Originally posted by Kuppa

Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by Kuppa

Interesting read. Their stocks fall sharply after the release of TSW, they attribute it to the metacritic scores. The one thing that might make sense of that is the what they mention next. Because its a new IP it needs to take off well.

Whats more interesting is this part: "Funcom has on several occasions presented two financial scenarios for the first 12 months following launch of the game; please refer to page 17 in the 1Q 2012 presentation *). Funcom does not consider it likely that either of them will be met. "

 

If you look at those two scenarios they basically go like this:

Target Scenario

• Client sales 30% higher than AoC
• Majority of digital client sales
• Subs/client price as AoC
• In-game store sales/uptic amounting to 35% of subs. revenue
• Healty retention; 490,000 average subs

Conan-like scenario

• 1,050,000 client sales first year
• Poor retention (a bit better than AoC) 280,00 average subs
• Other assumptions as above

 

When we look at this we can deduce the game sold less than 1M clients and it has less than 280k subs. And going by this statement: " but based on the available early data, one scenario is that sales for the first 12 months following launch will be less than half of what was presented in the "Conan-like" scenario. "

They expect to sell less than 500k clients in the first 12 months.

 

Even though their sales are pretty low and their subs are below 280k projected over the first year they feel positive that if they keep the quality high enough they can mantain profitability.

"A possible scenario going forward is that the game will sell less than both of the two above mentioned scenarios the first 12 months following launch, but with high customer satisfaction, it will generate a more stable subscriber base than the game Age of Conan. Over time, this will enable Funcom to retain more customers and generate higher revenue."

 

What I did was put what you deduced in red. Then highlighted why you may be in error depending on the context of the yellow, which I attempt to frame in yellow below.

 

You deduced from projection of sales that retention was low, and that subs were less than 280k. In the orange Funcom speaks specifically to sales.  

 

From the large type in the last paragraph it looks like retention is much higher than AoC.

 

The majority of those who have played the game rate the game highly as seen on metacritic and mmorpg. There are just not enough people who have played. This looks like a marketing issue more so than a game issue.

 

 

I did not deduce their retention was low, as a matter of fact like you mention they say its good. What I do deduce and that is a plain fact if you read what they said, that they have less than 280k subs. How do you know this? because they clearly state that they do NOT expect to meet their two scenarios. One of those was having at least 280k subs. Having a low number of subs does not mean low retention.

There are two plain facts you can read from this. They do NOT expect to sell more than 500k and they do NOT expect to have 280k subs in the first 12 months.

"A possible scenario going forward is that the game will sell less than both of the two above mentioned scenarios the first 12 months following launch, but with high customer satisfaction, it will generate a more stable subscriber base than the game Age of Conan. Over time, this will enable Funcom to retain more customers and generate higher revenue."

All you can duduce is that the game has less than half of 1million+ subs. Your mixing projected retention with projected sales to get to your 280k number.

Now we are only talking about plus or minus 220k subs, but far as what you deduced there is a possible margin of error of near 50% in total numbers. 

Originally posted by cronius77
anyone who bases if a game is good or not on this site is insane and should not be managing any business and that goes for other fan sites. Games that really want to know of their success measure how many people are willing to pay a sub fee past the first few months and if digital and box sales continue to come in. They have their own forums for complaints and praise and this site is heavily opinionated on both sides of the fence on this game which creates more hype and more clicks.

What makes you think they base their success in the reviews?  salesis the thing.  What they presented is that the underwhelming aggregated scores from reviews (metacritic is good place to check for this) have impacted their sales negatively.

They should add also that their weak marketing efforts are more than likely a big factor there, too.  they went the opposite route than with AoC and instead of producing hype let the lauch come without building up.  They obtain very good player reviews, but sadly they didn't get enough buyers hooked at launch to meet their expectations.

Originally posted by Kuppa

Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by Kuppa

Interesting read. Their stocks fall sharply after the release of TSW, they attribute it to the metacritic scores. The one thing that might make sense of that is the what they mention next. Because its a new IP it needs to take off well.

Whats more interesting is this part: "Funcom has on several occasions presented two financial scenarios for the first 12 months following launch of the game; please refer to page 17 in the 1Q 2012 presentation *). Funcom does not consider it likely that either of them will be met. "

 

If you look at those two scenarios they basically go like this:

Target Scenario

• Client sales 30% higher than AoC
• Majority of digital client sales
• Subs/client price as AoC
• In-game store sales/uptic amounting to 35% of subs. revenue
• Healty retention; 490,000 average subs

Conan-like scenario

• 1,050,000 client sales first year
• Poor retention (a bit better than AoC) 280,00 average subs
• Other assumptions as above

 

When we look at this we can deduce the game sold less than 1M clients and it has less than 280k subs. And going by this statement: " but based on the available early data, one scenario is that sales for the first 12 months following launch will be less than half of what was presented in the "Conan-like" scenario. "

They expect to sell less than 500k clients in the first 12 months.

 

Even though their sales are pretty low and their subs are below 280k projected over the first year they feel positive that if they keep the quality high enough they can mantain profitability.

"A possible scenario going forward is that the game will sell less than both of the two above mentioned scenarios the first 12 months following launch, but with high customer satisfaction, it will generate a more stable subscriber base than the game Age of Conan. Over time, this will enable Funcom to retain more customers and generate higher revenue."

 

What I did was put what you deduced in red. Then highlighted why you may be in error depending on the context of the yellow, which I attempt to frame in yellow below.

 

You deduced from projection of sales that retention was low, and that subs were less than 280k. In the orange Funcom speaks specifically to sales.  

 

From the large type in the last paragraph it looks like retention is much higher than AoC.

 

The majority of those who have played the game rate the game highly as seen on metacritic and mmorpg. There are just not enough people who have played. This looks like a marketing issue more so than a game issue.

 

 

I did not deduce their retention was low, as a matter of fact like you mention they say its good. What I do deduce and that is a plain fact if you read what they said, that they have less than 280k subs. How do you know this? because they clearly state that they do NOT expect to meet their two scenarios. One of those was having at least 280k subs. Having a low number of subs does not mean low retention.

There are two plain facts you can read from this. They do NOT expect to sell more than 500k and they do NOT expect to have 280k subs in the first 12 months.

That is true, however they sold more than 700K mil at launch for AoC, and the poor retention didn't really started until after some time.  it all depends on how they are making the comparisons.

My take.  Fucking awful news.

Next week's demo at Gamescom better have the whole industry talking or it will be a problem.

Which is a shame.  TSW didn't deserve the majority of those low scores.  The game has its faults, but it certainly isn't a 71, when comparing to other AAA MMOs ratings.  It actually matches the user scores and MMORPG's score.

It is, what it is.  Hopefully they'll go B2P and start pushing stuff to the cash shop, rather than lay people off - as mentioned above.

Originally posted by jdnyc

My take.  Fucking awful news.

Next week's demo at Gamescom better have the whole industry talking or it will be a problem.

Which is a shame.  TSW didn't deserve the majority of those low scores.  The game has its faults, but it certainly isn't a 71, when comparing to other AAA MMOs ratings.  It actually matches the user scores and MMORPG's score.

It is, what it is.  Hopefully they'll go B2P and start pushing stuff to the cash shop, rather than lay people off - as mentioned above.

As a Single Player game TSW is a great game but it's MMO elements are very lacking.  I am all for solo friendly game play but dev's need to find ways to create incentives for players to group up into both small short term groups and longer term larger groups if they want people to stick around more than a few months.  

I expect the B2P/F2P noise from Funcom is still a few months out.

280,000 subscribers = 43% profit. 

280,000/143 = Each % is approximetly 1,958 subscribers.

1,958 x 100% = 195,800 subscribers to break even. 

I did a rouch estimate a few days ago in which it seems like they have around or slightly above that number at present. I'll be realistic and question if they can retain them considering new content takes time to build and that there is quite a bit to improve, especially with WoW and GW2 around the corner. 

I feel they should have released Fall or Winter 2012. 

About the 280,000 issue.

I went back and looked at Funcom's Fiscal report that everyone is talking about in reference to the two target Scenerios.

It specifically says that neither scenario will be met.  The Conan-Like Scenario is 1+ million client sales with 280k sub retention for the first year.

If you will not sell 1+ million client sales, the second 'Conan-Like' scenario will not be met.  This does not preclude that TSW will not have 280k subs by the end of the first year.  It just means that they won't sell a million clients for sure.  Now it could absolutely mean they don't have 280k subs, but that's not a given.  Not right now anyways.

I am surprised that TSW may not sell 500k.
I would not expect any AAA MMO sell less than that and TSW is a well done game.

But well, the MMO market is overcompeted, GW2 is around the corner and viral badmouthing works.
80% of my friends think TSW is a bad game bcs all their other friends say its a bad game bcs it not GW2 or its WOW with Zombis or whatever and whatnot and they do not even try a free weekend.

Not that i play TSW atm as i am in a beta spending all my free time there but sometimes something you like even more comes around (and its not GW2, its not a Themepark at all and yes i am allowed to say i am in beta).

Originally posted by cronius77
anyone who bases if a game is good or not on this site is insane and should not be managing any business and that goes for other fan sites. Games that really want to know of their success measure how many people are willing to pay a sub fee past the first few months and if digital and box sales continue to come in. They have their own forums for complaints and praise and this site is heavily opinionated on both sides of the fence on this game which creates more hype and more clicks.

Or maybe, just maybe the posters here are a bit more representative of the greater gaming community, at least in this specifc case.

We're bound to be right once and a while.

I think Funcom is just trying to figure out why this title didn't sell anywhere nearly as well as AOC, since its pretty clear they thought it would.

I know they put a lot of stock in their "Secret World" marketing campaign, but I think they kept it a bit too low key.   Also, sandwiching their launch after Tera but right before GW2 and the next WOW expansion has to have really taken away some of their thunder.

Originally posted by jdnyc

About the 280,000 issue.

I went back and looked at Funcom's Fiscal report that everyone is talking about in reference to the two target Scenerios.

It specifically says that neither scenario will be met.  The Conan-Like Scenario is 1+ million client sales with 280k sub retention for the first year.

If you will not sell 1+ million client sales, the second 'Conan-Like' scenario will not be met.  This does not preclude that TSW will not have 280k subs by the end of the first year.  It just means that they won't sell a million clients for sure.  Now it could absolutely mean they don't have 280k subs, but that's not a given.  Not right now anyways.

I think this is the relevant section:

"but based on the available early data, one scenario is that sales for the first 12 months following launch will be less than half of what was presented in the "Conan-like" scenario."

So that's 500k units sales and 140k average monthly sub retention over the next year.

In order to get there, you're looking at one of 3 scenarios:

1) Most of the initial sales were post launch and will taper off over the remainder of the year, with perhaps a holiday bump.

2) Initial sales were low, but based on content updates, word of mouth etc, sales will ramp up over the year and benefit from holiday sales.

3) Sales will be essentially stable but flat over the next 12 months.

I suspect that with the launch of GW2 and MoP and other games (e.g. B&S) the first scenario is the most likely.

All of this will obviously be made more clear at the end of August with the official earning's release.

Originally posted by bcbully

 

"A possible scenario going forward is that the game will sell less than both of the two above mentioned scenarios the first 12 months following launch, but with high customer satisfaction, it will generate a more stable subscriber base than the game Age of Conan. Over time, this will enable Funcom to retain more customers and generate higher revenue."

 

All you can duduce is that the game has less than half of 1million+ subs. Your mixing projected retention with projected sales to get to your 280k number.

 

Now we are only talking about plus or minus 220k subs, but far as what you deduced there is a possible margin of error of near 50% in total numbers. 

I see what you mean, I was reading it differently. They do mention that 280k number and I was using it as part of their scenario. Still the situation does not look good at all, I believe they will eventually go f2p or b2p(again I don't think this is bad it actually helps the game). Unfortunately I don't see them growing that much more, if there is one thing themepark mmos do its bleed overtime until they flat out.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by cronius77
anyone who bases if a game is good or not on this site is insane and should not be managing any business and that goes for other fan sites. Games that really want to know of their success measure how many people are willing to pay a sub fee past the first few months and if digital and box sales continue to come in. They have their own forums for complaints and praise and this site is heavily opinionated on both sides of the fence on this game which creates more hype and more clicks.

Or maybe, just maybe the posters here are a bit more representative of the greater gaming community, at least in this specifc case.

We're bound to be right once and a while.

I think Funcom is just trying to figure out why this title didn't sell anywhere nearly as well as AOC, since its pretty clear they thought it would.

I know they put a lot of stock in their "Secret World" marketing campaign, but I think they kept it a bit too low key.   Also, sandwiching their launch after Tera but right before GW2 and the next WOW expansion has to have really taken away some of their thunder.

 

Bingo. 

They aren't meeting expectations because quite frankly the mindshare for MMORPG gamers right now has been completely taken over by Guild Wars 2, Pandas and TERA. 

IMO, They picked the absolute worst time to launch.  Had they not been facing 2 new MMORPGs and a major expansion they might have been okay picking up players off the absolute failure of TOR.  However, you have 2 major juggernauts in there with TERA being the wildcard.  

None of these alone would've been enough to sink the game, but all three at nearly the same time make for a really tough slope to climb. 

Originally posted by SpottyGekko

Using Metacritic as a reference is quite acceptable, given that it's a completely independant source which is widely used. If Funcom had comissioned their own survey, the results would have been "questionable", because any survey that they pay for may have been manipulated in one way or another.

 

I'm not surprised to see that TSW does not meet their expectations, because I always thought their Q1 projections were very optimistic. TSW is not a mainstream game, and it wasn't massively advertised. The latter is probably a blessing, because if it sold a million boxes at launch, the "user satisfaction" score on Metacritic may well have been considerably lower.

 

I just hope that the game can remain successful enough to provide those that love it an opportunity to continue playing it.

Pretty much my feelings as well. If they continue to add to the game and cultivate their relationship with the game community, I see no reason why TSW cannot be successful in the long term.

Originally posted by Jackdog
Well I can say with a high degree of certainty that the game did not sell 1/2 the amount of boxes trhey wanted it to sell and he retention has been pretty bad. Alexis, Quantcast, Google Trends, and yes even the accursed XFire wil show that. I was a fence sitter both before and after launch and liked a lot of the game but as a  above poster pointed out this was a bad time to launch. A Christmas launch would have been bettter in my opinion.

Actually they said their retention is good (for now.)  Google Trends not sure about that equating sales.   Xfire?  no one I know uses it.  Never heard of the other two things you mentioned.

Originally posted by jdnyc

Originally posted by Jackdog
Well I can say with a high degree of certainty that the game did not sell 1/2 the amount of boxes trhey wanted it to sell and he retention has been pretty bad. Alexis, Quantcast, Google Trends, and yes even the accursed XFire wil show that. I was a fence sitter both before and after launch and liked a lot of the game but as a  above poster pointed out this was a bad time to launch. A Christmas launch would have been bettter in my opinion.

Actually they said their retention is good (for now.)  Google Trends not sure about that equating sales.   Xfire?  no one I know uses it.  Never heard of the other two things you mentioned.

They have good retention but low sales and they don't expect them to grow. I would argue it goes down before it goes up unless they do a big change. Thinkgs aren't going to get easier with more games coming out.

Originally posted by Kuppa

Originally posted by bcbully

 

"A possible scenario going forward is that the game will sell less than both of the two above mentioned scenarios the first 12 months following launch, but with high customer satisfaction, it will generate a more stable subscriber base than the game Age of Conan. Over time, this will enable Funcom to retain more customers and generate higher revenue."

 

All you can duduce is that the game has less than half of 1million+ subs. Your mixing projected retention with projected sales to get to your 280k number.

 

Now we are only talking about plus or minus 220k subs, but far as what you deduced there is a possible margin of error of near 50% in total numbers. 

I see what you mean, I was reading it differently. They do mention that 280k number and I was using it as part of their scenario. Still the situation does not look good at all, I believe they will eventually go f2p or b2p(again I don't think this is bad it actually helps the game). Unfortunately I don't see them growing that much more, if there is one thing themepark mmos do its bleed overtime until they flat out.

I too think it's bad. TSW had about 50 million to TSW happen. In all honesty it looks like they pored all of it into the game. 

It's a shame this day and age a game like Swtor can sell 2.4million and still have 500K+ subs. Not only did swtor revolutionize story delivery, they revolutionized hype. They put money into the industry 300-500 million dollars.  There are several lessons to be learned in this.

That being said what if TSW did gain 100k or even 50k subs from now till the end of the 3rd qt.?

Originally posted by bcbully

I too think it's bad. TSW had about 50 million to TSW happen. In all honesty it looks like they pored all of it into the game. 

 It's a shame this day and age a game like Swtor can sell 2.4million and still have 500K+ subs. Not only did swtor revolutionize story delivery, they revolutionized hype. They put money into the industry 300-500 million dollars.  There are several lessons to be learned in this.

 That being said what if TSW did gain 100k or even 50k subs from now till the end of the 3rd qt.?

  

How likely would you say that is with the immanent release of GW2 then MoP one month later?