yes -a lot of people left after det initial rush and now we are left with the people who really love the game and RVR-mechanics

no surprise for me here. Sad to see people fired, and I hope they get new jobs soon. In my oppinion they did a great job on WO.

I see a bright future for this one. WO has become better and bigger with every patch they introduce

People give it a rest, WAR is doing fine and isn t going anywhere. There are plenty of games out there, that operate with 30-50k subs.

Originally posted by Warcriminal

yes -a lot of people left after det initial rush and now we are left with the people who really love the game and RVR-mechanics

no surprise for me here. Sad to see people fired, and I hope they get new jobs soon. In my oppinion they did a great job on WO.

 

I see a bright future for this one. WO has become better and bigger with every patch they introduce

 

 

 

This here is the truth in all aspects. I hate seeing people lose their jobs, especially in these times. That said My wife and i recently re subbed and are in awe at how much better the game is, with the people playing the game it was meant to be. Too many people at release not getting a grasp for the way RvR should be and it was flat out boring. Now, well yesterday at 1 pm pst we had a huge fight for at least 1.5 hours in tier 1 in elf lands. This was tier 1. I then thought lets try my tier 4 char and it was even more insane. The game is way better now then release, and the stuff coming is huge.

Originally posted by Soki123

People give it a rest, WAR is doing fine and isn t going anywhere. There are plenty of games out there, that operate with 30-50k subs.

True but the profit margin of EvE is greater than the profit margin of WAR. WAR spent much more money on development and is losing subscribers rapidly while EVE has grown and maintained it's 30-50k subs.

Originally posted by Samuraisword

Originally posted by Soki123

People give it a rest, WAR is doing fine and isn t going anywhere. There are plenty of games out there, that operate with 30-50k subs.

 

True but the profit margin of EvE is greater than the profit margin of WAR. WAR spent much more money on development and is losing subscribers rapidly while EVE has grown and maintained it's 30-50k subs.

I will agree with that, but I m going on a guess here, that most people playing now are happy, from my experiences. I have found on the 2 servers i play , pops are increasing not decreasing. I think in the ebd they ll maintain close to these numbers with spikes here and there, when nice patches come out like the DF style one. As well theres still Russia, and i beleive the were releasing in Korea or China at some point I m not sure which one.

I don't think you can lay any part of the blame on the recession.  Many studies have shown that during a bad economy people seek escapism, movies and video games actually do better in a down economy. I mean $15 a month for hours of entertainment.. what could beat that.

The problem with WAR is that it's just an average game designed for the super casual player. After a month or two or three of logging in , playing some no consequence scenarios they get board and leave the game. The problem is basic design and Mythic leadership decisions, nothing else.

Originally posted by Soki123

People give it a rest, WAR is doing fine and isn t going anywhere. There are plenty of games out there, that operate with 30-50k subs.

But there aren't plenty of games that had the budget WAR had. The budget is important here, though I'm not 100% on the exact amount invested in this project. One way or another, EA has declared that it's taking a loss not just within WAR, but across their entire product line.

If the budget for WAR didn't exceed 60 million, I'd say 300k subs is fairly healthy, but if it were more then i'd question it.

Originally posted by Alandora

Article writer completely misses the point of the 300,000 announcement.

The problem isn't the 300,000 they have left, it is how quickly they lost 450,000 players.  Do even a simple graph and put 750,000 at september, and then 300,000 on December 31st.   That is just a huge downward slope and there is no reason to expect the slope has changed.  It's also very very unlikely that they have 300,00 subscribers as of February 1st (again, taking in the retention rate from the graph).  

Also, talking about the layoffs.    You really are confusing two different things in the article.  A lot of what is happening has more to do with the natural progression of any MMORPG... the shift from pre to post launch staff.  The article was muddled down in it's numbers because you talked too much about 'layoffs' that were planned last year at this time that had nothing to do with the troubles of EA or Warhammer.  There were probably dozens of people at Blizzard that 'lost their jobs' once Wrath launched which indicates nothing except a game has gone live.  If you are going to talk about the effects of the health of EA on Warhammer, then don't muddle your argument by including numbers that are irrelevant to that argument.

Missed the point? Or specifically addressed your point in the SECOND PARAGRAPH:

On Tuesday, Electronic Arts announced that Mythic’s Warhammer Online ended the third quarter of 2008 with over 300K subscribers from North America and Europe. This number, which is significantly lower than the 1.5 million units sold to retailers (not units purchased by the public, stock purchased by retailers) for launch, and the 750,000 registered players reported back in October (albeit these numbers included Australia as well), is still above the 250,000 number that had been previously thrown around.

PS: MMOs almost ALWAYS crest and fall in terms of numbers. There is a crest at launch, where a maximum number of players tries the game, and then a crash aftetr launch, where within months, the game stabalizes at its approximate player base. These slopes you refer to, don't remain constant throughout the life on an MMO.

I'm not saying that WAR hasn't lost subs since then, but I AM saying that your premise is flawed and skews toward the bleakest possible outlook.

Originally posted by hauj0bb

Originally posted by Soki123

People give it a rest, WAR is doing fine and isn t going anywhere. There are plenty of games out there, that operate with 30-50k subs.

 

But there aren't plenty of games that had the budget WAR had. The budget is important here, though I'm not 100% on the exact amount invested in this project. One way or another, EA has declared that it's taking a loss not just within WAR, but across their entire product line.

If the budget for WAR didn't exceed 60 million, I'd say 300k subs is fairly healthy, but if it were more then i'd question it.

Did you take box sales into account in your analysis there? I'm just asking because if we assume 750,000 (it's either that or assume that mythic was paid fior the 1.5 million units sold to retailers... which they actually might have) as the number of boxes sold (that's how many registered users they said they ahd at one point), then you're looking at like 37 mil right there in recovered cost.

Now, I too have no diea what was spent on WAR, but you seem to be talking apples and oranges? Were the cuts made because EA had a loss across the board, or because WAR doesn't have enough subscribers... And I present to you this thought: If WAR were losing money and not recouping... Don't  you think EA would shut it down rather than cut just a  few jobs?

I'm just saying.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by hauj0bb

Originally posted by Soki123

People give it a rest, WAR is doing fine and isn t going anywhere. There are plenty of games out there, that operate with 30-50k subs.

 

But there aren't plenty of games that had the budget WAR had. The budget is important here, though I'm not 100% on the exact amount invested in this project. One way or another, EA has declared that it's taking a loss not just within WAR, but across their entire product line.

If the budget for WAR didn't exceed 60 million, I'd say 300k subs is fairly healthy, but if it were more then i'd question it.

 

Did you take box sales into account in your analysis there? I'm just asking because if we assume 750,000 (it's either that or assume that mythic was paid fior the 1.5 million units sold to retailers... which they actually might have) as the number of boxes sold (that's how many registered users they said they ahd at one point), then you're looking at like 37 mil right there in recovered cost.

Now, I too have no diea what was spent on WAR, but you seem to be talking apples and oranges? Were the cuts made because EA had a loss across the board, or because WAR doesn't have enough subscribers... And I present to you this thought: If WAR were losing money and not recouping... Don't  you think EA would shut it down rather than cut just a  few jobs?

I'm just saying.

This is the truth, EA would just shut it down and not the huge layoffs. Sure in these times there would most likely be layoffs anyways, but not to this magnitude.

From another site, but it did make some sense (however angry dude sounded):

---

"Can we just PLEASE try to keep it as simple as possible and not blame it all silliness. The fired employees at Mythic deserve MUCH more respect than for fanboi morons to boil it down to the economic boogeyman and the shoe plant closing.

To20 PC games for December:

(1)World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
(8)World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard / $38 (Average)
(9)World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20 (Average)
(15)World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard / $28 (Average)

You apologists are starting to get sickening. Folks lost their jobs when there's 26% MORE money spent than last year on gaming, Wow puts four of these beeches in the 20 here, and you say "Gee yall, it's the 'conomy doin' it all."

Why don't all of you log into WAR right now, attempt to lock down zones on your respective "full" servers, and see how far you get before you get all CC'ed up, can't move, die, then the city crashes on your heads. Then, look around in game and see if you can find any player called "Economy" that you can blame that on.

Or you can just wake up at 3am again to do that. I think that's when the "Economy" logs off and goes to sleep."

---

Originally posted by Soki123

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by hauj0bb

Originally posted by Soki123

People give it a rest, WAR is doing fine and isn t going anywhere. There are plenty of games out there, that operate with 30-50k subs.

 

But there aren't plenty of games that had the budget WAR had. The budget is important here, though I'm not 100% on the exact amount invested in this project. One way or another, EA has declared that it's taking a loss not just within WAR, but across their entire product line.

If the budget for WAR didn't exceed 60 million, I'd say 300k subs is fairly healthy, but if it were more then i'd question it.

 

Did you take box sales into account in your analysis there? I'm just asking because if we assume 750,000 (it's either that or assume that mythic was paid fior the 1.5 million units sold to retailers... which they actually might have) as the number of boxes sold (that's how many registered users they said they ahd at one point), then you're looking at like 37 mil right there in recovered cost.

Now, I too have no diea what was spent on WAR, but you seem to be talking apples and oranges? Were the cuts made because EA had a loss across the board, or because WAR doesn't have enough subscribers... And I present to you this thought: If WAR were losing money and not recouping... Don't  you think EA would shut it down rather than cut just a  few jobs?

I'm just saying.

 

This is the truth, EA would just shut it down and not the huge layoffs. Sure in these times there would most likely be layoffs anyways, but not to this magnitude.

You freget EA will hold onto a dieing MMO for atleast a year before they cut its tails. E&B anyone?  With that said 2009 will be the telling year for WAR, If they can pull a rabbit out of the hat and turn the game around and stop the massive loss of players (BTW 4 more people left from that number in Jan as myself and friends all have moved back to LOTRO).

Now with that said no matter how you the paint the picture in the brightest colors possible. ANYONE and I mean ANYONE will say that a loss of more then HALF you customers in a 2-3 month period is a bad sign. Yes there is some turnover after the first free month. But to lose more then half your customers is a bad sign (aka look at AoC). Now on top of all that they cut staff numbers (doesn't matter what the reasion is) when the game needs all the staff it can get. There are LOADS of bugs and issues throughout the game and even more so endgame. Will a reduction in staff keep the bug fixs coming at a steady rate like it has been? No, when you lose people things do not remain the same or even speed up 90% of the time. If a team of 400+ couldn't fix the issues how will a team of 200-250 fix the issues?

We can debate a lot about numbers and statistics and exactly what something means, but in my opinion the biggest issue at hand is that within 11-12 weeks or so (from launch to the end of the quarter), for one reason or another, WAR lost 450k subscribers. Now granted, who knows what those numbes are now and why that many people left (I was one of them to be honest and have my reasons) but this IS cause for concern for the game.

Mythic and EA need to "right the ship" so to speak and do it fast because bad press = more people leaving or fewer trying the game which then = more bad press which then = the same thing over and over again.

I hope Mythic and EA can figure what caused those players to leave and fix the issue and do what needs to be done to keep WAR a viable alternative in the MMO market. But at the very least this is not good for WAR right now.

i ve heard this theory that mmos will do better in times of recession . that really depends on a lot of factors . i think we ll see a rise in the number of older single players ( over 18 ) but proberbly a decline in those with familys . if mum and dad lose thier jobs the kids are less likly to be given the money for a subscription fee . theres also is ikly to be less people buying gold from gold sellers so we ll see a drop in thier numbers and subs . every mmo is bound to be effected . even the biggest beast in the jungle wow . i personally think wow will lose 1-2 million subs this coming year . with 300 k players warhammer is still a going concern but no where near the success it could have been but lets not forget it is still only in its first quarter after release . its actually not that bad . its definatly a lot better than warcraft for pvp ( wows pvp is so imblanced now that side of the game is essentially broken ) .

mythic needs to offer a free trial so people who are interested in the game can see if they like it or if it will run well on thier pc system . they need to do this soon because every month that passes without one they lose potential new customers ( there are plenty of people who are fed up with wow and war offers the only real alternative ) .also they need to start merging servers theres far too many for the amount of people playing .

i m sure they plan to impliment both but the sooner the better really .

Originally posted by hauj0bb

Originally posted by Soki123

People give it a rest, WAR is doing fine and isn t going anywhere. There are plenty of games out there, that operate with 30-50k subs.

 

But there aren't plenty of games that had the budget WAR had. The budget is important here, though I'm not 100% on the exact amount invested in this project. One way or another, EA has declared that it's taking a loss not just within WAR, but across their entire product line.

If the budget for WAR didn't exceed 60 million, I'd say 300k subs is fairly healthy, but if it were more then i'd question it.

Development cost was said to be a bit "south of 100 million" according to Mark Jacobs in a forum post

EA has already commented on the fact that they would need at least 1 million box sales and an average of 250k subs for a few years following launch in order to "break even". That is, to recoup development cost, servers and continued staff support. This was said a few weeks before launch

Now, if we're talking about the game being kept above operating cost so it doesn't shut down, we should look at Tabula Rasa. Both it and War had a close to 100 million development cost so we can assume that their operating cost are pretty close. When Tabula Rasa announced it would shut down, they mentionned that they had roughly 75k subscribers and they were now taking a loss. Which means that its VERY doubtful that Warhammer would be shut down anytime soon, I really don't think they would drop this low when they sold close to 1 million boxes to consumers.

The real question here is, can it recover from such a drop? Can it start growing again if they improve it? That would be very hard to do, most times you only have 1 chance to make a first impression. But then again, EQ 2 managed to do it so we'll just have to see :)

---

Originally posted by Stradden

 
Did you take box sales into account in your analysis there? I'm just asking because if we assume 750,000 (it's either that or assume that mythic was paid fior the 1.5 million units sold to retailers... which they actually might have) as the number of boxes sold (that's how many registered users they said they ahd at one point), then you're looking at like 37 mil right there in recovered cost.
Now, I too have no diea what was spent on WAR, but you seem to be talking apples and oranges? Were the cuts made because EA had a loss across the board, or because WAR doesn't have enough subscribers... And I present to you this thought: If WAR were losing money and not recouping... Don't  you think EA would shut it down rather than cut just a  few jobs?
I'm just saying.

---

One thing on this Stradden..

I think you are assuming 750,000 units sold at $50 a box it looks like to come up with 37 million as recovered cost. Mythic sold those units to retailers but no way did Walmart, Best Buy, Circuit City, Amazon, etc pay $50 a box and then turn around and sell it for $50 a box.

You'd have to assume Mythic got somewhere of maybe $30 a box max, maybe less. Why would a retailer like Walmart sell a box unit for 0 profit?

So at best you are now looking @ possibly 22.5 million maybe less.

I have no idea for sure what Mythic spent but we do have an "idea" based on:

---

From a Jacobs interview in August 08: I asked if Mythic’s parent company EA spent $100 million on “Warhammer Online.” “No, but you look at what we did spend, it was lot of money,” he said. Jacobs would only tell me that they’ve spent south of $100 million on “Warhammer Online,” and that’s because he and his team have the experience and the technology behind the game. “

---

Originally posted by Myrdek

Originally posted by hauj0bb

Originally posted by Soki123

People give it a rest, WAR is doing fine and isn t going anywhere. There are plenty of games out there, that operate with 30-50k subs.

 

But there aren't plenty of games that had the budget WAR had. The budget is important here, though I'm not 100% on the exact amount invested in this project. One way or another, EA has declared that it's taking a loss not just within WAR, but across their entire product line.

If the budget for WAR didn't exceed 60 million, I'd say 300k subs is fairly healthy, but if it were more then i'd question it.

Development cost was said to be a bit "south of 100 million" according to Mark Jacobs in a forum post

EA has already commented on the fact that they would need at least 1 million box sales and an average of 250k subs for a few years following launch in order to "break even". That is, to recoup development cost, servers and continued staff support. This was said a few weeks before launch

Now, if we're talking about the game being kept above operating cost so it doesn't shut down, we should look at Tabula Rasa. Both it and War had a close to 100 million development cost so we can assume that their operating cost are pretty close. When Tabula Rasa announced it would shut down, they mentionned that they had roughly 75k subscribers and they were now taking a loss. Which means that its VERY doubtful that Warhammer would be shut down anytime soon, I really don't think they would drop this low when they sold close to 1 million boxes to consumers.

The real question here is, can it recover from such a drop? Can it start growing again if they improve it? That would be very hard to do, most times you only have 1 chance to make a first impression. But then again, EQ 2 managed to do it so we'll just have to see :)

EQ2 has never recovered from it's poor launch, constant revamps, and dwindling subscriptions. The only thing that keeps any of SOE's games alive is stationpass. If each of SOE's products had to survive on it's own two legs, they would have to shut some of them down.

I uninstalled it after 3 weeks, was just too uninterested to bother logging on anymore.

Boggles my mind how such a huge and well funded development team can produce such a boring, linear game. What a waste...

         Anyone that has worked for a software company knows you always have layoffs, especially considering how many people they had employed......Also the drop off rom 750k to 300k in 3 months is a steep one and who knows where it finally levels off.......I'm sure they will have alot more layoffs in the next couple of months.

Originally posted by popinjay

 

---

Originally posted by Stradden

 

 
Did you take box sales into account in your analysis there? I'm just asking because if we assume 750,000 (it's either that or assume that mythic was paid fior the 1.5 million units sold to retailers... which they actually might have) as the number of boxes sold (that's how many registered users they said they ahd at one point), then you're looking at like 37 mil right there in recovered cost.
Now, I too have no diea what was spent on WAR, but you seem to be talking apples and oranges? Were the cuts made because EA had a loss across the board, or because WAR doesn't have enough subscribers... And I present to you this thought: If WAR were losing money and not recouping... Don't  you think EA would shut it down rather than cut just a  few jobs?
I'm just saying.

---

 

 

One thing on this Stradden..

I think you are assuming 750,000 units sold at $50 a box it looks like to come up with 37 million as recovered cost. Mythic sold those units to retailers but no way did Walmart, Best Buy, Circuit City, Amazon, etc pay $50 a box and then turn around and sell it for $50 a box.

You'd have to assume Mythic got somewhere of maybe $30 a box max, maybe less. Why would a retailer like Walmart sell a box unit for 0 profit?

So at best you are now looking @ possibly 22.5 million maybe less.

I have no idea for sure what Mythic spent but we do have an "idea" based on:

---

From a Jacobs interview in August 08: I asked if Mythic’s parent company EA spent $100 million on “Warhammer Online.” “No, but you look at what we did spend, it was lot of money,” he said. Jacobs would only tell me that they’ve spent south of $100 million on “Warhammer Online,” and that’s because he and his team have the experience and the technology behind the game. “

---

 

yeah, that's probably true, but I'm talking about the 750,000 people who registered, not the 1.5 million boxes that were sold to retailers. So, let's use your numbers for retailers :) That's 45 million. Now, of course, this is all speculative, but if we assume $30 for every box sold to retailers, thats the number we come up with.

Where is the free trial ?

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by hauj0bb

Originally posted by Soki123

People give it a rest, WAR is doing fine and isn t going anywhere. There are plenty of games out there, that operate with 30-50k subs.

 

But there aren't plenty of games that had the budget WAR had. The budget is important here, though I'm not 100% on the exact amount invested in this project. One way or another, EA has declared that it's taking a loss not just within WAR, but across their entire product line.

If the budget for WAR didn't exceed 60 million, I'd say 300k subs is fairly healthy, but if it were more then i'd question it.

 

Did you take box sales into account in your analysis there? I'm just asking because if we assume 750,000 (it's either that or assume that mythic was paid fior the 1.5 million units sold to retailers... which they actually might have) as the number of boxes sold (that's how many registered users they said they ahd at one point), then you're looking at like 37 mil right there in recovered cost.

Now, I too have no diea what was spent on WAR, but you seem to be talking apples and oranges? Were the cuts made because EA had a loss across the board, or because WAR doesn't have enough subscribers... And I present to you this thought: If WAR were losing money and not recouping... Don't  you think EA would shut it down rather than cut just a  few jobs?

I'm just saying.

Wow... just wow.    Please tell me you didn't just multiply a retail box price by the number of boxes sold and try to suggest that Mythic made that much money from box sales.... it's more like 15-20% of box sales passes through to the developer... which puts it around $8M, not $37M.

I guess next you are going to multiply $15 x 300,000 and talk about how much money mythic is 'making' from subscribers without mentioning that almost 50% of subscription fees get sucked up by bandwidth charges.

The game cost between 50M and 100M to make.  If it cost under 50M, then they wouldn't have said it cost 'south of 100M'.   In other words, if the game cost 47M to make.. when asked how much it cost to make, they would have said 'south of 50M'... not 'south of 100M'.   I'm giving the benefit of the doubt.. but you could also make the same arguement for 75M.

So lets say 75M to make and 9M in box sales and 2M per month based on 300k subscribers

66M/2m = 33 months to break even at 300k
66M/3.75M = 18 months to break even at 500k subscribers

Most investments like this, they were probably looking at breaking even after 2 years.... so they were probably counting on 400k subscribers over the course of those two years.  Not an unreasonable number.  But that 400k number would be the average maintained over the life of those 24 months.  The fact that after only 4 months, they are already below that target doesn't bode well.

EVE and WOW are the only two games that drastically increased subscribers over the first year of launch.  LotRO has done a good job of getting back to 'near' launch levels.   But there is just nothing in the next 6 months of Warhammer to suggest players will be returning.  The Jan 29th announcement was met with a general 'meh'.   2 new classes in a game that has 10,000 already isn't big news.. and the addition of another dungeon to a game that has dungeons that are mostly ignored is blah at best.

There is no evidence to show that the population of Warhammer has stabilized as of Dec 31st.... so there is no reason to think there are still 300,000 people playing today.... or that there will be more people playing tomorrow that are playing today.  At best, the game may level off someday, but it isn't in the near future.

Originally posted by stine96

Where is the free trial ?

there is nt one yet . the games actually is a lot better than most wow fanbois would like to have  you think . thing is i think mythic will show the same stupidity as other game developers and not offer one untill its far too late ,

people need to try before they buy . gone are the days when an mmo can expect to be a success without a free trial ,theres been so many epic faliures like vanguard , age of conan and tabula rasa that the buying public have lost faith .

even a quality mmo will fail now without offering a free trial soon after its release .

Originally posted by googajoob7

Originally posted by stine96

Where is the free trial ?

 

there is nt one yet . the games actually is a lot better than most wow fanbois would like to have  you think . thing is i think mythic will show the same stupidity as other game developers and not offer one untill its far too late ,

people need to try before they buy . gone are the days when an mmo can expect to be a success without a free trial ,theres been so many epic faliures like vanguard , age of conan and tabula rasa that the buying public have lost faith .

even a quality mmo will fail now without offering a free trial soon after its release .

So anyone who dislikes WAR is a "WOW fanboi" and conversely all WOW players hate WAR? Does that pretty much sum up your argument?

I am sorry I am getting really tired and frustrated that, whenever someone criticizes a game and do not like a game, they are automatically a WOW player.

The argument is so very stupid. Maybe people do not like the game because it is too much like WOW. I personally stopped playing because I expected the game to be closer to DAOC than WOW and what I got was a theme park where nothing you did mattered, your pvp didn't matter and most everyone just wanted to grind instances. I wanted a RVR game like DAOC and instead all I got was instanced RVR that was pointless and once the shine wore off, you realized the game's main objective was pointless.

That is why I stopped playing and WOW had nothing to do with it. But seriously, it is time for the MMO community to take a breath and stop trying to blame WOW for everything. Mythic made the decisions to design the game the way they did and it is their responsibility for the game, be it a success or a failure.

Trying to blame WOW or WOW fanbois is only mis-directing the argument and placing blame elsewhere and not where it should be. WAR has its own laurels and problems to stand on and it gets the blame or praise that it gets, regardless of what other MMO's do.

Originally posted by Soki123

People give it a rest, WAR is doing fine and isn t going anywhere. There are plenty of games out there, that operate with 30-50k subs.

Tell that to people who were subscribing to Earth & Beyond and The Sims Online. The big EA hatchet of doom cut off both around those marks for good.

And in all honesty, Earth & Beyond was in a far better shape at that point than WAR is today.