (and I haven't since buying the copies of the game) to them until they fixed the seriously flawed game that currently exists. The frustration:fun ratio is too damn high right now...my time is better spent with other games where it's no where near as frustrating.
Oh, and I'm not the only one in my clan taking a break from this...we have an entire thread titled "Bored" with people listing what else they are up to besides APB.
Originally posted by Thor79 2 of those are mine, one NA, and one EU...should have only gotten EU. I'm not paying anymore money (and I haven't since buying the copies of the game) to them until they fixed the seriously flawed game that currently exists. The frustration:fun ratio is too damn high right now...my time is better spent with other games where it's no where near as frustrating.
Conversely, I'm having a ridiculously good time playing my enforcer.
I was in both the fall and spring rounds of beta, but due to some real life stuff happening, didn't get around to picking up Retail until about 3 weeks ago, so I'm pretty much *massively* outgunned by people who have been playing since Day Zero. So, I tend to solo, and play with LTL weapons. I find that a HUGE number of criminals playing solo are just...bad at it. They may have three upgrades on their person, and three slots filled on their weapon, but they're shit for tactical thinking. My little Stabba CCG some patience, and some effort outsmarting (flanking) the Crim, and I find I win more than I lose.
I like that it's a game that I can get in and out of quickly - I don't have to block out a huge chunk of time to feel like I accomplished something. I can hop in, run a mission or two, then hop back out and go make dinner or mow the lawn, or put the kid to bed, etc.
If you think it's boring and repetitive, maybe you're playing too long at a stretch?
Unless you're a BIG name like Blizzard, BioWare (maybe), Sony, or ArenaNet, or you have a team of truly top-notch developers which have worked on huge successful projects in the past like Trion does, making a big-budget MMO is horribly, horribly stupid.
ANET wasn't that big just a little while ago. 3 developers including lead designer Jeff Strain jumped off the development of Wow 1999 and started their own company. The first GW box were made on a really low budget by a minimum crew. Of course 7 million sold boxes with little costs gave the company a lot of money they could put into the development of GW2.
Arenanet was a small company just a few years ago but had talented and experienced people. It is not big companies that makes good MMOs, it is good devs.
APBs creator is experienced but he never made a MMO before and try to make a FPS MMO with MMO like fees. I think that was a mistake, he should have made the game B2P instead, then sales would have been higher (I would have bought it then),
APB got some stuff really right but it have too few options to be a real MMO and is instead a FPS game with a lot of fees. 130K players is still acceptable if the game can keep those for a few years but the question is if they can?
Dont understand the whining about APB, its great fun even if your not that good at shooting games. Its customizations features are in CoH/CoX class, perhaps better.
Sure it gets stale after awhile doing the same misson over and over but because all mishs are pvp (and in several stages) no mission is alike. Not to mention being able to drive around in a muscle car mauling down bypassers...
Im not saying that its perfect but its and rather unique title in the mmo genre. To hell with the buttom mashing system, to hell with elves and to hell with statistics, buffs and all that nuicens crap. I just want to be entertained and APB unlike most of the other MMOs Ive tried does that well.
If one assumes say, 10 bucks a month for each, that's 1 million $, so after expenses should be a profit..
Course them AAA titles, they start out with huge budgets, so that might not be enough to recoup..
But for an indie 100k would be a nice amount, imho
Yeah, 130k boxes sold doesn't quite get back the $81 million they spent making this travesty. Hence the "administration" (bankruptcy).
And they're not an "indy", they have EA behind them. Waaaaayyyyyyyyy ----------->>>>>>>>>>>> behind them.
These are the guys that made "Crackdown" on the Xbox 360. When RTW unwisely decided to make an "mmo" ( at least they try to call it one ), over half their company left and formed Ruffian Games, which made the successful "Crackdown 2" for Xbox 360.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Unless you're a BIG name like Blizzard, BioWare (maybe), Sony, or ArenaNet, or you have a team of truly top-notch developers which have worked on huge successful projects in the past like Trion does, making a big-budget MMO is horribly, horribly stupid.
ANET wasn't that big just a little while ago. 3 developers including lead designer Jeff Strain jumped off the development of Wow 1999 and started their own company. The first GW box were made on a really low budget by a minimum crew. Of course 7 million sold boxes with little costs gave the company a lot of money they could put into the development of GW2.
Arenanet was a small company just a few years ago but had talented and experienced people. It is not big companies that makes good MMOs, it is good devs.
APBs creator is experienced but he never made a MMO before and try to make a FPS MMO with MMO like fees. I think that was a mistake, he should have made the game B2P instead, then sales would have been higher (I would have bought it then),
APB got some stuff really right but it have too few options to be a real MMO and is instead a FPS game with a lot of fees. 130K players is still acceptable if the game can keep those for a few years but the question is if they can?
My point was that ArenaNet became big by not making a "huge" standard MMO on the first go, but by making something slightly smaller and different. I played in beta, so I know what it was like back then. They took the money and invaluable experience gained from the less risky, hugely successful GW1, and used it to move forward to GW2; not in a literal sense, but figuratively. Companies which try to "go big" on their first try, that do not have a TON of experienced MMO developers and deep pockets, are setting themselves up for an almost guaranteed failure. If you go slightly smaller, or have a less risky business model that does not require a large number of players to have a successful launch, then the risk is lessened dramatically. Due to the success of GW1, NCSoft will have more patience with ANet and is more likely to be amicable during delays and other issues. In other words, NCSoft is less likely to cut off their money supply or force ANet to launch early; both of which are devastating to MMOs.
I am by no means stating they WILL succeed, only that they are "big" now in the sense they have a truly successful game out there which exhibits very polished game design. As with any company, the big 'B' included, their future success will always remain to be seen.
Good developers have experience and vision, but are nothing without money, support, and leadership. Currently, ANet appears to have all of the above.
Your last bit says it exactly right. They went too many directions, so they got some stuff right, but it just doesn't make the cut for a triple-A MMO. So, the numbers of 130k don't mean much, if they need 500k to be profitable with their current business model. They'd have been better off with a smaller, more dedicated group paying a steady $15/month which could finance future development.
Companies like Turbine actually give me hope for successful F2P models that don't suck. Though, both LoTRO and DDO are oddities in that they started out as P2P but have transferred or are transferring to F2P. Those can be discussed in another thread, however.
Regardless of the amount, you can't compare APB to EVE. EVE actually has content for one and doesn't have the hacker problem that APB does. Not to mention it is a completely different business model and game genre. Comparing Apples to Oranges
EVE didn't cost 100 million to develop. EVE also has devs with a realistic vision of what they want their game to be, and who they want it to appeal to.
I'm just curious how that 130k breaks down. Almost sounds like they're saying they have 130k active players, by mentioning that 4 hour average per day, but that seems... hard to believe.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
If they budgeted so horridly that they are failing with 100k+ players this thing was pretty doomed from the get go. Most MMOs can skate by on 10-30k subscribers and still have a modest profit in the long run.
People need to get a clue! "Over Spending!" What that actually means is all the developers and artists are getting fed! You should all be extremely happy to see a select few "rich" people with the funds to start a huge project make an attempt and fail. If Blizzard and Sony (and any other major publisher/developer) were the only companies to ever even try... Good luck finding a job as a graphic artist or game designer.
Be glad that they try and fail over and over!
Unfortunately, if you look at the top ranked MMO's on this site, you'll quickly realize exactly why the community here has the opinions that it does.
If one assumes say, 10 bucks a month for each, that's 1 million $, so after expenses should be a profit..
Course them AAA titles, they start out with huge budgets, so that might not be enough to recoup..
But for an indie 100k would be a nice amount, imho
Yeah, 130k boxes sold doesn't quite get back the $81 million they spent making this travesty. Hence the "administration" (bankruptcy).
And they're not an "indy", they have EA behind them. Waaaaayyyyyyyyy ----------->>>>>>>>>>>> behind them.
These are the guys that made "Crackdown" on the Xbox 360. When RTW unwisely decided to make an "mmo" ( at least they try to call it one ), over half their company left and formed Ruffian Games, which made the successful "Crackdown 2" for Xbox 360.
I have no idea where you got that story, but it's very very wrong.
And crakdown 2 sucessful? ... right.
APB has flaws, but also got potential. Future will tell.
130k registered players does say nothing about actively playing and money spending players. And how much does one of the active players spent on average?
Played: Pretty much any fantasy MMO, some did not even make it to release ... Favorites: UO, EQ2, Vanguard, Wurm Online, Salem, ESO, Creativerse Playing: ESO, Creativerse, Guild Wars 2 Anticipating: (sigh) ... maybe Ashes of Creation
first off... if you didnt buy the rtw-points for your gametime, someone else did it for you. rtw-points dont come out of thin air. So rtw gets payed from subscribers one way or the other.
exploiter/cheater.... I only met ONE (in the 2 months since release) exploiter once, he was using a glitch in a wall to hide from my team. I havent seen any cheaters and most of the videos on youtube are bullshit. They are very very rare, just like in every other game out there.
registered players.... What does registered mean? I was registered before I bought the game. Over 100k seems very high to me for active players. I dont know how many servers you have in NA, in EU there are 2 and both seem to have about the same population. According to the ingame command /pop thats about 1k-2k players over the day, tested on a weekday. Im sure its more on weekends. The avarage playtime of 4 hours might come from afk-grinding of the two customizing roles for clothers and cars to unlock new clothers and customizing tools. I myself are online for more than 4 hours a day .
pricing model.... Pay for the hour... yes you can chose to buy 20 hours of playtime for the action districts (where you play the missions and pvp, social districts are free), but I dont know anyone who does. If you play about an hour a day you are already better off with the 30 days subscription.
That beeing said, I enjoy apb very much. Especially the customizing-tools for char/clothers and cars. The missions can sometimes get frustrating and boring when you are on your own. Its much more fun in a group. The newest patch (which was in the testserver recently) counters this problem with a new matchmaking system, which seems to work good and brings you much faster into the action. The weapons and vehicle-handling are beeing overhauled too and are both much more fun. If they can continue the game, I will stay.
If one assumes say, 10 bucks a month for each, that's 1 million $, so after expenses should be a profit..
Course them AAA titles, they start out with huge budgets, so that might not be enough to recoup..
But for an indie 100k would be a nice amount, imho
Yeah, 130k boxes sold doesn't quite get back the $81 million they spent making this travesty. Hence the "administration" (bankruptcy).
Add on top of that, there is a large percentage of players playing "for free", because of accruing game time through in game means.
Not saying that is bad or anything, but from a business perspective it does bite into the bottom line.
From the explanations of the business model I have read, no one is really playing for free any more than people trading ISK for game time in EVE are. Excepting the 100 free RTW points players get for buying the game, all RTW points players get and use to pay for game time represent money that was given to Realtime Worlds. In other words, player B buys RTW points, and trades them to player A for an item. Player A then uses those RTW points to buy game time. Player A did not spend his own money for the game time, player B did. So, while player A from his own perspective is playing "for free," from Realtime World's perspective, no one is playing for free because all game time is paid for, no matter what.
Their failure is less an issue of business model, and more an issue of too few subscribers to pay for high development costs.
Comments
Registered Users?
that means nothing in MMOs...
Let talk about PCU or subscribers and perhaps it makes more sense...
100% agree...
130k registered players "WHO PLAYS 4+ HOURS PER DAY"....learn to read first
I was in both the fall and spring rounds of beta, but due to some real life stuff happening, didn't get around to picking up Retail until about 3 weeks ago, so I'm pretty much *massively* outgunned by people who have been playing since Day Zero. So, I tend to solo, and play with LTL weapons. I find that a HUGE number of criminals playing solo are just...bad at it. They may have three upgrades on their person, and three slots filled on their weapon, but they're shit for tactical thinking. My little Stabba CCG some patience, and some effort outsmarting (flanking) the Crim, and I find I win more than I lose.
I like that it's a game that I can get in and out of quickly - I don't have to block out a huge chunk of time to feel like I accomplished something. I can hop in, run a mission or two, then hop back out and go make dinner or mow the lawn, or put the kid to bed, etc.
If you think it's boring and repetitive, maybe you're playing too long at a stretch?
ANET wasn't that big just a little while ago. 3 developers including lead designer Jeff Strain jumped off the development of Wow 1999 and started their own company. The first GW box were made on a really low budget by a minimum crew. Of course 7 million sold boxes with little costs gave the company a lot of money they could put into the development of GW2.
Arenanet was a small company just a few years ago but had talented and experienced people. It is not big companies that makes good MMOs, it is good devs.
APBs creator is experienced but he never made a MMO before and try to make a FPS MMO with MMO like fees. I think that was a mistake, he should have made the game B2P instead, then sales would have been higher (I would have bought it then),
APB got some stuff really right but it have too few options to be a real MMO and is instead a FPS game with a lot of fees. 130K players is still acceptable if the game can keep those for a few years but the question is if they can?
Dont understand the whining about APB, its great fun even if your not that good at shooting games. Its customizations features are in CoH/CoX class, perhaps better.
Sure it gets stale after awhile doing the same misson over and over but because all mishs are pvp (and in several stages) no mission is alike. Not to mention being able to drive around in a muscle car mauling down bypassers...
Im not saying that its perfect but its and rather unique title in the mmo genre. To hell with the buttom mashing system, to hell with elves and to hell with statistics, buffs and all that nuicens crap. I just want to be entertained and APB unlike most of the other MMOs Ive tried does that well.
Yeah, 130k boxes sold doesn't quite get back the $81 million they spent making this travesty. Hence the "administration" (bankruptcy).
And they're not an "indy", they have EA behind them. Waaaaayyyyyyyyy ----------->>>>>>>>>>>> behind them.
These are the guys that made "Crackdown" on the Xbox 360. When RTW unwisely decided to make an "mmo" ( at least they try to call it one ), over half their company left and formed Ruffian Games, which made the successful "Crackdown 2" for Xbox 360.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
My point was that ArenaNet became big by not making a "huge" standard MMO on the first go, but by making something slightly smaller and different. I played in beta, so I know what it was like back then. They took the money and invaluable experience gained from the less risky, hugely successful GW1, and used it to move forward to GW2; not in a literal sense, but figuratively. Companies which try to "go big" on their first try, that do not have a TON of experienced MMO developers and deep pockets, are setting themselves up for an almost guaranteed failure. If you go slightly smaller, or have a less risky business model that does not require a large number of players to have a successful launch, then the risk is lessened dramatically. Due to the success of GW1, NCSoft will have more patience with ANet and is more likely to be amicable during delays and other issues. In other words, NCSoft is less likely to cut off their money supply or force ANet to launch early; both of which are devastating to MMOs.
I am by no means stating they WILL succeed, only that they are "big" now in the sense they have a truly successful game out there which exhibits very polished game design. As with any company, the big 'B' included, their future success will always remain to be seen.
Good developers have experience and vision, but are nothing without money, support, and leadership. Currently, ANet appears to have all of the above.
Your last bit says it exactly right. They went too many directions, so they got some stuff right, but it just doesn't make the cut for a triple-A MMO. So, the numbers of 130k don't mean much, if they need 500k to be profitable with their current business model. They'd have been better off with a smaller, more dedicated group paying a steady $15/month which could finance future development.
Companies like Turbine actually give me hope for successful F2P models that don't suck. Though, both LoTRO and DDO are oddities in that they started out as P2P but have transferred or are transferring to F2P. Those can be discussed in another thread, however.
Add on top of that, there is a large percentage of players playing "for free", because of accruing game time through in game means.
Not saying that is bad or anything, but from a business perspective it does bite into the bottom line.
Regardless of the amount, you can't compare APB to EVE. EVE actually has content for one and doesn't have the hacker problem that APB does. Not to mention it is a completely different business model and game genre. Comparing Apples to Oranges
didnt read the entire thread, but, It does say Registered users. I wonder if my buddy key account is counted in that?
If so, this isnt a very accurate subscriber count.
EVE didn't cost 100 million to develop. EVE also has devs with a realistic vision of what they want their game to be, and who they want it to appeal to.
I'm just curious how that 130k breaks down. Almost sounds like they're saying they have 130k active players, by mentioning that 4 hour average per day, but that seems... hard to believe.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
If they budgeted so horridly that they are failing with 100k+ players this thing was pretty doomed from the get go. Most MMOs can skate by on 10-30k subscribers and still have a modest profit in the long run.
People need to get a clue! "Over Spending!" What that actually means is all the developers and artists are getting fed! You should all be extremely happy to see a select few "rich" people with the funds to start a huge project make an attempt and fail. If Blizzard and Sony (and any other major publisher/developer) were the only companies to ever even try... Good luck finding a job as a graphic artist or game designer.
Be glad that they try and fail over and over!
Unfortunately, if you look at the top ranked MMO's on this site, you'll quickly realize exactly why the community here has the opinions that it does.
Most likely some Asian company will buy APB. At least APB did not offer lifetime subs like Hellgate London and piss everyone off.
I have no idea where you got that story, but it's very very wrong.
And crakdown 2 sucessful? ... right.
APB has flaws, but also got potential. Future will tell.
130k registered players does say nothing about actively playing and money spending players. And how much does one of the active players spent on average?
Played: Pretty much any fantasy MMO, some did not even make it to release ...
Favorites: UO, EQ2, Vanguard, Wurm Online, Salem, ESO, Creativerse
Playing: ESO, Creativerse, Guild Wars 2
Anticipating: (sigh) ... maybe Ashes of Creation
EU English servers going heavy and the German and Russian is also going strong so I don't think is so bad.
But I don't know why this game have Spanish, Italian servers... they empty all the time... only farmers use them.
heard talk of hacks, any sites/utubes/etc to back that? Interested in the game but can not....hack the hacks.
first off... if you didnt buy the rtw-points for your gametime, someone else did it for you. rtw-points dont come out of thin air. So rtw gets payed from subscribers one way or the other.
exploiter/cheater.... I only met ONE (in the 2 months since release) exploiter once, he was using a glitch in a wall to hide from my team. I havent seen any cheaters and most of the videos on youtube are bullshit. They are very very rare, just like in every other game out there.
registered players.... What does registered mean? I was registered before I bought the game. Over 100k seems very high to me for active players. I dont know how many servers you have in NA, in EU there are 2 and both seem to have about the same population. According to the ingame command /pop thats about 1k-2k players over the day, tested on a weekday. Im sure its more on weekends. The avarage playtime of 4 hours might come from afk-grinding of the two customizing roles for clothers and cars to unlock new clothers and customizing tools. I myself are online for more than 4 hours a day
.
pricing model.... Pay for the hour... yes you can chose to buy 20 hours of playtime for the action districts (where you play the missions and pvp, social districts are free), but I dont know anyone who does. If you play about an hour a day you are already better off with the 30 days subscription.
That beeing said, I enjoy apb very much. Especially the customizing-tools for char/clothers and cars. The missions can sometimes get frustrating and boring when you are on your own. Its much more fun in a group. The newest patch (which was in the testserver recently) counters this problem with a new matchmaking system, which seems to work good and brings you much faster into the action. The weapons and vehicle-handling are beeing overhauled too and are both much more fun. If they can continue the game, I will stay.
From the explanations of the business model I have read, no one is really playing for free any more than people trading ISK for game time in EVE are. Excepting the 100 free RTW points players get for buying the game, all RTW points players get and use to pay for game time represent money that was given to Realtime Worlds. In other words, player B buys RTW points, and trades them to player A for an item. Player A then uses those RTW points to buy game time. Player A did not spend his own money for the game time, player B did. So, while player A from his own perspective is playing "for free," from Realtime World's perspective, no one is playing for free because all game time is paid for, no matter what.
Their failure is less an issue of business model, and more an issue of too few subscribers to pay for high development costs.
Anyone thinking that APB is still being developed is in fantasy land. There is only a token development staff left.