If you look at those two scenarios they basically go like this:
Target Scenario
Client sales 30% higher than AoC
Majority of digital client sales
Subs/client price as AoC
In-game store sales/uptic amounting to 35% of subs. revenue
Healty retention; 490,000 average subs
Conan-like scenario
1,050,000 client sales first year
Poor retention (a bit better than AoC) 280,00 average subs
Other assumptions as above
When we look at this we can deduce the game sold less than 1M clients and it has less than 280k subs. And going by this statement: " but based on the available early data, one scenario is that sales for the first 12 months following launch will be less than half of what was presented in the "Conan-like" scenario. "
They expect to sell less than 500k clients in the first 12 months.
I never understood why Funcom thought TSW would be a big draw. AoC turned people away, it was going to be very difficult to match AoC launch numbers.Subscription games not named WOW are dying.
The numbers do not surprise me. I plan on playing TSW but because it's Funcom I didn't purchace it on release. Since the launch went smooth I will be purchasing the game. I may not be the only one who is intrugued by the game but took a wait and see policy. As a results the initial sales numbers are not as big as expected.
I think there is one thing very clear here that P2P + CS business model is just plainly not working, many peoples just turned off because of this and think that it's a scam as I my self still on the fence to buy this game just because of this issue despite many peoples playing this game told me that the game is good.
Added with company bad rep with AoC, negative reviews from professional reviewer and lack of advertisement not many willing to buy TWS and rather wait for incoming MMO games in a month or 2.
Sadly once MoP and GW2 launch many more peoples will be leaving TSW and sub will plummet even more, not a good news indeed.
I would say that my own interpretation is the initial projections Funcom made would have been perfectly in line had the global economy not been sliding further into a great depression, their higher than the competition subscription rate at such a time will also hurt their initial take-up of the game so I think a "double-whammy" is in effect.
I think any new title released this year (& for the next several years) is going to experience a dampened take-up unless it is a free to play title because money is just getting tighter all the time for the average player - and there's not any real recovery in the economy on the horizon yet, quite the opposite is feared.
I don't think the game requires a F2P solution, but one would definitely increase potential customers, the first thing Funcom should definitely consider is making the sub-price competitive, it is a niche game and cannot expect to grow to be huge, I like that they see a focus on quality being a realistic aim & I hope they are encouraged by the high user opinions so far rather than feel apathetic.
This thread was good for a chuckle. When I'm not playing video games, my real-life job is in finance - MBA & CFP. I read these reports all the time and it's damn funny watching others parse Funcom's communication line-by-line. My best advice, as a financial professional, is to go play a game and stop pretending to know what you are talking about. That communication is intended to cover their arses with shareholders, not be particularly helpful in any way, shape, or form. You are looking for data and information that is proprietary and which Funcom has a history of not releasing. Go...play...something...it will be a lot more productive than trying to realize any significant data from corporate financial docs.
An interesting article by a norwegian newspaper, which should be more objective than most takes by random posters.
Translated by me, so it could possible contain errors, it's not my native language.
-The funcom stock is dead
Carniege analysts argue that the game stock is probably finished on the Oslo stock exchange after dud.
Funcom stole the head lines on the Oslo stock exchange. The stock fell nothing less than 52.1 percent to 3.75 kroner, which sets the company's price tag at only a quarter of a billion kroner. Thus far in 2012 the stock has fallen 76 percent.
The precursor to the funcom crash is the company's new update regarding The secret world. The company is naturally disappointed over the 72 of 100 metascore.
-The game has flopped. I would have liked if the information released had been more precise, but it's in either case better than nothing. The stock has been under heavy pressure and the company has been silent, says Carnegie analyst Espen Torgersen to the financial times.
Funcom was very vague in the information update about the game, and there's no real tell. Tofte (no idea who this is) tells the newspaper that it is likely that the subscription base will end up at less than half of 280.000 in the future.
- It's now clear that the company has gone into a restructuring phase, and that the stock on the Oslo stock exchange will be dead for the foreseeable future, as I see it. Probably finished on the Oslo stock exchange, says the analyst.
Sounds kind of dire according to the analyst. To me though it's no surprise, I was hyped into buying Age of conan, even took a few friend with me. But in the end they delivered a unpolished single-player game with fancy combat which quickly got boring because the shallowness of it all. Shame for funcom, but it's natural selection going on here.
Around the time I first stumbled upon the secret world and after getting a firm understanding of the design philosophy. I made statments like,
March 14th 2012 MMO-C TSW mega thread.
"No I do not want the masses flocking over there screaming quest are too hard. Screaming for all, that they wont take the time to earn. I want the game to be a secret. The casual newbie generation has WoW, SW:TOR, and soon GW2.
The secret world does not need 10 million of the new generation of rpgrs that don't now what a D-3 is let alone character generation. Yes I wish the game would remain a secret letting those who followed the intro ARG for years help the game develop."
500k sounded just about right for launch growing to about 900k over the year. As time rolled along CB started. The excitement in those forums and the felling of a tight nitt community was like nothing I've seen before. The game had delivered on it's design philosophy. Then the ads came, and more gamers got a whiff of what the game was, what I and others wanted for the game slowy changed. I felt that a game this good and this true to the core values of Role Playing Games needed to be rewarded, and I still do. That 500k grew to possiblities of a million at launch. The game is that good. That rich in detail and systems.
So not reaching 1 million yet? Yeah it's dissapointing. The game deserves it. However 400-500k at launch is inline with my initial hopes and expectations, and growing to 900k one year after launch is not out of the question. The game is too good not to grow.
inb4 BC you just said you thought there would be 800k!@ I was wrong I hope the above explains why.
Please for your sake take you head out of the sand this game is not going to sell or retain 1 million sales or subs in its first ten years let alone the first year. Funcom stock is nosediving because they haven't achieved anywhere near their sales and retention projections, which were ludicrous in the first place, no name IP out selling one of the worlds most famous IP's (Conan) by 30% from a company that cocked that launch and game up bigtime? yeah really, so investors are dumping stock on any poor soul that wants it. As a company they have been struggling ever since AOC was released and it will continue as TSW is a typical half assed Funcom game with some great ideas and loads of crap implimentation. Any new investment is going to be nye on impossible to get because of Funcoms reputation as a bad investment. So expect these things to happen over the coming months...
Staff Layoffs.
Content releases slowing to a snails pace
Free2play announcement
TSW is a niche game without enough content to keep players around (thats why Funcom had to calm the population with their "we will be launching new content monthly" blurb so soon after launch) and with no real profits to be had from AOC, AO and TSW coupled with little to no investment in the future of the company its going to be very tough for Funcom to ride this one out. You reap what you sow and Funcom have ploughed enough ill will in the MMO comunity for it to effect their long term survival.
Of course IMO
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Am I the only person who doesn't use Metacritic? Ever since I started seeing them give low scores for games I absolutely love, I quit using it...
I just use Google. Type the name of the game and add 'review' to the end. Read the top links and read some of the player reviews. Works great everytime!
I'm quite surprised, the guys at Funcom are using sources like Metacritic and MMORPG.com for evaluating the success of their product. Metacritic has only 40+ critic reviews and 280+ user reviews for TSW, can this really be considered a valid source of information?
I always thought that these companies would be investing some money on market analysis and stuff like that, but reading an "Investor relations" article with those poor analysis is quite shocking...
Example:
"Funcom is pleased to see that gamer satisfaction is high, with user score of 8.4 out of 10 and higher on www.metacritic.com and other sites like mmorpg.com." So having 286 people voting in metacritic is something representative of their user base?
Useing Metacritic in general is a joke. That site needs to be shut down.
Really anytime they need to use "hey this site and this site like us!" instead of talking numbers its not good. And really how dare they use MMORPG.com. Everyone knows that everyone here on this site hates everything and we all sit around circlejerking about our favorite sanbox features.
I alway's feel that Q2 information doesn't say that much, why you might ask, well simple, it's summer time, most games suffer around this time from either less subs, less players, less whatever during this period.
Q4 I often consider a good indication of what's going on with the game and/or it's company.
Summertime = family, outside, holiday's and allot more and each and every year we see drops in players/subs alway's around this period. Yet we also see these Q's and similar topics about drops. Now when Q4 isn't satisfying then they might start to worry, Q3 is sort of the middle line to see where the company or it's games stand.
Originally posted by dekou Whatever your opinion of Metacritic is, it's a widely-used site and Funcom can (and probably did) lose many customers because of the low rating.
dekou is right.
Read the reports from other game companies - all of them use Metacritic as a measuring stick - whether you agree with it or not, that is the reality of things
Sad but true. Just take a look at what happened to Obsidian's bonus when New Vegas got "only" a metacritic 84:
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Originally posted by weeoohweee no numbers given, better churn than a game that sold 1 million yet lost 70% of that immediately and vague measures of success with metacritic used to guess at retention.
not many games do give sub numbers
RIFT has never given sub numbers
only thing TRION announced was units sold last summer (3 months after launch)
Am I the only person who doesn't use Metacritic? Ever since I started seeing them give low scores for games I absolutely love, I quit using it...
I just use Google. Type the name of the game and add 'review' to the end. Read the top links and read some of the player reviews. Works great everytime!
Metacritic does not give out scores it merely aggregates both critical and user reviews and allows easy access to all such reviews.They are nto to blame if your beloved games aren't rated highly.
Am I the only person who doesn't use Metacritic? Ever since I started seeing them give low scores for games I absolutely love, I quit using it...
I just use Google. Type the name of the game and add 'review' to the end. Read the top links and read some of the player reviews. Works great everytime!
I don't take any reviews all that seriously. In general most journalists are not that bright and wouldn't know objectivity if it bit them on the ass.
What I do is I look through many account both review from professionals and amastuers and forum comments. I look for parts of what they say where they inadvertently put in a factual account of what they did and then I ignore the rest as its most bad analysis or just some impression that has no depth.
Then I see how many of these account agree with each and use my imagination to get a good simulation of what I think the game is like for things that meet a certain confidence level.
In this regards metacritic can be useful. Using its number rating is pointless.
This is unfortunate news from FC but from my standpoint it really was not unexpected..
Subscription as well as these companies backup freemium plans are going the way of the dinosaur as are the companies that dont embrace a viable F2P or B2P plan in the near future....
My opinion on TSW is that its a great game for what it is but its total content does not warrant the cost of box plus sub plus CS..
Had this game gone B2P with an improved CS (not p2w) it would have most likely been an overwelming success and i certainly would have bought it..
As a freemium game it will likely only do well for a short while and will likely not foster many new subs unless funcom does something seriously drastic content wise..
I would also like to add that F2P in many instances will cost more than a subbed game to play and i dont fully embrace all F2P plans as many are closing in on legal robbery..
Originally posted by djnestrick This thread was good for a chuckle. When I'm not playing video games, my real-life job is in finance - MBA & CFP. I read these reports all the time and it's damn funny watching others parse Funcom's communication line-by-line. My best advice, as a financial professional, is to go play a game and stop pretending to know what you are talking about. That communication is intended to cover their arses with shareholders, not be particularly helpful in any way, shape, or form. You are looking for data and information that is proprietary and which Funcom has a history of not releasing. Go...play...something...it will be a lot more productive than trying to realize any significant data from corporate financial docs.
This.
I'm more concerned with Funcom's viability at this point than TSW, and I love TSW. Stock markets feed on emotion and hype, which means they are volatile and moody. It needs to cheer up where Funcom is concerned, so maybe I'll buy some stock.
Edit: And layoffs already happened Friday in the GM/CS department. =/
I personally believe they are blowing it on the cash shop. The pets and clothing cosmetics are a total yawn-fest. They should have put some really neat stuff in there. I have credits sitting in there that I won't spend because nothing is interesting enough. They have so many directions they can go, and they aren't.
Look at pets. Dogs, Cats and Birds? I can have a flaming sword on my back, or a green glowing Chaos focus with sparkles, but the only pet in this supernatural world for me is a friggin normal one? Booooring.
Anyway, I've written a large post today about the other issues, all of which are addressable, but I agree this game is only ever going to be a niche game. It's just not a mass market title, and they should be catering future updates toward their niche market.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
I don't think this game is quite as niche as others. What's more pop culture right now than zombies and vampires. I think they need to step up there advertising and add other things not more of the same, missions etc. The raids may help a bit but that is kind of more of the same, combat focus. They need more side activities. I see a lot of adds for it since I bought the game, one thing bad about google advertising, they often show you adds for things you already brought. I don't really watch tv much if at all anymore but maybe some comercial tv adds would help.
Interesting read. Their stocks fall sharply after the release of TSW, they attribute it to the metacritic scores. The one thing that might make sense of that is the what they mention next. Because its a new IP it needs to take off well.
Whats more interesting is this part: "Funcom has on several occasions presented two financial scenarios for the first 12 months following launch of the game; please refer to page 17 in the 1Q 2012 presentation *). Funcom does not consider it likely that either of them will be met. "
If you look at those two scenarios they basically go like this:
Target Scenario
Client sales 30% higher than AoC
Majority of digital client sales
Subs/client price as AoC
In-game store sales/uptic amounting to 35% of subs. revenue
Healty retention; 490,000 average subs
Conan-like scenario
1,050,000 client sales first year
Poor retention (a bit better than AoC) 280,00 average subs
Other assumptions as above
When we look at this we can deduce the game sold less than 1M clients and it has less than 280k subs. And going by this statement: " but based on the available early data, one scenario is that sales for the first 12 months following launch will be less than half of what was presented in the "Conan-like" scenario. "
They expect to sell less than 500k clients in the first 12 months.
Even though their sales are pretty low and their subs are below 280k projected over the first year they feel positive that if they keep the quality high enough they can mantain profitability.
"A possible scenario going forward is that the game will sell less than both of the two above mentioned scenarios the first 12 months following launch, but with high customer satisfaction, it will generate a more stable subscriber base than the game Age of Conan. Over time, this will enable Funcom to retain more customers and generate higher revenue."
All in all I think this game is going f2p sooner than expected. They are right now banking on customer retention instead of getting more customers. Unfortunately with lower profit I can't see how they keep producing high quality content at a high pace. And we know that within 3-6 months MMOs tend to bleed more subs.
Well, this is not particularly surprising.
The stock has collapsed 66% since mid-April, and is down over 50% today to a new 52-week low on huge volume. I tend to think stock action telegraphs bad news, and this news is bad.
Still, I'd like to see them somehow salvage this game since some of the ideas behind it were quite good.
Unfortunately Funcom is the kings of great ideas, poor execution......This game is Funcom's 3rd in a row that has been like this.....All 3 looked great in theory and turned out to be not very good...... AO eventually became a good game, but I dont hold out much hope for AoC or TSW.
All in all I think this game is going f2p sooner than expected. They are right now banking on customer retention instead of getting more customers. Unfortunately with lower profit I can't see how they keep producing high quality content at a high pace. And we know that within 3-6 months MMOs tend to bleed more subs.
Well, this is not particularly surprising.
The stock has collapsed 66% since mid-April, and is down over 50% today to a new 52-week low on huge volume. I tend to think stock action telegraphs bad news, and this news is bad.
Still, I'd like to see them somehow salvage this game since some of the ideas behind it were quite good.
Unfortunately Funcom is the kings of great ideas, poor execution......This game is Funcom's 3rd in a row that has been like this.....All 3 looked great in theory and turned out to be not very good...... AO eventually became a good game, but I dont hold out much hope for AoC or TSW.
Yeah, the problem is that *eventually* becoming a good game doesn't work. Once the game has lost that initial buzz, it's generally screwed. Sure, F2P relaunches can help, but it still won't get the attention it had at launch. Also, Themepark games aren't going to sustain cash shop sales for the same reasons they don't sustain a subscription. There's no longevity in them except repetition whether you are talking about RAIDS or re-rolls. People are pretty much sick of that as an excuse for long term gameplay now and the market is flooded with alternatives to enjoy for 30-60 days before you get sick of those too.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Anyone but the most zealotous of the fans knew that the game had issues and should not have been launched for at least another 3 months. Besides that, the focus on story content pretty much ensured that people would leave once that content is exhausted. While I applaud Funcom's dedication to monthly content updates, the 8 new missions is just not enough to keep most players subscribed.
I don't think that blaming Metacritic for lower than expected score is the right thing to do. The game was simply not ready for launch and the score reflected that.
Interesting read. Their stocks fall sharply after the release of TSW, they attribute it to the metacritic scores. The one thing that might make sense of that is the what they mention next. Because its a new IP it needs to take off well.
Whats more interesting is this part: "Funcom has on several occasions presented two financial scenarios for the first 12 months following launch of the game; please refer to page 17 in the 1Q 2012 presentation *). Funcom does not consider it likely that either of them will be met. "
If you look at those two scenarios they basically go like this:
Target Scenario
Client sales 30% higher than AoC
Majority of digital client sales
Subs/client price as AoC
In-game store sales/uptic amounting to 35% of subs. revenue
Healty retention; 490,000 average subs
Conan-like scenario
1,050,000 client sales first year
Poor retention (a bit better than AoC) 280,00 average subs
Other assumptions as above
When we look at this we can deduce the game sold less than 1M clients and it has less than 280k subs. And going by this statement: " but based on the available early data, one scenario is that sales for the first 12 months following launch will be less than half of what was presented in the "Conan-like" scenario. "
They expect to sell less than 500k clients in the first 12 months.
Even though their sales are pretty low and their subs are below 280k projected over the first year they feel positive that if they keep the quality high enough they can mantain profitability.
"A possible scenario going forward is that the game will sell less than both of the two above mentioned scenarios the first 12 months following launch, but with high customer satisfaction, it will generate a more stable subscriber base than the game Age of Conan. Over time, this will enable Funcom to retain more customers and generate higher revenue."
All in all I think this game is going f2p sooner than expected. They are right now banking on customer retention instead of getting more customers. Unfortunately with lower profit I can't see how they keep producing high quality content at a high pace. And we know that within 3-6 months MMOs tend to bleed more subs.
Well, this is not particularly surprising.
The stock has collapsed 66% since mid-April, and is down over 50% today to a new 52-week low on huge volume. I tend to think stock action telegraphs bad news, and this news is bad.
Still, I'd like to see them somehow salvage this game since some of the ideas behind it were quite good.
Unfortunately Funcom is the kings of great ideas, poor execution......This game is Funcom's 3rd in a row that has been like this.....All 3 looked great in theory and turned out to be not very good...... AO eventually became a good game, but I dont hold out much hope for AoC or TSW.
Down another 20% today to a new 52 week low. The company's valuation is now 1/8th what it was in April, which can not bode well for the business end of things. The earning's release at the end of the month should break this down further but unless they have a large cash position they are going to have a hard time raising money through stock offerings. We're not even sure whether or not TSW is creating positive cash flow.
"Loading screens" are not "instances". Your personal efforts to troll any game will not, in fact, impact the success or failure of said game.
If you look at those two scenarios they basically go like this:
Target Scenario
Client sales 30% higher than AoC
Majority of digital client sales
Subs/client price as AoC
In-game store sales/uptic amounting to 35% of subs. revenue
Healty retention; 490,000 average subs
Conan-like scenario
1,050,000 client sales first year
Poor retention (a bit better than AoC) 280,00 average subs
Other assumptions as above
When we look at this we can deduce the game sold less than 1M clients and it has less than 280k subs. And going by this statement: " but based on the available early data, one scenario is that sales for the first 12 months following launch will be less than half of what was presented in the "Conan-like" scenario. "
They expect to sell less than 500k clients in the first 12 months.
They need to follow the Rift marketing strategy. The digital box should be 40 bucks now, if not cheaper. Add some in game items, and keep dropping that box price about 5 bucks a month. Every potential player that's not playing because they won't commit to the big upfront box charge is a player who ALSO isn't buying anything in the cash shop, or being around to keep dungeons accessible and/or filling up the game world.
Remove that big upfront commitment cost ASAP. Everyone who was willing to buy it at $50-60 has already bought it. Time to reverse auction that biznitch... :P
Interesting read. Their stocks fall sharply after the release of TSW, they attribute it to the metacritic scores. The one thing that might make sense of that is the what they mention next. Because its a new IP it needs to take off well.
Whats more interesting is this part: "Funcom has on several occasions presented two financial scenarios for the first 12 months following launch of the game; please refer to page 17 in the 1Q 2012 presentation *). Funcom does not consider it likely that either of them will be met. "
If you look at those two scenarios they basically go like this:
Target Scenario
Client sales 30% higher than AoC
Majority of digital client sales
Subs/client price as AoC
In-game store sales/uptic amounting to 35% of subs. revenue
Healty retention; 490,000 average subs
Conan-like scenario
1,050,000 client sales first year
Poor retention (a bit better than AoC) 280,00 average subs
Other assumptions as above
When we look at this we can deduce the game sold less than 1M clients and it has less than 280k subs. And going by this statement: " but based on the available early data, one scenario is that sales for the first 12 months following launch will be less than half of what was presented in the "Conan-like" scenario. "
They expect to sell less than 500k clients in the first 12 months.
Even though their sales are pretty low and their subs are below 280k projected over the first year they feel positive that if they keep the quality high enough they can mantain profitability.
"A possible scenario going forward is that the game will sell less than both of the two above mentioned scenarios the first 12 months following launch, but with high customer satisfaction, it will generate a more stable subscriber base than the game Age of Conan. Over time, this will enable Funcom to retain more customers and generate higher revenue."
All in all I think this game is going f2p sooner than expected. They are right now banking on customer retention instead of getting more customers. Unfortunately with lower profit I can't see how they keep producing high quality content at a high pace. And we know that within 3-6 months MMOs tend to bleed more subs.
Well, this is not particularly surprising.
The stock has collapsed 66% since mid-April, and is down over 50% today to a new 52-week low on huge volume. I tend to think stock action telegraphs bad news, and this news is bad.
Still, I'd like to see them somehow salvage this game since some of the ideas behind it were quite good.
Unfortunately Funcom is the kings of great ideas, poor execution......This game is Funcom's 3rd in a row that has been like this.....All 3 looked great in theory and turned out to be not very good...... AO eventually became a good game, but I dont hold out much hope for AoC or TSW.
Down another 20% today to a new 52 week low. The company's valuation is now 1/8th what it was in April, which can not bode well for the business end of things. The earning's release at the end of the month should break this down further but unless they have a large cash position they are going to have a hard time raising money through stock offerings. We're not even sure whether or not TSW is creating positive cash flow.
They ended last year at over 16 million negative in their bottom line, and they also cited about 25 million dollars in loans (I'm not sure if they included interest in this). This number does not include costs from January to August of this year, which would be the majority of advertising and server costs (as well as their normal staff costs for the over 150 people who work on TSW). Basically, they needed to sell 600-700k (ish) to break even (as a company). AoC was losing money, which is why they consolidated servers, and now it is creating a small positive cashflow. AO is creating a decent positive flow as well. To stay afloat they probably need around 250k subs (this is after the layoffs they have made and the ones that are to come).
If I were to guess I'd put the current sub amount at around 350k....problem is, as others have stated, Themeparks tend to bleed after 3 months....which they cannot afford if they lose any more subs.
EDIT: their stock is down to 3.01, with the highest amount of volume in 52 weeks. I wouldnt be surprised if it is down below 2 by Friday. Most investors are selling their stock back to Funcom, I doubt many people are buying their stock.
Comments
I never understood why Funcom thought TSW would be a big draw. AoC turned people away, it was going to be very difficult to match AoC launch numbers. Subscription games not named WOW are dying.
I think there is one thing very clear here that P2P + CS business model is just plainly not working, many peoples just turned off because of this and think that it's a scam as I my self still on the fence to buy this game just because of this issue despite many peoples playing this game told me that the game is good.
Added with company bad rep with AoC, negative reviews from professional reviewer and lack of advertisement not many willing to buy TWS and rather wait for incoming MMO games in a month or 2.
Sadly once MoP and GW2 launch many more peoples will be leaving TSW and sub will plummet even more, not a good news indeed.
I would say that my own interpretation is the initial projections Funcom made would have been perfectly in line had the global economy not been sliding further into a great depression, their higher than the competition subscription rate at such a time will also hurt their initial take-up of the game so I think a "double-whammy" is in effect.
I think any new title released this year (& for the next several years) is going to experience a dampened take-up unless it is a free to play title because money is just getting tighter all the time for the average player - and there's not any real recovery in the economy on the horizon yet, quite the opposite is feared.
I don't think the game requires a F2P solution, but one would definitely increase potential customers, the first thing Funcom should definitely consider is making the sub-price competitive, it is a niche game and cannot expect to grow to be huge, I like that they see a focus on quality being a realistic aim & I hope they are encouraged by the high user opinions so far rather than feel apathetic.
An interesting article by a norwegian newspaper, which should be more objective than most takes by random posters.
Translated by me, so it could possible contain errors, it's not my native language.
-The funcom stock is dead
Carniege analysts argue that the game stock is probably finished on the Oslo stock exchange after dud.
Funcom stole the head lines on the Oslo stock exchange. The stock fell nothing less than 52.1 percent to 3.75 kroner, which sets the company's price tag at only a quarter of a billion kroner. Thus far in 2012 the stock has fallen 76 percent.
The precursor to the funcom crash is the company's new update regarding The secret world. The company is naturally disappointed over the 72 of 100 metascore.
-The game has flopped. I would have liked if the information released had been more precise, but it's in either case better than nothing. The stock has been under heavy pressure and the company has been silent, says Carnegie analyst Espen Torgersen to the financial times.
Funcom was very vague in the information update about the game, and there's no real tell. Tofte (no idea who this is) tells the newspaper that it is likely that the subscription base will end up at less than half of 280.000 in the future.
- It's now clear that the company has gone into a restructuring phase, and that the stock on the Oslo stock exchange will be dead for the foreseeable future, as I see it. Probably finished on the Oslo stock exchange, says the analyst.
Edit: Source= http://www.hegnar.no/bors/article702002.ece
Sounds kind of dire according to the analyst. To me though it's no surprise, I was hyped into buying Age of conan, even took a few friend with me. But in the end they delivered a unpolished single-player game with fancy combat which quickly got boring because the shallowness of it all. Shame for funcom, but it's natural selection going on here.
Please for your sake take you head out of the sand this game is not going to sell or retain 1 million sales or subs in its first ten years let alone the first year. Funcom stock is nosediving because they haven't achieved anywhere near their sales and retention projections, which were ludicrous in the first place, no name IP out selling one of the worlds most famous IP's (Conan) by 30% from a company that cocked that launch and game up bigtime? yeah really, so investors are dumping stock on any poor soul that wants it. As a company they have been struggling ever since AOC was released and it will continue as TSW is a typical half assed Funcom game with some great ideas and loads of crap implimentation. Any new investment is going to be nye on impossible to get because of Funcoms reputation as a bad investment. So expect these things to happen over the coming months...
Staff Layoffs.
Content releases slowing to a snails pace
Free2play announcement
TSW is a niche game without enough content to keep players around (thats why Funcom had to calm the population with their "we will be launching new content monthly" blurb so soon after launch) and with no real profits to be had from AOC, AO and TSW coupled with little to no investment in the future of the company its going to be very tough for Funcom to ride this one out. You reap what you sow and Funcom have ploughed enough ill will in the MMO comunity for it to effect their long term survival.
Of course IMO
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Am I the only person who doesn't use Metacritic? Ever since I started seeing them give low scores for games I absolutely love, I quit using it...
I just use Google. Type the name of the game and add 'review' to the end. Read the top links and read some of the player reviews. Works great everytime!
Useing Metacritic in general is a joke. That site needs to be shut down.
Really anytime they need to use "hey this site and this site like us!" instead of talking numbers its not good. And really how dare they use MMORPG.com. Everyone knows that everyone here on this site hates everything and we all sit around circlejerking about our favorite sanbox features.
I alway's feel that Q2 information doesn't say that much, why you might ask, well simple, it's summer time, most games suffer around this time from either less subs, less players, less whatever during this period.
Q4 I often consider a good indication of what's going on with the game and/or it's company.
Summertime = family, outside, holiday's and allot more and each and every year we see drops in players/subs alway's around this period. Yet we also see these Q's and similar topics about drops. Now when Q4 isn't satisfying then they might start to worry, Q3 is sort of the middle line to see where the company or it's games stand.
Just my take....and ...opinion
Sad but true. Just take a look at what happened to Obsidian's bonus when New Vegas got "only" a metacritic 84:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/obsidian-denied-bonus-over-new-vegas-metacritic-score-studio-head-6366337
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
not many games do give sub numbers
RIFT has never given sub numbers
only thing TRION announced was units sold last summer (3 months after launch)
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/06/07/rift-approaching-the-one-million-sell-through-mark/
EQ2 fan sites
Metacritic does not give out scores it merely aggregates both critical and user reviews and allows easy access to all such reviews.They are nto to blame if your beloved games aren't rated highly.
I don't take any reviews all that seriously. In general most journalists are not that bright and wouldn't know objectivity if it bit them on the ass.
What I do is I look through many account both review from professionals and amastuers and forum comments. I look for parts of what they say where they inadvertently put in a factual account of what they did and then I ignore the rest as its most bad analysis or just some impression that has no depth.
Then I see how many of these account agree with each and use my imagination to get a good simulation of what I think the game is like for things that meet a certain confidence level.
In this regards metacritic can be useful. Using its number rating is pointless.
This is unfortunate news from FC but from my standpoint it really was not unexpected..
Subscription as well as these companies backup freemium plans are going the way of the dinosaur as are the companies that dont embrace a viable F2P or B2P plan in the near future....
My opinion on TSW is that its a great game for what it is but its total content does not warrant the cost of box plus sub plus CS..
Had this game gone B2P with an improved CS (not p2w) it would have most likely been an overwelming success and i certainly would have bought it..
As a freemium game it will likely only do well for a short while and will likely not foster many new subs unless funcom does something seriously drastic content wise..
I would also like to add that F2P in many instances will cost more than a subbed game to play and i dont fully embrace all F2P plans as many are closing in on legal robbery..
Playing GW2..
This.
I'm more concerned with Funcom's viability at this point than TSW, and I love TSW. Stock markets feed on emotion and hype, which means they are volatile and moody. It needs to cheer up where Funcom is concerned, so maybe I'll buy some stock.
Edit: And layoffs already happened Friday in the GM/CS department. =/
I personally believe they are blowing it on the cash shop. The pets and clothing cosmetics are a total yawn-fest. They should have put some really neat stuff in there. I have credits sitting in there that I won't spend because nothing is interesting enough. They have so many directions they can go, and they aren't.
Look at pets. Dogs, Cats and Birds? I can have a flaming sword on my back, or a green glowing Chaos focus with sparkles, but the only pet in this supernatural world for me is a friggin normal one? Booooring.
Anyway, I've written a large post today about the other issues, all of which are addressable, but I agree this game is only ever going to be a niche game. It's just not a mass market title, and they should be catering future updates toward their niche market.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Unfortunately Funcom is the kings of great ideas, poor execution......This game is Funcom's 3rd in a row that has been like this.....All 3 looked great in theory and turned out to be not very good...... AO eventually became a good game, but I dont hold out much hope for AoC or TSW.
Yeah, the problem is that *eventually* becoming a good game doesn't work. Once the game has lost that initial buzz, it's generally screwed. Sure, F2P relaunches can help, but it still won't get the attention it had at launch. Also, Themepark games aren't going to sustain cash shop sales for the same reasons they don't sustain a subscription. There's no longevity in them except repetition whether you are talking about RAIDS or re-rolls. People are pretty much sick of that as an excuse for long term gameplay now and the market is flooded with alternatives to enjoy for 30-60 days before you get sick of those too.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Anyone but the most zealotous of the fans knew that the game had issues and should not have been launched for at least another 3 months. Besides that, the focus on story content pretty much ensured that people would leave once that content is exhausted. While I applaud Funcom's dedication to monthly content updates, the 8 new missions is just not enough to keep most players subscribed.
I don't think that blaming Metacritic for lower than expected score is the right thing to do. The game was simply not ready for launch and the score reflected that.
Down another 20% today to a new 52 week low. The company's valuation is now 1/8th what it was in April, which can not bode well for the business end of things. The earning's release at the end of the month should break this down further but unless they have a large cash position they are going to have a hard time raising money through stock offerings. We're not even sure whether or not TSW is creating positive cash flow.
"Loading screens" are not "instances".
Your personal efforts to troll any game will not, in fact, impact the success or failure of said game.
They need to follow the Rift marketing strategy. The digital box should be 40 bucks now, if not cheaper. Add some in game items, and keep dropping that box price about 5 bucks a month. Every potential player that's not playing because they won't commit to the big upfront box charge is a player who ALSO isn't buying anything in the cash shop, or being around to keep dungeons accessible and/or filling up the game world.
Remove that big upfront commitment cost ASAP. Everyone who was willing to buy it at $50-60 has already bought it. Time to reverse auction that biznitch... :P
They ended last year at over 16 million negative in their bottom line, and they also cited about 25 million dollars in loans (I'm not sure if they included interest in this). This number does not include costs from January to August of this year, which would be the majority of advertising and server costs (as well as their normal staff costs for the over 150 people who work on TSW). Basically, they needed to sell 600-700k (ish) to break even (as a company). AoC was losing money, which is why they consolidated servers, and now it is creating a small positive cashflow. AO is creating a decent positive flow as well. To stay afloat they probably need around 250k subs (this is after the layoffs they have made and the ones that are to come).
If I were to guess I'd put the current sub amount at around 350k....problem is, as others have stated, Themeparks tend to bleed after 3 months....which they cannot afford if they lose any more subs.
EDIT: their stock is down to 3.01, with the highest amount of volume in 52 weeks. I wouldnt be surprised if it is down below 2 by Friday. Most investors are selling their stock back to Funcom, I doubt many people are buying their stock.