126076-wildstar-is-going-to-a-hybrid-free-to-play-model-in-august-what-are-your-thoughts-page-3

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It's exactly about the comparison to other games. Not necessarily the number of players (although that's there too) but the cash flow generated by the games for the parent company and by extension the company's owners, the shareholders. Carbine and NCSoft as a whole need to generate attractive returns for their owners or those owners will sell their stake in the company and give their money to another company that can give them a better return for their investment.


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I would say the same thing to yourself.


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The numbers are there, sure we don't have overheads, but to keep up good content it's going to cost a fair amount! We know WildStar isn't doing as well as they originally projected, it's also bleeding subs. Proof of that, they originally made a bunch of servers, they now have gone to the "mega server" model. This only happens when there's underpopulated servers, they only have underpopulated servers when they're not doing as well as projected. I know it's not ideal for people who like to pay into a sub and have nothing to worry about. God knows I'd be putting up a fight if WoW was in this state and looking at a different model. But for the sake of the game and company, it could be what they need. I mean this game is awesome, it deserves to be played by more :) And nobody is arguing, we're discussing business models, people have different opinions, discuss them and move on. This is the kind of feedback they want obviously, otherwise a mod would have closed the thread 15 pages ago. Also notice how they have made an off-topic comment in about 10 pages :) Not coincidence.


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The estimated development costs were around $70 million before launch, last year they made $45 million.


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If you think the thread should be closed then feel free to report it to a mod. If you think it is a waste of time, then you have the choice not to read or post in it. But if you choose to post in it after already deciding it is a waste of time, then by your own logic it would be a waste of time to ready anything you have to say.


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I can look this up and provide actual comparison later. I made this claim and i actually took it from someone else who did the leg work to point this out. Fanboys are equally terrible this games health as the trolls are, the notion that this status quo can be maintained is simply silly. Either the game adapts or dies, there's no other way. moderator edit: content

Edited May 15, 2015 by Chillia


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Bad experiences often stick out more than good experiences, but are not necessarily representative of reality. Have you heard about the recent train derailment on the news? How many stories have you heard about trains that had no issues and arrived at their destination safely? Probably none, because that is not a news story. However, the fact is that the trains that arrive safely are the vast majority, while the ones that derail are a microscopic minority. The same is true of plane crashes. My point? Yes, there will be more jerks with F2P. But there will be far more cool people, so don't let the few jerks you encounter make you think everyone is like that.


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Exactly the point I was trying to bring up. It seems ridiculous that people find it okay to place the financial burden on one subset of the population (namely those who play to collect cosmetics or do housing) and are so quick to call it "F2P done right" instead of spreading the expenses across the entire population. I would be perfectly comfortable with a f2p model that gives full content access for the equivalent of the subscription fee while F2P is either limited in content or pay their share through add revenues (or a combination of the two). The fascination for the illusion of F2P is something I still don't get and its a trend I am eager for the market to leave behind. Never have I seen a population so eager to be financially exploited or eager to financially exploit another subset of their community.


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Well, the game's revenues since launch have been about $50 million USD (see earnings reports). Most industry estimates of how much it costs to bring a typical AAA MMORPG to the launch state are in the range $70-90 million USD, based on a number of different articles spread over the gaming industry media. And given that the game's development cycle was long even in MMORPG terms (Carbine's only product since founding in 2005, with Carbine being part of NCSoft since 2007), "typical" is probably a conservative estimate. So even if the game had no running costs over the last year--which is assuredly a wildly conservative estimate--it would still be $20-40 million in the hole if it had typical development costs--which is also probably overly conserative.


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Whoa there buddy. What do you think you're doing bringing logic into this discussion? This is supposed to be based purely on feelings and emotion. This is the internet!


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prof·it·a·ble

ˈpräfədəb(ə)l/

adjective 1.			(of a business or activity) yielding profit or financial gain.

Profitable means that you are making a profit--you got back more money from doing something than it cost you to do it. The game you're trying to play with that definition is to say that if the game is making $1/year in net income, it's profitable even when its $20 million in debt because 20 million years from now, they'll be making a dollar. That's simply incorrect. It will not actually be profitable until it has recovered its development costs in net income, which is much much smaller than revenue. At best, you can say that it is progressing towards profitability and estimate a date at which it will become profitable. The game is assuredly not profitable now and probably won't be over the lifetime of the platform for which the game was designed unless something substantial changes.


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I think some people are thinking that. That's the point of my post. Indisputable fact: we don't know if WildStar is operating profitably or not. Is it likely? Maybe not. Which, btw, each employee will cost the company much closer to $100k annually. But changing the business model is not a silver bullet. It can fail even harder.


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Nope. So why wouldn't they start with that model?


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