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State of the industry: Buy full B2P MMO for price of one subscription from year ago.
Lobotomist
Member EpicPosts: 5,965
You can now buy The Secret World for 15$ , this is aproximately same as one month subscription we used to pay for MMOs almost year ago.
This is where MMO companies had led themselves by constant failure to listen to the players and instead insist on greed and plagiarism.
They wanted to make big bucks like WoW , but instead sell the whole game for one subscription.
Well done.
This tread is not against TSW, but against all the industry and its failure.
TSW itself is a great game. Probably would be quite sucessful MMO if it came before people started to be fed with all the themepark bull. People just dont want that , never did.
Whole point of MMO is to be a virtual world we can influence and change. Not singleplayer game with other people in it.
Comments
Hmm of couse the other side of the argument is maybe they did listen to players.
Players have been screaming about making games free.
They have been screaming about making things easier, more casual, quicker to get into, quick to get groups.
TSW delivered that in spades.
IMO the lesson really is. Don't listen to what your players tell you haha.
I agree with you and games will sell for what they are worth. It's a self-correcting issue IMO and I for one am glad that the industry is at least moving in a direction... to what destination who knows
.
I"m not really sure. People talk about animations, I thought they were ok. I thought there were too many things on the skill wheel that were virtually identical and relatively useless but oh well.
The graphics were decent, I thought animations were fine, skill wheel interesting, theme was good. Overall it was fine.
There is nothing I can really point to that was bad. I liked the 3 weeks or so I played and never had any desire to go further.
For me it was probably just a little too much of been there done that.
Actually all the games feel that way to me now. Back to playing istaria so I can build a plot which is a little different.
There is really nothing wrong with most of the games. But we've figured them out. They are no longer suprising or engaging. IMO games are going to have to do something enormously different to be engaging again. As different as spg's were to MMO's, that may not happen to virtual reality comes in, or maybe 3d becomes bigger, or possible surround visuals. Not sure. Maybe kinnect type motions.
TSW is excellent game. This tread is about MMOs in general.
I hear people on here ask for things all the time that would be destructive to the industry and overall game quality if they were to be listened to. Companies have been experimenting with different things also, and a lot of these things are due to requests from the casual player base. A lot of these great ideas ended up being the downfall of the game.
Don't get me wrong, they made the games, they get to own them...but a lot of their failure actually is due to experimentation (maybe in the wrong directions.) Ironically, the next biggest cause of their failure is, as you said, blatant plagiarism. They need to find a way to honor the rpg tradition (which shouldn't be freakin hard) yet still make their individual mark in the genre. We don't want to know what to expect, they need to challenge us and take us somewhere we haven't been like they used to. As long as they cater to the casual, carebearish playerbase (who already have 100 games out there) that won't happen.
They give people something worth a sub and people will pay it.
Edit: reading Venge's responses...you know what's up dude.
http://thewordiz.wordpress.com/
TSW failed because of insufficient marketing and many other reasons, but I don't see how you could link its failure to greed or plagiarism, because it obviously had neither.
Actually this is a good thing from a business perspective. Cheap cost of entry into the game = more players = more people who will likely do micro transactions .. This is where the real money is. i.e. This model works similiar to such things as the purchase of your printer ... the printer is just an "enabler" .. that is why these days print companies almost give printers away because the REAL money is to be made on the ink catridges... same applies to F2P and B2P game model with micro transactions .. get em in the door, get em hooked .. spend a few bucks .. no brainer
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Thats actually just one game, not games in general.
I can assure you I paid a lot more for Vanguard.
Did you get in on Launch Day?
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Not really sure about the Plagarism reference....
However, when people say that developers are getting greedy with the B2P, or F2P models they are. Can't blame them. I know WoW is the golden standard by which all gamers compare, but a lot of developers are looking at games like "World of Tanks" and their 45 million players spending cash on golden shells, and wonder if
Does 45 million players with half buying crap = more than 500k to 1 million players paying a sub(cause lets face it, no one's come close to WoW since, or probably ever will again)
They look at SWTOR-about 500k players paying a sub when they went F2P(or more, or less, who knows), and wonder if it equals more money than The clone wars adventure mmo(for kids) and their 25 million players. How many of them are spending cash?
Not sure how subscription models will ever retake anything when these other models suck so much more cash from peoples hands.
Rift is giving away 3000 free keys to Standard Rift+Strom legion+30 days game time, all free. so 15$ for TSW is still better than what trion is doing for Rift. it seems the only way new players come to Rift is by these free giveaways. selling for 15$ and getting some players to play the game is still more profitable, right?
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
It didn't fail hard - at least not in TOR's magnitude of hard. It was clear that the game won't reach millions of players, mostly just adventure game fans, Ragnar fans, and the curious players who'd like to try a modern-day setting game with a darker tone.
It was indeed fail that it brought in less players than expected. But after launch it had a slowly increasing and very loyal playerbase, that's why I was mostly on the side of "stay p2p" (I was wrong as the b2p numbers shown. My bad
). But since b2p TSW accumulated a decent population, and seems to have a steady and healty state.
So, I'm not debating the fail part, only the so hard part
I agree that the state of MMOs is in a "cheap" state. None are worth $60 to me let alone a sub on top of that. I used to be able to pay half that much for a game with 5x the content right out of the gate. $60 for a glorified fighting game keeps my money in my wallet.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
The funny thing about the cash shop before it went B2P, was that it was pretty much ALL clothing. There was absolutely NOTHING in there that you needed (and pretty much nothing that was even useful), unless you wanted to look exceptionally different.
It's the same as a monthly sub for a subscription MMO right now, or has that changed?
Also, the box price of almost every MMO drops after a year, so I'm not seeing how that has anything to do with the problems TSW has or doesn't have, let alone the state of the industry.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
By the developers' own words in an interview a while back they mentioned something about trying something new. Which I took to mean as both the puzzle and horror parts of their game being outside players' comfort.
The core MMORPG group (myself included) ate it up, of course, but you need a wider audience than that to really create a smash hit.
That said, I think it's probably overly harsh to imply it "failed so hard". They're still going, and the price point is simply adaptation. As another recent thread points out, market saturation is also a factor.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well from what I can remember, at release there were glitches with sigils that were being exploited left and right, leading to unkillable players in Fusang. As a skill based mmo, it had the dreaded "many doors but only one opens" or .. something like that, I can't remember. And there was this thing where dungeon gear kept getting better and better but pvp gear stayed the same, and I checked recently and while dungeon gear power creep has gone through the roof in .X tiers, pvp gear is still at ... qlvl 10.0? (Can someone correct me on that?)
That and people started complaining about how poorly thought out Fusang was altogether. I rarely saw cap trading myself, but it happened enough to anger players.
Anyways, mostly glitches at the start.
Terrible combat
wait .. you are using TSW as an example of MMO failing .. and you said it is an excellent game?
So are all the other failing MMOs also excellent game too? And they fail because of other reasons .. like competition?
I'm fascinated by this apparent failure of the MMO industry that had 4 viable MMO's in 1999 and a couple million players and now 100's of MMO's and 10 of milions of players. With MMO's launching every year and many still going strong UO 17 EQ 14 LoTRO 6 SWTOR 1.5 hell even games like Perfect World are still going strong after 8 years, also Silk Road Online 10 MU Online 10. Just because a company with two lousy releases then a good release but a small unfinished game has failed does not mean the whole industry has failed, that is seriously flawed logic. TSW is a mediocre game and the price reflects that.
Some posters have to learn to differentiate between a market without games they like and a failed market the two are completely different. For posters who constantly infer their intelligence they sure lack common sense.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Yeah sorry, I don't like the game but my question did sound a little harsh even then. I just meant, in context with the OP, why did TSW drop to B2P $15 so fast? I've gotten some good answers here.
By the way, I enjoy puzzles and horror, I just didn't enjoy the feel of the game itself. You can't make a good game on good ideas alone. If it's not fun, it'll tank.
Right on. MMO is a growing market with 12B of revenue in 2012.
http://www.superdataresearch.com/global-mmo-games-spending-exceeds-12bn/
Guess I am not 'core' group then. I am also a member of a small forum that theoretically focuses on mmorpg's with around 30 regulars and around 20-30 more sporadic members. It consist of 'old timers' remembering UO and members that came up with later and even relatively recent games. 2 members played this game only after release (much more checked beta ofc), then few more bought it for 15$ on amazon sale few months ago. As far as I know - 1 person played few months and those other few that gave game a shot played only between few days and few weeks.
Most people that played - were not agreeing with Funcom opinion about 'trying too much new'. They described it as story-focused linear themepark with preety standard instanced end-game. Some even said that it resembled single player adventure game just with some apparent mmorpg mechanics showing every now and then. Others compared it to Swtor.
I am one of those that snagged very cheap copy months ago - and I would say that 'too much new' is not problem either. Anyone who had been playing themeparks in last 3-4 years will have no problem in finding himself in this game. So I don't think 'innovation' is what killed this game as there is not much innovation there aside of incorporating even stronger single player approach to levelling.
'Failed so hard' - everyone has their own measure what that mean, but since game was not even remotely close to their lower scenario target sales and subsciptions, CEO of Funcom left company 1 day before TSW release and is facing insider trade investigation, Funcom fired most of their workers and is undergoing heavy restructurizaion, was unable to repay debt (in talks with debt owners), it's stock lost over 90% in last year (crashed soon after TSW release) and finally company is looking to sale itself / investor - then I would assume that it failed hard.