Welcome to the 1,178th edition of Loading...
Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news, coverage, and
commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
The costs of developing a triple A MMOG is on the rise, while
maintaining subscription numbers is getting harder and harder. On a
risk versus reward scale, one has to ask how much longer will investors
continue to pour money into a market, that, for the most part, has seen
relatively little profit, aside from a handful of hit titles? Benjamin
J. de la Durantaye takes a look at gamer expectations versus what we're
offered in Loading... Show Me the Money.
The Pulse
You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result is the Ten Ton Pulse (
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/thepulse/" target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).
Here's today's top 5 Pulse results:
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/41"
target="_blank">World of Warcraft - Dungeons
& Dragons Online - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/254">Aion
- EverQuest
2 -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/115">Age of
Conan: Hyborian Adventures
Biggest movers this past week:
MMO Releases
-
8/25
- CrimeCraft
(release date) - 9/1 -
Champions
Online (release date) - 9/9
- Dungeons
& Dragons Online Unlimited (release date) - 9/15
- Runes
of Magic "The Elven Prophecy" (expansion) - 9/22
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/177">Fallen
Earth (release date) - 9/22
- Aion
(release date)
Releases
Important
Dates
- 10/1 -
10/3 - href="http://fanfest.eveonline.com/">EVE Online FanFest - 10/23 - 10/24
- Hero-Con
here to explore the best free-to-play MMORPG - Runes of Magic
The Elven Prophecy. Join now and create the ultimate fantasy hero.
Loading... Daily
I spent a little time in San Francisco this week for a Press Tour of
CrimeCraft (look out for some CrimeCraft goodness coming next week).
One of the cool things about these events is that it's a chance to talk
with other professionals from the media and developing studios about
what's going on in the MMOG industry. After the day's events, some of
us stuck around to enjoy the hospitality of Vogster, and
sat in the lounge sipping martinis and talking shop.
One of the topics brought up was the viability of MMOGs from strictly a
financial viewpoint. Now, bear in mind that at this point it was just
chatter and speculation between myself and a few colleagues from
various websites and news outlets. Publishers, in particular, are
usually quite stand-offish when it comes to revealing actual numbers,
so the conversation that ensued was purely speculation on our part.
That being said, consider the cost of making a triple A MMOG. This
isn't chump change. We're talking about anywhere between 10 and 100
million dollars, not too far off from a budget for a feature Hollywood
film. Add to that technical and service and support costs to keep the
game running, and the bill gets pretty big. As we've seen many times in
the past too, some of these games don't even launch in a complete
state, often due to lack of resources (meaning they went through their
multi-million dollar budget and STILL didn't have enough to finish the
game). That's a lot of moolah.
So how is the return on the investment? If recent launches have taught
us anything, new games have exactly thirty days to impress fans enough
to keep them subscribed. During this time, the game also has to be
enjoyable enough that players will try to convince their friends and
family to join them. If the game is launched in an incomplete state,
and players are dissatisfied with either the early game play, or even
the end game (make no mistake, there WILL be players that blow through
the content in less than 30 days in most situations), there will be no
referrals, and no renewing of subscriptions.
Now I'm not a marketer. Hell, I couldn't sell eye liner at an emo rave.
But to me (and to several of my colleagues) that seems like some pretty
hefty expectations that need to be met before a game can break
even. I'm not sure what percentage of the revenue box sales alone
represent, but if a game is incomplete, it's going to be the main
source of income, and you had better sell a LOT fast.
So where does this leave us, as the consumer? From my vantage point,
what I think we're seeing are two schools of thought from the
publishing companies. The first, and probably the most common, are the
guys who may not have a completely polished game, but they have built
up enough hype that they hope to get their investment back in the first
month or two from box sales. The second type of publisher, and my
personal favorite, are the ones who look far into the future and build
their game to last past the initial rush, and launch a product that has
more focus on quality and referral value than marketing hype. The sad
reality though, is that we see a lot more of type A than type B. The
good news? Judging from the tone of a lot of boards, blogs and
twitters, consumers are reaching an end of their tolerance levels for
shabby games that are marketed well. All gamers really want is a fun,
polished game that they can enjoy for months or years to come.
So, what do you think? Are we going to see a change in the marketing of
games? Are publishers going to start focusing more on subsciber
loyalty, or are we going to continue to see a mass amount of new games
pushed to release far too quickly to make some fast cash, and "lifers"
be damned?
Your thoughts welcome in the
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46821">Loading...
forum.
One studio that is all about player satisfaction are the folks at CCP.
Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle is at the EVE Fanfest, and tomorrow he'll be
blogging live the majore keynote address, discussing all the new EVE
and DUST 514 content coming our way. Be sure to check it out at our
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/evefanfest09">blog
page at 11am EDT, 8am PDT.
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day
From our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=254">WAR
General Discussion forum
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46718">A
positive voice for WAR
It
may have been a while since you've thought about Warhammer Online, but
if this thread is any indication, people not only still
style="font-style: italic;">do think of it,
but some have come to think highly of it. "Everyone
talks about the potential of WAR and yet they bash it
constantly on these forums," says the thread's original poster, Halek.
"How about some positive talk to actually
promote the game and maybe we’ll actually see some of that
potential
come to light? I admit I cannot speak for the end game, but
T1-T3 have
been alive and well every night I’ve been on. Stop by and see
for
yourself."
How
do you think WAR's holding up against newer releases like Champions
Online, Aion and Fallen Earth? Are you still playing, or thinking of
going back?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46718">Let's
talk about it!
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"I am about tempted to
come back
and try it yet again but I play Destro all the way. The only class I
liked in Order was the hammerer which is equivalent to the choppa. From
everything I keep reading though my BO is useless now as a tank which
is really sad. I was damn good at blocking and pushing the line
forward..."
- OneEyeRed
==============================
Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!
4 new Ten Ton Hammer MMOG features today! 6
in October! 1,054 in
2009!
Today's New MMO Coverage and Features
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/75057/">
style="font-weight: bold;">Aion Newsletter - The
Daeva
Weekly #3
MMOGs
are all about community, and part of being a community is helping our
fellow players. Are you one that takes the time to lend a helping hand,
or do you believe it's every newbie for themselves? Delve
into the
topic of helping others and catch up with the latest and great Aion
news in the 3rd Ten Ton Hammer Daeva Weekly Newsletter. -
Editorial
- The
Challenges of Porting MMOGs
to Consoles
The
walls that have prevented the console market from taking advantage of
the MMOG market are slowly coming down, and pretty soon consoles will
be supporting a number of MMOG titles. This week we take a look at
what's holding back the development of console MMOGs and some of the
benefits and drawbacks to porting them to console systems like the
Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. -
Editorial
style="font-weight: bold;"> - WoW's Grind
Versus Gates, Attunements and You
Did
attunements work as intended and keep lesser players from infiltrating
raids, or where they just an arbitrary border causing more issues than
they solved? Is it better or worse, or just different? -
style="font-weight: bold;">Champions Online -
Supergroup Showcase: The WildCards
The
strongest heroes in Champions Online often need a hand, and that's why
there are Supergroups. We here at Ten Ton Hammer understand the
importance of player communities in online games, and that's why we've
chosen to showcase a different Supergroup every couple of weeks. This
week we delve into what makes The WildCards tick.
Hottest Content:
- The
Challenges of Porting MMOGs
to Consoles -
style="font-weight: bold;">Champions Online -
Supergroup Showcase: The WildCards - WoW:
Grind Versus Gates, Attunements and You -
style="font-weight: bold;">Dungeons & Dragons Online:
An Overview of the Favored Soul and Monk -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aion/editorials/factionsystem">Good
versus Evil - The Two Sides of Aion's
Faction System -
style="font-weight: bold;">WoW Editorial - The
Will to Raid - Global
Agenda: Recon Class Q&A with Todd Harris - Fodder
Into Kinah - A Guide to Selling in Aion - EverQuest
Underfoot Expansion: The Underquarry -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/co/guides/currencymain">Champions
Online: Currency Overview
Thanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!
- Benjamin J. "Machail" de la Durantaye and the Ten Ton Hammer
team
