I like how OP is somehow grouping EQ in with WoW and the stuff that has been released the last ten years. You may as well group EQ with UO and SWG bud. There was freedom and consequence in all of those games....unlike games today other than Darkfall and EvE.
We will see games with more freedom made...EQN. Made by larger studios. An open world MMO with risk vs reward and consequences can be successful. Once people continue to tire of the same old no freedom no virtual world linear quest grinding.
In OP's defense, I will say this site has seen a definite shift in the last couple years from hardcore sandbox to very friendly to no freedom themeparks. I think a lot of the old school MMO community has given up after 10+ years of waiting with only two legit open world games made (Darkfall and EvE).
Sidenote to another discussion in this thread: I remember mobs not even dropping loot in SWG. I may be mistaken, but that immediately made me dislike that game as release.
I like how OP is somehow grouping EQ in with WoW and the stuff that has been released the last ten years. You may as well group EQ with UO and SWG bud. There was freedom and consequence in all of those games....unlike games today other than Darkfall and EvE.
We will see games with more freedom made...EQN. Made by larger studios. An open world MMO with risk vs reward and consequences can be successful. Once people continue to tire of the same old no freedom no virtual world linear quest grinding.
In OP's defense, I will say this site has seen a definite shift in the last couple years from hardcore sandbox to very friendly to no freedom themeparks. I think a lot of the old school MMO community has given up after 10+ years of waiting with only two legit open world games made (Darkfall and EvE).
Sidenote to another discussion in this thread: I remember mobs not even dropping loot in SWG. I may be mistaken, but that immediately made me dislike that game as release.
Darkfall? Don't make me laugh. Saga of Ryzom eats Darkfalls lunch.
Anyway ArcheAge will be out in the fall and i has alot of UO elements
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
You'll have to remember MMOData to follow this. He stopped tracking MMORPGs because publishers became more and more close mouthed about their numbers, and more and more MMORPGs started using F2P so the subscription numbers became meaningless. But there's enough information there to follow this.
If you download the spreadsheet information, and look at SWG, UO and SWToR, then fill in the blanks for all the months where there is no data. Do it the easy way. Just assume each month continues on as if there were no changes. So this:
1000 - blank - blank - 2000 - blank -blank - 1000
becomes
1000 - 1000 - 1000 - 2000 - 2000 - 2000 - 1000
You'll have to dig a bit to get numbers for SWToR, but they seem to have hovered around 500k for awhile. I assumed they dropped to 300k, until they jumped back up to 500k after the F2P release. I didn't add any numbers after the F2P release for SWToR (stopping at May, 2013). This will extend the difference in the amount of times used for each of the three games, giving SWToR the least amount of time since it won't count subs to the present, but it doesn't matter.
Calculate/Estimate total revenue for each of those three games. Sum up the total subs per month, then multiply it by $15.
SWToR - $213M total subs
SWG - $261.4M total subs
UO - $283.4M total subs
Now, divide each of those numbers by the number of months it took to generate those numbers.
SWToR - 18 months, $11.9M per month
SWG - 102 months, $2.6M per month ($3.3M adjusted for inflation)
UO - 118 months, $2.5M per month ($3.7M adjusted for inflation)
Even adjusting for inflation, neither UO or SWG come close to generating the kind of revenue that SWToR is generating. I would bet other theme park style games compare this well against "classics" financially. So if you ever wonder why those old sandbox games aren't making a comeback, this is why. $Money$
That's not to say that some new style of sandbox game won't exist, or that older style sandbox games won't exist, just at a smaller scale than AAA theme parks. Especially since newer styles of sandboxes are getting made, and older styles of sandbox games are getting made, just at a much smaller scale than the AAA theme parks.
I think your logic is kinda messed up on the premise that not many people at all were exposed to MMOs when UO And SWG came out or i am sure that there numbers would have much stronger across the board , just look at some of the real deuces for games that generate more than either of those 2 titles now... And only because the market has more than quadrupled in size since 97 ... If the market had the millions of gamers exposed to MMOS then as it has now , they would have pulled in great numbers ...
Again, we can do the same comparison with EQ and WoW and get the same results. Both were contemporaries of these games and both outperformed them by a wide margin.
**
SWToR is apropos because it is widely regarded as a total failure on these forums. Even adjusting for inflation, SWToR earns more than double what each of those games earned and it's very close to earning in two years what each those games earned in their entire lifetimes.
Also, before anyone takes the conversation in that direction, I don't like SWToR. WoW clone, not enough class storyline content versus world story content, odd or bad F2P choices made, small worlds that don't feel like worlds, etc. Take your pick of flaws. The cumulative effect of them was that I did not enjoy playing the game. That's not the point. The point is why the industry moved away from games like UO and SWG in the first place. $Money$
This is an absolutely BUNK argument.
The entire MMO playerbase circa 2000-2001 consisted of between 1.2-1.5million players TOTAL.
The "MMO" playerbase now is somewhere in the range of 15-25 million players. (I'm not including games like DOTA2, LoL, and other quasi MMOs, i mean traditional MMO where you log into a world with several hundred other players on the same "server").
What you're doing is like trying to compare the number of people who enjoyed drinking a very specific type of liquor, lets say Ouzo, to the number of people who enjoy drinking any type of alchohol whatsoever.
This whole topic is bunk because the genre has changed drastically from what it was, primarily to accomodate more casual gamers who would not otherwise have played "MMOs". This was done via making these games more accessible graphically, and as far as play style (quest hubs, tooltips, less time investment, easier content, more forgiving, etc).
Games like EQ, UO, and SWG required actual thought. They didnt have huge exclamation points above quest givers, things like quest hubs didnt exist. You were thrown into a world and you had to figure it out through trial and tribulation.
MMOs now are extremely hand held fairly single player experiences. Now, im not here to argue the merits of one play style vs the other, but comparing MMO's now to MMO's then is worse than apples to oranges, its more apples to potatoes.
To further take this and try to apply it towards an argument as to the merits of F2P vs Subscription is even more ridiculous.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
You'll have to remember MMOData to follow this. He stopped tracking MMORPGs because publishers became more and more close mouthed about their numbers, and more and more MMORPGs started using F2P so the subscription numbers became meaningless. But there's enough information there to follow this.
If you download the spreadsheet information, and look at SWG, UO and SWToR, then fill in the blanks for all the months where there is no data. Do it the easy way. Just assume each month continues on as if there were no changes. So this:
1000 - blank - blank - 2000 - blank -blank - 1000
becomes
1000 - 1000 - 1000 - 2000 - 2000 - 2000 - 1000
You'll have to dig a bit to get numbers for SWToR, but they seem to have hovered around 500k for awhile. I assumed they dropped to 300k, until they jumped back up to 500k after the F2P release. I didn't add any numbers after the F2P release for SWToR (stopping at May, 2013). This will extend the difference in the amount of times used for each of the three games, giving SWToR the least amount of time since it won't count subs to the present, but it doesn't matter.
Calculate/Estimate total revenue for each of those three games. Sum up the total subs per month, then multiply it by $15.
SWToR - $213M total subs
SWG - $261.4M total subs
UO - $283.4M total subs
Now, divide each of those numbers by the number of months it took to generate those numbers.
SWToR - 18 months, $11.9M per month
SWG - 102 months, $2.6M per month ($3.3M adjusted for inflation)
UO - 118 months, $2.5M per month ($3.7M adjusted for inflation)
Even adjusting for inflation, neither UO or SWG come close to generating the kind of revenue that SWToR is generating. I would bet other theme park style games compare this well against "classics" financially. So if you ever wonder why those old sandbox games aren't making a comeback, this is why. $Money$
That's not to say that some new style of sandbox game won't exist, or that older style sandbox games won't exist, just at a smaller scale than AAA theme parks. Especially since newer styles of sandboxes are getting made, and older styles of sandbox games are getting made, just at a much smaller scale than the AAA theme parks.
I think your logic is kinda messed up on the premise that not many people at all were exposed to MMOs when UO And SWG came out or i am sure that there numbers would have much stronger across the board , just look at some of the real deuces for games that generate more than either of those 2 titles now... And only because the market has more than quadrupled in size since 97 ... If the market had the millions of gamers exposed to MMOS then as it has now , they would have pulled in great numbers ...
Again, we can do the same comparison with EQ and WoW and get the same results. Both were contemporaries of these games and both outperformed them by a wide margin.
**
SWToR is apropos because it is widely regarded as a total failure on these forums. Even adjusting for inflation, SWToR earns more than double what each of those games earned and it's very close to earning in two years what each those games earned in their entire lifetimes.
Also, before anyone takes the conversation in that direction, I don't like SWToR. WoW clone, not enough class storyline content versus world story content, odd or bad F2P choices made, small worlds that don't feel like worlds, etc. Take your pick of flaws. The cumulative effect of them was that I did not enjoy playing the game. That's not the point. The point is why the industry moved away from games like UO and SWG in the first place. $Money$
Earning? You mean profit? Then you should substract development and maintaince cost.
Lets setup some numbers for maintance cost:
Per hardware server(licencing, maintance, etc.) 10$ k/monthly. One hardware server fits for around 1000 players online or 10k overall
SWG - 20 servers. around 200k subs average -> monthly costs 0.2$ Mio
SWTOR - 200 servers. around 300k subs and 1.7 free players. -> monthly costs 2$ Mio
SWTOR: 18month * (11.9$ M - 2$ M) = 178.2$ M - 300$ Mio Development Costs = - 121.8$ M + (3M Sales * 40$) = -1.8$ M Profit (Not counting advertisement and further development + not counting Star Wars licencing (and this is true for SWG, too))
SWG: 102month * (2.6$ M - 0.2$ M) = 244.8$ M - 10$ M Development Costs = 234.8$ M + (1M Sales * 30$) = 266.8$ M Profit
UO: 118 month *(2.5$ M - 0.1$M) = 283.2$ M - 5$ M Development Costs = 288.2$ M + (0.5 M sales * 20$) = 298.2$ M Profit
Adjustment for UO.. noone ever paid 15$/month for UO. 298.2$ M - (1$ M * 118 month) = 198.2$ M
And to be perfectly honest both calculations a nowhere near the truth... but you can bet that mine is a lot closer. And it is a reason, why a lot of ppl call SWTOR a failure.. it is barely in profits, it layed down almost all staff in the first year after release. But i give you that.. now after initial advertising and development costs are paid it makes a more or less healthy monthly profit... although advertisement for SWTOR is still running and you can bet it is more than 1$ Mio/month.
You'll have to remember MMOData to follow this. He stopped tracking MMORPGs because publishers became more and more close mouthed about their numbers, and more and more MMORPGs started using F2P so the subscription numbers became meaningless. But there's enough information there to follow this.
If you download the spreadsheet information, and look at SWG, UO and SWToR, then fill in the blanks for all the months where there is no data. Do it the easy way. Just assume each month continues on as if there were no changes. So this:
1000 - blank - blank - 2000 - blank -blank - 1000
becomes
1000 - 1000 - 1000 - 2000 - 2000 - 2000 - 1000
You'll have to dig a bit to get numbers for SWToR, but they seem to have hovered around 500k for awhile. I assumed they dropped to 300k, until they jumped back up to 500k after the F2P release. I didn't add any numbers after the F2P release for SWToR (stopping at May, 2013). This will extend the difference in the amount of times used for each of the three games, giving SWToR the least amount of time since it won't count subs to the present, but it doesn't matter.
Calculate/Estimate total revenue for each of those three games. Sum up the total subs per month, then multiply it by $15.
SWToR - $213M total subs
SWG - $261.4M total subs
UO - $283.4M total subs
Now, divide each of those numbers by the number of months it took to generate those numbers.
SWToR - 18 months, $11.9M per month
SWG - 102 months, $2.6M per month ($3.3M adjusted for inflation)
UO - 118 months, $2.5M per month ($3.7M adjusted for inflation)
Even adjusting for inflation, neither UO or SWG come close to generating the kind of revenue that SWToR is generating. I would bet other theme park style games compare this well against "classics" financially. So if you ever wonder why those old sandbox games aren't making a comeback, this is why. $Money$
That's not to say that some new style of sandbox game won't exist, or that older style sandbox games won't exist, just at a smaller scale than AAA theme parks. Especially since newer styles of sandboxes are getting made, and older styles of sandbox games are getting made, just at a much smaller scale than the AAA theme parks.
I think your logic is kinda messed up on the premise that not many people at all were exposed to MMOs when UO And SWG came out or i am sure that there numbers would have much stronger across the board , just look at some of the real deuces for games that generate more than either of those 2 titles now... And only because the market has more than quadrupled in size since 97 ... If the market had the millions of gamers exposed to MMOS then as it has now , they would have pulled in great numbers ...
Again, we can do the same comparison with EQ and WoW and get the same results. Both were contemporaries of these games and both outperformed them by a wide margin.
**
SWToR is apropos because it is widely regarded as a total failure on these forums. Even adjusting for inflation, SWToR earns more than double what each of those games earned and it's very close to earning in two years what each those games earned in their entire lifetimes.
Also, before anyone takes the conversation in that direction, I don't like SWToR. WoW clone, not enough class storyline content versus world story content, odd or bad F2P choices made, small worlds that don't feel like worlds, etc. Take your pick of flaws. The cumulative effect of them was that I did not enjoy playing the game. That's not the point. The point is why the industry moved away from games like UO and SWG in the first place. $Money$
Earning? You mean profit? Then you should substract development and maintaince cost.
Lets setup some numbers for maintance cost:
Per hardware server(licencing, maintance, etc.) 10$ k/monthly. One hardware server fits for around 1000 players online or 10k overall
SWG - 20 servers. around 200k subs average -> monthly costs 0.2$ Mio
SWTOR - 200 servers. around 300k subs and 1.7 free players. -> monthly costs 2$ Mio
SWTOR: 18month * (11.9$ M - 2$ M) = 178.2$ M - 300$ Mio Development Costs = - 121.8$ M + (3M Sales * 40$) = -1.8$ M Profit (Not counting advertisement and further development + not counting Star Wars licencing (and this is true for SWG, too))
SWG: 102month * (2.6$ M - 0.2$ M) = 244.8$ M - 10$ M Development Costs = 234.8$ M + (1M Sales * 30$) = 266.8$ M Profit
UO: 118 month *(2.5$ M - 0.1$M) = 283.2$ M - 5$ M Development Costs = 288.2$ M + (0.5 M sales * 20$) = 298.2$ M Profit
Adjustment for UO.. noone ever paid 15$/month for UO. 298.2$ M - (1$ M * 118 month) = 198.2$ M
And to be perfectly honest both calculations a nowhere near the truth... but you can bet that mine is a lot closer. And it is a reason, why a lot of ppl call SWTOR a failure.. it is barely in profits, it layed down almost all staff in the first year after release. But i give you that.. now after initial advertising and development costs are paid it makes a more or less healthy monthly profit... although advertisement for SWTOR is still running and you can bet it is more than 1$ Mio/month.
A high percentage profitability, while desireable, isn't the goal of most developers. For that matter, believe it or not, businesses in general aren't shooting for high percentage profitability. Aiming for a high percentage profitability limits the total revenue, which limits the total profit. They are shooting for maximum profit obtained.
It goes like this. Generally speaking for product X, at a high price very few instances of X will be sold. Percentage profit will be high, but total revenue and total profit will be low. Lowering the price will increase the instances of X sold, lowering the percentage profit, but increasing the total amount of revenue and total amount of profit obtained. A business short changes their total profits by aiming for the price point where they maximize their percentage profits.
In short, businesses will be much happier obtaining a million dollars at a 10% profit rather than five hundred thousand dollars at a 20% profit. The best possible scenario is one where businesses can sell something at a high profit margin, tap out the market, and then later lower the price and obtain more profits at a lower margin, maximizing the total profits gained. The transition from P2P to F2P itself may be poorly planned, but games going from P2P to F2P is not. That regular price you see on something before it goes on sale? That's the price at the high end of the scale.
In the case of SWToR, keep in mind that it still has another seven or eight years of running to accumulate profits. SWG is done, and UO is pretty close to "done" in terms of generating revenue. Take your pick of metrics, total revenue, total profits, SWToR is going to generate more money than either game. Adjust for inflation and it's still going to generate more money than either game.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
You'll have to remember MMOData to follow this. He stopped tracking MMORPGs because publishers became more and more close mouthed about their numbers, and more and more MMORPGs started using F2P so the subscription numbers became meaningless. But there's enough information there to follow this.
If you download the spreadsheet information, and look at SWG, UO and SWToR, then fill in the blanks for all the months where there is no data. Do it the easy way. Just assume each month continues on as if there were no changes. So this:
1000 - blank - blank - 2000 - blank -blank - 1000
becomes
1000 - 1000 - 1000 - 2000 - 2000 - 2000 - 1000
You'll have to dig a bit to get numbers for SWToR, but they seem to have hovered around 500k for awhile. I assumed they dropped to 300k, until they jumped back up to 500k after the F2P release. I didn't add any numbers after the F2P release for SWToR (stopping at May, 2013). This will extend the difference in the amount of times used for each of the three games, giving SWToR the least amount of time since it won't count subs to the present, but it doesn't matter.
Calculate/Estimate total revenue for each of those three games. Sum up the total subs per month, then multiply it by $15.
SWToR - $213M total subs
SWG - $261.4M total subs
UO - $283.4M total subs
Now, divide each of those numbers by the number of months it took to generate those numbers.
SWToR - 18 months, $11.9M per month
SWG - 102 months, $2.6M per month ($3.3M adjusted for inflation)
UO - 118 months, $2.5M per month ($3.7M adjusted for inflation)
Even adjusting for inflation, neither UO or SWG come close to generating the kind of revenue that SWToR is generating. I would bet other theme park style games compare this well against "classics" financially. So if you ever wonder why those old sandbox games aren't making a comeback, this is why. $Money$
That's not to say that some new style of sandbox game won't exist, or that older style sandbox games won't exist, just at a smaller scale than AAA theme parks. Especially since newer styles of sandboxes are getting made, and older styles of sandbox games are getting made, just at a much smaller scale than the AAA theme parks.
I think your logic is kinda messed up on the premise that not many people at all were exposed to MMOs when UO And SWG came out or i am sure that there numbers would have much stronger across the board , just look at some of the real deuces for games that generate more than either of those 2 titles now... And only because the market has more than quadrupled in size since 97 ... If the market had the millions of gamers exposed to MMOS then as it has now , they would have pulled in great numbers ...
Again, we can do the same comparison with EQ and WoW and get the same results. Both were contemporaries of these games and both outperformed them by a wide margin.
**
SWToR is apropos because it is widely regarded as a total failure on these forums. Even adjusting for inflation, SWToR earns more than double what each of those games earned and it's very close to earning in two years what each those games earned in their entire lifetimes.
Also, before anyone takes the conversation in that direction, I don't like SWToR. WoW clone, not enough class storyline content versus world story content, odd or bad F2P choices made, small worlds that don't feel like worlds, etc. Take your pick of flaws. The cumulative effect of them was that I did not enjoy playing the game. That's not the point. The point is why the industry moved away from games like UO and SWG in the first place. $Money$
This is an absolutely BUNK argument.
The entire MMO playerbase circa 2000-2001 consisted of between 1.2-1.5million players TOTAL.
The "MMO" playerbase now is somewhere in the range of 15-25 million players. (I'm not including games like DOTA2, LoL, and other quasi MMOs, i mean traditional MMO where you log into a world with several hundred other players on the same "server").
What you're doing is like trying to compare the number of people who enjoyed drinking a very specific type of liquor, lets say Ouzo, to the number of people who enjoy drinking any type of alchohol whatsoever.
This whole topic is bunk because the genre has changed drastically from what it was, primarily to accomodate more casual gamers who would not otherwise have played "MMOs". This was done via making these games more accessible graphically, and as far as play style (quest hubs, tooltips, less time investment, easier content, more forgiving, etc).
Games like EQ, UO, and SWG required actual thought. They didnt have huge exclamation points above quest givers, things like quest hubs didnt exist. You were thrown into a world and you had to figure it out through trial and tribulation.
MMOs now are extremely hand held fairly single player experiences. Now, im not here to argue the merits of one play style vs the other, but comparing MMO's now to MMO's then is worse than apples to oranges, its more apples to potatoes.
To further take this and try to apply it towards an argument as to the merits of F2P vs Subscription is even more ridiculous.
And yet before SWG was running, EQ racked up what, half a million players? WoW racked up millions of players while SWG was running? Certainly more than SWToR.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
1. When UO and many of the older games the majority of players were on dialup.
2. There were less people on the internet.
3. The playablity was far worst because WoW hadn't standardize the MMORPG UI.
4. WoW brought a lot of gamers that never played MMORPG or even tried one for many reason that have nothing to do with MMORPG. Simple fact is that Blizzard had a cult following of already online battlenet fans that got hooked on a quality first MMORPG. Its why the success hasn't been repeated. But the point is by the Time SWTOR came out there were millions more playing MMORPGs.
The games I chose just illustrated the point really well. Theme parks = $Money$. I suppose now it would be MOBA = $Money$. There's a reason EQ drew in far more players than UO, SWG or any game before it and it has to do with the play style. I'll say it again, we could have done this comparison with EQ v. UO or SWG and the results would be the same. The Final Fantasy games would have yielded the same results. SWToR is apropos for these forums because it is lauded as such a failure here.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
1. When UO and many of the older games the majority of players were on dialup.
2. There were less people on the internet.
3. The playablity was far worst because WoW hadn't standardize the MMORPG UI.
4. WoW brought a lot of gamers that never played MMORPG or even tried one for many reason that have nothing to do with MMORPG. Simple fact is that Blizzard had a cult following of already online battlenet fans that got hooked on a quality first MMORPG. Its why the success hasn't been repeated. But the point is by the Time SWTOR came out there were millions more playing MMORPGs.
The games I chose just illustrated the point really well. Theme parks = $Money$. I suppose now it would be MOBA = $Money$. There's a reason EQ drew in far more players than UO, SWG or any game before it and it has to do with the play style. I'll say it again, we could have done this comparison with EQ v. UO or SWG and the results would be the same. The Final Fantasy games would have yielded the same results. SWToR is apropos for these forums because it is lauded as such a failure here.
Wow... just wow... so internet penetration has no place in your world and everything you do is compare the games in a vacuum. GG, no point in this thread.
You'll have to remember MMOData to follow this. He stopped tracking MMORPGs because publishers became more and more close mouthed about their numbers, and more and more MMORPGs started using F2P so the subscription numbers became meaningless. But there's enough information there to follow this.
If you download the spreadsheet information, and look at SWG, UO and SWToR, then fill in the blanks for all the months where there is no data. Do it the easy way. Just assume each month continues on as if there were no changes. So this:
1000 - blank - blank - 2000 - blank -blank - 1000
becomes
1000 - 1000 - 1000 - 2000 - 2000 - 2000 - 1000
You'll have to dig a bit to get numbers for SWToR, but they seem to have hovered around 500k for awhile. I assumed they dropped to 300k, until they jumped back up to 500k after the F2P release. I didn't add any numbers after the F2P release for SWToR (stopping at May, 2013). This will extend the difference in the amount of times used for each of the three games, giving SWToR the least amount of time since it won't count subs to the present, but it doesn't matter.
Calculate/Estimate total revenue for each of those three games. Sum up the total subs per month, then multiply it by $15.
SWToR - $213M total subs
SWG - $261.4M total subs
UO - $283.4M total subs
Now, divide each of those numbers by the number of months it took to generate those numbers.
SWToR - 18 months, $11.9M per month
SWG - 102 months, $2.6M per month ($3.3M adjusted for inflation)
UO - 118 months, $2.5M per month ($3.7M adjusted for inflation)
Even adjusting for inflation, neither UO or SWG come close to generating the kind of revenue that SWToR is generating. I would bet other theme park style games compare this well against "classics" financially. So if you ever wonder why those old sandbox games aren't making a comeback, this is why. $Money$
That's not to say that some new style of sandbox game won't exist, or that older style sandbox games won't exist, just at a smaller scale than AAA theme parks. Especially since newer styles of sandboxes are getting made, and older styles of sandbox games are getting made, just at a much smaller scale than the AAA theme parks.
I think your logic is kinda messed up on the premise that not many people at all were exposed to MMOs when UO And SWG came out or i am sure that there numbers would have much stronger across the board , just look at some of the real deuces for games that generate more than either of those 2 titles now... And only because the market has more than quadrupled in size since 97 ... If the market had the millions of gamers exposed to MMOS then as it has now , they would have pulled in great numbers ...
Again, we can do the same comparison with EQ and WoW and get the same results. Both were contemporaries of these games and both outperformed them by a wide margin.
**
SWToR is apropos because it is widely regarded as a total failure on these forums. Even adjusting for inflation, SWToR earns more than double what each of those games earned and it's very close to earning in two years what each those games earned in their entire lifetimes.
Also, before anyone takes the conversation in that direction, I don't like SWToR. WoW clone, not enough class storyline content versus world story content, odd or bad F2P choices made, small worlds that don't feel like worlds, etc. Take your pick of flaws. The cumulative effect of them was that I did not enjoy playing the game. That's not the point. The point is why the industry moved away from games like UO and SWG in the first place. $Money$
Earning? You mean profit? Then you should substract development and maintaince cost.
Lets setup some numbers for maintance cost:
Per hardware server(licencing, maintance, etc.) 10$ k/monthly. One hardware server fits for around 1000 players online or 10k overall
SWG - 20 servers. around 200k subs average -> monthly costs 0.2$ Mio
SWTOR - 200 servers. around 300k subs and 1.7 free players. -> monthly costs 2$ Mio
SWTOR: 18month * (11.9$ M - 2$ M) = 178.2$ M - 300$ Mio Development Costs = - 121.8$ M + (3M Sales * 40$) = -1.8$ M Profit (Not counting advertisement and further development + not counting Star Wars licencing (and this is true for SWG, too))
SWG: 102month * (2.6$ M - 0.2$ M) = 244.8$ M - 10$ M Development Costs = 234.8$ M + (1M Sales * 30$) = 266.8$ M Profit
UO: 118 month *(2.5$ M - 0.1$M) = 283.2$ M - 5$ M Development Costs = 288.2$ M + (0.5 M sales * 20$) = 298.2$ M Profit
Adjustment for UO.. noone ever paid 15$/month for UO. 298.2$ M - (1$ M * 118 month) = 198.2$ M
And to be perfectly honest both calculations a nowhere near the truth... but you can bet that mine is a lot closer. And it is a reason, why a lot of ppl call SWTOR a failure.. it is barely in profits, it layed down almost all staff in the first year after release. But i give you that.. now after initial advertising and development costs are paid it makes a more or less healthy monthly profit... although advertisement for SWTOR is still running and you can bet it is more than 1$ Mio/month.
A high percentage profitability, while desireable, isn't the goal of most developers. For that matter, believe it or not, businesses in general aren't shooting for high percentage profitability. Aiming for a high percentage profitability limits the total revenue, which limits the total profit. They are shooting for maximum profit obtained.
It goes like this. Generally speaking for product X, at a high price very few instances of X will be sold. Percentage profit will be high, but total revenue and total profit will be low. Lowering the price will increase the instances of X sold, lowering the percentage profit, but increasing the total amount of revenue and total amount of profit obtained. A business short changes their total profits by aiming for the price point where they maximize their percentage profits.
In short, businesses will be much happier obtaining a million dollars at a 10% profit rather than five hundred thousand dollars at a 20% profit. The best possible scenario is one where businesses can sell something at a high profit margin, tap out the market, and then later lower the price and obtain more profits at a lower margin, maximizing the total profits gained. The transition from P2P to F2P itself may be poorly planned, but games going from P2P to F2P is not. That regular price you see on something before it goes on sale? That's the price at the high end of the scale.
In the case of SWToR, keep in mind that it still has another seven or eight years of running to accumulate profits. SWG is done, and UO is pretty close to "done" in terms of generating revenue. Take your pick of metrics, total revenue, total profits, SWToR is going to generate more money than either game. Adjust for inflation and it's still going to generate more money than either game.
Well WAR closed after 5 years! So we shall see...
That said the next meta-level is the ROI on SWOTOR and the time-line to that = HUGE Opportunity Cost and hence why we're unlikely to actually see AAA Themeparks ever being made in the West again: The Investors have shifted to other areas in the game industry now. Perhaps Eastern opportunities still exist idk but that is gobbled up by Eastern companies.
I refute the OP's conclusion: We're far, far more likely to see sandbox indie-budget mmorpgs coming out and turning a more absolutely small profit and growth of business but a relatively larger profit compared to costs of dev.
As UN: Dihouru (sic) mentioned:
> The Repopulation => SWG
> Albion Online & Shards Online => UO
> Pathfinder Online => EVE Online
Compared to:
> EQ-L: EQN, HNZ1 (sic?) => WOW
Looks like SOE is trying to go the Second Life Linden labs approach of UGC and business model eg selling islands for 13$ or a space-station nightclub for more.
That's not to say that some new style of sandbox game won't exist, or that older style sandbox games won't exist, just at a smaller scale than AAA theme parks. Especially since newer styles of sandboxes are getting made, and older styles of sandbox games are getting made, just at a much smaller scale than the AAA theme parks.
That's no bad thing IMO. I don't particularly want a AAA sandbox. A big budget is no guarantee of a great game. Smaller scale 'sandboxy' games like CU will do for me.
I think the only company that is able to invent the new big mmo-thing is Blizzard. You know why? Because they just don't care what others say and invent good quality games.
All others just bring out half baked stuff that can not hold their subscribers or F2P-payers very long. The key here is quality. Like in every other business area.
It is Blizzard that will bring the MMO-Market to a next level... again.
You're forgetting a key figure, MMOs were VASTLY less popular 11 years ago, when SWG came out, and ~17 years ago when UO came out. Warcraft was the first game in western culture that gained massive popularity thus bringing it much closer to social acceptance. By the time people grew tired of WOW and such, why would they go back and play an 'old' game such as SWG that hadn't t caught the popularity wave and basically had no content added to it, only core systems changed to try and grab the wow crowd.
True but what kinds of people did the mmo market attract ?
Sandbox is a very loud group of people but are they numerous enough to support a game and open minded enough to stick with one that doesn't get everything exactly how they think it should be made ? Of course they'll tell you that are...unfortunatly history would disagree.
EvE is obviously the most successful sandbox game and how many people does it actually have playing ( not subs but people ) 250k...maybe ? Those are still swg/UO numbers 10 years later. They just found a way to get people to have multiple accounts.
If you're going to make an AAA title with a 50-100 mil budget there isn't a lot of incentive to go after that tiny market of people or even to take the massive risk of " but if you do it right you might get more "...but get it wrong and no plays and f2p wont save you.
Any MMO with avatars will be at risk. That is why EVE is succesfull in it's own way, it leaves out the majority of new players in this genre.
Any MMO, MMORPG either sandbox or themepark will have the atraction of the millions of people into this genre especially if you can play a true avatar instead of being a spaceship or any other type of vehicle.
Now look at most MMO today, read about the complaints, people are severely lacking any form of patients or understanding about how complex this genre is to make.
Now imagine all these new MMO players jumping into a more sandbox game. Perhaps ArcheAge could serve as a example because I am sure the lower minority loved the game how it was deliverd, yet the majority complaints and complaints which make them change allot of things in their game.
Which looks like a hybrid between SWG and a less harsh (mechanics-wise) EVE-Online on the PVP servers.
As far as UO.... Albion Online and Gloria Victis.
So knowing those upcoming games how are your predictions holding up OP?
Since none of these games could be called "AAA", pretty well. If you read my last paragraph.
Neither SWG nor UO can be considered AAA productions either so your point is moot hence why I omitted it from consideration (EQ could nominally be called AAA and WoW most certainly).
Both games were AAA productions for their time. Especially SWG.
Keep dreaming. SWG in terms of graphics and overall bling factor was below games 4-5 years older and UO wasn't even remotely comparable in terms of bling factor to Diablo 1 or other similar isometric games of the day.
Now kindly stop trying to retroactively apply shitty labels idiots use today to segment gaming in completely arbitrary categories and which usually do not impact the quality of gameplay in any way.
Whoa what? SWG was "below games" 4-5 years older? I had to log in to comment on this. Because its completely wrong.
When SWG came out, it was indeed considered to be a AAA game - for its time. Again, repeat, for its time. I know, I was there, I remember. When SWG came out, it's graphics were actually considered to be excellent. You needed a high end rig to put it to max.
Same thing for UO. UO came out in 1997 and for the small amount of people that had the privilege to play it (Pre-trammel), it was quite revolutionary. Sorry - you don't know what you're talking about.
The market was vastly different back in 2005. WoW is an anomaly and should be treated as such. It is a product that broke through to a "mainstream" audience and is a social revolution in and of itself. Games in the current market should not and can not compare themselves to anything made before 2007,
I cant really know the reasons why, but i m really sry we cant see games like SWG or UO again in the future. I hope something will change in the genre...
You're forgetting a key figure, MMOs were VASTLY less popular 11 years ago, when SWG came out, and ~17 years ago when UO came out. Warcraft was the first game in western culture that gained massive popularity thus bringing it much closer to social acceptance. By the time people grew tired of WOW and such, why would they go back and play an 'old' game such as SWG that hadn't t caught the popularity wave and basically had no content added to it, only core systems changed to try and grab the wow crowd.
True but what kinds of people did the mmo market attract ?
Sandbox is a very loud group of people but are they numerous enough to support a game and open minded enough to stick with one that doesn't get everything exactly how they think it should be made ? Of course they'll tell you that are...unfortunatly history would disagree.
EvE is obviously the most successful sandbox game and how many people does it actually have playing ( not subs but people ) 250k...maybe ? Those are still swg/UO numbers 10 years later. They just found a way to get people to have multiple accounts.
If you're going to make an AAA title with a 50-100 mil budget there isn't a lot of incentive to go after that tiny market of people or even to take the massive risk of " but if you do it right you might get more "...but get it wrong and no plays and f2p wont save you.
I disagree, a sandbox in theory has something for everyone, the creators, the social, the economists, the political factions, the pvpers, the themepark riders(who play off the creations). This is why Minecraft and GTA are so popular.
I disagree with your disagreement. The idea of "something for everyone" is a nice dream, but obviously not often (or ever) the case. Both GTA and Minecraft carry no subscription. GTA is also wrapped in a pre-existing, billion-dollar brand, so it really can't fail regardless what they do. Minecraft, I would argue, isn't a single game. I would agree that it's a sandbox, but it's not a single-cohesive game. It's millions of other little games. It's kind of like Little Big Planet, but without the story.
Sandbox games are traditionally, and inherently, more complex than themeparks. They might have all the content that a themepark "rider" loves, but it's hidden behind tons of additional content that is too heavy for the average themeparker. Use ESO as an example. I would say ESO is a themepark with sandbox elements, but call it a themepark for arguement. After release it was, probably, less than a week before we started hearing stuff like "no auction house?", "wow, this is really slow levelling.", "holy! Crafting is so slow in this game!". This from a game that is not even 10% as complex as EVE Online. These sorts of comments only illustrate that sandbox elements aren't as mainstream as you think they are, at least not in an MMORPG. I'd love to think that a sandbox can survive today, but I just don't think that the majority of people "get" sandbox or even want a true sandbox. EQN might be the game to really illustrate whether or not it's something that can appeal to "everyone". We'll have to wait and see how it turns out.
You're forgetting a key figure, MMOs were VASTLY less popular 11 years ago, when SWG came out, and ~17 years ago when UO came out. Warcraft was the first game in western culture that gained massive popularity thus bringing it much closer to social acceptance. By the time people grew tired of WOW and such, why would they go back and play an 'old' game such as SWG that hadn't t caught the popularity wave and basically had no content added to it, only core systems changed to try and grab the wow crowd.
True but what kinds of people did the mmo market attract ?
Sandbox is a very loud group of people but are they numerous enough to support a game and open minded enough to stick with one that doesn't get everything exactly how they think it should be made ? Of course they'll tell you that are...unfortunatly history would disagree.
EvE is obviously the most successful sandbox game and how many people does it actually have playing ( not subs but people ) 250k...maybe ? Those are still swg/UO numbers 10 years later. They just found a way to get people to have multiple accounts.
If you're going to make an AAA title with a 50-100 mil budget there isn't a lot of incentive to go after that tiny market of people or even to take the massive risk of " but if you do it right you might get more "...but get it wrong and no plays and f2p wont save you.
I disagree, a sandbox in theory has something for everyone, the creators, the social, the economists, the political factions, the pvpers, the themepark riders(who play off the creations). This is why Minecraft and GTA are so popular.
I disagree with your disagreement. The idea of "something for everyone" is a nice dream, but obviously not often (or ever) the case. Both GTA and Minecraft carry no subscription. GTA is also wrapped in a pre-existing, billion-dollar brand, so it really can't fail regardless what they do. Minecraft, I would argue, isn't a single game. I would agree that it's a sandbox, but it's not a single-cohesive game. It's millions of other little games. It's kind of like Little Big Planet, but without the story.
Sandbox games are traditionally, and inherently, more complex than themeparks. They might have all the content that a themepark "rider" loves, but it's hidden behind tons of additional content that is too heavy for the average themeparker. Use ESO as an example. I would say ESO is a themepark with sandbox elements, but call it a themepark for arguement. After release it was, probably, less than a week before we started hearing stuff like "no auction house?", "wow, this is really slow levelling.", "holy! Crafting is so slow in this game!". This from a game that is not even 10% as complex as EVE Online. These sorts of comments only illustrate that sandbox elements aren't as mainstream as you think they are, at least not in an MMORPG. I'd love to think that a sandbox can survive today, but I just don't think that the majority of people "get" sandbox or even want a true sandbox. EQN might be the game to really illustrate whether or not it's something that can appeal to "everyone". We'll have to wait and see how it turns out.
Thats not necessarily true. I kind of subscribed to that idea for awhile. But...
The same thing could have been said of the entire MMORPG genre. Back in the day, people said that it was too "nerdy" or it was too "deep" or "it was only for no lifers" for people to understand. Back in 2003, most people couldnt fathom the idea of guilds, the idea of staying online for large amounts of time, getting absorbed into these online communities.
People were saying this until a game broke the mold - WoW. WoW had mass appeal. WoW came out with the right elements, the right design, the right community at the right time. It was inviting and non threatening enough to bring other players in. And the market was ready.
The same thing could be said of sandboxes. Perhaps the market has not been ready for a sandbox that has mass appeal. I think these "sandbox" elements can be quite enjoyable, if presented correctly. Once again, we just need a developer to come out with a game that presents this correctly and easily for the masses.
Sandboxes can be intimidating to the casual player. They have a high barrier of entry. They require an initial investment of time into something that you dont know will return. But MMOS in general back in the day also had high barriers of entry. 20 years from now, we might be saying how stupid it was to think that sandboxes would be a niche genre forever.
In fact, I daresay Sandboxes are the future. The pull and allure of virtual worlds is very strong - after all, I played them. They just need to be presented in an easy way for people to digest and to get used to. If people are looking for the next big thing, the "Sandpark" model might be it - especially if developers find a way to merge mobile platforms with traditional PC gaming.
Sandboxes allow truly unlimited potential because it feeds on player generated content. This is why games that have built in editors, like Counterstrike, Morrowind, or Warcraft 3, are still going strong today. These games do not rely on developer generated content, but player created content instead. Its a self sufficient system. This allows developers to focus on improving the overall game, and working on REAL quests, long, epic quests.
This might seem stupid right now. But let's be honest with ourselves here. The market has gone stale. People are starting to get sick of Themeparks. Gamers are more savvy than ever now, they understand "on rails" gameplay and its boring. Its boring. I repeat, it's boring.
In a couple years, we might see another breakthrough. I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard's Titan is a sandpark.
A high percentage profitability, while desireable, isn't the goal of most developers. For that matter, believe it or not, businesses in general aren't shooting for high percentage profitability. Aiming for a high percentage profitability limits the total revenue, which limits the total profit. They are shooting for maximum profit obtained.
It goes like this. Generally speaking for product X, at a high price very few instances of X will be sold. Percentage profit will be high, but total revenue and total profit will be low. Lowering the price will increase the instances of X sold, lowering the percentage profit, but increasing the total amount of revenue and total amount of profit obtained. A business short changes their total profits by aiming for the price point where they maximize their percentage profits.
In short, businesses will be much happier obtaining a million dollars at a 10% profit rather than five hundred thousand dollars at a 20% profit. The best possible scenario is one where businesses can sell something at a high profit margin, tap out the market, and then later lower the price and obtain more profits at a lower margin, maximizing the total profits gained. The transition from P2P to F2P itself may be poorly planned, but games going from P2P to F2P is not. That regular price you see on something before it goes on sale? That's the price at the high end of the scale.
In the case of SWToR, keep in mind that it still has another seven or eight years of running to accumulate profits. SWG is done, and UO is pretty close to "done" in terms of generating revenue. Take your pick of metrics, total revenue, total profits, SWToR is going to generate more money than either game. Adjust for inflation and it's still going to generate more money than either game.
Well.. i don't really talked about ROI, but you do have a point that total profit is the relevant factor. But there is another important factor, and that is the chance to fail and/or actually lose money.
In a big investment like SWTOR the chance is very high that you don't make any profit at all and actually lose money. EA can do it, because they have enough other products to compansate any lost and write it off. Smaller companies like Funcom, SOE, CCP or Trion have to cancel further projects and close down completely eventually. (as we see now with CCP's WoD and the losses from DUST)
And even EA will most probably not invest in another AAA MMO in the near future, because of repeated failed efforts (WAR and SWTOR only the recent examples). And you can bet that the slight profitability of SWTOR is for EA internally a failure.
And another bet, like WAR, SWTOR will not run for further 7 years.. most probably not even 3 more years.
But the main point is.. everything said until now does not prove anything. Because almost every single game failed, or was not that much of a success in comparsion to others because of its failures, and not so much which design pattern they followed.. even more the contrary.. SWG in its bugged state would be closed even earlier as a themepark. And that a 2D game(UO) could not compete with any 3D game(EQ and any other following) is a no brainer.
But truth is.. the biggest surprise hits with a very healthy profit in the recent years are Minecraft and DayZ, and both are sandboxes(in different ways of course) and resemble a lot what SWG and UO was about. And looking at SOEs new upcoming games just proves the point..
With other words.. you can say and you can collect data as much as you want... there will be future upcoming Sandbox titles.. and most probably a "more" AAA sandbox title, too. And those title will prove, if a sandbox MMO can be successful or not.
And some themeparks have to prove, if any can come even close to WoW. (ESO, Wildstar and maybe another one in the future... is there any AAA themepark in development currently?)
And any major AAA MMO have prove, if P2P only can be sustainable in the future, or if we see only Freemium titles(F2P, Cashshop, Premium subscription membership) titles in the future.
Which looks like a hybrid between SWG and a less harsh (mechanics-wise) EVE-Online on the PVP servers.
As far as UO.... Albion Online and Gloria Victis.
So knowing those upcoming games how are your predictions holding up OP?
Since none of these games could be called "AAA", pretty well. If you read my last paragraph.
Neither SWG nor UO can be considered AAA productions either so your point is moot hence why I omitted it from consideration (EQ could nominally be called AAA and WoW most certainly).
Both games were AAA productions for their time. Especially SWG.
Keep dreaming. SWG in terms of graphics and overall bling factor was below games 4-5 years older and UO wasn't even remotely comparable in terms of bling factor to Diablo 1 or other similar isometric games of the day.
Now kindly stop trying to retroactively apply shitty labels idiots use today to segment gaming in completely arbitrary categories and which usually do not impact the quality of gameplay in any way.
Whoa what? SWG was "below games" 4-5 years older? I had to log in to comment on this. Because its completely wrong.
When SWG came out, it was indeed considered to be a AAA game - for its time. Again, repeat, for its time. I know, I was there, I remember. When SWG came out, it's graphics were actually considered to be excellent. You needed a high end rig to put it to max.
Same thing for UO. UO came out in 1997 and for the small amount of people that had the privilege to play it (Pre-trammel), it was quite revolutionary. Sorry - you don't know what you're talking about.
The market was vastly different back in 2005. WoW is an anomaly and should be treated as such. It is a product that broke through to a "mainstream" audience and is a social revolution in and of itself. Games in the current market should not and can not compare themselves to anything made before 2007,
Nope, simply because you misread what I meant: Below as in graphics and production quality (what ostensibly makes a AAA AAA) and WoW didn't launch in 2005 so you need to get your facts straight.
Money =/= better mechanics
Money = (usually) = more overhead, less innovation, less risk. All the lauded MMOs of old didn't class as AAA and no amount of bending facts over and savaging them will change that/
I disagree, a sandbox in theory has something for everyone, the creators, the social, the economists, the political factions, the pvpers, the themepark riders(who play off the creations). This is why Minecraft and GTA are so popular.
So everyone who plays minecraft play with groups of people? Same with GTA?
And there are people who don't want to deal with "the pvp'ers" which some people claim is a "must" for a sandbox game.
As another poster put it "if one builds a house and it's destroyed the next day will players really be keen on this?"
Some will, and some won't.
How many times must one's creations be destroyed in a week's time before it becomes tiresome to some?
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Originally posted by Lookwhostalking I cant really know the reasons why, but i m really sry we cant see games like SWG or UO again in the future. I hope something will change in the genre...
Well, we're definitely going to see something new. EQ:N and H1Z1 show us that the idea of "sandbox" isn't dead. Not even close. Maybe take away from this that developers are going to move into the area of actual choice for players, instead of locking them into a single rule set, hardcore or nothing type games.
Sandboxes will have multiple servers, and multiple rule sets. Target audiences aren't going to be in the millions, but in the hundred thousands. Games may not even lock themselves into being defined as an "MMORPG", even if the experience provided is going to feel like an MMORPG.
The downside, maybe, is that games are not going to be built for the "true" MMORPG players, unless they are being built by smaller, indie and possibly crowd funded developers. We'll see games being built at the scale of Perpetuum, Darkfall and Mortal Online, but maybe with more skill than Mortal Online.
What we're not going to see is UO, but with a new graphics engine. The Repopulation might be more of a spiritual successor to SWG than H1Z1, but again the scale and expectations for the game is much smaller.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I disagree, a sandbox in theory has something for everyone, the creators, the social, the economists, the political factions, the pvpers, the themepark riders(who play off the creations). This is why Minecraft and GTA are so popular.
So everyone who plays minecraft play with groups of people? Same with GTA?
And there are people who don't want to deal with "the pvp'ers" which some people claim is a "must" for a sandbox game.
As another poster put it "if one builds a house and it's destroyed the next day will players really be keen on this?"
Some will, and some won't.
How many times must one's creations be destroyed in a week's time before it becomes tiresome to some?
Very few people are playing Minecraft on public servers. Most people are playing the game either in single player, or as private servers with a select group of friends. That doesn't mean large scale, with many players sandboxes aren't viable, just that the mechanics haven't been worked out to make it a widely acceptable idea. They need to work out minimizing the impact that players have on each other, while at the same time allowing for the freedom that sandbox style games seem to offer.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I disagree, a sandbox in theory has something for everyone, the creators, the social, the economists, the political factions, the pvpers, the themepark riders(who play off the creations). This is why Minecraft and GTA are so popular.
So everyone who plays minecraft play with groups of people? Same with GTA?
And there are people who don't want to deal with "the pvp'ers" which some people claim is a "must" for a sandbox game.
As another poster put it "if one builds a house and it's destroyed the next day will players really be keen on this?"
Some will, and some won't.
How many times must one's creations be destroyed in a week's time before it becomes tiresome to some?
Very few people are playing Minecraft on public servers. Most people are playing the game either in single player, or as private servers with a select group of friends. That doesn't mean large scale, with many players sandboxes aren't viable, just that the mechanics haven't been worked out to make it a widely acceptable idea. They need to work out minimizing the impact that players have on each other, while at the same time allowing for the freedom that sandbox style games seem to offer.
And that's exactly what I think the stumbling block is for "Sandbox mmo's".
I have no problem with open ffa pvp but I do know that if i'm constantly rebuilding structures I'm going to eventually stop building them. It will get too tedious.
Or just not have a pvp sandbox game which would be hard for some to swallow given that there are people who believe a sandbox game "must" have pvp.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Which looks like a hybrid between SWG and a less harsh (mechanics-wise) EVE-Online on the PVP servers.
As far as UO.... Albion Online and Gloria Victis.
So knowing those upcoming games how are your predictions holding up OP?
Since none of these games could be called "AAA", pretty well. If you read my last paragraph.
Neither SWG nor UO can be considered AAA productions either so your point is moot hence why I omitted it from consideration (EQ could nominally be called AAA and WoW most certainly).
Both games were AAA productions for their time. Especially SWG.
Keep dreaming. SWG in terms of graphics and overall bling factor was below games 4-5 years older and UO wasn't even remotely comparable in terms of bling factor to Diablo 1 or other similar isometric games of the day.
Now kindly stop trying to retroactively apply shitty labels idiots use today to segment gaming in completely arbitrary categories and which usually do not impact the quality of gameplay in any way.
Whoa what? SWG was "below games" 4-5 years older? I had to log in to comment on this. Because its completely wrong.
When SWG came out, it was indeed considered to be a AAA game - for its time. Again, repeat, for its time. I know, I was there, I remember. When SWG came out, it's graphics were actually considered to be excellent. You needed a high end rig to put it to max.
Same thing for UO. UO came out in 1997 and for the small amount of people that had the privilege to play it (Pre-trammel), it was quite revolutionary. Sorry - you don't know what you're talking about.
The market was vastly different back in 2005. WoW is an anomaly and should be treated as such. It is a product that broke through to a "mainstream" audience and is a social revolution in and of itself. Games in the current market should not and can not compare themselves to anything made before 2007,
Nope, simply because you misread what I meant: Below as in graphics and production quality (what ostensibly makes a AAA AAA) and WoW didn't launch in 2005 so you need to get your facts straight.
Money =/= better mechanics
Money = (usually) = more overhead, less innovation, less risk. All the lauded MMOs of old didn't class as AAA and no amount of bending facts over and savaging them will change that/
Within the gaming industry, "AAA" can be used before and after a game's release to describe a game. Used before a game's release, it is a prediction of the game's quality and impact. Before SWG was released, it was expected to be the largest MMORPG ever built, with the most player subscriptions that had ever existed. Of course, after it released, things didn't work out so great relative to expectations.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Comments
I like how OP is somehow grouping EQ in with WoW and the stuff that has been released the last ten years. You may as well group EQ with UO and SWG bud. There was freedom and consequence in all of those games....unlike games today other than Darkfall and EvE.
We will see games with more freedom made...EQN. Made by larger studios. An open world MMO with risk vs reward and consequences can be successful. Once people continue to tire of the same old no freedom no virtual world linear quest grinding.
In OP's defense, I will say this site has seen a definite shift in the last couple years from hardcore sandbox to very friendly to no freedom themeparks. I think a lot of the old school MMO community has given up after 10+ years of waiting with only two legit open world games made (Darkfall and EvE).
Sidenote to another discussion in this thread: I remember mobs not even dropping loot in SWG. I may be mistaken, but that immediately made me dislike that game as release.
Darkfall? Don't make me laugh. Saga of Ryzom eats Darkfalls lunch.
Anyway ArcheAge will be out in the fall and i has alot of UO elements
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
This is an absolutely BUNK argument.
The entire MMO playerbase circa 2000-2001 consisted of between 1.2-1.5million players TOTAL.
The "MMO" playerbase now is somewhere in the range of 15-25 million players. (I'm not including games like DOTA2, LoL, and other quasi MMOs, i mean traditional MMO where you log into a world with several hundred other players on the same "server").
What you're doing is like trying to compare the number of people who enjoyed drinking a very specific type of liquor, lets say Ouzo, to the number of people who enjoy drinking any type of alchohol whatsoever.
This whole topic is bunk because the genre has changed drastically from what it was, primarily to accomodate more casual gamers who would not otherwise have played "MMOs". This was done via making these games more accessible graphically, and as far as play style (quest hubs, tooltips, less time investment, easier content, more forgiving, etc).
Games like EQ, UO, and SWG required actual thought. They didnt have huge exclamation points above quest givers, things like quest hubs didnt exist. You were thrown into a world and you had to figure it out through trial and tribulation.
MMOs now are extremely hand held fairly single player experiences. Now, im not here to argue the merits of one play style vs the other, but comparing MMO's now to MMO's then is worse than apples to oranges, its more apples to potatoes.
To further take this and try to apply it towards an argument as to the merits of F2P vs Subscription is even more ridiculous.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
I hope this can help you with the calculations guys
Earning? You mean profit? Then you should substract development and maintaince cost.
Lets setup some numbers for maintance cost:
Per hardware server(licencing, maintance, etc.) 10$ k/monthly. One hardware server fits for around 1000 players online or 10k overall
UO - 10 servers. around 100k subs -> monthly costs 0.1$ Mio
SWG - 20 servers. around 200k subs average -> monthly costs 0.2$ Mio
SWTOR - 200 servers. around 300k subs and 1.7 free players. -> monthly costs 2$ Mio
SWTOR: 18month * (11.9$ M - 2$ M) = 178.2$ M - 300$ Mio Development Costs = - 121.8$ M + (3M Sales * 40$) = -1.8$ M Profit (Not counting advertisement and further development + not counting Star Wars licencing (and this is true for SWG, too))
SWG: 102month * (2.6$ M - 0.2$ M) = 244.8$ M - 10$ M Development Costs = 234.8$ M + (1M Sales * 30$) = 266.8$ M Profit
UO: 118 month *(2.5$ M - 0.1$M) = 283.2$ M - 5$ M Development Costs = 288.2$ M + (0.5 M sales * 20$) = 298.2$ M Profit
Adjustment for UO.. noone ever paid 15$/month for UO. 298.2$ M - (1$ M * 118 month) = 198.2$ M
And to be perfectly honest both calculations a nowhere near the truth... but you can bet that mine is a lot closer. And it is a reason, why a lot of ppl call SWTOR a failure.. it is barely in profits, it layed down almost all staff in the first year after release. But i give you that.. now after initial advertising and development costs are paid it makes a more or less healthy monthly profit... although advertisement for SWTOR is still running and you can bet it is more than 1$ Mio/month.
A high percentage profitability, while desireable, isn't the goal of most developers. For that matter, believe it or not, businesses in general aren't shooting for high percentage profitability. Aiming for a high percentage profitability limits the total revenue, which limits the total profit. They are shooting for maximum profit obtained.
It goes like this. Generally speaking for product X, at a high price very few instances of X will be sold. Percentage profit will be high, but total revenue and total profit will be low. Lowering the price will increase the instances of X sold, lowering the percentage profit, but increasing the total amount of revenue and total amount of profit obtained. A business short changes their total profits by aiming for the price point where they maximize their percentage profits.
In short, businesses will be much happier obtaining a million dollars at a 10% profit rather than five hundred thousand dollars at a 20% profit. The best possible scenario is one where businesses can sell something at a high profit margin, tap out the market, and then later lower the price and obtain more profits at a lower margin, maximizing the total profits gained. The transition from P2P to F2P itself may be poorly planned, but games going from P2P to F2P is not. That regular price you see on something before it goes on sale? That's the price at the high end of the scale.
In the case of SWToR, keep in mind that it still has another seven or eight years of running to accumulate profits. SWG is done, and UO is pretty close to "done" in terms of generating revenue. Take your pick of metrics, total revenue, total profits, SWToR is going to generate more money than either game. Adjust for inflation and it's still going to generate more money than either game.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
And yet before SWG was running, EQ racked up what, half a million players? WoW racked up millions of players while SWG was running? Certainly more than SWToR.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The games I chose just illustrated the point really well. Theme parks = $Money$. I suppose now it would be MOBA = $Money$.
There's a reason EQ drew in far more players than UO, SWG or any game before it and it has to do with the play style. I'll say it again, we could have done this comparison with EQ v. UO or SWG and the results would be the same. The Final Fantasy games would have yielded the same results. SWToR is apropos for these forums because it is lauded as such a failure here.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Wow... just wow... so internet penetration has no place in your world and everything you do is compare the games in a vacuum. GG, no point in this thread.
Well WAR closed after 5 years! So we shall see...
That said the next meta-level is the ROI on SWOTOR and the time-line to that = HUGE Opportunity Cost and hence why we're unlikely to actually see AAA Themeparks ever being made in the West again: The Investors have shifted to other areas in the game industry now. Perhaps Eastern opportunities still exist idk but that is gobbled up by Eastern companies.
I refute the OP's conclusion: We're far, far more likely to see sandbox indie-budget mmorpgs coming out and turning a more absolutely small profit and growth of business but a relatively larger profit compared to costs of dev.
As UN: Dihouru (sic) mentioned:
> The Repopulation => SWG
> Albion Online & Shards Online => UO
> Pathfinder Online => EVE Online
Compared to:
> EQ-L: EQN, HNZ1 (sic?) => WOW
Looks like SOE is trying to go the Second Life Linden labs approach of UGC and business model eg selling islands for 13$ or a space-station nightclub for more.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
That's no bad thing IMO. I don't particularly want a AAA sandbox. A big budget is no guarantee of a great game. Smaller scale 'sandboxy' games like CU will do for me.
I think the only company that is able to invent the new big mmo-thing is Blizzard. You know why? Because they just don't care what others say and invent good quality games.
All others just bring out half baked stuff that can not hold their subscribers or F2P-payers very long. The key here is quality. Like in every other business area.
It is Blizzard that will bring the MMO-Market to a next level... again.
Any MMO with avatars will be at risk. That is why EVE is succesfull in it's own way, it leaves out the majority of new players in this genre.
Any MMO, MMORPG either sandbox or themepark will have the atraction of the millions of people into this genre especially if you can play a true avatar instead of being a spaceship or any other type of vehicle.
Now look at most MMO today, read about the complaints, people are severely lacking any form of patients or understanding about how complex this genre is to make.
Now imagine all these new MMO players jumping into a more sandbox game. Perhaps ArcheAge could serve as a example because I am sure the lower minority loved the game how it was deliverd, yet the majority complaints and complaints which make them change allot of things in their game.
Whoa what? SWG was "below games" 4-5 years older? I had to log in to comment on this. Because its completely wrong.
When SWG came out, it was indeed considered to be a AAA game - for its time. Again, repeat, for its time. I know, I was there, I remember. When SWG came out, it's graphics were actually considered to be excellent. You needed a high end rig to put it to max.
Same thing for UO. UO came out in 1997 and for the small amount of people that had the privilege to play it (Pre-trammel), it was quite revolutionary. Sorry - you don't know what you're talking about.
The market was vastly different back in 2005. WoW is an anomaly and should be treated as such. It is a product that broke through to a "mainstream" audience and is a social revolution in and of itself. Games in the current market should not and can not compare themselves to anything made before 2007,
I disagree with your disagreement. The idea of "something for everyone" is a nice dream, but obviously not often (or ever) the case. Both GTA and Minecraft carry no subscription. GTA is also wrapped in a pre-existing, billion-dollar brand, so it really can't fail regardless what they do. Minecraft, I would argue, isn't a single game. I would agree that it's a sandbox, but it's not a single-cohesive game. It's millions of other little games. It's kind of like Little Big Planet, but without the story.
Sandbox games are traditionally, and inherently, more complex than themeparks. They might have all the content that a themepark "rider" loves, but it's hidden behind tons of additional content that is too heavy for the average themeparker. Use ESO as an example. I would say ESO is a themepark with sandbox elements, but call it a themepark for arguement. After release it was, probably, less than a week before we started hearing stuff like "no auction house?", "wow, this is really slow levelling.", "holy! Crafting is so slow in this game!". This from a game that is not even 10% as complex as EVE Online. These sorts of comments only illustrate that sandbox elements aren't as mainstream as you think they are, at least not in an MMORPG. I'd love to think that a sandbox can survive today, but I just don't think that the majority of people "get" sandbox or even want a true sandbox. EQN might be the game to really illustrate whether or not it's something that can appeal to "everyone". We'll have to wait and see how it turns out.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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Thats not necessarily true. I kind of subscribed to that idea for awhile. But...
The same thing could have been said of the entire MMORPG genre. Back in the day, people said that it was too "nerdy" or it was too "deep" or "it was only for no lifers" for people to understand. Back in 2003, most people couldnt fathom the idea of guilds, the idea of staying online for large amounts of time, getting absorbed into these online communities.
People were saying this until a game broke the mold - WoW. WoW had mass appeal. WoW came out with the right elements, the right design, the right community at the right time. It was inviting and non threatening enough to bring other players in. And the market was ready.
The same thing could be said of sandboxes. Perhaps the market has not been ready for a sandbox that has mass appeal. I think these "sandbox" elements can be quite enjoyable, if presented correctly. Once again, we just need a developer to come out with a game that presents this correctly and easily for the masses.
Sandboxes can be intimidating to the casual player. They have a high barrier of entry. They require an initial investment of time into something that you dont know will return. But MMOS in general back in the day also had high barriers of entry. 20 years from now, we might be saying how stupid it was to think that sandboxes would be a niche genre forever.
In fact, I daresay Sandboxes are the future. The pull and allure of virtual worlds is very strong - after all, I played them. They just need to be presented in an easy way for people to digest and to get used to. If people are looking for the next big thing, the "Sandpark" model might be it - especially if developers find a way to merge mobile platforms with traditional PC gaming.
Sandboxes allow truly unlimited potential because it feeds on player generated content. This is why games that have built in editors, like Counterstrike, Morrowind, or Warcraft 3, are still going strong today. These games do not rely on developer generated content, but player created content instead. Its a self sufficient system. This allows developers to focus on improving the overall game, and working on REAL quests, long, epic quests.
This might seem stupid right now. But let's be honest with ourselves here. The market has gone stale. People are starting to get sick of Themeparks. Gamers are more savvy than ever now, they understand "on rails" gameplay and its boring. Its boring. I repeat, it's boring.
In a couple years, we might see another breakthrough. I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard's Titan is a sandpark.
In fact...I'm kind of expecting it.
Well.. i don't really talked about ROI, but you do have a point that total profit is the relevant factor. But there is another important factor, and that is the chance to fail and/or actually lose money.
In a big investment like SWTOR the chance is very high that you don't make any profit at all and actually lose money. EA can do it, because they have enough other products to compansate any lost and write it off. Smaller companies like Funcom, SOE, CCP or Trion have to cancel further projects and close down completely eventually. (as we see now with CCP's WoD and the losses from DUST)
And even EA will most probably not invest in another AAA MMO in the near future, because of repeated failed efforts (WAR and SWTOR only the recent examples). And you can bet that the slight profitability of SWTOR is for EA internally a failure.
And another bet, like WAR, SWTOR will not run for further 7 years.. most probably not even 3 more years.
But the main point is.. everything said until now does not prove anything. Because almost every single game failed, or was not that much of a success in comparsion to others because of its failures, and not so much which design pattern they followed.. even more the contrary.. SWG in its bugged state would be closed even earlier as a themepark. And that a 2D game(UO) could not compete with any 3D game(EQ and any other following) is a no brainer.
But truth is.. the biggest surprise hits with a very healthy profit in the recent years are Minecraft and DayZ, and both are sandboxes(in different ways of course) and resemble a lot what SWG and UO was about. And looking at SOEs new upcoming games just proves the point..
With other words.. you can say and you can collect data as much as you want... there will be future upcoming Sandbox titles.. and most probably a "more" AAA sandbox title, too. And those title will prove, if a sandbox MMO can be successful or not.
And some themeparks have to prove, if any can come even close to WoW. (ESO, Wildstar and maybe another one in the future... is there any AAA themepark in development currently?)
And any major AAA MMO have prove, if P2P only can be sustainable in the future, or if we see only Freemium titles(F2P, Cashshop, Premium subscription membership) titles in the future.
Nope, simply because you misread what I meant: Below as in graphics and production quality (what ostensibly makes a AAA AAA) and WoW didn't launch in 2005 so you need to get your facts straight.
Money =/= better mechanics
Money = (usually) = more overhead, less innovation, less risk. All the lauded MMOs of old didn't class as AAA and no amount of bending facts over and savaging them will change that/
So everyone who plays minecraft play with groups of people? Same with GTA?
And there are people who don't want to deal with "the pvp'ers" which some people claim is a "must" for a sandbox game.
As another poster put it "if one builds a house and it's destroyed the next day will players really be keen on this?"
Some will, and some won't.
How many times must one's creations be destroyed in a week's time before it becomes tiresome to some?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Well, we're definitely going to see something new. EQ:N and H1Z1 show us that the idea of "sandbox" isn't dead. Not even close. Maybe take away from this that developers are going to move into the area of actual choice for players, instead of locking them into a single rule set, hardcore or nothing type games.
Sandboxes will have multiple servers, and multiple rule sets. Target audiences aren't going to be in the millions, but in the hundred thousands. Games may not even lock themselves into being defined as an "MMORPG", even if the experience provided is going to feel like an MMORPG.
The downside, maybe, is that games are not going to be built for the "true" MMORPG players, unless they are being built by smaller, indie and possibly crowd funded developers. We'll see games being built at the scale of Perpetuum, Darkfall and Mortal Online, but maybe with more skill than Mortal Online.
What we're not going to see is UO, but with a new graphics engine. The Repopulation might be more of a spiritual successor to SWG than H1Z1, but again the scale and expectations for the game is much smaller.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Very few people are playing Minecraft on public servers. Most people are playing the game either in single player, or as private servers with a select group of friends. That doesn't mean large scale, with many players sandboxes aren't viable, just that the mechanics haven't been worked out to make it a widely acceptable idea. They need to work out minimizing the impact that players have on each other, while at the same time allowing for the freedom that sandbox style games seem to offer.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
And that's exactly what I think the stumbling block is for "Sandbox mmo's".
I have no problem with open ffa pvp but I do know that if i'm constantly rebuilding structures I'm going to eventually stop building them. It will get too tedious.
Or just not have a pvp sandbox game which would be hard for some to swallow given that there are people who believe a sandbox game "must" have pvp.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Within the gaming industry, "AAA" can be used before and after a game's release to describe a game. Used before a game's release, it is a prediction of the game's quality and impact. Before SWG was released, it was expected to be the largest MMORPG ever built, with the most player subscriptions that had ever existed. Of course, after it released, things didn't work out so great relative to expectations.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.