So, the word is that over 27 million dollars has been obtained or invested with Aventurine to make this mmo.  And they have a staff of how many again?  15 or 20 people tops?

We have seen photos of their office, a small upper floor level of some business building from what I remember, a few tables and a few computers.  So let's say the computers and tables and chairs and all of their office equipment cost them $250,000.. and that's a stretch looking at the photos of their equipment.  Probably cost them much less.  And their office suite even at $5,000 per month or so would not put them at much over a total of half  a million over the past 5 years.

So stretching what their costs have been to crazy numbers even, leaves us with over 26 million dollars.  Assume that they have 20 employees (which I doubt).  That gives each employee $1,325,000 (That's one million, three hundred and twenty five thousand) dollars!  Ofcourse you'd have to divide that amount by the number of months they've been employed to get a "per month" pay rate, but that would be a ridiculous amount of pay for some 'off the street' programmer or coder or artist or whatever that has never really proven his work with any other games or applications we have ever heard of.

They didn't spend a ton of cash on any engine, as it's said they made their own game engine.. which I laugh at by the way. I can't wait to see this mighty game engine once this game launches, lol.  They haven't advertised this game at all, as word of mouth has done that well. 

So, where has all this money went, because I certainly don't believe that each employee of Aventurine is making twenty times as much income as an employee of Turbine or Blizzard. 

Now, I know that you DF fans won't like me imagining something that goes against your fantasies of how this game will turn out, but let's just pretend for a moment then they launch this game, and it is a total hunk of crap and makes Dark and Light look great by comparison.  Let's pretend this game is a total mess with broken coding that can't work properly with 20 players signed into their server and game, much less thousands.  Now, if this game is indeed a failure that won't even run and can't possibly be patched to run when it releases, with no real proof of where 27+ million dollars went, wouldn't it be fair at that time to say this this game was one huge scam?  I mean scam by considering all the millions of dollars that obviously went to the people behind this game that in this scenario would nothing but empty hype and a broken pile of crap?

..How would that "not" be a scam?

And how can you fans not even imagine this as even a small possibility?  Millions of dollars is certainly enough of a reason for them to try and pull off such a scam, the most difficult part of what they've been doing the past 6 to 8 years would be trying to make up BS costs of development.  It's not like fooling a bunch of gamers who are straving for a game like they have promised would be difficult at all on their website.

I dunno.  I'm not saying that I believe what I'm saying here totally, but something like what I've described here is more believable to me that believing that this small group of people nobody has ever heard of before has suddenly designed their own mega game engine that can sport 100 vs 100 (or 500 vs 500, whatever it is) online player battles with tons of features and skills and resources and things never even attempted by the biggest and richest gaming companies in the world.

But then again.  Maybe I am wrong.  Maybe Tasos is God and all you fans are right and maybe Darkfall will smash to pieces every current mmos game engines and ummm increase the level of where and what mmos should be able do to about the year 2040.

Originally posted by radlin
long rant .... didn't make much sense..... so I edited it.

 

Ya know......... if they didn't have squat to show for it, you may have had a tiny bit to support your theory. Problem is with the ADW convention......... thats an awful lot of people they would have to cut in to work the lie,  MMORPG Italia would have probably wanted a cut, the 30 or so members that work for Aventurine may have wanted a cut, of course Those that visited and did the tours and previewed it would want a cut.

not on the graphics or models thats for sure

Originally posted by radlin

So, the word is that over 27 million dollars has been obtained or invested with Aventurine to make this mmo.  And they have a staff of how many again?  15 or 20 people tops?

We have seen photos of their office, a small upper floor level of some business building from what I remember, a few tables and a few computers.  So let's say the computers and tables and chairs and all of their office equipment cost them $250,000.. and that's a stretch looking at the photos of their equipment.  Probably cost them much less.  And their office suite even at $5,000 per month or so would not put them at much over a total of half  a million over the past 5 years.

So stretching what their costs have been to crazy numbers even, leaves us with over 26 million dollars.  Assume that they have 20 employees (which I doubt).  That gives each employee $1,325,000 (That's one million, three hundred and twenty five thousand) dollars!  Ofcourse you'd have to divide that amount by the number of months they've been employed to get a "per month" pay rate, but that would be a ridiculous amount of pay for some 'off the street' programmer or coder or artist or whatever that has never really proven his work with any other games or applications we have ever heard of.

They didn't spend a ton of cash on any engine, as it's said they made their own game engine.. which I laugh at by the way. I can't wait to see this mighty game engine once this game launches, lol.  They haven't advertised this game at all, as word of mouth has done that well. 

So, where has all this money went, because I certainly don't believe that each employee of Aventurine is making twenty times as much income as an employee of Turbine or Blizzard. 

Now, I know that you DF fans won't like me imagining something that goes against your fantasies of how this game will turn out, but let's just pretend for a moment then they launch this game, and it is a total hunk of crap and makes Dark and Light look great by comparison.  Let's pretend this game is a total mess with broken coding that can't work properly with 20 players signed into their server and game, much less thousands.  Now, if this game is indeed a failure that won't even run and can't possibly be patched to run when it releases, with no real proof of where 27+ million dollars went, wouldn't it be fair at that time to say this this game was one huge scam?  I mean scam by considering all the millions of dollars that obviously went to the people behind this game that in this scenario would nothing but empty hype and a broken pile of crap?

..How would that "not" be a scam?

And how can you fans not even imagine this as even a small possibility?  Millions of dollars is certainly enough of a reason for them to try and pull off such a scam, the most difficult part of what they've been doing the past 6 to 8 years would be trying to make up BS costs of development.  It's not like fooling a bunch of gamers who are straving for a game like they have promised would be difficult at all on their website.

I dunno.  I'm not saying that I believe what I'm saying here totally, but something like what I've described here is more believable to me that believing that this small group of people nobody has ever heard of before has suddenly designed their own mega game engine that can sport 100 vs 100 (or 500 vs 500, whatever it is) online player battles with tons of features and skills and resources and things never even attempted by the biggest and richest gaming companies in the world.

But then again.  Maybe I am wrong.  Maybe Tasos is God and all you fans are right and maybe Darkfall will smash to pieces every current mmos game engines and ummm increase the level of where and what mmos should be able do to about the year 2040.

 

Look out for the black helicopters
 

Where was the 40 Million given to Vanguard used?   Where was the 60 Million given to AoC used?

Seriously who cares?  Stop trying to be the Aventurine accountant and let them worry about how they spend their own money.   In 5 weeks they will have their chance to show us what they have been working on.   Until then, stop the madness.

Originally posted by Paragus1

Where was the 40 Million given to Vanguard used?   Where was the 60 Million given to AoC used?

Seriously who cares?  Stop trying to be the Aventurine accountant and let them worry about how they spend their own money.   In 5 weeks they will have their chance to show us what they have been working on.   Until then, stop the madness.

This is a very good point. I can't believe people are actually still trying find every nook and cranny in this game just to make a damn useless thread about it.

 Uh, the word is actually 10 million. Do your research. 

10 million EUR makes at most 17 mil US dollars, being very generous with all the ups and downs of  exchange rate...

Their office is  very expensive having rent a whole floor on a 6 lane avenue, with 30 developers AND guess the amount of professional PAID testers  ?

The gameplay video  showed the money was well put...

Funny enough my role requires me to do budgets for headcount and workforce planning.  I can tell you now 20 staff can cost a lot over 8 years.

E.g. Looking at a scenario in London

20 developers would have an average salary around £40,000 (taking into account some are 30k and others 50k etc)

Base salary over 8 years = 6,400,000 (8 x 800k pa)

Now look at heath, holidays etc.  Add another 10% at least  = (640,000k)

Recruitment costs are around 25% per person = 10k x 20 (200,00k)

Turnover would be around 20% so that = 2 a year over 8 years is 16 more hires so that is another (160k) in recruitment fees.

So just the headcount at a rough estimate =

6,400,000

 640,000

200,00

160,000

Total 7,400,000

Now take into account a floor of a building in a big city and PC's, servers, phone, broaband etc etc. 

I can tell you that my company which has 1 large floor in London pays out over 1million a year.  So even if all their facility cost and rental came to 1 million a year that is another 8 million.

So the grand total before they even look at the game is:

15,400,000

so you can see how more than 60% of the budget goes to salaries.  I hope this sheds some light on where their money would go. 

Originally posted by radlin

So, the word is that over 27 million dollars has been obtained or invested with Aventurine to make this mmo.  And they have a staff of how many again?  15 or 20 people tops?

 The team has 30 - 40 people now.
And in response to the title, we don't know! None of us do apart from the current closed beta testers. I know they've had loan history of 7 million, but I didn't know 27+ million, wow. We'll see when it releases, I bet it'll be truely epic if it's had that kind of cash pumped into it.

Originally posted by SignusM

 Uh, the word is actually 10 million. Do your research. 

Hey Sig..

Read this article.

http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/editorials/3222-Surlys-Column-State-of-the-Game-Darkfall-Razorwax-and-Aventurine-Heres-the-Rub

"With the latest news to be uncovered, it appears Aventurine has procured a 20 million Euro convertible bond ($27.5m USD) loan with Marfin Bank[27] at the behest of Proton Investment Bank of Greece[28]. Now I'm not expert in MMORPG development and distribution, and I wouldn't pretend to be, but when last ditch desperation investments from big name has-beens like Interplay, throwing every shred of their capability into one Last Hurrah that is Fallout Online, confidently dedicate what is assumed to be an overkill amount of $75m USD to the pre-production, development, and publishing of a software[29] I can't help but think that no more than $25m of that would be dedicated to initial server hosting and publishing. Without much enthusiasm or presumption, I would submit that the wait for Darkfall is over. $27.5m loans tend to be a bitch to pay off interest on, especially when sitting squarely on your laurels. The clamps are most certainly down, and Aventurine is financially committed to the launch of Darkfall whether they like it or not. Whether that's a good thing or not is also yet to be seen, because for the first time in its long development Darkfall Online is subject to the most dreaded of all development problems: time constraints."

then Block yourself.

They spent it on advertising and promotion of the game

Originally posted by Murdus

Originally posted by Paragus1

Where was the 40 Million given to Vanguard used?   Where was the 60 Million given to AoC used?

Seriously who cares?  Stop trying to be the Aventurine accountant and let them worry about how they spend their own money.   In 5 weeks they will have their chance to show us what they have been working on.   Until then, stop the madness.

 

This is a very good point. I can't believe people are actually still trying find every nook and cranny in this game just to make a damn useless thread about it.

He hasn't a point at all lol.

Sigil and Funcom had a staff of roughly 250 employees working on those titles from start till end. That's more then 10 times the amount of people then Aventurine.

Next to that they invested in a large customer support department and training. And especially Funcom invested a jitload in hardware (they had a lot of game servers (huge clusters each) at launch.) Not to mention that millions went into TV commercials, adverttisements and god knows what (as you couldn't walk 10feet without bumping in another Age of Conan add or billboard or flatscreen add, etc).

Cheers

How is it not a scam? Because if it were a scam, we'd know by now from the people who are playing in the closed beta, nda or no nda. Thread closed.

Originally posted by berniebear

They spent it on advertising and promotion of the game

Yes, Aventurine have a HUGE mass marketing campaign. Every website I visit, has a Darkfall banner. Every TV channel I watch, has an advert.
They've spent TONS on advertising. I agree.

/sarcasm off :)

I really hope that post was just a troll by the way.

Originally posted by Random_mage

 "With the latest news to be uncovered, it appears...

Cool info... TY Random_mage!

Ken

Hmm I think the question should be is the 27 million rumor true. THEN you should ask where the money went. You cant really ask the second without getting a confirmation of the first. Maybe they DIDNT get that much money? If your math ends up being true then chances are not that they wasted the money but that they didnt actually recieve that much...

Hopefully on beer and hookers 

Who cares, none of it was my money.  Let's just see what they have to show for it come January.

We're all curious to see how Aventurine spent the money.  

People are saying the company is only 20-30 people, does that include those 'professional' beta-testers they were using or did they hire them out?   Maybe they outsourced to China and with that kind of money they could might have employed thousands and thousands beta-testers from the gold farmer pool  

Originally posted by Paragus1

Where was the 40 Million given to Vanguard used?   Where was the 60 Million given to AoC used?

<snip>

OP strikes for 400 damage. Attack countered, damage negated. Paragus counter-strikes for 600 damage. OP switches to defense stance.