The reason Wildstar has been a failure and will not last much longer...
*snip*
Otherwise, there is no hope.
*sigh* Why do people seem to think their opinions will be more convincing when they use sensationalist language like this is their posts? (unsupported by any actual evidence).
My only complaint about the business model is there is no easy way to clear out your credit card info. I contacted support only to find out you have to log-in to the main NCsoft website and put in fake credit card info - no way to just delete it. That makes me nervous.
I didn't leave Wildstar because of the way they try to make their money. I left because the PVP was/is lame. I'm not a dungeon grinder so obviously I was never the target market to begin with.
Wildstar isnt game, its a like playable bad cartoon for little kids. How any game company can release garbage like this and have so many willing and able to buy in is beyond me. Adults even! Not surprised to see all the negative commentary spewing from this trash heap of a cartoon. Even if they switch their business model it wont help, not unless you teach more 6-12 year olds how to play online mmo's.
Originally posted by mark2123The reason Wildstar has been a failure and will not last for much longer is an obvious lack of understanding of how business works.
The reports of the death of Wildstar are greatly exaggerated.
I will agree that the performance of Wildstar is not living up to the high hopes of their team... but it is a bit early to be declaring it dead. The team is adjusting to the reality of a P2P game in todays market, but is still moving forward. You can see this with their change from monthly updates. As is often the case, the best laid plans often go astray. I can say something very similar about TES.
Both Wildstar and TES have launched in a similar window, with P2P business models. They have both found that the reality of publishing a game in todays market is not what they had thought it to be. P2P is really tough in this market, and not a solid long term strategy unless you have something unique to offer.
Wildstar has a lot of unique character, but doesnt have a lot of unique gameplay elements. It has enought to stand out, but apparently not enough to be able to charge a premium. This doesnt mean that the game is doomed, or that the team will not continue with the plan that they developed before launch... only that they will have to adjust.
When both Widlstar and TES launched as P2P, there was a lot of public discussion (even by non gaming sites) about if this was feasible in todays market. It was generally pandered by the press as a mistake... and the data is backing those statements. Does this mean that these games are going F2P tomorrow? No, just that they are going to have to adapt if they want to suceed, either with changes to the business model, or to the content provided.
It's amazing how many people on these forums have access to the kinds of inside information needed to really determine how well or poorly a game is performing from a business sense.
Oh, wait, you don't have a clue, are just pulling crap out of your arse, flinging it against the wall, and yelling fail at the top of your lungs?
Nevermind, then...
"Fail", easily the most pointlessly overused word in gaming.
Originally posted by Soaapy business model is like.. subscription or f2p lol
Business model is erroneously used by many on this forum to decide that, but if you look up the term on wikipedia or something, you'll see it's actually more about how you design and build your offering to appeal to your target market i.e. how you capture value to appeal to them.
How you get your revenues in is such a small part of a business model, so it's best you don't lol if you don't know business.
Ummmmmmmm, you're right and you're wrong. You're right, it is used incorrectly on these forums and, you're part of the problem.
Subscription and F2P ARE actually business models. However, these are frameworks and there is additional strategy that goes behind this. However, the BUSINESS MODEL selected by Wildstar was a Subscription model. This doesn't mean that the execution of a Subscription model will be the same for every other game or entity subscribing to the model (no pun intended), but the MODEL itself is a subscription model. Please don't insult yourself by quoting a Wikipedia article and then telling someone else not to insult themselves because they know nothing about business. If you actually think that people sat down in a boardroom when conceptualizing this game and said "What business model should we go with?" And go responses like, "Hmmm, I don't know, there are so many things to consider!" Nope, doesn't happen like that. Again, it has a lot, or everything, to do with context. Since it's only really a framework, there are additional details about the implementation of the model, but your basically saying that the model failed Wildstar when it's actually the strategic choices they made about how they were going to implement that model. The biggest of which was targeting a market so minute that they're attempting to capture 5% of 1% of an industry that isn't that large to begin with.
It's amazing how many people on these forums have access to the kinds of inside information needed to really determine how well or poorly a game is performing from a business sense.
Oh, wait, you don't have a clue, are just pulling crap out of your arse, flinging it against the wall, and yelling fail at the top of your lungs?
Nevermind, then...
"Fail", easily the most pointlessly overused word in gaming.
I agree with you on this , However, in this case the word holds true.. a very big majority of sub based games fail that is just a fact. Its very clear why they follow a sub base model, because they know its going to fail, but they know that theyve already duped you out of your money so they dont care, I feel bad for the poor folks they duped into yearly subs..
Originally posted by mark2123The reason Wildstar has been a failure and will not last for much longer is an obvious lack of understanding of how business works.
The reports of the death of Wildstar are greatly exaggerated.
They're really not. Wildstar continues to drop like a brick on Raptr, whereas ESO has actually moved UP four spots over the last week. Both are being played less than... Cookie Clicker.
Then you look at XFire and see that it's the 58th ranked game...
Then you look at Reddit ( http://redditmetrics.com/r/WildStar ) and realize that the subreddit has lost over 5000 subs over the last two months. It hasn't had a single day in the positive.
The game is failing and falling quickly. Carbine better do something before it's too late.
Originally posted by Soaapy business model is like.. subscription or f2p lol
Business model is erroneously used by many on this forum to decide that, but if you look up the term on wikipedia or something, you'll see it's actually more about how you design and build your offering to appeal to your target market i.e. how you capture value to appeal to them.
How you get your revenues in is such a small part of a business model, so it's best you don't lol if you don't know business.
I totally get what you're saying and I agree. It appears that most folks around here have never had to put together a business model or strategy. They just read articles that speak of business models in terms of F2P or B2P - that's a billing model, which is part of the overall business model.
You're right on, the business model encompasses all of these areas combined, including target audience, billing, point of purchase (digital/box/etc.) and puts it all into a plan of how the game will make money. People who invest want this info to find out how they'll get their investment back with some profit.
I personally didn't give a flying fish turd about Wildstar until I did the seven day free pass thing. It turned out I really enjoyed the game. I didn't necessarily feel like paying $60 at the moment (as I have a wife and child hence/ allowance lol) so I'm waiting on it. In addition, just like you said, I'm a very casual gamer. I don't like hardcore raiding and at the moment, that's the end game for Wildstar. Thus, I will wait until this changes a bit and the price comes down before I play again. Apparently, I'm not alone in my decision, cause that place is a ghost town.
Originally posted by Uhwop Armchair developers always know best, right?
Given the current state of the gaming industry, the short answer is yes, they do actually. When facebook games become more profitable than AAA titles, there are people in charge that shouldn't be there. Most everyone (teenaged turds excluded) here could make top tier games given the team and the money in today's market, that's how bad it is.
Boycotting EA. Why? They suck, even moreso since 2008.
You can apparently actually get a tally of how many players are online on your server using the PLayer Search feature and restricting your search by each letter of the Alphabet. Sure, the search only displays up to 50 people, but when you restrict it by each letter of the alphabet, apparently there's less than 50 people per letter of the Alphabet in the first letter of their name.
Several people did that in-game in Wildstar during prime time to see just how many people were online in their server. THe numbers were... not good. There were things like 250 or so players on the most populated servers during prime time.
One server didn't even need the Alphabet restriction. There were literally only thirteen people online when the person ran the search for all players online. That's... pretty bad even if the search was done off primetime (which IIRC wasn't the case)
Well, that's what I saw when I was browsing the official WS forums. *shrug*
Of course, this is only online. I'm sure there are tons of people who are like... I dunno, subscribed (or loaded up with Credd) but did their dailies for the week and are offline or something (.....probably because there's nothing else to do if you aren't raiding or already did some raiding that week or something judging by the complaints on the forums)
Originally posted by EveIsStillBetter Wildstar isnt game, its a like playable bad cartoon for little kids. How any game company can release garbage like this and have so many willing and able to buy in is beyond me. Adults even! Not surprised to see all the negative commentary spewing from this trash heap of a cartoon. Even if they switch their business model it wont help, not unless you teach more 6-12 year olds how to play online mmo's.
Plenty of "adults" are very active in World of Warcraft and it has similar childish art style. One of the best rpgs I can recall playing was called "To the Moon", and it was all done in a childish art style. This game resembles Borderlands in many ways, and it has an adult player base. Don't judge a game merely by the looks.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I agree with most of the OP,, although, a lot of Devs use the sub model for awhile knowing that the game will loose its steam after awhile. I find today its a big money grab for them at first and than they go ftp, after the game slows down. This Model still works today and Devs know this, but it doesn't last long, because, its the same system that keeps getting recycled.
You can apparently actually get a tally of how many players are online on your server using the PLayer Search feature and restricting your search by each letter of the Alphabet. Sure, the search only displays up to 50 people, but when you restrict it by each letter of the alphabet, apparently there's less than 50 people per letter of the Alphabet in the first letter of their name.
Several people did that in-game in Wildstar during prime time to see just how many people were online in their server. THe numbers were... not good. There were things like 250 or so players on the most populated servers during prime time.
One server didn't even need the Alphabet restriction. There were literally only thirteen people online when the person ran the search for all players online. That's... pretty bad even if the search was done off primetime (which IIRC wasn't the case)
Well, that's what I saw when I was browsing the official WS forums. *shrug*
Are you all being sent emails stating that the game will cease to operate on XX/XX/XXXX?
Did you try to log in last night to find a "Closed for business" sign instead?
Sorry to tell you this, the game still has players, still has people working towards attunement, and still raiding. The evidence suggests that while you may not like the game, there are those that do. So long as they continue playing, Wildstar isn't going anywhere. And based on the longevity of some games that people have long labeled failures... the actual process of "dying" as you call it, literally can take years.
So basically you don't like the game and want others to agree with you. Well, we don't. Hell I tried the game and didn't like it and I still don't agree with you. This game isn't going anywhere for at least 2 full WoW expansions... get back to us when it actually does close it's doors.
Are you all being sent emails stating that the game will cease to operate on XX/XX/XXXX?
Did you try to log in last night to find a "Closed for business" sign instead?
Sorry to tell you this, the game still has players, still has people working towards attunement, and still raiding. The evidence suggests that while you may not like the game, there are those that do. So long as they continue playing, Wildstar isn't going anywhere. And based on the longevity of some games that people have long labeled failures... the actual process of "dying" as you call it, literally can take years.
So basically you don't like the game and want others to agree with you. Well, we don't. Hell I tried the game and didn't like it and I still don't agree with you. This game isn't going anywhere for at least 2 full WoW expansions... get back to us when it actually does close it's doors.
The official forecast was officially decreased by a LOT in their latest financial report (hooray for being legally obligated to report these sorts of things to shareholders!). So it did "fail" to meet forecast expectations, at the very least.
Whether or not that means it'll fail as a whole eventually remains to be seen.
I agree raiding stinks but there is more than one reason why Wildstar is not doing well. There are some of us who were never even tempted enough to try the game because we could not get past the horridly goofy cartoony graphics. I understand kids play video games but there is a sizeable adult MMORPG community that should be taken into consideration if you really want to be successful in this business.
I am getting seriously tired of these topics blaming the business model of a game's failure.
If a game is crap. Making it free 2 play won't help. It will still be crap! All it will do, is delaying the inevitable.
Well, that is what folks were saying about SWToR for a long time.
I think a lot of the issue with SWTOR was that the lack of content (particularly at cap) could not sustain it at release. But it had a popular IP and a huge studio behind it.
I would say it is an entirely different scenario to a new IP and Carbine/ NCSoft (particularly given NCSoft's track record).
Originally posted by Giffen The end game was not why I quit playing WS, so your theory is not true in my case.
Same here. Raiding being hardcore or not was not the reason i gave up my subscription.
Raiding being hardcore was the reason that I never gave the game a first look.
I know full well how games look when their endgame is clearly focused on raiding, let alone supposedly hardcore with large sizes that were difficult to keep filled back in the day.
I am getting seriously tired of these topics blaming the business model of a game's failure.
If a game is crap. Making it free 2 play won't help. It will still be crap! All it will do, is delaying the inevitable.
Well, that is what folks were saying about SWToR for a long time.
I think a lot of the issue with SWTOR was that the lack of content (particularly at cap) could not sustain it at release. But it had a popular IP and a huge studio behind it.
I would say it is an entirely different scenario to a new IP and Carbine/ NCSoft (particularly given NCSoft's track record).
NCsoft doesn't have much to do with WildStars failures, that solely relies on Carbine.
My point is that they can force change or pull the plug as they did with Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, Exteel, CoX etc.
The only field this game has failed is in catering to bad players. 99% of mmo players are bad players, and they leave Wildstar frustrated, likely going back to WoW.
The other 1% remain happily.
To be completely honest, it works for me. The day Wildstar stops I'll just go back to not play any mmo. Mmo's are just a decaying and obsolete game genre anyway.
My opinion is my own. I respect all other opinions and views equally, but keep in mind that my opinion will always be the best for me. That's why it's my opinion.
I am getting seriously tired of these topics blaming the business model of a game's failure.
If a game is crap. Making it free 2 play won't help. It will still be crap! All it will do, is delaying the inevitable.
Well, that is what folks were saying about SWToR for a long time.
Because they couldn't deliver on their promises, like 2 entire new planets a year being added to the game. The whole debacle with Ilum they never fixed.
They didn't, had to lay off over 90% of their staff and put the game in maintenance mode for the first year. F2P was their last straw.
The only reason their F2P works, is because of those stupid lock boxes in their cash shop feeding on people's gambling addiction, making them tons of money.
It's not like they are adding tons of content. Galactic Starfighter was released end last year, with no improvements and additions ever been added since.
Now they dumped Galactic Strongholds in the game (tho a nice patch, it's a bit of a cash grab trying to get People to pay hard cash to unlock rooms) and probably left as is, without expanding on it.
If you have a good game and maintaining it well, deliver on your promisses. Then people hapilly subscribe.
Comments
*sigh* Why do people seem to think their opinions will be more convincing when they use sensationalist language like this is their posts? (unsupported by any actual evidence).
My only complaint about the business model is there is no easy way to clear out your credit card info. I contacted support only to find out you have to log-in to the main NCsoft website and put in fake credit card info - no way to just delete it. That makes me nervous.
I didn't leave Wildstar because of the way they try to make their money. I left because the PVP was/is lame. I'm not a dungeon grinder so obviously I was never the target market to begin with.
The reports of the death of Wildstar are greatly exaggerated.
I will agree that the performance of Wildstar is not living up to the high hopes of their team... but it is a bit early to be declaring it dead. The team is adjusting to the reality of a P2P game in todays market, but is still moving forward. You can see this with their change from monthly updates. As is often the case, the best laid plans often go astray. I can say something very similar about TES.
Both Wildstar and TES have launched in a similar window, with P2P business models. They have both found that the reality of publishing a game in todays market is not what they had thought it to be. P2P is really tough in this market, and not a solid long term strategy unless you have something unique to offer.
Wildstar has a lot of unique character, but doesnt have a lot of unique gameplay elements. It has enought to stand out, but apparently not enough to be able to charge a premium. This doesnt mean that the game is doomed, or that the team will not continue with the plan that they developed before launch... only that they will have to adjust.
When both Widlstar and TES launched as P2P, there was a lot of public discussion (even by non gaming sites) about if this was feasible in todays market. It was generally pandered by the press as a mistake... and the data is backing those statements. Does this mean that these games are going F2P tomorrow? No, just that they are going to have to adapt if they want to suceed, either with changes to the business model, or to the content provided.
Innovation.
That's why it fails. There is no MMO willing to ditch every single MMO Genre "caveat" and do something absolutely differnet. a
It's amazing how many people on these forums have access to the kinds of inside information needed to really determine how well or poorly a game is performing from a business sense.
Oh, wait, you don't have a clue, are just pulling crap out of your arse, flinging it against the wall, and yelling fail at the top of your lungs?
Nevermind, then...
"Fail", easily the most pointlessly overused word in gaming.
Ummmmmmmm, you're right and you're wrong. You're right, it is used incorrectly on these forums and, you're part of the problem.
Subscription and F2P ARE actually business models. However, these are frameworks and there is additional strategy that goes behind this. However, the BUSINESS MODEL selected by Wildstar was a Subscription model. This doesn't mean that the execution of a Subscription model will be the same for every other game or entity subscribing to the model (no pun intended), but the MODEL itself is a subscription model. Please don't insult yourself by quoting a Wikipedia article and then telling someone else not to insult themselves because they know nothing about business. If you actually think that people sat down in a boardroom when conceptualizing this game and said "What business model should we go with?" And go responses like, "Hmmm, I don't know, there are so many things to consider!" Nope, doesn't happen like that. Again, it has a lot, or everything, to do with context. Since it's only really a framework, there are additional details about the implementation of the model, but your basically saying that the model failed Wildstar when it's actually the strategic choices they made about how they were going to implement that model. The biggest of which was targeting a market so minute that they're attempting to capture 5% of 1% of an industry that isn't that large to begin with.
Crazkanuk
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I agree with you on this , However, in this case the word holds true.. a very big majority of sub based games fail that is just a fact. Its very clear why they follow a sub base model, because they know its going to fail, but they know that theyve already duped you out of your money so they dont care, I feel bad for the poor folks they duped into yearly subs..
They're really not. Wildstar continues to drop like a brick on Raptr, whereas ESO has actually moved UP four spots over the last week. Both are being played less than... Cookie Clicker.
Then you look at XFire and see that it's the 58th ranked game...
Then you look at Reddit ( http://redditmetrics.com/r/WildStar ) and realize that the subreddit has lost over 5000 subs over the last two months. It hasn't had a single day in the positive.
The game is failing and falling quickly. Carbine better do something before it's too late.
I totally get what you're saying and I agree. It appears that most folks around here have never had to put together a business model or strategy. They just read articles that speak of business models in terms of F2P or B2P - that's a billing model, which is part of the overall business model.
You're right on, the business model encompasses all of these areas combined, including target audience, billing, point of purchase (digital/box/etc.) and puts it all into a plan of how the game will make money. People who invest want this info to find out how they'll get their investment back with some profit.
I personally didn't give a flying fish turd about Wildstar until I did the seven day free pass thing. It turned out I really enjoyed the game. I didn't necessarily feel like paying $60 at the moment (as I have a wife and child hence/ allowance lol) so I'm waiting on it. In addition, just like you said, I'm a very casual gamer. I don't like hardcore raiding and at the moment, that's the end game for Wildstar. Thus, I will wait until this changes a bit and the price comes down before I play again. Apparently, I'm not alone in my decision, cause that place is a ghost town.
Given the current state of the gaming industry, the short answer is yes, they do actually. When facebook games become more profitable than AAA titles, there are people in charge that shouldn't be there. Most everyone (teenaged turds excluded) here could make top tier games given the team and the money in today's market, that's how bad it is.
Boycotting EA. Why? They suck, even moreso since 2008.
You can apparently actually get a tally of how many players are online on your server using the PLayer Search feature and restricting your search by each letter of the Alphabet. Sure, the search only displays up to 50 people, but when you restrict it by each letter of the alphabet, apparently there's less than 50 people per letter of the Alphabet in the first letter of their name.
Several people did that in-game in Wildstar during prime time to see just how many people were online in their server. THe numbers were... not good. There were things like 250 or so players on the most populated servers during prime time.
One server didn't even need the Alphabet restriction. There were literally only thirteen people online when the person ran the search for all players online. That's... pretty bad even if the search was done off primetime (which IIRC wasn't the case)
Well, that's what I saw when I was browsing the official WS forums. *shrug*
Of course, this is only online. I'm sure there are tons of people who are like... I dunno, subscribed (or loaded up with Credd) but did their dailies for the week and are offline or something (.....probably because there's nothing else to do if you aren't raiding or already did some raiding that week or something judging by the complaints on the forums)
Plenty of "adults" are very active in World of Warcraft and it has similar childish art style. One of the best rpgs I can recall playing was called "To the Moon", and it was all done in a childish art style. This game resembles Borderlands in many ways, and it has an adult player base. Don't judge a game merely by the looks.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
No
I am getting seriously tired of these topics blaming the business model of a game's failure.
If a game is crap. Making it free 2 play won't help. It will still be crap! All it will do, is delaying the inevitable.
How has it failed?
Have the servers shut down?
Are you all being sent emails stating that the game will cease to operate on XX/XX/XXXX?
Did you try to log in last night to find a "Closed for business" sign instead?
Sorry to tell you this, the game still has players, still has people working towards attunement, and still raiding. The evidence suggests that while you may not like the game, there are those that do. So long as they continue playing, Wildstar isn't going anywhere. And based on the longevity of some games that people have long labeled failures... the actual process of "dying" as you call it, literally can take years.
So basically you don't like the game and want others to agree with you. Well, we don't. Hell I tried the game and didn't like it and I still don't agree with you. This game isn't going anywhere for at least 2 full WoW expansions... get back to us when it actually does close it's doors.
The official forecast was officially decreased by a LOT in their latest financial report (hooray for being legally obligated to report these sorts of things to shareholders!). So it did "fail" to meet forecast expectations, at the very least.
Whether or not that means it'll fail as a whole eventually remains to be seen.
I agree raiding stinks but there is more than one reason why Wildstar is not doing well. There are some of us who were never even tempted enough to try the game because we could not get past the horridly goofy cartoony graphics. I understand kids play video games but there is a sizeable adult MMORPG community that should be taken into consideration if you really want to be successful in this business.
Well, that is what folks were saying about SWToR for a long time.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I think a lot of the issue with SWTOR was that the lack of content (particularly at cap) could not sustain it at release. But it had a popular IP and a huge studio behind it.
I would say it is an entirely different scenario to a new IP and Carbine/ NCSoft (particularly given NCSoft's track record).
Raiding being hardcore was the reason that I never gave the game a first look.
I know full well how games look when their endgame is clearly focused on raiding, let alone supposedly hardcore with large sizes that were difficult to keep filled back in the day.
My point is that they can force change or pull the plug as they did with Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, Exteel, CoX etc.
The only field this game has failed is in catering to bad players. 99% of mmo players are bad players, and they leave Wildstar frustrated, likely going back to WoW.
The other 1% remain happily.
To be completely honest, it works for me. The day Wildstar stops I'll just go back to not play any mmo. Mmo's are just a decaying and obsolete game genre anyway.
My opinion is my own. I respect all other opinions and views equally, but keep in mind that my opinion will always be the best for me. That's why it's my opinion.
Because they couldn't deliver on their promises, like 2 entire new planets a year being added to the game. The whole debacle with Ilum they never fixed.
They didn't, had to lay off over 90% of their staff and put the game in maintenance mode for the first year. F2P was their last straw.
The only reason their F2P works, is because of those stupid lock boxes in their cash shop feeding on people's gambling addiction, making them tons of money.
It's not like they are adding tons of content. Galactic Starfighter was released end last year, with no improvements and additions ever been added since.
Now they dumped Galactic Strongholds in the game (tho a nice patch, it's a bit of a cash grab trying to get People to pay hard cash to unlock rooms) and probably left as is, without expanding on it.
If you have a good game and maintaining it well, deliver on your promisses. Then people hapilly subscribe.