I do think
GW2 will survive the coming Market Correction.
I think GW2 is strong enough for that.
However I do think that some of GW2’s revenues got used to make Wildstar
so it will hurt GW2. I also think that
the B2P setup hurts them because it’s much harder to figure out monthly revenue.
Gaia_Hunter,
Read above
here. I am not saying GW2 is in trouble
again it’s one of the stronger games, it is not however in a world of roses
where there are no problems. I do think
that some of GW2 revenue was used for Wildstar which I am sorry crashed and
burned. That WILL hurt GW2 and kind of
has already it has taken what 5 years for an expansion?
Again GW2 is a good game for its niche market of players. It can do well and continue to operate. Other games though will not be as lucky.
This is the same discussion every quarter, go back through the forum history and it shows. Haters roll out numbers (why I don't know), fans counter. One thing stands strong though, and it's that GW2 has a huge playerbase. They may come and go, but the game is still one of the leaders of the genre.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
@danwest58 It's not like GW2 is in worse condition that FF14. At least NCSoft will break down the revenue. Squeenix won't even say how much FF14 made, only that it performed okay. That's never a good sign. ESO has been outperforming it on the PS4.
Either the entire mmo industry is about to implode, and I seriously doubt it. Or things aren't as bad as the media outlets make out in order to get the advert revenue.
Yea ESO which had to go F2P JUST TO SURVIVE is doing better than a game that is P2P and stays P2P. Yea Sorry no ESO is not out performing anything. Well Maybe WildStar since that game crashed and burned.
Sorry but the Industry is about to implode. SOE got bought by a Indie Venture company and renamed Daybreak, Funcom is asking for someone to buy them because they are in financial trouble, Hell even Trion has said they had Financial trouble, Blizzard is making more off their new games vs WOW. The Industry is going to go through a change and YES some games not performing will shut down.
Also SE puts out Financial Statements once a quarter
They are making money off of FFXIV hell they are even building a new EU Data center and they wouldnt be doing that if they were not making money.
Anyways a friend of mine who likes GW2 said its good that NCSoft being removed from GW2 and anet taking over is a good thing. He too thinks that certain things were going on in the background that should not have been. In any event the Market will change here, it already is showing signs that its going to.
@danwest58 It's not like GW2 is in worse condition that FF14. At least NCSoft will break down the revenue. Squeenix won't even say how much FF14 made, only that it performed okay. That's never a good sign. ESO has been outperforming it on the PS4.
Either the entire mmo industry is about to implode, and I seriously doubt it. Or things aren't as bad as the media outlets make out in order to get the advert revenue.
Yea ESO which had to go F2P JUST TO SURVIVE is doing better than a game that is P2P and stays P2P. Yea Sorry no ESO is not out performing anything. Well Maybe WildStar since that game crashed and burned.
Sorry but the Industry is about to implode. SOE got bought by a Indie Venture company and renamed Daybreak, Funcom is asking for someone to buy them because they are in financial trouble, Hell even Trion has said they had Financial trouble, Blizzard is making more off their new games vs WOW. The Industry is going to go through a change and YES some games not performing will shut down.
Also SE puts out Financial Statements once a quarter
They are making money off of FFXIV hell they are even building a new EU Data center and they wouldnt be doing that if they were not making money.
Anyways a friend of mine who likes GW2 said its good that NCSoft being removed from GW2 and anet taking over is a good thing. He too thinks that certain things were going on in the background that should not have been. In any event the Market will change here, it already is showing signs that its going to.
To be truthful, Funcom is its own fault for doing such a horrible job with Age of Conan, which was forced to F2P and The Secret World didn't do much thanks to its rather bad combat. Instead of fixing and promoting their current portfolio (at minim costs, mind you), they decided to invest heavily in a Lego game for children. .... not the smartest business decision. That Lego game crashed and burned hard because it was more about the figurines than the actual Legos, which is a bad thing for a LEGO game! And the genre of voxel building games is getting bloated beyond the kingpin holder that is Minecraft (we have Trove already and Skysaga coming soon, there are dozens on Steam that are 3rd rate).
NCSoft hasn't been removed entirely. They still own A.Net and GW2. What it is, is that publishing duties are now on A.Net. This is most likely because NCSoft's West departments all got gutted within the past 1.5 years thanks to them putting too resources into Wildstar (yet, incidentally they seem to fail at marketing that game). A.Net has it's own offices separate from the NCSoft West offices and was unaffected by those cuts.
As an added note from previously mentioned comments, I do think that NCSoft really fails to promote any of their Western titles beyond just the niche MMO crowds. WoW's success is partially due to it promoting across the board to as many people as possible: MMO gamers, casuals, and just everyone in general. NCSoft -as a Korean company- really does look to be more focused on promoting in their home country the portfolio of games that they host there while leaving the West as a sort of "side milking" project.
@danwest58 It's not like GW2 is in worse condition that FF14. At least NCSoft will break down the revenue. Squeenix won't even say how much FF14 made, only that it performed okay. That's never a good sign. ESO has been outperforming it on the PS4.
Either the entire mmo industry is about to implode, and I seriously doubt it. Or things aren't as bad as the media outlets make out in order to get the advert revenue.
Yea ESO which had to go F2P JUST TO SURVIVE is doing better than a game that is P2P and stays P2P. Yea Sorry no ESO is not out performing anything. Well Maybe WildStar since that game crashed and burned.
Sorry but the Industry is about to implode. SOE got bought by a Indie Venture company and renamed Daybreak, Funcom is asking for someone to buy them because they are in financial trouble, Hell even Trion has said they had Financial trouble, Blizzard is making more off their new games vs WOW. The Industry is going to go through a change and YES some games not performing will shut down.
Also SE puts out Financial Statements once a quarter
They are making money off of FFXIV hell they are even building a new EU Data center and they wouldnt be doing that if they were not making money.
Anyways a friend of mine who likes GW2 said its good that NCSoft being removed from GW2 and anet taking over is a good thing. He too thinks that certain things were going on in the background that should not have been. In any event the Market will change here, it already is showing signs that its going to.
To be truthful, Funcom is its own fault for doing such a horrible job with Age of Conan, which was forced to F2P and The Secret World didn't do much thanks to its rather bad combat. Instead of fixing and promoting their current portfolio (at minim costs, mind you), they decided to invest heavily in a Lego game for children. .... not the smartest business decision. That Lego game crashed and burned hard because it was more about the figurines than the actual Legos, which is a bad thing for a LEGO game! And the genre of voxel building games is getting bloated beyond the kingpin holder that is Minecraft (we have Trove already and Skysaga coming soon, there are dozens on Steam that are 3rd rate).
NCSoft hasn't been removed entirely. They still own A.Net and GW2. What it is, is that publishing duties are now on A.Net. This is most likely because NCSoft's West departments all got gutted within the past 1.5 years thanks to them putting too resources into Wildstar (yet, incidentally they seem to fail at marketing that game). A.Net has it's own offices separate from the NCSoft West offices and was unaffected by those cuts.
As an added note from previously mentioned comments, I do think that NCSoft really fails to promote any of their Western titles beyond just the niche MMO crowds. WoW's success is partially due to it promoting across the board to as many people as possible: MMO gamers, casuals, and just everyone in general. NCSoft -as a Korean company- really does look to be more focused on promoting in their home country the portfolio of games that they host there while leaving the West as a sort of "side milking" project.
GW, GW2, Aion, and Lineage 2, all going relatively strong. NC West isn't out of the game by any means.
High hopes for the future of Guild Wars 2. Big critic of the base game. Without holding back words, I thought it was garbage, and many of the decisions were Blizzard (WoD) levels of bad. Then again, many know of my bias as a huge Guild Wars 1 fan and how I was severely disappointed with the story and flow of the base game of the second.
They have been turning that around lately, slowly but surely. Looking forward to see what Heart of Thorns offers to the core experience, and how they will evolve the game from here on out.
Free trial The Return of Roles Raiding Guild housing Advanced classes More ways to interact with environment Additional character progression
These are some good starts. Now I just would like Player Housing and the ability to decorate said house / sit in chairs (in taverns, your house and random benches in towns / cities). Maybe also persistent emotes, such as crossing your arms, putting your hands behind your head, etc.
Also something I liked was how your character interacts with the environment in Guild Wars 2. When you walk over a trigger point, they actually speak about what they're seeing. Dialog is no longer exclusively for those immersion detracting speech scenes.
I hope it succeeds so that we are able to see Cantha and Elona in the future. The fact that they're now their own publisher also gives me hope in this. The Crystal Desert, as well. Though I'd imagine that being a part of Elona.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
@danwest58 It's not like GW2 is in worse condition that FF14. At least NCSoft will break down the revenue. Squeenix won't even say how much FF14 made, only that it performed okay. That's never a good sign. ESO has been outperforming it on the PS4.
Either the entire mmo industry is about to implode, and I seriously doubt it. Or things aren't as bad as the media outlets make out in order to get the advert revenue.
Yea ESO which had to go F2P JUST TO SURVIVE
Small correction - ESO went b2p and has been a top seller on Xbox and PS4 since launch. One report has ESO making 350 million since launch.
I know I am not a G2W fan. However I am not surprised that Rumors are out right now about how bad some MMO Companies are doing financially. I also tend to believe this more than not because I understand that the MMO Market is over-saturated and many MMOs have been forced to the F2P model just to survive. There is no coincidence that Trion was having Financial problems and had to make serious changes to their business model, SOE getting sold to a Indian venture company and being basically stripped apart, Funcom looking for someone to purchase them, and hell Blizzard doing better with other games than with WOW.
Look people the market is changing and its due to too many MMOs and too much money being spent on the next WOW that the industry has lost sight of MMOs. Yes MMOs will be broken up into MMORPGs, MOBA, and then more of a Lobby based game like Diablo 3. With that said there is going to be major fundamental changes to MMORPGs in specifically. What they are who knows however one thing is for certain. The MMORPG Genera has too many games now from Tradition MMOs like WOW and EQ, to these stupid browser based MMOs. The industry needs to come to the realization here soon that many will have to be shut down because many can not and will not survive with players hoping from game to game every 2 months. It just is not a sustainable model for MMORPGs, for MOBAs where there is a lot of P2W yea, MMORPGs no because these games are designed for players to play 1 game for years not a few months a year on and off. Also I personally feel once the market gets back to normal we will see a return to a P2P model even if there are extended trials or very restrictive F2P\P2P Hybrid Models. MMOs NEED a consistent flow of money to sustain the game, look at FFXIV and you will see a game that is P2P and turns out content consistently. The problem is many other Developers have not achieved this nor have they achieved well polished MMOs.
I am sorry to jump in on a GW2 Topic however this is way more wider a topic than just GW2.
Once you realize this is not GW2 topic at all but WS topic.
WS hurt NCSoft badly. No matter how much some people wont admit it.
Same as FFXIV hurt SQuix, same as SWTOR hurt EA, same as AoC/TSW hurt FC....
The only thing is how visible it is (with EAs gigantic revenue SWOTR is but a spec, SQuix was in visibly bad shape sue to FFXIV, FC...
living in a fairy land where everything is unicorns and rainbows helps noone.
" It's said that NCSOFT West's turnover in the first half of 2015 is down 35% "
The article lost all credibility right there. Its said by who? Where are they getting the numbers from? I did not see one source in that article.
Always check for a source before posting. :-)
They mention "some analyst". Yeah.
But nvm, financial records will be out soon, and i make a prediction - GW2 about same level as before, WS still dropping, rest of NCWest....not even worth mentioning.
2nd, even if we presume its true, they compare 2 Qs when WS was launched last year.
I do think
GW2 will survive the coming Market Correction.
I think GW2 is strong enough for that.
However I do think that some of GW2’s revenues got used to make Wildstar
so it will hurt GW2. I also think that
the B2P setup hurts them because it’s much harder to figure out monthly revenue.
Gaia_Hunter,
Read above
here. I am not saying GW2 is in trouble
again it’s one of the stronger games, it is not however in a world of roses
where there are no problems. I do think
that some of GW2 revenue was used for Wildstar which I am sorry crashed and
burned. That WILL hurt GW2 and kind of
has already it has taken what 5 years for an expansion?
Again GW2 is a good game for its niche market of players. It can do well and continue to operate. Other games though will not be as lucky.
Refrain yourself from things you have no clue about.
Question is why do you even feel entitled to comment on stuff that youre clueless about.
One would assume you would at lest inform yourself about BASIC stuff. But no.
@danwest58 It's not like GW2 is in worse condition that FF14. At least NCSoft will break down the revenue. Squeenix won't even say how much FF14 made, only that it performed okay. That's never a good sign. ESO has been outperforming it on the PS4.
Either the entire mmo industry is about to implode, and I seriously doubt it. Or things aren't as bad as the media outlets make out in order to get the advert revenue.
Yea ESO which had to go F2P JUST TO SURVIVE is doing better than a game that is P2P and stays P2P. Yea Sorry no ESO is not out performing anything. Well Maybe WildStar since that game crashed and burned.
Sorry but the Industry is about to implode. SOE got bought by a Indie Venture company and renamed Daybreak, Funcom is asking for someone to buy them because they are in financial trouble, Hell even Trion has said they had Financial trouble, Blizzard is making more off their new games vs WOW. The Industry is going to go through a change and YES some games not performing will shut down.
Also SE puts out Financial Statements once a quarter
They are making money off of FFXIV hell they are even building a new EU Data center and they wouldnt be doing that if they were not making money.
Anyways a friend of mine who likes GW2 said its good that NCSoft being removed from GW2 and anet taking over is a good thing. He too thinks that certain things were going on in the background that should not have been. In any event the Market will change here, it already is showing signs that its going to.
To be truthful, Funcom is its own fault for doing such a horrible job with Age of Conan, which was forced to F2P and The Secret World didn't do much thanks to its rather bad combat. Instead of fixing and promoting their current portfolio (at minim costs, mind you), they decided to invest heavily in a Lego game for children. .... not the smartest business decision. That Lego game crashed and burned hard because it was more about the figurines than the actual Legos, which is a bad thing for a LEGO game! And the genre of voxel building games is getting bloated beyond the kingpin holder that is Minecraft (we have Trove already and Skysaga coming soon, there are dozens on Steam that are 3rd rate).
NCSoft hasn't been removed entirely. They still own A.Net and GW2. What it is, is that publishing duties are now on A.Net. This is most likely because NCSoft's West departments all got gutted within the past 1.5 years thanks to them putting too resources into Wildstar (yet, incidentally they seem to fail at marketing that game). A.Net has it's own offices separate from the NCSoft West offices and was unaffected by those cuts.
As an added note from previously mentioned comments, I do think that NCSoft really fails to promote any of their Western titles beyond just the niche MMO crowds. WoW's success is partially due to it promoting across the board to as many people as possible: MMO gamers, casuals, and just everyone in general. NCSoft -as a Korean company- really does look to be more focused on promoting in their home country the portfolio of games that they host there while leaving the West as a sort of "side milking" project.
GW, GW2, Aion, and Lineage 2, all going relatively strong. NC West isn't out of the game by any means.
NCWest is in practice GW2. Rest is in Korea. L2, Aion are pretty much non existant in the west.
@danwest58 It's not like GW2 is in worse condition that FF14. At least NCSoft will break down the revenue. Squeenix won't even say how much FF14 made, only that it performed okay. That's never a good sign. ESO has been outperforming it on the PS4.
Either the entire mmo industry is about to implode, and I seriously doubt it. Or things aren't as bad as the media outlets make out in order to get the advert revenue.
Yea ESO which had to go F2P JUST TO SURVIVE
Small correction - ESO went b2p and has been a top seller on Xbox and PS4 since launch. One report has ESO making 350 million since launch.
@danwest58 It's not like GW2 is in worse condition that FF14. At least NCSoft will break down the revenue. Squeenix won't even say how much FF14 made, only that it performed okay. That's never a good sign. ESO has been outperforming it on the PS4.
Either the entire mmo industry is about to implode, and I seriously doubt it. Or things aren't as bad as the media outlets make out in order to get the advert revenue.
Yea ESO which had to go F2P JUST TO SURVIVE
Small correction - ESO went b2p and has been a top seller on Xbox and PS4 since launch. One report has ESO making 350 million since launch.
@danwest58 It's not like GW2 is in worse condition that FF14. At least NCSoft will break down the revenue. Squeenix won't even say how much FF14 made, only that it performed okay. That's never a good sign. ESO has been outperforming it on the PS4.
Either the entire mmo industry is about to implode, and I seriously doubt it. Or things aren't as bad as the media outlets make out in order to get the advert revenue.
Yea ESO which had to go F2P JUST TO SURVIVE is doing better than a game that is P2P and stays P2P. Yea Sorry no ESO is not out performing anything. Well Maybe WildStar since that game crashed and burned.
Sorry but the Industry is about to implode. SOE got bought by a Indie Venture company and renamed Daybreak, Funcom is asking for someone to buy them because they are in financial trouble, Hell even Trion has said they had Financial trouble, Blizzard is making more off their new games vs WOW. The Industry is going to go through a change and YES some games not performing will shut down.
Also SE puts out Financial Statements once a quarter
They are making money off of FFXIV hell they are even building a new EU Data center and they wouldnt be doing that if they were not making money.
Anyways a friend of mine who likes GW2 said its good that NCSoft being removed from GW2 and anet taking over is a good thing. He too thinks that certain things were going on in the background that should not have been. In any event the Market will change here, it already is showing signs that its going to.
You're just saying "because I said so". The link you posted has no FF14 numbers. It just says it's performing okay, which I've already stated. The PS4 charts have put ESO above FF14 in both sales and subscriptions. If FF14 was doing that great SE would have posted numbers for the game. They don't, just their overall financials. I'm sure it's doing well, but it's certainly not doing head and shoulders above its peers or Squeenix would be tooting their horn from the rooftops. They're not.
On that list of financials are some powerhouse titles (Just Cause, DeusEx, Tomb Raider, Call of Duty, among others) and a lot of smaller or indie titles as well. Some they won some they don't but they all add to their financials. On that list is Final Fantasy somewhere, but compared to its console and single/multiplayer peers it's hard to believe it's going to be a major contender.
GW2 is still wholly owned by NCSoft. NCSoft actually posts financials of the game. When SE actually posts financials for FF14 then we'll know if stands above. As of now. It doesn't.
Ahhh, dont worry, thats the guy who said that FFXIV is doing SO great that whole SQix hangs on the thread called FFXIV. Of course, 0 proof.
Ahhh, dont worry, thats the guy who said that FFXIV is doing SO great that whole SQix hangs on the thread called FFXIV. Of course, 0 proof.
Fact is that they needed cash shop on top of sub.
Dont need proof when a P2P game stays a P2P game today. Dont Need Proof when they bring out new content every 3 to 4 months. Dont need proof when they come out with Expansions faster than any other MMO including WOW. Sorry Malabooga but ESO HAD to go B2P sorry JUST to make money. Thats how little you know. If a game cannot stay P2P then they are not financially stable. O and the whole Cash shop comment. Yea there is one, because the EU group wants a EU data center so SE cut a deal with the players, they will put in a Cash shop that has 90% of the stuff where you can get it in game during the Seasonal events, and a few other things that mean nothing other than looks. With the money they make from the Cash Shop they will build a EU data center. Hell the EU players are spending money in the Cash Shop just so they get the data center they wanted. Does any other MMO out there use their cash shop for helping a game out? No its to pay back investors who want their money back now.
Anyways BcBully Here is a Forbes Article you should read. http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/01/02/predicting-the-biggest-disaster-of-2014-the-elder-scrolls-online/ I prefer to read from a place like Forbes when I can because it will tell you what is going on in the world of investors and business. This Article lays out how much of a failure ESO is and WAS. YES the game made money after going B2P without a doubt. Problem is it was Forced to go to B2P because it was not making enough money. Now I am done talking negatively about ESO Just know this the industry will not continue to sustain games that are not making enough money.
They should just rename this site to the MMO Financial Report because for the last couple of years, 98% of all discussions you see on this site are about money. Money money money. What the hell. Break out your pitchforks, there's got to be someone in some sort of financial woes... like a circle of buzzards, you just can't wait to find a new victim. Let's be honest here, YOU haven't played an MMO for quite some time and are just bitching about them because you can. Well I hate to tell you this... but even if everyone on this site was in 100% agreement that the company was doomed to fail, there would still be people playing the game... because MOST people don't care about such things. You lost sight of what fun is a long time ago. No wonder you can't find a game to play... you're too worried about how much money the CEO is making (or not).
Snipped -- reached character limit by over a thousand.
Just to chide in, as of the last quarterly report (I think it was already posted here; I'm writing in a hurry and not at my normal computer) with regards to FFXIV, it is estimated that the current subscriber count is roughly 1.2-1.5 million (former taking in a hard account of potential cash shop sales, of which most items are $1-3 microtransactions and a $10 character race change; they did promise to dedicate all cash shop sales to housing servers, so I don't know if this is profit on the sheets or considered by math people. Irregardless, it offsets costs of a demanded feature that they released the floodgates for, and have to continue to support). This is prior to the announcement a few weeks ago that an additional 250,000-500,000 or more subscribers are playing in the recently released South Korean Version ( 250,000 minimum as it states unique player log ins per day, with an average of over five hours played a day by them all). I believe box sales are around six million at present, with them announcing over five million a little while ago (does not include free trials). Were it ever to go the B2P or F2P route, this will likely double if not triple (the box sales). Which was what I estimated would do for ESO (or at least substantially increase, especially due to their great many improvements and console fanbase).
The number itself isn't impressive to me. Though it is such that they're amount the first subscription MMO to actually increase sub numbers after years, with their "settled" starting numbers being around 600-800k originally, according to the first report of some 600k unique logs per day (which, they emphasizes, that not every subscriber logged in every day, so the max above is guessed and may be more or less), months after 2.0's launch and further targeted by with the information of one million across Square's online licenses all that time ago (of which, it was quoting an old quarterly report that some sites mistook as a current one).
As for what game is better is a matter of opinion. I'm partial and bias towards FFXIV, and have a hatred for GW2 as a GW1 fanboy and Role Player (Give me housing and sitting in chairs, already!). Though with FFXIV there are something like over a dozen different metas to follow through with -- all of which require a lot of work, attunements and pretty much full-time dedication. The world and journey of GW2 was fun, but I felt the game had no meta at all by the time I got to level 80. Just buy exotic glass cannon equipment, then do dailies later on when the next tier came out with agony infusion. I'm glad they're putting raids in, but they are going to have to make pretty much every aspect of their game have its own end game if they're going to compete with my current choice of games. Not to mention release huge patches, as can be seen by any of FFXIV's patch trailers of the past and what little we know of patch 3.1.
All that said, the current Kings of the Market -- always excluding WoW -- are undoubtedly ESO and FFXIV and SWTOR (Lineage as well, but that's exclusive to one territory in its success). As personal opinion, and by sheer word of mouth and constant praise across the entirety of the internet (in that anywhere you look you see "this is a great game", example comments in the links above, MMO-Champion, their respected forums, etc.), it's without a doubt FFXIV and ESO. Whereas I see (or saw) nothing but criticism for GW2 and people mocking it on various forums, almost to levels WoD is being hated on. With little to no hype from any of my normal sources for the expansion -- which is sad, as I want to see it succeed do bad due to wanting to play in Cantha and Elona. I've been advertising the heck out of GW2's free trial with WoW players who are tired of the game. As well as making mentions of the top games at present (as is, the most talked about), such as ESO and FFXIV.
All proven and mathematically hypothesized numbers aside, if a game is doing good enough to keep content rolling out, I'm satisfied. Though word of mouth is definitely a powerful thing. And then there are factors of subscriptions versus no subscriptions and the ability for people to prefer to buy one over the other -- given the nature of most, it's usually the cheapest. But also factoring in Steam Support and PS4. Heart of Thorns has to do amazingly well to negate all the mocking and poor word of mouth on various forums -- even their own. Constantly give people things to do. Improving. Providing substantial end game. Until then, it shall remain a buy "on sale", play for two weeks type of game for most of its purchasers. With those who remain then making complaint after complaint (granted, I have not visited the official forums in some time, as I kept on getting depressed by all the mocking of the game, which doused my hopes for expansions further).
To add context, I thought both ESO and FFXIV were trash when they were first released. Didn't hate on ESO, though about six months after FFXIV I became incredibly anti A Realm Reborn, which lasted about five months when the issues I had with it were fixed and I became a fan (I did try and make a guide for new players at start, but part of my bias was there). I'm a fairly huge critic and pragmatists when it comes to games that have an IP that I enjoy, and that is shown in Guild Wars 2 as well. Of which Heart of Thorns is making a comeback on my list. Edit:
Most of this is made from my observations of games I'd like to see succeed. Recollecting hundreds if not thousands of posts and sites that report on such. Noting the massive positive feelings of games as well as negative feelings by various communities. At best, the only "confirmed" numbers for FFXIV at present are realistically 1,000,000 subscribers, after adding South Korea and not taking in theories with regards to financial quarters and Square / news sites claiming it's FFXIV that boosted profits tremendously quarter after quarter. It's perfectly acceptable to not take pragmatic observation, recollection and cause & effect as proof for anything.
Post edited by Yaevindusk on
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
Just goes to stride how deluded you are, you have 0 credible info in that post of yours.
Thousands of fanboi posts are just that thousands of fanbois posts.
Who confirmed that 1 mil. You?
You see, posts like yours are just what is wrong with whole MMO gaming, dreams and fancies.
SQiux never mentioned anything about FFXIV more than "its doing adequatly" and that they need cash shop to be able to open Euro servers. OTOH they DO mention games that perform and only thing thats visible is that MOBILE MARKET boosted its profits and FFXIV stayed more or less the same for quite a while now. So unless FFXIV is on mobile, no.
ESO launched on cosoles and didnt fare too well, but even that wouldnt be the problem if it wasnt for that dreaded retention. Retail box started plummentin month after launch.
legend: yellow BAD - red good, look at lower graph (yearly)
If those 3 are your kings...well...
OTOH you have GW2 fer which we KNOW performed stable since launch, after having a huge launch spike. We KNOW it made boatload of money. We KNOW how many it sold and we know that it broke few records along the way.
I don't think the OP realizes that GW2 is currently the #2 MMO in both active user base AND revenue in the US.
Your website link actually provides no factual information and is, for the most part, rambling that seems to be written by a high school student when judged by punctuation.
I'm not sure what the point of this post was. But being the current #2 in the MMO market, with potential to even pass WoW for #1 with the upcoming expansion, and with WoW's current track record of expansions hurting it, is actually a darn good place to be.
Ahhh, dont worry, thats the guy who said that FFXIV is doing SO great that whole SQix hangs on the thread called FFXIV. Of course, 0 proof.
Fact is that they needed cash shop on top of sub.
Dont need proof when a P2P game stays a P2P game today. Dont Need Proof when they bring out new content every 3 to 4 months. Dont need proof when they come out with Expansions faster than any other MMO including WOW. Sorry Malabooga but ESO HAD to go B2P sorry JUST to make money. Thats how little you know. If a game cannot stay P2P then they are not financially stable. O and the whole Cash shop comment. Yea there is one, because the EU group wants a EU data center so SE cut a deal with the players, they will put in a Cash shop that has 90% of the stuff where you can get it in game during the Seasonal events, and a few other things that mean nothing other than looks. With the money they make from the Cash Shop they will build a EU data center. Hell the EU players are spending money in the Cash Shop just so they get the data center they wanted. Does any other MMO out there use their cash shop for helping a game out? No its to pay back investors who want their money back now.
Anyways BcBully Here is a Forbes Article you should read. http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/01/02/predicting-the-biggest-disaster-of-2014-the-elder-scrolls-online/ I prefer to read from a place like Forbes when I can because it will tell you what is going on in the world of investors and business. This Article lays out how much of a failure ESO is and WAS. YES the game made money after going B2P without a doubt. Problem is it was Forced to go to B2P because it was not making enough money. Now I am done talking negatively about ESO Just know this the industry will not continue to sustain games that are not making enough money.
Im amazed someone is actually silly enough to use that Forbes article for anything. I had a good laugh at it when it first came out too. The entire article was nothing more than a poke at the subscription model with some ESO thrown in, especially for the title, JUST to get attention because ESO was nearing release and was the popular topic at the time. His "information" about the game came from forums / message boards, with no first hand experience whatsoever or any real knowledge of the game itself, other than "it has a subscription and people dont like subscriptions".
That article was written in January 2014. ESO didnt even release until 4 months later. There is nothing in there that has any actually relevance to ESO being a failure, just (insert name of game) will be a failure BECAUSE it has a subscription even though I have no idea what the game has to offer or if it is any good or not.
Ahhh, dont worry, thats the guy who said that FFXIV is doing SO great that whole SQix hangs on the thread called FFXIV. Of course, 0 proof.
Fact is that they needed cash shop on top of sub.
Dont need proof when a P2P game stays a P2P game today. Dont Need Proof when they bring out new content every 3 to 4 months. Dont need proof when they come out with Expansions faster than any other MMO including WOW. Sorry Malabooga but ESO HAD to go B2P sorry JUST to make money. Thats how little you know. If a game cannot stay P2P then they are not financially stable. O and the whole Cash shop comment. Yea there is one, because the EU group wants a EU data center so SE cut a deal with the players, they will put in a Cash shop that has 90% of the stuff where you can get it in game during the Seasonal events, and a few other things that mean nothing other than looks. With the money they make from the Cash Shop they will build a EU data center. Hell the EU players are spending money in the Cash Shop just so they get the data center they wanted. Does any other MMO out there use their cash shop for helping a game out? No its to pay back investors who want their money back now.
Anyways BcBully Here is a Forbes Article you should read. http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/01/02/predicting-the-biggest-disaster-of-2014-the-elder-scrolls-online/ I prefer to read from a place like Forbes when I can because it will tell you what is going on in the world of investors and business. This Article lays out how much of a failure ESO is and WAS. YES the game made money after going B2P without a doubt. Problem is it was Forced to go to B2P because it was not making enough money. Now I am done talking negatively about ESO Just know this the industry will not continue to sustain games that are not making enough money.
Im amazed someone is actually silly enough to use that Forbes article for anything. I had a good laugh at it when it first came out too. The entire article was nothing more than a poke at the subscription model with some ESO thrown in, especially for the title, JUST to get attention because ESO was nearing release and was the popular topic at the time. His "information" about the game came from forums / message boards, with no first hand experience whatsoever or any real knowledge of the game itself, other than "it has a subscription and people dont like subscriptions".
That article was written in January 2014. ESO didnt even release until 4 months later. There is nothing in there that has any actually relevance to ESO being a failure, just (insert name of game) will be a failure BECAUSE it has a subscription even though I have no idea what the game has to offer or if it is any good or not.
In terms of investment ESO was a flop, compared to others. They spent $200 million on development, and advertising only to sell under 140k copies on launch.There's always opportunity to turn around a flop, FFXIV did it, it wasn't a shining example, but it turned loss into profit. ESO on the other hand is still trying to recover, and there's evidence of that.
GW2 made it's money as promised, and the more money it makes, the further Arena Net will separate itself from NCSoft. This is a good thing for players, because more money will in turn flow back into the game itself, instead of NCSofts pockets. ArenaNet operates GW2, all NCSoft did was front the money.
I do think
GW2 will survive the coming Market Correction.
I think GW2 is strong enough for that.
However I do think that some of GW2’s revenues got used to make Wildstar
so it will hurt GW2. I also think that
the B2P setup hurts them because it’s much harder to figure out monthly revenue.
Gaia_Hunter,
Read above
here. I am not saying GW2 is in trouble
again it’s one of the stronger games, it is not however in a world of roses
where there are no problems. I do think
that some of GW2 revenue was used for Wildstar which I am sorry crashed and
burned. That WILL hurt GW2 and kind of
has already it has taken what 5 years for an expansion?
Again GW2 is a good game for its niche market of players. It can do well and continue to operate. Other games though will not be as lucky.
3 years + 2 months does only equal 5 years with severely limited math skills. And even if GW2 was 5 years old I don't see how Wildstars failure would have affected GW2 before WS even was released?
Anet have more employees now then when GW2 released, so clearly have WS bad numbers had rather little influence on GW2. They have the same owners so some kind of influence do they probably have with eachother but it clearly matters little.
As for B2P, that is really impossible to say unless you can release the game in different realities with different models. I think B2P is a good model but how it actually affect earnings is just speculations.
We tried to tell you folks that this was coming it's been building over a course of several years. Warning signs kept appearing with terrible decisions made by management particulary in Wildstar's early days and GW2 ongoing issues that are never solved (especially imbalance, loot issues, and ongoing class favoritism by the development team.) When we tell you these things it's not always out of hate for the game many of us would have loved to have made GW2 our second home but because of the problems we couldn't play anymore.
We knew that there were population issues and issues with their economic design any time a game developer has to rely solely on requiring cash to progress (even when it's by using the loot system and the AH, remember the RMTAH in Diablo III?) It's going to end up a mess as it's showing now. It's been building for some time now.
People need to get their heads out of the sand and realize these these billing models are not good for the MMO genre and they are not good for the gaming community.
Loot and casual play are two of the central things that make mmo gaming fun, when you remove those two formats from your game you lose players and when you lose players you lose money.
But I'm sure some of you will jump on here and tell us all how the reality of the situation isn't real and that it's our imagination that this company is losing so much money and that we don't know what we're talking about when it comes to game design. smh
What does the buy to play model have to do with anything your talking about? Are you some kind of shill? I have noticed any buy to play mmorpg, and when something innovative has come out there is allot allot of people who come into the threads and do everything possible discredit an mmorpg and even lie about it same goes for single players games, you guys need to stop trying seriously this crap is getting old and people are to smart for you now, you guys expose yourself so easily and make it way to obvious lol.
Why cant you guys just for once compete with other companies honestly and step up your game instead of continuing to release crap?
Comments
Loke666
I do think GW2 will survive the coming Market Correction. I think GW2 is strong enough for that. However I do think that some of GW2’s revenues got used to make Wildstar so it will hurt GW2. I also think that the B2P setup hurts them because it’s much harder to figure out monthly revenue.
Gaia_Hunter,
Read above here. I am not saying GW2 is in trouble again it’s one of the stronger games, it is not however in a world of roses where there are no problems. I do think that some of GW2 revenue was used for Wildstar which I am sorry crashed and burned. That WILL hurt GW2 and kind of has already it has taken what 5 years for an expansion?
Again GW2 is a good game for its niche market of players. It can do well and continue to operate. Other games though will not be as lucky.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Sorry but the Industry is about to implode. SOE got bought by a Indie Venture company and renamed Daybreak, Funcom is asking for someone to buy them because they are in financial trouble, Hell even Trion has said they had Financial trouble, Blizzard is making more off their new games vs WOW. The Industry is going to go through a change and YES some games not performing will shut down.
Also SE puts out Financial Statements once a quarter
http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/16q1slides.pdf
They are making money off of FFXIV hell they are even building a new EU Data center and they wouldnt be doing that if they were not making money.
Anyways a friend of mine who likes GW2 said its good that NCSoft being removed from GW2 and anet taking over is a good thing. He too thinks that certain things were going on in the background that should not have been. In any event the Market will change here, it already is showing signs that its going to.
To be truthful, Funcom is its own fault for doing such a horrible job with Age of Conan, which was forced to F2P and The Secret World didn't do much thanks to its rather bad combat. Instead of fixing and promoting their current portfolio (at minim costs, mind you), they decided to invest heavily in a Lego game for children. .... not the smartest business decision. That Lego game crashed and burned hard because it was more about the figurines than the actual Legos, which is a bad thing for a LEGO game! And the genre of voxel building games is getting bloated beyond the kingpin holder that is Minecraft (we have Trove already and Skysaga coming soon, there are dozens on Steam that are 3rd rate).
NCSoft hasn't been removed entirely. They still own A.Net and GW2. What it is, is that publishing duties are now on A.Net. This is most likely because NCSoft's West departments all got gutted within the past 1.5 years thanks to them putting too resources into Wildstar (yet, incidentally they seem to fail at marketing that game). A.Net has it's own offices separate from the NCSoft West offices and was unaffected by those cuts.
As an added note from previously mentioned comments, I do think that NCSoft really fails to promote any of their Western titles beyond just the niche MMO crowds. WoW's success is partially due to it promoting across the board to as many people as possible: MMO gamers, casuals, and just everyone in general. NCSoft -as a Korean company- really does look to be more focused on promoting in their home country the portfolio of games that they host there while leaving the West as a sort of "side milking" project.
They have been turning that around lately, slowly but surely. Looking forward to see what Heart of Thorns offers to the core experience, and how they will evolve the game from here on out.
Free trial
The Return of Roles
Raiding
Guild housing
Advanced classes
More ways to interact with environment
Additional character progression
These are some good starts. Now I just would like Player Housing and the ability to decorate said house / sit in chairs (in taverns, your house and random benches in towns / cities). Maybe also persistent emotes, such as crossing your arms, putting your hands behind your head, etc.
Also something I liked was how your character interacts with the environment in Guild Wars 2. When you walk over a trigger point, they actually speak about what they're seeing. Dialog is no longer exclusively for those immersion detracting speech scenes.
I hope it succeeds so that we are able to see Cantha and Elona in the future. The fact that they're now their own publisher also gives me hope in this. The Crystal Desert, as well. Though I'd imagine that being a part of Elona.
kk carry on
edit for link - http://www.vg247.com/2015/07/16/fallout-shelter-5-million-elder-scrolls-online-june/
WS hurt NCSoft badly. No matter how much some people wont admit it.
Same as FFXIV hurt SQuix, same as SWTOR hurt EA, same as AoC/TSW hurt FC....
The only thing is how visible it is (with EAs gigantic revenue SWOTR is but a spec, SQuix was in visibly bad shape sue to FFXIV, FC...
living in a fairy land where everything is unicorns and rainbows helps noone.
But nvm, financial records will be out soon, and i make a prediction - GW2 about same level as before, WS still dropping, rest of NCWest....not even worth mentioning.
2nd, even if we presume its true, they compare 2 Qs when WS was launched last year.
This is WS topic
Question is why do you even feel entitled to comment on stuff that youre clueless about.
One would assume you would at lest inform yourself about BASIC stuff. But no.
It dissapeared form "top seller" by week 4 which was 2 months ago.
Yeah, which of "internet analysts" said that rofl I wonder if he factored in all those 5-10$ retail boxes which peole mostly bought
kk carry on, facts checked.
"The Elder Scrolls Online sold 138,000 digital copies during its release month of June."
To be honest, that should be a very, very bad sign.
Fact is that they needed cash shop on top of sub.
Anyways BcBully Here is a Forbes Article you should read.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/01/02/predicting-the-biggest-disaster-of-2014-the-elder-scrolls-online/
I prefer to read from a place like Forbes when I can because it will tell you what is going on in the world of investors and business. This Article lays out how much of a failure ESO is and WAS. YES the game made money after going B2P without a doubt. Problem is it was Forced to go to B2P because it was not making enough money. Now I am done talking negatively about ESO Just know this the industry will not continue to sustain games that are not making enough money.
Just to chide in, as of the last quarterly report (I think it was already posted here; I'm writing in a hurry and not at my normal computer) with regards to FFXIV, it is estimated that the current subscriber count is roughly 1.2-1.5 million (former taking in a hard account of potential cash shop sales, of which most items are $1-3 microtransactions and a $10 character race change; they did promise to dedicate all cash shop sales to housing servers, so I don't know if this is profit on the sheets or considered by math people. Irregardless, it offsets costs of a demanded feature that they released the floodgates for, and have to continue to support). This is prior to the announcement a few weeks ago that an additional 250,000-500,000 or more subscribers are playing in the recently released South Korean Version ( 250,000 minimum as it states unique player log ins per day, with an average of over five hours played a day by them all). I believe box sales are around six million at present, with them announcing over five million a little while ago (does not include free trials). Were it ever to go the B2P or F2P route, this will likely double if not triple (the box sales). Which was what I estimated would do for ESO (or at least substantially increase, especially due to their great many improvements and console fanbase).
http://www.dualshockers.com/2015/08/26/final-fantasy-xiv-a-realm-reborn-conquers-korea-250000-gamers-play-every-day/The number itself isn't impressive to me. Though it is such that they're amount the first subscription MMO to actually increase sub numbers after years, with their "settled" starting numbers being around 600-800k originally, according to the first report of some 600k unique logs per day (which, they emphasizes, that not every subscriber logged in every day, so the max above is guessed and may be more or less), months after 2.0's launch and further targeted by with the information of one million across Square's online licenses all that time ago (of which, it was quoting an old quarterly report that some sites mistook as a current one).
As for what game is better is a matter of opinion. I'm partial and bias towards FFXIV, and have a hatred for GW2 as a GW1 fanboy and Role Player (Give me housing and sitting in chairs, already!). Though with FFXIV there are something like over a dozen different metas to follow through with -- all of which require a lot of work, attunements and pretty much full-time dedication. The world and journey of GW2 was fun, but I felt the game had no meta at all by the time I got to level 80. Just buy exotic glass cannon equipment, then do dailies later on when the next tier came out with agony infusion. I'm glad they're putting raids in, but they are going to have to make pretty much every aspect of their game have its own end game if they're going to compete with my current choice of games. Not to mention release huge patches, as can be seen by any of FFXIV's patch trailers of the past and what little we know of patch 3.1.
http://www.dualshockers.com/2015/08/22/final-fantasy-xiv-patch-3-1-patch-detailed-new-raid-dungeons-and-much-more-on-ps4-ps3-and-pc/
All that said, the current Kings of the Market -- always excluding WoW -- are undoubtedly ESO and FFXIV and SWTOR (Lineage as well, but that's exclusive to one territory in its success). As personal opinion, and by sheer word of mouth and constant praise across the entirety of the internet (in that anywhere you look you see "this is a great game", example comments in the links above, MMO-Champion, their respected forums, etc.), it's without a doubt FFXIV and ESO. Whereas I see (or saw) nothing but criticism for GW2 and people mocking it on various forums, almost to levels WoD is being hated on. With little to no hype from any of my normal sources for the expansion -- which is sad, as I want to see it succeed do bad due to wanting to play in Cantha and Elona. I've been advertising the heck out of GW2's free trial with WoW players who are tired of the game. As well as making mentions of the top games at present (as is, the most talked about), such as ESO and FFXIV.
All proven and mathematically hypothesized numbers aside, if a game is doing good enough to keep content rolling out, I'm satisfied. Though word of mouth is definitely a powerful thing. And then there are factors of subscriptions versus no subscriptions and the ability for people to prefer to buy one over the other -- given the nature of most, it's usually the cheapest. But also factoring in Steam Support and PS4. Heart of Thorns has to do amazingly well to negate all the mocking and poor word of mouth on various forums -- even their own. Constantly give people things to do. Improving. Providing substantial end game. Until then, it shall remain a buy "on sale", play for two weeks type of game for most of its purchasers. With those who remain then making complaint after complaint (granted, I have not visited the official forums in some time, as I kept on getting depressed by all the mocking of the game, which doused my hopes for expansions further).
To add context, I thought both ESO and FFXIV were trash when they were first released. Didn't hate on ESO, though about six months after FFXIV I became incredibly anti A Realm Reborn, which lasted about five months when the issues I had with it were fixed and I became a fan (I did try and make a guide for new players at start, but part of my bias was there). I'm a fairly huge critic and pragmatists when it comes to games that have an IP that I enjoy, and that is shown in Guild Wars 2 as well. Of which Heart of Thorns is making a comeback on my list.
Edit:
Most of this is made from my observations of games I'd like to see succeed. Recollecting hundreds if not thousands of posts and sites that report on such. Noting the massive positive feelings of games as well as negative feelings by various communities. At best, the only "confirmed" numbers for FFXIV at present are realistically 1,000,000 subscribers, after adding South Korea and not taking in theories with regards to financial quarters and Square / news sites claiming it's FFXIV that boosted profits tremendously quarter after quarter. It's perfectly acceptable to not take pragmatic observation, recollection and cause & effect as proof for anything.
Just goes to stride how deluded you are, you have 0 credible info in that post of yours.
Thousands of fanboi posts are just that thousands of fanbois posts.
Who confirmed that 1 mil. You?
You see, posts like yours are just what is wrong with whole MMO gaming, dreams and fancies.
SQiux never mentioned anything about FFXIV more than "its doing adequatly" and that they need cash shop to be able to open Euro servers. OTOH they DO mention games that perform and only thing thats visible is that MOBILE MARKET boosted its profits and FFXIV stayed more or less the same for quite a while now. So unless FFXIV is on mobile, no.
ESO launched on cosoles and didnt fare too well, but even that wouldnt be the problem if it wasnt for that dreaded retention. Retail box started plummentin month after launch.
SWTOR is going trhough worse period since launch
http://www.torstatus.net/shards/eu/trends http://www.torstatus.net/shards/us/trends
legend: yellow BAD - red good, look at lower graph (yearly)
If those 3 are your kings...well...
OTOH you have GW2 fer which we KNOW performed stable since launch, after having a huge launch spike. We KNOW it made boatload of money. We KNOW how many it sold and we know that it broke few records along the way.
Your hatred/fanboism doesnt change the facts.
Your website link actually provides no factual information and is, for the most part, rambling that seems to be written by a high school student when judged by punctuation.
I'm not sure what the point of this post was. But being the current #2 in the MMO market, with potential to even pass WoW for #1 with the upcoming expansion, and with WoW's current track record of expansions hurting it, is actually a darn good place to be.
That article was written in January 2014. ESO didnt even release until 4 months later. There is nothing in there that has any actually relevance to ESO being a failure, just (insert name of game) will be a failure BECAUSE it has a subscription even though I have no idea what the game has to offer or if it is any good or not.
GW2 made it's money as promised, and the more money it makes, the further Arena Net will separate itself from NCSoft. This is a good thing for players, because more money will in turn flow back into the game itself, instead of NCSofts pockets. ArenaNet operates GW2, all NCSoft did was front the money.
Anet have more employees now then when GW2 released, so clearly have WS bad numbers had rather little influence on GW2. They have the same owners so some kind of influence do they probably have with eachother but it clearly matters little.
As for B2P, that is really impossible to say unless you can release the game in different realities with different models. I think B2P is a good model but how it actually affect earnings is just speculations.
Why cant you guys just for once compete with other companies honestly and step up your game instead of continuing to release crap?