Again, this is NOT JUST ABOUT RIFT. I don't know how to explain that any clearer to Rift fans. This is a discussion about the company overall and how it's managing itself. It's why I didn't post it in the RIFT forums.
We can simply draw from past experience here. Blizzard had Diablo, Starcraft, and the Warcraft series before they went into a IPO I thinkkkkkkkkk. So it would make sense they would want to wait until Defiance and End of Nations are up and running.
Trion does have technology they can sell and people will buy. If it was easy then WoW would have Rifts popping up everywhere with NPC's owning quest hubs. So it can not be as easy as some people seem to think it is.
Well it is a good sign because pretty sure we can all accept they dropped 50mil into Rift from their own statements and have probably made that back by a lot. Only issue is every dev that has gone public has been baught out like Blizzard and Bioware.
I will not pretend to know how it works, but couldn't a major company come in a buy them up and take control over the direction of the company? Right now it seems like they are taking every dime we give them and dropping it back into Rift which is a good thing.
I'm not sure it's a good sign necessarily. Let's review some basic known things first:
1. Trion raised a little over 100 million dollars total. They spent 50 million on Rift and the rest on headquarters, business expenses and making two more games (EoN/Defiance)
2. End of Nations has already been pushed back as of last month due to "unspecified reasons" to 2012. There is no word whatsoever on the progress of Defiance as far as how far out to expect it and how it's progressing.
3. Rift has been running non-stop deals and special pricing since right after the first month. There is no promo they haven't touched without a sale attached to it in just eight months time. They've recently allowed their first microtransaction of a cash purchase mount, banker, etc.. which was quite contrary to what they stated in the past as far as features in Rift.
4. Although they've closed servers off just like any other company does at launch due to the intial launchday rush, they continue to close more off as recently as last week.
5. They say they are "vastly profitable each week/month" without elaborating on the details and now are seeking an IPO.
I'm not saying Rift is in danger. I'm not saying Rift is about to die. What I am saying is Trion is running out of cash, and fast. This is what happened to CCP trying to make two games on the side while still running one, which is exactly what Rift is doing.
I agree with your assessment and thanks for the discussion item. When I first saw this I initially thought that the many Rift sub/purchasing offers I've received over the last few months took on a new angle. Projections for growth look a lot better, (obviously), the more people are subscribed, and having been to these sorts of meeting before myself, you can bet the're assumed projections which will be based on these offer takers.
Ultimatley is this any good for Rift? I'm not sure, they'll have to play a high stakes game that needs a quick sell on the IPO. In a few months time their value will be significantly lower, due to competitors, the cost of developing other titles, (although the Sci-fi channel involvment with their mmo/tvseries, depending on how that's structured , could make them an attractive prospect), and the economy at the moment. On the other hand Trion has released a successful MMO, (in the short term), has decent prospects with their other titles, and seems to have a commited work force.
A tough one really but if their going to do this it needs to be quick.
You can't even begin to consider creating an IPO if your company is losing money. Companies create IPO's BECAUSE they're making money, or can realistically or effectively show that they CAN make money.
You have to disclose everything about your company in order to make an IPO. If your company is bleeding money, no one's going to buy in. I don't think Trion has enough of a company to cook books, or make it look like they're making money when they're not. They only have one game, it's kind of hard to make your company look like it's making money when it's not with only a single product on offer.
The reason they can do promo offers so soon after release, can mean that that they sold enough initial boxes that box sales on out aren't what they're looking for. No MMO survives on box sales, it's subscription numbers, and retention. Boxes don't cost that much to make, and they probably make more with cheaper boxes. Not to mention a lot of those promos and deals they run don't come with the first month subscription included.
If they're talking about it then they have to be showing a profit, or showing that they'll be making profit soon. They also have to show that they will experience growth; that's what the guy was talking about with the hits comment.
A Trion IPO probably wouldn't be a bad investment. Depends on how the next two games do.
The game has managed roughly 53 active servers medium/high for the past 7 months.
The game has TWO true med/High servers. Wolfsbane and Deepstrike. Ill even give you Dayblind and Laethys. The rest are either medium/low, or just medium (with a couple of low). Yes, during the peak two hours many servers hit High, but when a server spends 90% of its time medium or lower its not a medium/high server.
Right now, at this very minute, WoW, with all its NA servers, has a total of 2 that are low pop. Rift has a total of three that are NOT low pop (they are medium). And yes, Medium can mean different things, but its not like WoW is calling servers with only 200 people logged in on them medium. Rift the cutoff used to be 200-250, not sure if that was raised when server cap went form 1800 to 2000.
Oh and the game started at 99 servers before closing down to those 53, and they arent honest about the closings. 'Being converted to a trial server'...why is Snarebursh being converted toa trial server? Are the other 45 trial servers full?
Originally posted by Uhwop They only have one game, it's kind of hard to make your company look like it's making money when it's not with only a single product on offer. They also have to show that they will experience growth; that's what the guy was talking about with the hits comment.Depends on how the next two games do.
Exactly. Good post. (left in the important bits pertaining to the article) Which is why this statement is the key and everything else Rift did up to this point is irrelevant:
Billy Pidgeon, an analyst for M2 Research who has followed the company since 2009, said Trion will need more hits in the coming months to prove it would be able to make it as a publicly traded company.
"They have to prove their platform can succeed and their next two games have to do well," Pidgeon said.
Unlike Zynga, Trion designs games with advanced graphics that can cost tens of millions to make, which is viewed as risky by investors.
"If you have a game in that level and it doesn't do well, you stand to lose a lot of money. The stakes are much higher with failure," Pidgeon said.
TLDR:
1. "Red Door" publishing/platforming has to succeed.
2. Defiance has to succeed.
3. End of Nations has to succeed.
Fans keep talking about how successful Rift is, when this isn't even about Rift. It's about Trion the company.
Again, this is why I posted this thread in 'General MMO News' section and now it's got moved here to Rift section and confusing people, thinking this is a "Rift" discussion.
Going into a place that is still, even after all the crises, ruled by irrationality, immorality, greed and short term gain. Where money is still made into more money with money on a massive scale while everyone loses track of the actual economy behind it all, which causes economic soap bubbles that are bound to collapse. While speculators either keep saying prayers to an invisible hand that will somehow make things right or otherwise just don't give a fuck.
Well, no.
Even though a decision like that will probably only be felt in the pockets of certain people whithin the companies on a short term basis.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Originally posted by popinjay Originally posted by Uhwop They only have one game, it's kind of hard to make your company look like it's making money when it's not with only a single product on offer. They also have to show that they will experience growth; that's what the guy was talking about with the hits comment.Depends on how the next two games do. Exactly. Good post. (left in the important bits pertaining to the article) Which is why this statement is the key and everything else Rift did up to this point is irrelevant:Billy Pidgeon, an analyst for M2 Research who has followed the company since 2009, said Trion will need more hits in the coming months to prove it would be able to make it as a publicly traded company."They have to prove their platform can succeed and their next two games have to do well," Pidgeon said.Unlike Zynga, Trion designs games with advanced graphics that can cost tens of millions to make, which is viewed as risky by investors."If you have a game in that level and it doesn't do well, you stand to lose a lot of money. The stakes are much higher with failure," Pidgeon said.
TLDR:
1. "Red Door" publishing/platforming has to succeed.
2. Defiance has to succeed.
3. End of Nations has to succeed.
Fans keep talking about how successful Rift is, when this isn't even about Rift. It's about Trion the company.
Again, this is why I posted this thread in 'General MMO News' section and now it's got moved here to Rift section and confusing people, thinking this is a "Rift" discussion.
It has to be about Rift at least a little bit. Trion's strategy was obviously to fund their further development on Rift and at least part of the other two games using money from the mass-market success they were planning on with Rift. Rift's quickly declining sub numbers have to have an effect on their plans for the other two titles, and their long-term success as a company. If Rift continues to decline (and suffers at the hands of upcoming competition, which we know it will), they may not have the money to finish the other two games, or pay all the large live team currently pumping out new content for Rift.
Originally posted by DeathTouch I'de just like to point out that Trion isnt making end of nations, it is the publisher for end of nations. Petroglyph is the maker of end of nations. how much money Trion is actually putting in as a publisher is all a guessing game.
EDIT: spelling, dumb laptop keyboards.
Originally posted by MikeB
Trion is in fact the developer of Defiance. End of Nations is a second-party development project.
As Mike B said in another thread, EoN is a second party project but, it's also a FTP project. Defiance doesn't appear to be that way.
I'm not sure there is going to be enough revenue generated from a FTP game like EoN in the RTS sector to be significant.
So either way, Trion is still putting resources/cash towards the bill for at least two projects here, even if it is partial on one. Not that any of that really matters in the long run because as the analyst said, Trion has to have ALL of it's projects be hits, not just one (Rift) or two (Defiance) to be a successful IPO candidate.
That means it's Red Door publishing platform and EoN as well. ALL of it, not just some of it.
I'de just like to point out that Trion isnt making end of nations, it is the publisher for end of nations. Petroglyph is the maker of end of nations.
how much money Trion is actually putting in as a publisher is all a guessing game.
EDIT: spelling, dumb laptop keyboards.
Originally posted by MikeB
Trion is in fact the developer of Defiance. End of Nations is a second-party development project.
As Mike B said in another thread, EoN is a second party project but, it's also a FTP project. Defiance doesn't appear to be that way.
I'm not sure there is going to be enough revenue generated from a FTP game like EoN in the RTS sector to be significant.
So either way, Trion is still putting resources/cash towards the bill for at least two projects here, even if it is partial on one. Not that any of that really matters in the long run because as the analyst said, Trion has to have ALL of it's projects be hits, not just one (Rift) or two (Defiance) to be a successful IPO candidate.
That means it's Red Door publishing platform and EoN as well. ALL of it, not just some of it.
EoN will also have a subscription, it's in the FAQs. It doesnt offer more then the regular F2P model, just says they give you free convience items every month. It will be interesting to see if it's worth the script or easier to just buy the convience items alone.
Off topic: For one I hope there are different skins for the factions, a way to set ones self apart from the hordes of other players. 50 player armies on a map running the same colored vehicles and troops would make my eyes go buggy.
I'm not sure there is going to be enough revenue generated from a FTP game like EoN in the RTS sector to be significant.
Originally posted by DeathTouch EoN will also have a subscription, it's in the FAQs. It doesnt offer more then the regular F2P model, just says they give you free convience items every month.
It's still a FTP game, whether they offer a sub or not as I said. The majority of people probably won't be paying $15/month for "convience items" which is what I'm trying to say if they get everything else to play it. So if they aren't paying, that means no money.
That's not something that's usually a good match: FTP and RTS, because I can't imagine someone buying extra flags or something just to decorate hard-to-see units. It's not like you really can have a real wardrobe with a bunch of small units.
They say the FTP players get access to the entire game and the paying players don't get Play-to-Win items so paying wouldn't really give you any reason to buy stuff for most people.
Free-to-Play FAQ
Why does the free-to-play model make sense for End of Nations?
For a premium strategy game like End of Nations, we really wanted to bring as many players as possible into its massive-scale strategic warfare. And the more we looked at the enormous battles and huge persistent world, we realized that the success of End of Nations would be driven by having thousands of players from around the globe battling daily in the worlds biggest strategy game.
First, I shouldn't have to preface a internet post with "this is my opinion". Most people know that already. But apparently since I have to do with you, running out of cash for two more games to produce is my OPINION. Now that's out of the way:
Enjoy the rest of the thread and see the reasons why. They've already been posted for you. Just read em.
Well, IMO, you should have to state it's your opinion, whether it's the internet, or not.
This way, WE know, YOU know, what is fact and what is opinion.
"They SOLD that for $10 when there was no need to bring in another CE."
No need? You apparently don't like the way they are marketting the game.
BTW, The white part is fact, the cyan part is opinion.
It has to be about Rift at least a little bit. Trion's strategy was obviously to fund their further development on Rift and at least part of the other two games using money from the mass-market success they were planning on with Rift. Rift's quickly declining sub numbers have to have an effect on their plans for the other two titles, and their long-term success as a company. If Rift continues to decline (and suffers at the hands of upcoming competition, which we know it will), they may not have the money to finish the other two games, or pay all the large live team currently pumping out new content for Rift.
What is your source for that information?
Consolidating servers isn't a source. A lot of games do this so that they can ensure they have enough rooms at release, and then consilidate down when the playerbase stabalises.
Bandwidth, and servers for a game like Rift and WoW isn't as expensive as people make it out to be; that's why you see games releasing with a load of servers. It's become easier and easier to host massive online content. Server technology has made drastic advancements over the past years, making it easier, and more affordable for people to host online content. Most game studios don't even use their own servers, and a lot of companies don't have to pay for bandwidth they don't use anymore. Cloud stuff has had a huge impact on the way bandwith and servers work to deliver content to people.
There are games that are made and run by only a couple of people. Being able to provide content on server capable of handly just a few thousand people is actually pretty cheap now. A friend of mine is considering making a cheap little free to play game, and having it hosted on a server that can handle around 2000 people but can scale to 10 thousand, because it's cheap enough for him to do. He makes good money, around 80k a year.
Consolidating servers after release has nothing to do with a game not doing well, and everything to do with the afffordablity of having those servers running to ensure they have room for the initial influx of players.
At least that's what I've been told by someone that actually deals with that sort of thing, and not me hypothesising, or using irrelivant information as my baseline.
So, what's your source for Rift's having a declining playerbase?
Do you have numbers that contradict what I said, or just optimistic alternate explanations?
You say potato, I say po-tah-toe. You've played the game for a few days, and have the same perspective as most of the people who had only played the game for a few days. Wait a month or two, then come back and tell us what you think. I've played Rift 20 times longer than you have, and I never bought the game.
Pretending that Rift is anything other than a failed attempt at attracting a mass-market audience is just wishful thinking. They wanted to be a contender, and go up against WoW, and they have a couple hundred thousand subscribers to show for it. Not what I would call a successful endeavor.
Originally posted by maimeekrai Originally posted by popinjay
First, I shouldn't have to preface a internet post with "this is my opinion". Most people know that already. But apparently since I have to do with you, running out of cash for two more games to produce is my OPINION. Now that's out of the way:
Enjoy the rest of the thread and see the reasons why. They've already been posted for you. Just read em.
"They SOLD that for $10 when there was no need to bring in another CE." No need? You apparently don't like the way they are marketting the game.
Incorrectamundo.
Actually I LIKE how they marketed it. They got probably 1.5 million dollars off a spider mount. That's pretty smart and the kind of thing WoW or any other company would do. Which makes me happy.
Know why?
Because I've said all along that Trion is just another company anyways. They "care" about you insomuch as you give them money. Don't give them any and see how much they care, lol. I think they were right to charge their fans that and when they put in their cash shop, I'll be thinking that was smart as well.
To me, the spider mount sale says that they need cash. If they didn't, they would have made it content to be earned in-game instead. Then the talk of IPO now to get more cash says falls right in-line with that.
Do you have numbers that contradict what I said, or just optimistic alternate explanations?
You say potato, I say po-tah-toe. You've played the game for a few days, and have the same perspective as most of the people who had only played the game for a few days. Wait a month or two, then come back and tell us what you think. I've played Rift 20 times longer than you have, and I never bought the game.
Pretending that Rift is anything other than a failed attempt at attracting a mass-market audience is just wishful thinking. They wanted to be a contender, and go up against WoW, and they have a couple hundred thousand subscribers to show for it. Not what I would call a successful endeavor.
I didn't provide numbers, or anything that requires numbers to verify. I provided information from someone that works in the field I was providing information for. It's also something you can verify on your own.
You didn't provide anything that I could verify. Nothin you wrote comes from any source with the field you're discussing either. What you wrote is an opinion your attempting to pass along as fact.
You can't verify or provide any source that shows Rift has a declining playerbase. You're sense, eyes, and brain aren't a source, nor do they validate your opinion as fact.
Your sense, eyes, and brain are wrong until you can prove that your statement is true by backing with actual fact; something you can't possibly do because no one knows what Rift's subscription numbers are.
First, I shouldn't have to preface a internet post with "this is my opinion". Most people know that already. But apparently since I have to do with you, running out of cash for two more games to produce is my OPINION. Now that's out of the way:
Enjoy the rest of the thread and see the reasons why. They've already been posted for you. Just read em.
"They SOLD that for $10 when there was no need to bring in another CE."
No need? You apparently don't like the way they are marketting the game.
Incorrectamundo.
Actually I LIKE how they marketed it. They got probably 1.5 million dollars off a spider mount. That's pretty smart and the kind of thing WoW or any other company would do. Which makes me happy.
Know why?
Because I've said all along that Trion is just another company anyways. They "care" about you insomuch as you give them money. Don't give them any and see how much they care, lol. I think they were right to charge their fans that and when they put in their cash shop, I'll be thinking that was smart as well.
To me, the spider mount sale says that they need cash. If they didn't, they would have made it content to be earned in-game instead. Then the talk of IPO now to get more cash says falls right in-line with that.
So Blizzard selling vanity pets is an indicator that they need money?
Once again, your speculations and opinion do not constitute fact.
There are two types of jaded groups when it comes to how industry works.
The group that thinks a company genuinely cares about them, in-so-far as they care on a personal,individual level, because they give them money. They care about the community they build as a whole, and not so much each and every individual.
And the group that thinks they're sharing some great revelation when they tell people that a company won't care about them when they don't give them money. You fall in this group, and this group is inherently wrong.
A company cares MORE about you when you don't give them money. CCP just showed the world this. The responsibility of a company, especially one that is considering an IPO, is to first and foremost make money. If they aren't making money they need to do things to attract people who will pay them, that means caring about the customer. You don't make money when you don't care.
Your sense, eyes, and brain are wrong until you can prove that your statement is true by backing with actual fact; something you can't possibly do because no one knows what Rift's subscription numbers are.
When I said eyes, brain, and common sense, what I meant was that all the signs are clearly there for anyone to see. You might want to keep it on a low simmer in terms of valiantly defending the game until you've played for a little longer...you're going to feel pretty silly if you find you don't want to keep playing a month or two from now (which is what happens with the majority of people who try the game).
They have not released any real numbers. They released a completely bogus number of created accounts, rather than number of units sold or number of active subscriptions. Releasing numbers is a really effective way to market an MMORPG, because people want to play games that are highly populated and that "everyone" is playing. WoW developed its own gravity relatively early on and continued to grow their subscriber base through the first several years of its life.
They are aggressively marketing the game using discounts, free play, and hand-outs. When your product is selling well and retaining players, you don't lower the price or provide play or items for free, or you do it rarely, and only after significant time has passed. Rift started these aggressive promotions almost the first month after launch. They are obviously trying to get people's feet in the door because their numbers aren't what they want them to be, and are trending down instead of up.
The live team is actively and quickly making changes to the game based on player feedback. It might seem like a good thing, but it's clear they are on the run...they realize there are things about the game which are putting players off (because they CAN see the sub numbers) and so they are trying to improve retention by quickly making changes. This isn't typically a positive thing, because knee-jerk individual changes in a system as complex as an MMORPG tend to create more problems than they fix.
The servers are being consolidated. When you have a successful and actively growing subscriber base, you don't decrease the number of servers (and don't have many servers on medium pop or lower). Rift would be ADDING servers and all of them would be busting at the seams if people weren't leaving.
Not only that, but the best evidence is the game itself...I've played it extensively and I know what it is and what it isn't. There are many objective observations which can be made (and have been made by MANY people on these boards) about Rift's size, scope, content, and mechanics...all of which point to a game which provides most players with a relatively short experience (a month or two) and little or no replay value.
Trion's goal with Rift is also not a secret. One only has to look at the design of the game, the things the developers have said, and the marketing the game has utilized...and it's easy to see they were shooting for mass-market appeal and accessibility, and squarely targeting the massive audience of WoW and other players outside the genre. They were after millions of subscribers playing their game for years to come. Obviously, they didn't even come close.
Clearly they feel that numbers can be effective in terms of marketing, and they don't mind using them when they think they show something positive (evidence of that - they released the rather deceptive "number of accounts created"). If Rift is a great and successful game and doing well, why haven't they released the sales and subscription numbers? If you can answer that adequately, we might be getting somewhere.
Your sense, eyes, and brain are wrong until you can prove that your statement is true by backing with actual fact; something you can't possibly do because no one knows what Rift's subscription numbers are.
When I said eyes, brain, and common sense, what I meant was that all the signs are clearly there for anyone to see. You might want to keep it on a low simmer in terms of valiantly defending the game until you've played for a little longer...you're going to feel pretty silly if you find you don't want to keep playing a month or two from now (which is what happens with the majority of people who try the game).
They have not released any real numbers. They released a completely bogus number of created accounts, rather than number of units sold or number of active subscriptions. Releasing numbers is a really effective way to market an MMORPG, because people want to play games that are highly populated and that "everyone" is playing. WoW developed its own gravity relatively early on and continued to grow their subscriber base through the first several years of its life.
They are aggressively marketing the game using discounts, free play, and hand-outs. When your product is selling well and retaining players, you don't lower the price or provide play or items for free, or you do it rarely, and only after significant time has passed. Rift started these aggressive promotions almost the first month after launch. They are obviously trying to get people's feet in the door because their numbers aren't what they want them to be, and are trending down instead of up.
The live team is actively and quickly making changes to the game based on player feedback. It might seem like a good thing, but it's clear they are on the run...they realize there are things about the game which are putting players off (because they CAN see the sub numbers) and so they are trying to improve retention by quickly making changes. This isn't typically a positive thing, because knee-jerk individual changes in a system as complex as an MMORPG tend to create more problems than they fix.
The servers are being consolidated. When you have a successful and actively growing subscriber base, you don't decrease the number of servers (and don't have many servers on medium pop or lower). Rift would be ADDING servers and all of them would be busting at the seams if people weren't leaving.
Not only that, but the best evidence is the game itself...I've played it extensively and I know what it is and what it isn't. There are many objective observations which can be made (and have been made by MANY people on these boards) about Rift's size, scope, content, and mechanics...all of which point to a game which provides most players with a relatively short experience (a month or two) and little or no replay value.
Trion's goal with Rift is also not a secret. One only has to look at the design of the game, the things the developers have said, and the marketing the game has utilized...and it's easy to see they were shooting for mass-market appeal and accessibility, and squarely targeting the massive audience of WoW and other players outside the genre. They were after millions of subscribers playing their game for years to come. Obviously, they didn't even come close.
Clearly they feel that numbers can be effective in terms of marketing, and they don't mind using them when they think they show something positive (evidence of that - they released the rather deceptive "number of accounts created"). If Rift is a great and successful game and doing well, why haven't they released the sales and subscription numbers? If you can answer that adequately, we might be getting somewhere.
Do me a favor.
Show me a company that created an IPO because they weren't doing well. Go for it.
Originally posted by Uhwop So Blizzard selling vanity pets is an indicator that they need money? I'm sorry. Where do you see that written or suggested about Blizzard? Once again, your speculations and opinion do not constitute fact. Once again, not saying opinions are facts which you are suggesting. Round and round the circle we go. There are two types of jaded groups when it comes to how industry works.Just two types? Hmm.. that seems to leave out an awful lot of people. Such a black and white world you live in.The responsibility of a company, especially one that is considering an IPO, is to first and foremost make money.
I'm not sure you know why companies go IPO although you're pretending you do, so I'll give you something to read:
Reasons for an IPO
When a privately held corporation needs to raise additional capital, it can either take on debt or sell partial ownership. If the corporation chooses to sell ownership to the public, it engages in an IPO. Corporations choose to "go public" instead of issuing debt securities for several reasons.
The most common reason is that capital raised through an IPO does not have to be repaid, whereas debt securities such as bonds must be repaid with interest. Despite this apparent benefit, there are also many drawbacks to an IPO.
A large drawback to going public is that the current owners of the privately held corporation lose a part of their ownership. Corporations weigh the costs and benefits of an IPO carefully before performing an IPO.
Trion needs cash to push their other projects out, pay things off/keep expenses down and to fund their Red Door publishing plans. You might want to read about that part which I'm pretty sure you missed somewhere, because you haven't mentioned it once.
All that takes CASH and capital. You cannot go to more investors and say "We've got EoN, Defiance, Red Door publishing, opening new buildings and hiring 500 employees, have X and Y expenses now and have to pay for an expansion soon" and make that sound attractive when you only have one game paying for all of that. If those investors have half a brain (which they do, believe me) they will see SWTOR, GW2, TSW and a bunch of other games coming out at the same time and will ask their own analysts to look at impact on Rift.
After doing that, they will make some crazy offer where they get a nice chunk of debt due to the risk.
Do me a favor. Show me a company that created an IPO because they weren't doing well. Go for it.
I think I found your problem (took awhile, but we got it!).
You seem to associate the statement "needs cash" with "doing bad". That is a rather middle-class way of looking at money and business and I can only assume you have never owned one.
No one said Trion isn't "doing well", at least I didn't. They need cash. That's a totally different statement. Have you ever heard the term 'cash poor'? If not, look it up okay?
Trion has too many irons in the fire and needs CASH. Now. Rift is doing okay, but when you look at Trion's plate.. they need cash. It should be pretty obvious.
It has to be about Rift at least a little bit. Trion's strategy was obviously to fund their further development on Rift and at least part of the other two games using money from the mass-market success they were planning on with Rift. Rift's quickly declining sub numbers have to have an effect on their plans for the other two titles, and their long-term success as a company. If Rift continues to decline (and suffers at the hands of upcoming competition, which we know it will), they may not have the money to finish the other two games, or pay all the large live team currently pumping out new content for Rift.
What is your source for that information?
Consolidating servers isn't a source. A lot of games do this so that they can ensure they have enough rooms at release, and then consilidate down when the playerbase stabalises.
Bandwidth, and servers for a game like Rift and WoW isn't as expensive as people make it out to be; that's why you see games releasing with a load of servers. It's become easier and easier to host massive online content. Server technology has made drastic advancements over the past years, making it easier, and more affordable for people to host online content. Most game studios don't even use their own servers, and a lot of companies don't have to pay for bandwidth they don't use anymore. Cloud stuff has had a huge impact on the way bandwith and servers work to deliver content to people.
There are games that are made and run by only a couple of people. Being able to provide content on server capable of handly just a few thousand people is actually pretty cheap now. A friend of mine is considering making a cheap little free to play game, and having it hosted on a server that can handle around 2000 people but can scale to 10 thousand, because it's cheap enough for him to do. He makes good money, around 80k a year.
Consolidating servers after release has nothing to do with a game not doing well, and everything to do with the afffordablity of having those servers running to ensure they have room for the initial influx of players.
At least that's what I've been told by someone that actually deals with that sort of thing, and not me hypothesising, or using irrelivant information as my baseline.
So, what's your source for Rift's having a declining playerbase?
Of course consolidating servers is a source.
Game launches with 99 servers. Servers are quite often high pop, full at peak times
they announce that their server technology now allows them to hold more people. People logging in and doing counts determine full went from 1800 to 2000 so roughly an 11% increase in capacity.
7 months later. servers spend most of the time low/medium, with 2-4 higher pop servers. At peak times many servers do go high pop, but none go full. At best the servers have the same number of people on them as they did before since the 200 cap increase likely incresed med and high modifiers.
But the amount of servers is cut in half.
That doesnt necessarily tell us subs are cut in half from launch month, but player activity is. and thats with the constant influx of new people due to word of mouth and various promotions (including selling game for $5)
Also, Trion loves to tell everyone how well they are doing. they say theyve sold 1 million copies, which is impressive. What they havent told us is sub numbers. If they had 500k subs 7 months in people would seriously take notice as that would be the highest 7 month total in the history of the genre outside of WoW. So why havent they announced sub numbers?
I think I found your problem (took awhile, but we got it!).
You seem to associate the statement "needs cash" with "doing bad". That is a rather middle-class way of looking at money and business and I can only assume you have never owned one.
No one said Trion isn't "doing well", at least I didn't. They need cash. That's a totally different statement. Have you ever heard the term 'cash poor'? If not, look it up okay?
Trion has too many irons in the fire and needs CASH. Now. Rift is doing okay, but when you look at Trion's plate.. they need cash. It should be pretty obvious.
*raises hand* I was the one who said they aren't doing well.
What I've been saying all along is that Trion is not doing well in comparison to their own planning / projections. They were looking for Rift to be a mass-market hit (million+ subscribers, a contender with WoW, etc)...and to bring in big cash for their other endeavors. This did not turn out to be what happened...so in that context they are not doing well.
In terms of keeping the lights on and paying people, I'm sure they are okay for the moment. I think we agree that this potential IPO is a way to try and generate cash in order to get their various other projects off the ground...I'm just including the caveat that the reason they NEED more cash is because Rift isn't quite the golden goose they were planning on.
Originally posted by Uhwop Do me a favor. Show me a company that created an IPO because they weren't doing well. Go for it.
That's easy. Vonage. Look it up.
They were loosing money like crazy (something like 300 million in the red from their founding until their IPO due to infrastructure costs), and facing competition from the big telecoms in the VOIP market. So...they went public to raise much needed cash.
IPOs generate cash quickly, if you can convince investors that you are worth investing in. Since Rift is not providing the money they need to do all they want to do, they are looking at an IPO to get their other projects off the launching pad to hopefully become the big monster contender of a company that they want to be. As I said earlier...the biggest problem with this idea is their lack of a proven track record. They are looking at an IPO because Rift isn't doing nearly as well as they'd hoped, and people who might potentially invest in Trion are going to see that.
If your business is creating games, investors are going to want to see that you make games which are really good and successful. With Trion, investors will be looking at a company with a lot of promises, and one game that didn't live up to the hype. Not a recipe for a successful IPO...but Trion may have no choice.
Originally posted by Fozzik *raises hand* I was the one who said they aren't doing well.
Ah, lol. I knew it wasn't me. Got accused of that a few times with "you can go back to WoW" lol.
I actually think Trion is doing well as a company overall with their assets. They seem to have a good idea WHERE they want to go and what they want to do.
I think it was foolhardy to try and do all this crap in the first year though (publishing, two games, expansive offices..) all BEFORE you even put in a MAJOR expansion to your moneymaking game. That takes balls, but not a lot of brains. Unless they thought they were going to have TOR like numbers secretly (two-three million) I don't see why you'd stretch yourself that thin; given the coming competition it's twice as retarded.
I can't prove it but my guess (my opinion) is that they pushed back End of Nations for just this reason; cash. It would have continued to be a strain I think. It's exactly what CCP just did with World of Darkness and they had a game (EvE) with a far bigger base and plenty of assets.
And just like Rift selling that spider mount for $10 bucks, CCP sold that monicle for I don't know how much, but the EvE fans refused to pay for that microtransaction and the company couldn't count on all the new revenue stream. Rift fans bought into it so Trion realized they can probably do a little more, just not right now.
Rift can certainly support Rift and any expansions. But I do not think given current climate that Rift is going to pay for everything else in the long run, that's why they need that IPO money to get that other stuff up and producing.
Show me a company that created an IPO because they weren't doing well. Go for it.
That's easy. Vonage. Look it up.
They were loosing money like crazy (something like 300 million in the red from their founding until their IPO due to infrastructure costs), and facing competition from the big telecoms in the VOIP market. So...they went public to raise much needed cash.
IPOs generate cash quickly, if you can convince investors that you are worth investing in. Since Rift is not providing the money they need to do all they want to do, they are looking at an IPO to get their other projects off the launching pad to hopefully become the big monster contender of a company that they want to be. As I said earlier...the biggest problem with this idea is their lack of a proven track record. They are looking at an IPO because Rift isn't doing nearly as well as they'd hoped, and people who might potentially invest in Trion are going to see that.
If your business is creating games, investors are going to want to see that you make games which are really good and successful. With Trion, investors will be looking at a company with a lot of promises, and one game that didn't live up to the hype. Not a recipe for a successful IPO...but Trion may have no choice.
I did look it up, mostly to make sure I had some numbers right. Thanks.
They weren't in the red prior to the IPO. Atleast I couldn't find anything that stated they were.
The stock plummeted shortly after it's initial offering of 17$, the very next day it took a dive to 13$ and some change; at one point dropping as low as .31$ Today it's only valued at 3$ and some change.
They were sued by Verison, and that's when they're money problems really started as they has to pay out $120some million.
Vonage is a VoIP service, and they are the most succesful one at that, with no real competition to speak of. In fact they created the voip telephone industry, and had no competition for quite some time. Magic jack is probably their most recent and only worthwhile competitor.
On top of that they were sued by their original IPO investors. They didn't solicit to banks they solicited the IPO to their customers, which isn't a normal practice.
The IPO was created, like every IPO is, to bring in MORE money. Unlike most IPO's this one wasn't restricted but solicited to normal every day people who were using the service already. Vonage was functiioning on the market like all these banks with their bad mortgages. They were trying to exploit an unregulated market, and they crashed because of it. Really now, Jeff Pulver was a bond trader for Cantor Fizgeral LP.
Who is the other guy responcible for Vonage you may ask? Why that would be Jeff Citron, a guy that the SEC barred from trading on the stock market for life.
Bohla left shortly after Vonage was formed and was the brains behind how to make it make money.
From stealing patented technology to taking advantage of his investors, and investigations into short selling, the people running this company new exactly what they were doing every step of the way.
Just to make sure, I tried surfing the net to find something that indicated that vonage was in the red prior to the offering,but the only thing I could find is that they were stagnating and couldn't achieve any growth. They chose to create the IPO in order to raise money and expand. That's usually one of the points of an IPO.
Now, I'm not saying they weren't in the red before the IPO launched, just that I couldn't find anythign to verify that. If they were, it would make sense that they solicited their customers instead of the banks and finantial institutions that you would normally solicit when starting an IPO. Banks and other finantial institutions are going to scrutinize your books, 10k satisfied customers are probably going to jump at the chance to be the first to invest in something they think is making money. But then, they sued vonage later; obviously something wasn't right.
Oh yeah, and then they were sued a second time by their customers. This time not over a failed IPO though, but over the charges they were recieving from vonage. Like a money back guarantee, a one month free promo, disconnect fees, and post cancelation fees.
Really? You chose a company that's practically the poster child for everything everyone hates about corporate america?
You may recall I made a statement about Trion probably not being in a position to cook their books?
But yes, Vonage was a company that had no business starting an IPO and they did it a the expense of normal every day people who didn't know any better.
Let me rephrase my earlier request.
Show me a LEGIT company, that doesn't make money, and was able to start an IPO. I really didn't expect someone to say vonage when I asked the first time.
Comments
We can simply draw from past experience here. Blizzard had Diablo, Starcraft, and the Warcraft series before they went into a IPO I thinkkkkkkkkk. So it would make sense they would want to wait until Defiance and End of Nations are up and running.
Trion does have technology they can sell and people will buy. If it was easy then WoW would have Rifts popping up everywhere with NPC's owning quest hubs. So it can not be as easy as some people seem to think it is.
I agree with your assessment and thanks for the discussion item. When I first saw this I initially thought that the many Rift sub/purchasing offers I've received over the last few months took on a new angle. Projections for growth look a lot better, (obviously), the more people are subscribed, and having been to these sorts of meeting before myself, you can bet the're assumed projections which will be based on these offer takers.
Ultimatley is this any good for Rift? I'm not sure, they'll have to play a high stakes game that needs a quick sell on the IPO. In a few months time their value will be significantly lower, due to competitors, the cost of developing other titles, (although the Sci-fi channel involvment with their mmo/tvseries, depending on how that's structured , could make them an attractive prospect), and the economy at the moment. On the other hand Trion has released a successful MMO, (in the short term), has decent prospects with their other titles, and seems to have a commited work force.
A tough one really but if their going to do this it needs to be quick.
This looks like a job for....The Riviera Kid!
You can't even begin to consider creating an IPO if your company is losing money. Companies create IPO's BECAUSE they're making money, or can realistically or effectively show that they CAN make money.
You have to disclose everything about your company in order to make an IPO. If your company is bleeding money, no one's going to buy in. I don't think Trion has enough of a company to cook books, or make it look like they're making money when they're not. They only have one game, it's kind of hard to make your company look like it's making money when it's not with only a single product on offer.
The reason they can do promo offers so soon after release, can mean that that they sold enough initial boxes that box sales on out aren't what they're looking for. No MMO survives on box sales, it's subscription numbers, and retention. Boxes don't cost that much to make, and they probably make more with cheaper boxes. Not to mention a lot of those promos and deals they run don't come with the first month subscription included.
If they're talking about it then they have to be showing a profit, or showing that they'll be making profit soon. They also have to show that they will experience growth; that's what the guy was talking about with the hits comment.
A Trion IPO probably wouldn't be a bad investment. Depends on how the next two games do.
The game has TWO true med/High servers. Wolfsbane and Deepstrike. Ill even give you Dayblind and Laethys. The rest are either medium/low, or just medium (with a couple of low). Yes, during the peak two hours many servers hit High, but when a server spends 90% of its time medium or lower its not a medium/high server.
Right now, at this very minute, WoW, with all its NA servers, has a total of 2 that are low pop. Rift has a total of three that are NOT low pop (they are medium). And yes, Medium can mean different things, but its not like WoW is calling servers with only 200 people logged in on them medium. Rift the cutoff used to be 200-250, not sure if that was raised when server cap went form 1800 to 2000.
Oh and the game started at 99 servers before closing down to those 53, and they arent honest about the closings. 'Being converted to a trial server'...why is Snarebursh being converted toa trial server? Are the other 45 trial servers full?
Exactly. Good post. (left in the important bits pertaining to the article) Which is why this statement is the key and everything else Rift did up to this point is irrelevant:
TLDR:1. "Red Door" publishing/platforming has to succeed.
2. Defiance has to succeed.
3. End of Nations has to succeed.
Fans keep talking about how successful Rift is, when this isn't even about Rift. It's about Trion the company.
Again, this is why I posted this thread in 'General MMO News' section and now it's got moved here to Rift section and confusing people, thinking this is a "Rift" discussion.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Going into a place that is still, even after all the crises, ruled by irrationality, immorality, greed and short term gain. Where money is still made into more money with money on a massive scale while everyone loses track of the actual economy behind it all, which causes economic soap bubbles that are bound to collapse. While speculators either keep saying prayers to an invisible hand that will somehow make things right or otherwise just don't give a fuck.
Well, no.
Even though a decision like that will probably only be felt in the pockets of certain people whithin the companies on a short term basis.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
1. "Red Door" publishing/platforming has to succeed.
2. Defiance has to succeed.
3. End of Nations has to succeed.
Fans keep talking about how successful Rift is, when this isn't even about Rift. It's about Trion the company.
Again, this is why I posted this thread in 'General MMO News' section and now it's got moved here to Rift section and confusing people, thinking this is a "Rift" discussion.
It has to be about Rift at least a little bit. Trion's strategy was obviously to fund their further development on Rift and at least part of the other two games using money from the mass-market success they were planning on with Rift. Rift's quickly declining sub numbers have to have an effect on their plans for the other two titles, and their long-term success as a company. If Rift continues to decline (and suffers at the hands of upcoming competition, which we know it will), they may not have the money to finish the other two games, or pay all the large live team currently pumping out new content for Rift.
I'de just like to point out that Trion isnt making end of nations, it is the publisher for end of nations. Petroglyph is the maker of end of nations.
how much money Trion is actually putting in as a publisher is all a guessing game.
EDIT: spelling, dumb laptop keyboards.
I'm not sure there is going to be enough revenue generated from a FTP game like EoN in the RTS sector to be significant.
So either way, Trion is still putting resources/cash towards the bill for at least two projects here, even if it is partial on one. Not that any of that really matters in the long run because as the analyst said, Trion has to have ALL of it's projects be hits, not just one (Rift) or two (Defiance) to be a successful IPO candidate.
That means it's Red Door publishing platform and EoN as well. ALL of it, not just some of it.
"TO MICHAEL!"
EoN will also have a subscription, it's in the FAQs. It doesnt offer more then the regular F2P model, just says they give you free convience items every month. It will be interesting to see if it's worth the script or easier to just buy the convience items alone.
Off topic: For one I hope there are different skins for the factions, a way to set ones self apart from the hordes of other players. 50 player armies on a map running the same colored vehicles and troops would make my eyes go buggy.
It's still a FTP game, whether they offer a sub or not as I said. The majority of people probably won't be paying $15/month for "convience items" which is what I'm trying to say if they get everything else to play it. So if they aren't paying, that means no money.
That's not something that's usually a good match: FTP and RTS, because I can't imagine someone buying extra flags or something just to decorate hard-to-see units. It's not like you really can have a real wardrobe with a bunch of small units.
They say the FTP players get access to the entire game and the paying players don't get Play-to-Win items so paying wouldn't really give you any reason to buy stuff for most people.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Well, IMO, you should have to state it's your opinion, whether it's the internet, or not.
This way, WE know, YOU know, what is fact and what is opinion.
"They SOLD that for $10 when there was no need to bring in another CE."
No need? You apparently don't like the way they are marketting the game.
BTW, The white part is fact, the cyan part is opinion.
Fact + Opinion = BS
IMO
------- END TRANSMISSION
What is your source for that information?
Consolidating servers isn't a source. A lot of games do this so that they can ensure they have enough rooms at release, and then consilidate down when the playerbase stabalises.
Bandwidth, and servers for a game like Rift and WoW isn't as expensive as people make it out to be; that's why you see games releasing with a load of servers. It's become easier and easier to host massive online content. Server technology has made drastic advancements over the past years, making it easier, and more affordable for people to host online content. Most game studios don't even use their own servers, and a lot of companies don't have to pay for bandwidth they don't use anymore. Cloud stuff has had a huge impact on the way bandwith and servers work to deliver content to people.
There are games that are made and run by only a couple of people. Being able to provide content on server capable of handly just a few thousand people is actually pretty cheap now. A friend of mine is considering making a cheap little free to play game, and having it hosted on a server that can handle around 2000 people but can scale to 10 thousand, because it's cheap enough for him to do. He makes good money, around 80k a year.
Consolidating servers after release has nothing to do with a game not doing well, and everything to do with the afffordablity of having those servers running to ensure they have room for the initial influx of players.
At least that's what I've been told by someone that actually deals with that sort of thing, and not me hypothesising, or using irrelivant information as my baseline.
So, what's your source for Rift's having a declining playerbase?
Common sense, eyes, and a brain.
Do you have numbers that contradict what I said, or just optimistic alternate explanations?
You say potato, I say po-tah-toe. You've played the game for a few days, and have the same perspective as most of the people who had only played the game for a few days. Wait a month or two, then come back and tell us what you think. I've played Rift 20 times longer than you have, and I never bought the game.
Pretending that Rift is anything other than a failed attempt at attracting a mass-market audience is just wishful thinking. They wanted to be a contender, and go up against WoW, and they have a couple hundred thousand subscribers to show for it. Not what I would call a successful endeavor.
"They SOLD that for $10 when there was no need to bring in another CE."
No need? You apparently don't like the way they are marketting the game.
Incorrectamundo.
Actually I LIKE how they marketed it. They got probably 1.5 million dollars off a spider mount. That's pretty smart and the kind of thing WoW or any other company would do. Which makes me happy.
Know why?
Because I've said all along that Trion is just another company anyways. They "care" about you insomuch as you give them money. Don't give them any and see how much they care, lol. I think they were right to charge their fans that and when they put in their cash shop, I'll be thinking that was smart as well.
To me, the spider mount sale says that they need cash. If they didn't, they would have made it content to be earned in-game instead. Then the talk of IPO now to get more cash says falls right in-line with that.
"TO MICHAEL!"
I didn't provide numbers, or anything that requires numbers to verify. I provided information from someone that works in the field I was providing information for. It's also something you can verify on your own.
You didn't provide anything that I could verify. Nothin you wrote comes from any source with the field you're discussing either. What you wrote is an opinion your attempting to pass along as fact.
You can't verify or provide any source that shows Rift has a declining playerbase. You're sense, eyes, and brain aren't a source, nor do they validate your opinion as fact.
Your sense, eyes, and brain are wrong until you can prove that your statement is true by backing with actual fact; something you can't possibly do because no one knows what Rift's subscription numbers are.
So Blizzard selling vanity pets is an indicator that they need money?
Once again, your speculations and opinion do not constitute fact.
There are two types of jaded groups when it comes to how industry works.
The group that thinks a company genuinely cares about them, in-so-far as they care on a personal,individual level, because they give them money. They care about the community they build as a whole, and not so much each and every individual.
And the group that thinks they're sharing some great revelation when they tell people that a company won't care about them when they don't give them money. You fall in this group, and this group is inherently wrong.
A company cares MORE about you when you don't give them money. CCP just showed the world this. The responsibility of a company, especially one that is considering an IPO, is to first and foremost make money. If they aren't making money they need to do things to attract people who will pay them, that means caring about the customer. You don't make money when you don't care.
When I said eyes, brain, and common sense, what I meant was that all the signs are clearly there for anyone to see. You might want to keep it on a low simmer in terms of valiantly defending the game until you've played for a little longer...you're going to feel pretty silly if you find you don't want to keep playing a month or two from now (which is what happens with the majority of people who try the game).
They have not released any real numbers. They released a completely bogus number of created accounts, rather than number of units sold or number of active subscriptions. Releasing numbers is a really effective way to market an MMORPG, because people want to play games that are highly populated and that "everyone" is playing. WoW developed its own gravity relatively early on and continued to grow their subscriber base through the first several years of its life.
They are aggressively marketing the game using discounts, free play, and hand-outs. When your product is selling well and retaining players, you don't lower the price or provide play or items for free, or you do it rarely, and only after significant time has passed. Rift started these aggressive promotions almost the first month after launch. They are obviously trying to get people's feet in the door because their numbers aren't what they want them to be, and are trending down instead of up.
The live team is actively and quickly making changes to the game based on player feedback. It might seem like a good thing, but it's clear they are on the run...they realize there are things about the game which are putting players off (because they CAN see the sub numbers) and so they are trying to improve retention by quickly making changes. This isn't typically a positive thing, because knee-jerk individual changes in a system as complex as an MMORPG tend to create more problems than they fix.
The servers are being consolidated. When you have a successful and actively growing subscriber base, you don't decrease the number of servers (and don't have many servers on medium pop or lower). Rift would be ADDING servers and all of them would be busting at the seams if people weren't leaving.
Not only that, but the best evidence is the game itself...I've played it extensively and I know what it is and what it isn't. There are many objective observations which can be made (and have been made by MANY people on these boards) about Rift's size, scope, content, and mechanics...all of which point to a game which provides most players with a relatively short experience (a month or two) and little or no replay value.
Trion's goal with Rift is also not a secret. One only has to look at the design of the game, the things the developers have said, and the marketing the game has utilized...and it's easy to see they were shooting for mass-market appeal and accessibility, and squarely targeting the massive audience of WoW and other players outside the genre. They were after millions of subscribers playing their game for years to come. Obviously, they didn't even come close.
Clearly they feel that numbers can be effective in terms of marketing, and they don't mind using them when they think they show something positive (evidence of that - they released the rather deceptive "number of accounts created"). If Rift is a great and successful game and doing well, why haven't they released the sales and subscription numbers? If you can answer that adequately, we might be getting somewhere.
Do me a favor.
Show me a company that created an IPO because they weren't doing well. Go for it.
Trion needs cash to push their other projects out, pay things off/keep expenses down and to fund their Red Door publishing plans. You might want to read about that part which I'm pretty sure you missed somewhere, because you haven't mentioned it once.All that takes CASH and capital. You cannot go to more investors and say "We've got EoN, Defiance, Red Door publishing, opening new buildings and hiring 500 employees, have X and Y expenses now and have to pay for an expansion soon" and make that sound attractive when you only have one game paying for all of that. If those investors have half a brain (which they do, believe me) they will see SWTOR, GW2, TSW and a bunch of other games coming out at the same time and will ask their own analysts to look at impact on Rift.
After doing that, they will make some crazy offer where they get a nice chunk of debt due to the risk.
"TO MICHAEL!"
You seem to associate the statement "needs cash" with "doing bad". That is a rather middle-class way of looking at money and business and I can only assume you have never owned one.
No one said Trion isn't "doing well", at least I didn't. They need cash. That's a totally different statement. Have you ever heard the term 'cash poor'? If not, look it up okay?
Trion has too many irons in the fire and needs CASH. Now. Rift is doing okay, but when you look at Trion's plate.. they need cash. It should be pretty obvious.
edit: here.. read this: Cash-Poor Rich Fueling Continued Rise In High-End Pawn Shops
"TO MICHAEL!"
Of course consolidating servers is a source.
Game launches with 99 servers. Servers are quite often high pop, full at peak times
they announce that their server technology now allows them to hold more people. People logging in and doing counts determine full went from 1800 to 2000 so roughly an 11% increase in capacity.
7 months later. servers spend most of the time low/medium, with 2-4 higher pop servers. At peak times many servers do go high pop, but none go full. At best the servers have the same number of people on them as they did before since the 200 cap increase likely incresed med and high modifiers.
But the amount of servers is cut in half.
That doesnt necessarily tell us subs are cut in half from launch month, but player activity is. and thats with the constant influx of new people due to word of mouth and various promotions (including selling game for $5)
Also, Trion loves to tell everyone how well they are doing. they say theyve sold 1 million copies, which is impressive. What they havent told us is sub numbers. If they had 500k subs 7 months in people would seriously take notice as that would be the highest 7 month total in the history of the genre outside of WoW. So why havent they announced sub numbers?
*raises hand* I was the one who said they aren't doing well.
What I've been saying all along is that Trion is not doing well in comparison to their own planning / projections. They were looking for Rift to be a mass-market hit (million+ subscribers, a contender with WoW, etc)...and to bring in big cash for their other endeavors. This did not turn out to be what happened...so in that context they are not doing well.
In terms of keeping the lights on and paying people, I'm sure they are okay for the moment. I think we agree that this potential IPO is a way to try and generate cash in order to get their various other projects off the ground...I'm just including the caveat that the reason they NEED more cash is because Rift isn't quite the golden goose they were planning on.
That's easy. Vonage. Look it up.
They were loosing money like crazy (something like 300 million in the red from their founding until their IPO due to infrastructure costs), and facing competition from the big telecoms in the VOIP market. So...they went public to raise much needed cash.
IPOs generate cash quickly, if you can convince investors that you are worth investing in. Since Rift is not providing the money they need to do all they want to do, they are looking at an IPO to get their other projects off the launching pad to hopefully become the big monster contender of a company that they want to be. As I said earlier...the biggest problem with this idea is their lack of a proven track record. They are looking at an IPO because Rift isn't doing nearly as well as they'd hoped, and people who might potentially invest in Trion are going to see that.
If your business is creating games, investors are going to want to see that you make games which are really good and successful. With Trion, investors will be looking at a company with a lot of promises, and one game that didn't live up to the hype. Not a recipe for a successful IPO...but Trion may have no choice.
I actually think Trion is doing well as a company overall with their assets. They seem to have a good idea WHERE they want to go and what they want to do.
I think it was foolhardy to try and do all this crap in the first year though (publishing, two games, expansive offices..) all BEFORE you even put in a MAJOR expansion to your moneymaking game. That takes balls, but not a lot of brains. Unless they thought they were going to have TOR like numbers secretly (two-three million) I don't see why you'd stretch yourself that thin; given the coming competition it's twice as retarded.
I can't prove it but my guess (my opinion) is that they pushed back End of Nations for just this reason; cash. It would have continued to be a strain I think. It's exactly what CCP just did with World of Darkness and they had a game (EvE) with a far bigger base and plenty of assets.
And just like Rift selling that spider mount for $10 bucks, CCP sold that monicle for I don't know how much, but the EvE fans refused to pay for that microtransaction and the company couldn't count on all the new revenue stream. Rift fans bought into it so Trion realized they can probably do a little more, just not right now.
Rift can certainly support Rift and any expansions. But I do not think given current climate that Rift is going to pay for everything else in the long run, that's why they need that IPO money to get that other stuff up and producing.
"TO MICHAEL!"
I did look it up, mostly to make sure I had some numbers right. Thanks.
They weren't in the red prior to the IPO. Atleast I couldn't find anything that stated they were.
The stock plummeted shortly after it's initial offering of 17$, the very next day it took a dive to 13$ and some change; at one point dropping as low as .31$ Today it's only valued at 3$ and some change.
They were sued by Verison, and that's when they're money problems really started as they has to pay out $120some million.
Vonage is a VoIP service, and they are the most succesful one at that, with no real competition to speak of. In fact they created the voip telephone industry, and had no competition for quite some time. Magic jack is probably their most recent and only worthwhile competitor.
On top of that they were sued by their original IPO investors. They didn't solicit to banks they solicited the IPO to their customers, which isn't a normal practice.
The IPO was created, like every IPO is, to bring in MORE money. Unlike most IPO's this one wasn't restricted but solicited to normal every day people who were using the service already. Vonage was functiioning on the market like all these banks with their bad mortgages. They were trying to exploit an unregulated market, and they crashed because of it. Really now, Jeff Pulver was a bond trader for Cantor Fizgeral LP.
Who is the other guy responcible for Vonage you may ask? Why that would be Jeff Citron, a guy that the SEC barred from trading on the stock market for life.
Bohla left shortly after Vonage was formed and was the brains behind how to make it make money.
From stealing patented technology to taking advantage of his investors, and investigations into short selling, the people running this company new exactly what they were doing every step of the way.
Just to make sure, I tried surfing the net to find something that indicated that vonage was in the red prior to the offering,but the only thing I could find is that they were stagnating and couldn't achieve any growth. They chose to create the IPO in order to raise money and expand. That's usually one of the points of an IPO.
Now, I'm not saying they weren't in the red before the IPO launched, just that I couldn't find anythign to verify that. If they were, it would make sense that they solicited their customers instead of the banks and finantial institutions that you would normally solicit when starting an IPO. Banks and other finantial institutions are going to scrutinize your books, 10k satisfied customers are probably going to jump at the chance to be the first to invest in something they think is making money. But then, they sued vonage later; obviously something wasn't right.
Oh yeah, and then they were sued a second time by their customers. This time not over a failed IPO though, but over the charges they were recieving from vonage. Like a money back guarantee, a one month free promo, disconnect fees, and post cancelation fees.
Really? You chose a company that's practically the poster child for everything everyone hates about corporate america?
You may recall I made a statement about Trion probably not being in a position to cook their books?
But yes, Vonage was a company that had no business starting an IPO and they did it a the expense of normal every day people who didn't know any better.
Let me rephrase my earlier request.
Show me a LEGIT company, that doesn't make money, and was able to start an IPO. I really didn't expect someone to say vonage when I asked the first time.