I sort of agree with the OP, it was obvious the majority of the focus in the game was centered around the single player experience (cinematic cutscenes, class story line, voice overs, companions, etc.) with a multiplayer aspect sort of tagged on. As a B2P single player game? It probably would've sold a decent amount.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
No, but the single player tag is not that far fetched.
It only applies if that's how you're playing, there's a lot of content you can't do within level range unless you're grouped. Those who aren't grouping are missing a lot of what the game is offering.
On top of that I came to this game with many others from older games I've played, hasn't been single-player for me at all.
And that's a very weak way to justify the massively multiplayer tag. I agree, they are all hyperboles, but we can understand where they come from.
Wasn't saying what you said was hyperbole, you just gave your perspective on your experience. You didn't try and sensationalize it.
Did you see who writes what? That wasn't me.
I didn't write anything about Vanguard and all that other stuff. I was simply pointing out the game weak spots after someone elses comments. You are hitting the wrong guy XD.
Anyway, I can reiterate my argument: Bioware focused on personal stories, the other game aspects were secondary, because they really wanted to go in that direction. They did a very good job at that, but it made the game weak as a massively multiplayer experience.
I said the same thing during beta. Financially speaking I now think the subscription route is in their best interest. They have a great IP and rabid fans that will subscribe. They can fix their issues and likely increase their subscriber base with the starting point being those who subscribe after the 30 days, not those who bought the game but never subscribed.
Just because I'm not happy with what's being offered under subscription, that doesn't mean others aren't.
I expected to return here flamed to all hell. Imagine my surprise when people are agreeing with me.
They should have just made another kotor as Bioware is obviously not ready for mmo's and their lack of experience is seriously showing. Now they have delayed the content patch right before early access subs are coming up.
This is another KOTOR, just one with lots of people running around in the background. I am happy to play for a few months to see where the story goes but I am not sure what there is to stick around for, just like a single player game....
That is why a B2P model is best. I would log in still after I finished just to run around for a bit but I won't stick around and sub for that right.
Doesn't feel like KOTOR to me...
Still all I'm doing is killing 10 rats quests and noone can deny that because go to a quest hub and accept the quests, look at your map and it's all... collect 4 claws, kill 25 npcs, kill this named...
A lot of you don't seem to understand how much money it costs to keep so many servers running and staff employed to maintain a game of this size. Bioware decided they did not want to go with micro-transactions, so they have to go the traditional subscription model. It's either one or the other folks... I bet even your perfect wonderful GW2 will have micro-transactions in order to maintain its upkeep costs. This is business people... all companies are in this to make money.
I expected to return here flamed to all hell. Imagine my surprise when people are agreeing with me.
They should have just made another kotor as Bioware is obviously not ready for mmo's and their lack of experience is seriously showing. Now they have delayed the content patch right before early access subs are coming up.
This is another KOTOR, just one with lots of people running around in the background. I am happy to play for a few months to see where the story goes but I am not sure what there is to stick around for, just like a single player game....
That is why a B2P model is best. I would log in still after I finished just to run around for a bit but I won't stick around and sub for that right.
Doesn't feel like KOTOR to me...
Still all I'm doing is killing 10 rats quests and noone can deny that because go to a quest hub and accept the quests, look at your map and it's all... collect 4 claws, kill 25 npcs, kill this named...
So boring.
What else would you expect to be doing in a MMO? All MMOS have the kill fetch stuff.
I expected to return here flamed to all hell. Imagine my surprise when people are agreeing with me.
They should have just made another kotor as Bioware is obviously not ready for mmo's and their lack of experience is seriously showing. Now they have delayed the content patch right before early access subs are coming up.
This is another KOTOR, just one with lots of people running around in the background. I am happy to play for a few months to see where the story goes but I am not sure what there is to stick around for, just like a single player game....
That is why a B2P model is best. I would log in still after I finished just to run around for a bit but I won't stick around and sub for that right.
Doesn't feel like KOTOR to me...
Still all I'm doing is killing 10 rats quests and noone can deny that because go to a quest hub and accept the quests, look at your map and it's all... collect 4 claws, kill 25 npcs, kill this named...
So boring.
What else would you expect to be doing in a MMO? All MMOS have the kill fetch stuff.
I hope one day we finally get out of that box. MMOs could be so much more.
I expected to return here flamed to all hell. Imagine my surprise when people are agreeing with me.
They should have just made another kotor as Bioware is obviously not ready for mmo's and their lack of experience is seriously showing. Now they have delayed the content patch right before early access subs are coming up.
This is another KOTOR, just one with lots of people running around in the background. I am happy to play for a few months to see where the story goes but I am not sure what there is to stick around for, just like a single player game....
That is why a B2P model is best. I would log in still after I finished just to run around for a bit but I won't stick around and sub for that right.
Doesn't feel like KOTOR to me...
Still all I'm doing is killing 10 rats quests and noone can deny that because go to a quest hub and accept the quests, look at your map and it's all... collect 4 claws, kill 25 npcs, kill this named...
So boring.
What else would you expect to be doing in a MMO? All MMOS have the kill fetch stuff.
I hope one day we finally get out of that box. MMOs could be so much more.
I think they could take a blend of old and new MMOs and transition into something wonderful. Old MMOs had very few quests, but the ones they had were meaningful, and new MMOs have too many quests that aren't meaningful at all. Instead of making Questing the sole gauge of leveling, they should insititue an alternate leveling process with a couple meaningful quests.
I'm not saying sit in one spot and grind on mobs like old MMOs, but maybe do some type of exploration exp, a main quest line that gives exp as you progress it, group dungeon crawls (not dungeon runs, but crawls in static zones), raid exp, and reinstitute faction based gameplay. Faction based gameplay is awesome, because you can join and faction to be friends with many different areas, or be enemies. The options are endless, and game developers have grown lazy.
A lot of you don't seem to understand how much money it costs to keep so many servers running and staff employed to maintain a game of this size. Bioware decided they did not want to go with micro-transactions, so they have to go the traditional subscription model. It's either one or the other folks... I bet even your perfect wonderful GW2 will have micro-transactions in order to maintain its upkeep costs. This is business people... all companies are in this to make money.
Back in the day, when bandwidth was really expensive, subscription fees made a lot of sense. They were necessary to keep the game running. Nowadays they're just simply not. As I posted earlier in this thread, we can tell from NCSoft's quarterly reports that it costs about 2.3 million dollars per month to pay for bandwidth and server rent for all 5 of their games and websites combined. Aion alone has 3 million Asian subscribers or so. It comes out to easily less than a dollar per person per month.
Think about it, how could F2P games even exist if this wasn't true. They get way more players, and even if some crazy people are paying $50 a month, the vast majority pay nothing. F2P companies are lucky to get $3 per person per month.
I can understand the idea of paying a subscription fee to keep developers employed to make content, but even then the numbers just don't add up. If a box sells for $60 and represents 5 years (60 months) of development time, how can they possibly justify $15 per month after that? Proportionally, the subscription should be something like $1 per month, maybe $2 to cover the bandwidth as well ($3 to turn a profit).
Think about it. If SWTOR is the most expensive game ever, and this subscription money is needed to recoup costs, how can they charge the same as WoW? ($60 per box and $15 per month). They're actually charging less than WoW if they're not also charging for expansions or have microtransactions. The answer is because if you do the math, the subscription, even though pretty cheap per person, is still an insane amount of cash.
GW1 supported their game with no problem without a microtransaction shop for over a year. They added one, frankly, because it's dumb not to. If people don't object to vanity items in the shop, and you have people who want to buy $10 costumes, not having a shop is just leaving money on the table.
I agree that it all comes down to money, but a subscription isn't necessarily a license to print it. Look at GW1 vs City of Heroes. Neither were a AAA game, and CoH capped at 250k subs or so because people aren't going to pay two subscriptions. GW1 sold nearly 2 million copies of their core game in the first year before expansion, despite being non-AAA, non-MMO, no name company, no IP, and a high fantasy game released 4 months after WoW. Sure, if you're the #1 P2P MMO, you rake in the cash, but everyone else sees a decline as people go back to WoW. I actually think P2P is a riskier move these days than any other model.
With B2P, they can charge for expansions that are $50 and still turn a great profit just because they attracted more people in the first place and because those people don't have a financial incentive to stop playing (ending a subscription).
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I bought the lifetime membership for Lotro, and while I take breaks from it I always buy the expansions, reacquaint myself with the game, get hooked into the guild side of things and stay longer than I planned.
It sounds like Bioware are going to soon discover what a ravenous, disloyal beast are the current MMO customers. I genuinely hope they find a way to manage it.
I genuinely believe that Bioware don't care about subs. They've made all their money from the huge box sales at exorbitant prices. They've recovered the cost of development two or three times over, I suggest. Anything more is just icing on the cake. That's why I think future expansions might add new flashpoints, dungeons and planets but they'll never add anything to the original gameplay because it's so hardcoded, it's far too expensive and difficult to change.
With a development cost anywhere between $150M and $300M, how exactly did they recover these costs 2 to 3 times over? If all the sales had been CE editions that cost nothing to create and yielded pure profit they just could have barely made that, of course reality is very different.
Comments
I sort of agree with the OP, it was obvious the majority of the focus in the game was centered around the single player experience (cinematic cutscenes, class story line, voice overs, companions, etc.) with a multiplayer aspect sort of tagged on. As a B2P single player game? It probably would've sold a decent amount.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
Did you see who writes what? That wasn't me.
I didn't write anything about Vanguard and all that other stuff. I was simply pointing out the game weak spots after someone elses comments. You are hitting the wrong guy XD.
Anyway, I can reiterate my argument: Bioware focused on personal stories, the other game aspects were secondary, because they really wanted to go in that direction. They did a very good job at that, but it made the game weak as a massively multiplayer experience.
There's no sensationalization on that.
I said the same thing during beta. Financially speaking I now think the subscription route is in their best interest. They have a great IP and rabid fans that will subscribe. They can fix their issues and likely increase their subscriber base with the starting point being those who subscribe after the 30 days, not those who bought the game but never subscribed.
Just because I'm not happy with what's being offered under subscription, that doesn't mean others aren't.
Doesn't feel like KOTOR to me...
Still all I'm doing is killing 10 rats quests and noone can deny that because go to a quest hub and accept the quests, look at your map and it's all... collect 4 claws, kill 25 npcs, kill this named...
So boring.
A lot of you don't seem to understand how much money it costs to keep so many servers running and staff employed to maintain a game of this size. Bioware decided they did not want to go with micro-transactions, so they have to go the traditional subscription model. It's either one or the other folks... I bet even your perfect wonderful GW2 will have micro-transactions in order to maintain its upkeep costs. This is business people... all companies are in this to make money.
What else would you expect to be doing in a MMO? All MMOS have the kill fetch stuff.
In Bioware we trust!
I hope one day we finally get out of that box. MMOs could be so much more.
I think they could take a blend of old and new MMOs and transition into something wonderful. Old MMOs had very few quests, but the ones they had were meaningful, and new MMOs have too many quests that aren't meaningful at all. Instead of making Questing the sole gauge of leveling, they should insititue an alternate leveling process with a couple meaningful quests.
I'm not saying sit in one spot and grind on mobs like old MMOs, but maybe do some type of exploration exp, a main quest line that gives exp as you progress it, group dungeon crawls (not dungeon runs, but crawls in static zones), raid exp, and reinstitute faction based gameplay. Faction based gameplay is awesome, because you can join and faction to be friends with many different areas, or be enemies. The options are endless, and game developers have grown lazy.
Back in the day, when bandwidth was really expensive, subscription fees made a lot of sense. They were necessary to keep the game running. Nowadays they're just simply not. As I posted earlier in this thread, we can tell from NCSoft's quarterly reports that it costs about 2.3 million dollars per month to pay for bandwidth and server rent for all 5 of their games and websites combined. Aion alone has 3 million Asian subscribers or so. It comes out to easily less than a dollar per person per month.
Think about it, how could F2P games even exist if this wasn't true. They get way more players, and even if some crazy people are paying $50 a month, the vast majority pay nothing. F2P companies are lucky to get $3 per person per month.
I can understand the idea of paying a subscription fee to keep developers employed to make content, but even then the numbers just don't add up. If a box sells for $60 and represents 5 years (60 months) of development time, how can they possibly justify $15 per month after that? Proportionally, the subscription should be something like $1 per month, maybe $2 to cover the bandwidth as well ($3 to turn a profit).
Think about it. If SWTOR is the most expensive game ever, and this subscription money is needed to recoup costs, how can they charge the same as WoW? ($60 per box and $15 per month). They're actually charging less than WoW if they're not also charging for expansions or have microtransactions. The answer is because if you do the math, the subscription, even though pretty cheap per person, is still an insane amount of cash.
GW1 supported their game with no problem without a microtransaction shop for over a year. They added one, frankly, because it's dumb not to. If people don't object to vanity items in the shop, and you have people who want to buy $10 costumes, not having a shop is just leaving money on the table.
I agree that it all comes down to money, but a subscription isn't necessarily a license to print it. Look at GW1 vs City of Heroes. Neither were a AAA game, and CoH capped at 250k subs or so because people aren't going to pay two subscriptions. GW1 sold nearly 2 million copies of their core game in the first year before expansion, despite being non-AAA, non-MMO, no name company, no IP, and a high fantasy game released 4 months after WoW. Sure, if you're the #1 P2P MMO, you rake in the cash, but everyone else sees a decline as people go back to WoW. I actually think P2P is a riskier move these days than any other model.
With B2P, they can charge for expansions that are $50 and still turn a great profit just because they attracted more people in the first place and because those people don't have a financial incentive to stop playing (ending a subscription).
TL:DR Just watch this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns-IIn-DG-c
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Once people start leaving this game for gw 2 diablo 3 or anything else then they will be forced to go b2p.
Freemium is just a bad model because the game dies slowly.
With a development cost anywhere between $150M and $300M, how exactly did they recover these costs 2 to 3 times over? If all the sales had been CE editions that cost nothing to create and yielded pure profit they just could have barely made that, of course reality is very different.