Steam numbers are back to pre-F2P metrics

Sagasaint

And recent reviews are back to "mostly negative"

Good Lord, people dont want this game even for free. You cant even give this away.

Wizardry

To put it simply,his intentions appear to be "how can i make some money off  of this"BEFORE thinking about "how can i make a great game".

The entire gaming industry has been in a mess for quite some time and why?
$$$$ It has always been about money,that is why we see one successful gimmick come out and everyone starts to copy it.They are not building a game because they thought for a long time what would be a really cool game,NO they see what is making money and jump right on that bandwagon,be it moba's or Diablo's or battle Royale or even as far back as Mmorpg's and the Everquest>Wow inclusion.

We are not even seeing creativity,instead we see same old new skin,very sad effort across the board.Oh and then along came crowd funding then Early access,it is ALWAYS 100% always devs looking for some gimmick to scam money out of us.

I fel when we do finally see a LEGIT developer and game,we will know it because it will be way to obvious that it is different than the rest.You know it is like seeing our lineup of cars,the Honda Civic ,the Toyota Camry then ....out roll the Lambourghini ,you see you just know when it is different and above the rest.

newbismx

Bad game is bad.

MightyUnclean

Anyone want to make some gentlemen's bets on the second episode ever coming out?

Xee2018

MightyUnclean said:

Anyone want to make some gentlemen's bets on the second episode ever coming out?

I will make that bet

Steam numbers mean nothing.  the majority of the accounts are with the game client.   there are 1777 subs based on the twitch stream funding numbers.  $16k every start of the twitch is subs which is $9/sub so 1777 active accounts that have subs.  We do know there are some that have more then 1 account but even so thats still an account generating numbers.  each twitch is bringing in between 50-100k a month still so I think its a good bet that it will come out.

Sagasaint

Xee2018 said:

MightyUnclean said:

Anyone want to make some gentlemen's bets on the second episode ever coming out?

I will make that bet

Steam numbers mean nothing.  the majority of the accounts are with the game client.   there are 1777 subs based on the twitch stream funding numbers.  $16k every start of the twitch is subs which is $9/sub so 1777 active accounts that have subs.  We do know there are some that have more then 1 account but even so thats still an account generating numbers.  each twitch is bringing in between 50-100k a month still so I think its a good bet that it will come out.

Are you aware that kind of numbers arent enough to support 10-15 dev team's salaries? And I dont think SOTA makes much more outside of the beg-a-tons

Lets not forget that what we see see now in episode 1 is  the result of 5 years of development, by a 30-size team, costing nearly $15-20m total...with all the bugs, halfassed and broken systems and gaps in content

are we supoosed to believe Portalarium can do episode 2 on a few hundred thousands, after firing half the staff (mostly the technical one), in one year?

Mikeha

Game is not exclusive to STEAM so their numbers mean nothing. Not saying the game is doing good but you cant judge the game by numbers on STEAM. 

Octagon7711

Steam is a general indicator of how a game is doing.  Has there been a game that did bad on Steam but was a success anywhere else?  Steams just a cross section of the gaming community.

Xee2018

Sagasaint said:

Xee2018 said:

MightyUnclean said:

Anyone want to make some gentlemen's bets on the second episode ever coming out?

I will make that bet

Steam numbers mean nothing.  the majority of the accounts are with the game client.   there are 1777 subs based on the twitch stream funding numbers.  $16k every start of the twitch is subs which is $9/sub so 1777 active accounts that have subs.  We do know there are some that have more then 1 account but even so thats still an account generating numbers.  each twitch is bringing in between 50-100k a month still so I think its a good bet that it will come out.

Are you aware that kind of numbers arent enough to support 10-15 dev team's salaries? And I dont think SOTA makes much more outside of the beg-a-tons

Lets not forget that what we see see now in episode 1 is  the result of 5 years of development, by a 30-size team, costing nearly $15-20m total...with all the bugs, halfassed and broken systems and gaps in content

are we supoosed to believe Portalarium can do episode 2 on a few hundred thousands, after firing half the staff (mostly the technical one), in one year?

EP2 will be coming and how much do you think a dev makes lol?  They already stated they will be increasing the team soon to work on ep2.  The company is not in any trouble and as of last twitch it was stated that they have seen steady growth and retention.   Ep1 the core systems were developed  in those 5 years which is what most of the money was spent developing , they only have been enhancing and expanding those systems since they laid off all the people that were no longer required.   the 100k is only based on money spent on the twitch events every Friday which is only 4 days of the whole month.  They have sales outside of that we know as we see people all the time on day of new content with the new stuff rather then waiting one day for the sales. 

The game will keep trucking despite what the few nah Sayers think.

newbismx

Oh the delusion...

Theocritus

When I search for games on Steam this one never appears anywhere.

RemyVorender

Games designed with cashflow in mind instead of focusing on fun gameplay are doomed to fail. Making a game people actually want to play is the best way to be profitable long-term (remember those days?). The problem here is it's way too easy and low risk for companies (AAA or indie) to crank out the pump and dumps. 

Kyleran

Theocritus said:

When I search for games on Steam this one never appears anywhere.

You must have had the "good game" filter accidently turned on.

NorseGod

Kyleran said:

Theocritus said:

When I search for games on Steam this one never appears anywhere.

You must have had the "good game" filter accidently turned on.

That would explain a lot.

WargfootYV

Back in 1999 something odd happened in the UO community.
People actually began to sell game real estate for real money.
This was before cash shops and all that noise.

I remember talking to people about it - the initial incredulity - the wide eyes.
A castle went for $1200 on eBay or some outrageous amount.
Rare swords in EQ were going for hundreds of dollars.

I think this caught everyone off guard.

Imagine if you're a developer who sold the game for $40 and you're sitting there watching someone sell an in game asset for 20X what the game cost.  You'd probably figure you're in the wrong business.  Clearly this had an impact on Garriot who designed SOTA from the ground up to be a real estate selling venture.

He apparently went from trying to craft as realistic of a world as possible to trying to craft a way to move in game real estate. 

I've said it before, and I say it again: Instead of the cash shop being a feature of the game the game is a feature of the cash shop.

And this is why gaming sucks.
They took their eye off the ball.

DracSchnider

Octagon7711 said:

Steam is a general indicator of how a game is doing.  Has there been a game that did bad on Steam but was a success anywhere else?  Steams just a cross section of the gaming community.

Steam is mostly indie games these days.  All the big publishers are now opening their own stores. 

Sagasaint said:

Xee2018 said:

MightyUnclean said:

Anyone want to make some gentlemen's bets on the second episode ever coming out?

I will make that bet

Steam numbers mean nothing.  the majority of the accounts are with the game client.   there are 1777 subs based on the twitch stream funding numbers.  $16k every start of the twitch is subs which is $9/sub so 1777 active accounts that have subs.  We do know there are some that have more then 1 account but even so thats still an account generating numbers.  each twitch is bringing in between 50-100k a month still so I think its a good bet that it will come out.

Are you aware that kind of numbers arent enough to support 10-15 dev team's salaries? And I dont think SOTA makes much more outside of the beg-a-tons

Lets not forget that what we see see now in episode 1 is  the result of 5 years of development, by a 30-size team, costing nearly $15-20m total...with all the bugs, halfassed and broken systems and gaps in content

are we supoosed to believe Portalarium can do episode 2 on a few hundred thousands, after firing half the staff (mostly the technical one), in one year?

What are you smoking Sagasaint?  10 devs + server infrastructure would be under 100k / month.   Unless you are paing your devs over 5k a month.  Up north here perhaps make less then US friends.   There are some devs that make 100+/ hour but most programming studios up here average the wages based on sucesss.   I would think more up here if they took home 4-5k/month would be more then happy, and happier if the number kept increasing every month which is called earning a wage.   Devs that expect more should have to earn it not just get paid what they think they are worth.  If I built a game and it was not earning the numbers expected it would be on me to improve that and get my bonus

RemyVorender said:

Games designed with cashflow in mind instead of focusing on fun gameplay are doomed to fail. Making a game people actually want to play is the best way to be profitable long-term (remember those days?). The problem here is it's way too easy and low risk for companies (AAA or indie) to crank out the pump and dumps. 

This is what I find with most steam games, there are a lot of terrible titles for what you pay.  SOTA has changed alot.  At one point I did stop playing SOTA twice, one when it was really early development and not much to do, then came back for a while, then left as it was still too buggy.  Now I play weekly, not every day as I work alot.  I have seen alot of changes for the better and the last year has been fantastic.   

From my view I think the biggest mistake they made was releasing too early.  I think after the F2P came out is when they should have just started marketing.   Today I would say they are much further ahead and with a few changes coming they will be doing a mass market campain as they will be in the right spot to crowed pull.    I am very interested to see what this R63 big change will be which they said after looking at all the responces from people the are addressing one of the top concerns of players disliked.   No clue on what it is yet, but its got a lot of people wondering.

Could be so many things from fixed quest system, pvp stuff, pvp shard, cash shop change, no player real money transactions, who knows really.   Any of that would be awesome in my view.

As to EP2 its coming, doom sayers have been saying for 3 years now every year / month the game is going to fail.  3 years lol.  yet its still alive and raking in money through donation every week.  I think people underestimate how many people actually like the game.

Last twitch with Chris (lead dev) they stated that since F2p there was a spike and it dropped off and now has been on a constant climb and they are seeing now those that come play are staying / retained vs before where people came then left because of issues like myself  

Look forward to every patch, they can't push them fast enough imo.  too many good things on thier roadmap for each patch.   The Pet stuff is coming and the player dungeon encounters finally.

DracSchnider

WargfootYV said:

Back in 1999 something odd happened in the UO community.
People actually began to sell game real estate for real money.
This was before cash shops and all that noise.

I remember talking to people about it - the initial incredulity - the wide eyes.
A castle went for $1200 on eBay or some outrageous amount.
Rare swords in EQ were going for hundreds of dollars.

I think this caught everyone off guard.

Imagine if you're a developer who sold the game for $40 and you're sitting there watching someone sell an in game asset for 20X what the game cost.  You'd probably figure you're in the wrong business.  Clearly this had an impact on Garriot who designed SOTA from the ground up to be a real estate selling venture.

He apparently went from trying to craft as realistic of a world as possible to trying to craft a way to move in game real estate. 

I've said it before, and I say it again: Instead of the cash shop being a feature of the game the game is a feature of the cash shop.

And this is why gaming sucks.
They took their eye off the ball.

I think they got the eye on the ball again, they have been removing a lot of the things from the cash shop like the bundles etc.  the cash shop is to be about look / ascetics only.  hope they make that so as that would sure be a benefit.   I also noticed they have slowly been reducing the cost of items as a lot was out of the range of those that make very little in real life.