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Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning: More Layoffs, Response and Analysis

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  • daltaniousdaltanious Member UncommonPosts: 2,381
    Originally posted by Onecrazyguy


    Sure if you like spending your life warping from stargate to stargate.
    EVE is different and in its own way fun, but at the end of the day you can say the same about it that you can about WoW... you grind missions for cash to buy a bigger ship to grind for cash faster to buy a bigger ship, etc.
    The thing I've noticed about the social aspects of the various games are that EVE seems to have the most friendly and helpful people, heck they even have an entire guild dedicated to teaching people how to play, take noobs into 0.0 space etc. Pretty cool. WoW's community, while certainly active, is MUCH less helpful and very rude/condescending and SO often filled with just random crap from people whose IQ is lower than their age. WAR, while much less "chatty" seemed a bit more mature to me (never see people spamming "anal XXXXXX" just to be morons for example).
    WoW has been successful because it opened the door to the masses. Gone are the days where people can screw up their characters from poor choices of stats etc, we now have markers over quest givers heads etc. This was a good move on Blizzard's part but it has the side effect of pulling in people that are less serious about the game and therefore more immature. Games like WAR and EVE are more difficult to learn and play, and therefore less accessible, and I believe that over time, that's the reason you see those types of games have less players but more that are there to play and understand the game and not name their characters "Irpwnzdu".

     

    Was about to write about Eve ... boring since first minute ... But, hey, if you enjoy it, play it. If there will be enough subscribers, game will continue to exist, evolve, ... or will die. Like the worst game I have ever played, TR. Actually ... the only game where I have used only few days of free play (out of 30) before permanently quit.

    But about grinding fest and Wow .... i really do not understand what are you people complaining about. Does War do not have "kill 25 wolves" quests? Same Lotro, same Aoc, EQ, .... Nearly ALL quests are of this type. Well, I agree however that sometimes drop rates are terrible at wow, but never is boring.

    Also in Lotro, Aoc, ... etc ... no need to search in bags ... you just click objects ... all is automatic. In Wow (ok, sometimes also in War) you must i.e. click object ... then find object in bags and read it while spirit is summoned. Or jump in water as instructed by goodess before she smashes you (which will happen if you have not read what she is saying). Many times have to read very carefuly. In other games no problem at all. Just click. Done.

    Of course im speaking about newer games, games that are NOW in, not about pacman, despite was great at time. :-)  Have played many games in my life (now im 45) and wow has most original and inventive quests. But also has (to my knowledge) primate in number of quests .... so it is more difficult to be inovative in all. I was never ever(!) in need to grind in Wow to progress and have leveled all possible classes.

    Btw ... War is not at all more difficult to learn or play then wow. It is actually very easy ... all is marked on map. Like in Aoc. The only game (newer again) that do not have true addons and must actually read carefully quest text and explore a lot (or consult www pages :-)) ... is maybe Lotro. But which has poor mechanics and other problems.

    About spamming, language, .... etc in wow. How many you said have War subscribers? 250.000, 300.000? Aoc? Well ... wow have "something" more ... so is more probable to encounter unmature persons. But in 2 years I had to put on ignore list only 1. Also is rated 12+ (not that i believe less kids are playing 18+ games ... lol).

  • WycliffeWycliffe Member Posts: 354

    After reading through half a dozen pages of this thread... wow, just wow. Look, WAR didn't have the best but you were perfectly able to preorder, play in OB, and cancel your preorder if you disliked the game. I played for a few months, was happy enough at first, got bored, and quit. Weighing the entertainment value against the monetary cost, it was a good deal. Better than 90% of single player console games that I buy. If you don't like the game, thats fine, but a lot of the trolls are come off as bored, bitter assholes who are just hating on the product for absurd reasons because you are completely unable to enjoy any of the many MMO products currently on the market and need to piss on someone elses parade so you can have that brief, fleeting moment of satisfaction in your otherwise miserable existence.

    As for the doomsayers: EA Tiberion is reporting layoffs. Y'know, the dev. who makes EAs cashcow Madden franchise. Mythics get far more hurt from all of this, but their product did underperform by 200k subs or so. Still, you know times are tough when the dev of the game that prints money is not being spared.

  • JenneroflokJenneroflok Member Posts: 126
    Originally posted by Warcriminal


    yes -a lot of people left after det initial rush and now we are left with the people who really love the game and RVR-mechanics
    no surprise for me here. Sad to see people fired, and I hope they get new jobs soon. In my oppinion they did a great job on WO.
     
    I see a bright future for this one. WO has become better and bigger with every patch they introduce
     
     
     

     

    I fully Agree!  I get tired people yelling it is the end of the game.  They remind me of homeless beggers in big cities yelling "repent the world is going to end!: and forcing their views in your face.

  • Nhoj1983Nhoj1983 Member UncommonPosts: 185

    I'm not worried in the least about the loss of numbers.  I didn't even realize there was so much negativity till I stumbled on this post.  Very few players in the game are anything but happy with it.  It does what it does very well namely rvr.  It never was supposed to be anything else.  The idea really is to level though the game by rvr.  They stumbled the first couple of months with that because there plainly wasn't reason enough to open rvr.  This new expansion which I'm REALLY looking forward to(far from the meh comment) pushes this even further with rvr dungions and two classes that needed representing. 

    Everyone has they're own taste and I've found pvp to be a rare favorite mechanic in mmo players.  Most will wish for it to be there for distraction but it's only something to the side till they get back to the "real game".   Even within those players that do like pvp there are are those who like to be the one man army and not deal with having to work with other players.  WAR tries very hard to discourage this sort of play... basically your very likely to die if you try.  So you've narrowed the field even further. 

    On the converse though I've found others who hate pvp love rvr.  It's painless and far more interactive and changing than most other games.  It's a far different way of thought than the average mmo.  This is something you have to think about.  This isn't killing for killing's sake it's trying to take the other side's lands and you can in this game.  It's not a look alike it's unique.  In this game there are 40 pve levels and 80 rvr levels.  That should tell you something about the priorities of this game.  A player who's reached level 40 is only something like a quarter(or less) there. 

    I would recommend this game but I'd ask that person "do you find the idea of the majority of the game being about rvr a good thing?" I'm unapologetic about the pve mechanics.  I like them.  They in and of themselves add somthing a bit new to the genre but it's not the focus here.  War is.  The players who haven't left aren't crying and saying how bad the game is they're smiling as they add another ork head to they're collection.  The game isn't going to die, it may grow even but that's beside the point  I'm happy with things as they are.  Not that things arn't going to keep changing for the better.  They definitley have in the last few months.

  • JuppJupp Member Posts: 65

    Thanks for the well written article. A nice read and most probably correct in its assumptions. Just too bad that most folks in the thread here did not even care to read it and just jumped into here to cry havoc and doom.

    Nice feature from Mr. Wood, standard abysmal MMORPG forum post quality (with a very few exceptions like from  Infalible, aesperus, etc.)

    And I am still chuckling at those that say that the game will not survive another year...with 300k subscribers...

    There are at least a dozen other MMOs out there that would sell their soul to get up to those (payed) subscription numbers.

    ***************************
    Remember, remember the 5th of November
    ***************************

  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441
    Originally posted by Wycliffe


    After reading through half a dozen pages of this thread... wow, just wow. Look, WAR didn't have the best but you were perfectly able to preorder, play in OB, and cancel your preorder if you disliked the game. I played for a few months, was happy enough at first, got bored, and quit. Weighing the entertainment value against the monetary cost, it was a good deal. Better than 90% of single player console games that I buy. If you don't like the game, thats fine, but a lot of the trolls are come off as bored, bitter assholes who are just hating on the product for absurd reasons because you are completely unable to enjoy any of the many MMO products currently on the market and need to piss on someone elses parade so you can have that brief, fleeting moment of satisfaction in your otherwise miserable existence.
    As for the doomsayers: EA Tiberion is reporting layoffs. Y'know, the dev. who makes EAs cashcow Madden franchise. Mythics get far more hurt from all of this, but their product did underperform by 200k subs or so. Still, you know times are tough when the dev of the game that prints money is not being spared.

     

    You are right, the problem here is that EA is having big financial problems and are losing a lot of money. But it is really bad for Mythic anyways, EA will take every extra penny and might keep on firing people if it continue to do bad. If EA falls Mythic will be dragged down with them. If EA had good economy they would not cut down Mythic staff as long as the game is making money.

    In worse case scenario EA will be a smaller company that only keeps Fifa, Guitarr hero and the Sims (probably Bioware too, Dragon age should sell good), that would screw many games,

  • MaelkorMaelkor Member UncommonPosts: 459

    Hmm a total failure...world is going to end blah blah blah.

     

    The game has 300k+ subs and 200 to 300 employees working on it. Doesnt sound like the game is failing to me. It might not be a huge success compared to WoW but then again nothing is.

     

    I am still playing it and enjoying it and will continue to do so for the near future.

     

    Last but not least in order for the game to completely go down and everyone to flee there has to be something else for everyone to go to. There is nothing else at the moment and nothing I can see in the next year that I am excited in. No game is perfect and no game ever will be perfect. Its really just about do you get enjoyment from playing or not. If you dont then obviously its time to find something different. If you do then your probably not on the boards writing about it.

  • AzophaelAzophael Member UncommonPosts: 4

    Though we are resizing the team to move from a pre-launch to a post-launch size

     

    Hmm, where did I hear that before? Yes, right, Tabula Rasa, a few months before it died.

    I really did like that game and I do like WAR, so I don't hope that it will die, it shouldn't (just like TR shouldn't have, I'd rather have seen Lineage 1+2 go away, since I absolutely don't like that kind of game), still, i will be prepared for the worst, as I am always.

  • DevrosDevros Member Posts: 79

    Whatever happens, I really think Jon Wood, even though you write many fantastic articles, you have really fueled the rumour fires with your 2 cents on this one. Sure you can have an opinion but don't underestimate the power of yours. Sometimes it is good to just report the news objectively instead of trying to fuel forum posts. The same forum fire result would have happened without the insinuation yes, but regardless, it does seem more plausible coming from you.

     

    Dev

    www.TXcomics.com "Your daily webcomics broadcast"

  • LinaInversaLinaInversa Member CommonPosts: 66

    Good, I hope EA and Mythic goes down the tube. I bought my copy on ebay for $5...does that tell you anything? 

  • HorkathaneHorkathane Member Posts: 380

    I went back to Galaxies, the game is still adding. I feel bad for WAR it seemed to Linear.

  • XiaraXiara Member Posts: 21

    Lol, you guys are narrow minded if you think WAR is failing or closing down. Losing 450k subscribers is alot, but did ya notice that they stated many of the subscribers were still in their 30 day trial when they released the 750k number? Name one MMO that hasnt lost a ton of subs after 3-4 months, gurantee you WoW lost alot as well, shit they lost nearly 750k when WAR came out, OMG WoW is gonna fail!!!????!! On a serious note ....I can name a few big ones off the top of my head....EQ2, SWG, Shadowbane, shall I continue?

    EQ2 has a strong player base, and recovered at the end of the 1st year. SWG did the same. They were all huge hyped games and failed to deliver, therefore lost subs. The bugs were "fixed", and content was added...and wouldnt you know people came back? Same will happen with WAR.

    300K subs is plenty of subs to be succesful right now, and profitable. Example...there are cell phone carriers such as Helio who had less than 200k subscribers and still made a profit, and they were a startup company....any idea how much more money it costs to run that? Leasing the towers alone for Helio was more expensive than the money EA put into WAR...let alone the minimal costs of operating it.

    WAR is fine, it will be around for a long time and will continue to stabilize as the issues are fixed. Gurantee WAR is back to 750k subs by end of year. The game is great, regardless of what the haters say. It has its issues like every other new MMO.

    ~Xiara D'Aarmon

  • W.A.RW.A.R Member Posts: 20

    Just thought I'd share some number I russled up in my head just now quickly. They should prove insightful to anyone who hasn't considered them.

     

    Lets just assume that the sub is 10 USD per month (I thin I pay 8 GBP per month so I think that that is a slightly  conserative esitmate)

    300k subscribers at 10 USD per month = 3 million USD per month = 36 million USD per year in subscription revenue.

    300 employees on a wage of 50,000 USD per  year = 15 million USD per year.

    50,000 USD per year is just a guess as to the average wage.

    This implies that even if WAR only keeps 300k subscribers it will STILL be making a profit of 21 million USD per year.

    It should be safe ;) break even point for ongoing costs at the 300 staff headcount level would be somewhere around 150k subscriptions. (Of course it needs to do better than breakeven for ongoing costs in order to recoup the sunk costs of development, but it will still operate as long as its not losing more money).

     

    So.... start worrying about announced plans and intentions only if subscription numbers hit 150K. If that happens they'll likely just half the headcount to 150 be able to stay profitable at anything over  75k subscriptions.

    Layoffs are no surpirse - the business' aim is to MAXIMISE profits.

    Now someone please do me WOW's numbers and we can all weep ;)

     

     

     

     

     

  • KilgoreKilgore Member Posts: 7
    Originally posted by W.A.R


    Just thought I'd share some number I russled up in my head just now quickly. They should prove insightful to anyone who hasn't considered them.
     
    Lets just assume that the sub is 10 USD per month (I thin I pay 8 GBP per month so I think that that is a slightly  conserative esitmate)
    300k subscribers at 10 USD per month = 3 million USD per month = 36 million USD per year in subscription revenue.
    300 employees on a wage of 50,000 USD per  year = 15 million USD per year.
    50,000 USD per year is just a guess as to the average wage.
    This implies that even if WAR only keeps 300k subscribers it will STILL be making a profit of 21 million USD per year.
    It should be safe ;) break even point for ongoing costs at the 300 staff headcount level would be somewhere around 150k subscriptions. (Of course it needs to do better than breakeven for ongoing costs in order to recoup the sunk costs of development, but it will still operate as long as its not losing more money).
     
    So.... start worrying about announced plans and intentions only if subscription numbers hit 150K. If that happens they'll likely just half the headcount to 150 be able to stay profitable at anything over  75k subscriptions.
    Layoffs are no surpirse - the business' aim is to MAXIMISE profits.
    Now someone please do me WOW's numbers and we can all weep ;)
     

    I would put the average salary with benefits between $75,000-$100,000. Plus you have to add the costs for their data center (hardware, bandwidth etc..). Then there is business costs, such as; workspace lease, equipment, furniture etc...

    I suspect they are not nearly as profitable as you think, especially if  they do have 300 staff.

     

  • W.A.RW.A.R Member Posts: 20

    Thanks for the comments Kilgore. You are probably right.

    In which case at $100k per employee , and allowing $6 million per year for overheads the project is about breaking even. No wonder 100 jobs had to go ;)

    Seen a few posts mentioning the development costs. As these are sunk they are pretty irrelevant regarding how much longer we'll see the game around for.

  • W.A.RW.A.R Member Posts: 20

    .

  • W.A.RW.A.R Member Posts: 20
    Originally posted by Loke666

    Originally posted by Grunch


    Whats strange is WAR is a lot more fun then most mmos out right now especially WOW. I think a lot of people get turned off by WAR after they get their butts handed to them in pvp. They start crying about balance and bugs and lack of "war" but when I play there is ALWAYS something going on. The only downfall I see to it is by having only 2 realms there is a higher chance of one team being overpopulated.

     

    No, I don't think people quit because they suck in PvP. Well some maybe but just a few.

    The reason I don't play it is that I don't like what they did to my favorite pen and paper RPG game, they cut out all the dark horror of it, took away the backstabbing and corruption of the empire...

    I would love to be able to walk Middenheims streets, to take a boat up the river Reik, to spend an evning in Brettonia with duels and drinking but this game just don't give me the same rush as the pen and paper game. I guess it is not bad for what it is but it could have been so much more.

    But I think the main reason many quited was that it is still to close to Wow, and they already have a high level char or more there.

    Mythic should have kept the original system of Warhammer and not made it level based. Being close to Wow isn't good, Wow already have it's fans and WAR would have been better if it was closer to the fantastic RPG and tabletop games.

    So you wanted the old Warhammer Online game being developed in 2003? More sand-box and RPG-ish. Exploring, trading, career-based 'open' PVP. Perma deaths for slayers haha.

  • tvalentinetvalentine Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 4,216
    Originally posted by todeswulf

    Originally posted by m3ta


    "recession" is being a nice excuse for many people, but i don't see it in Blizzard or CCP.
    WAR has failed. Bugs aren't fixed, RVR is crap, the downfall is inevitable and obvious.
     



     

    Mr. Hawking......

    Blizzard has laid off Twice, In June 08 and in August 08....they are scehduled  to lay off again in April. Google it.

    CCP has ran a skeleton crew since launch, they also currently have 3/4 of WARs subscribers.  Grab a clue before you speak.



     

    LOL. This post made me laugh. If CCP is running a skeleton crew then how are they releasing around 2 expansions every year? And how are they releasing their BIGGEST expansion just next month with a "skeleton crew"? Also they mentioned in the alliance tourny that they have gone from around 20-40 employees(at the start of the company) to 130+ employees and have expanded internationally, opening studios in Atlanta, GA and Shanghai, china.

    And from what i have found through searching, blizzard has only laid off 53 employees related to activision-blizzard itself. They have laid off 100 people from a seperate area of the company called "radical entertainment", this part of the company is only reponsible for "Scarface"

    image

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  • greymanngreymann Member Posts: 757

    Die WAR!  Die!  I wanna hear you "gasp, sputter, bluhhhhhhhh..."!  Make all my predictions come true because you delivered so under the expectations bar, you crapped on a cool IP, and mainly... you made me go back to wow you bastards!

  • minrathminrath Member Posts: 63

    isnt this the same shit they did in MCO? fired everyone and claimed the game was gonna continue before they closed it down outta nowhere? only a moron would buy a mmo from EA.

  • HorusgirlHorusgirl Member Posts: 120

    Obviously these calculations are kind of pointless because they are oversimplified. The decisions in shutting down a game are a bit more complicated than some people seem to think. It's not a case of "As long as we don't lose money we let it run".

    The point at which a game becomes undesirable to run is not when it stops making profit. But when the return on the capital that is employed to keep it running gets smaller than with other options. For example whats the point in running the game when you can just fire everyone, sell off the assets, carry your money to the bank and make more.

    On the other hand even if running an MMO might not be as profitable for a company than other ventures it is a steady stream of cash. This can improve the company's liquidity and might still benefit the overall business more than shutting it down.

    Shutting a game down can create negative publicity at the playerbase but if it is not running profitable it will actually send a positive signal to shareholders, so will firing people so thats not really an argument for keeping anything running.

    Obviously Mythic expected more players and had the servers and staff in place now that they have less subscribers some of them have to go. This does not really tell anything about how profitable their operations are running only that they are scaling down certain activities. 

    I bet I could think of a few more things that are important to consider but I guess you are getting my point:

    Its all just wild speculation.

    BTW: The development budget itself is mostly irrelevant for the profitability as the money is gone. Shutting down a game would not do much towards recovering it. However any interest for loans would have to considered.


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