Originally posted by Yunbei

Originally posted by green13

CoX has rarely dipped under the 125k mark, and CO is supposedly bigger and better in every way.

To say you'd be "skipping the light fantastic" if you got 100k is definitely setting the bar low.

 

Yeah, what I thought, too. I mean, doesn't even the 10 yo UO has 100k still? I heard even EQ1 has still 250k. I am quite surprised by this. Maybe they don't want to put themselves under pressure, but aiming for 100k seems really quite odd

A game can do two things, become successful enough to make money or be a flop. The way I read the post was that they'd be in profit with less than 100k subscribers. Who wouldn't be happy with a profit?

Some people seem to think that sights have to be set astronomically high in order to succeed, that's not true at all. All that happens then is that 99% of the time, you feel that you've failed. In spite of what some (presumably) well meaning people teach these days, it is possible to be a success in your chosen field without having to be the best in the world.

Originally posted by therain93

I think G4 screwed up the question and many people here are misunderstanding it.  The question ultimately asked is, "what does cryptic need to break even" and the response was 100k subscribers.    Using the word "successful" was inappropriate as now a strict business term, "breakeven", has been muddied with a very subjective one.

WoW may have needed 500k subscribers to break even, which it met and then some.  How many did it need to have before it was considered successful?  1 million?  2 million?  It doesn't matter that much because anything over breakeven is icing on the cake....

It sounded like Jack said 100k was successful and the break even was below 100k.  To me that says they would be making plenty of money at 100k without having to lay off staff of close servers.  Maybe the cost to make the game just wasn't that high or they are factoring in subscription fees + micro transaction revenues from players.  Who knows, but 100k is pretty low bar to set in this market. 

I doubt Wows break even was anywhere close to 500k, considering they only released 500k copies of the game and were caught off guard at how popular it was.  Lack of enough servers, not releasing new copies for sale until they did, etc.  It wouldn't make sense to release the bare minimum number of copies you need to break even and not have enough infrastructure to handle that.

Huh? What's the point for this thread?

Originally posted by green13

http://g4tv.com/games/pc/40993/champions-online/articles/67726/Interview-With-Jack-Emmert/

G4: Speaking of it being successful, when you’re launching an MMO, like how many subscribers do you need in order to survive or thrive?

JE: Well, I think that number is the number for success is over 100,000 for us. If it’s over 100,000, I’m skipping the light fantastic. The break-even point is somewhere below 100,000. And that’s obviously depending upon – every MMO is different – depending on how much money is spent on it. But, clearly, we mark 100,000 as success.

Pretty much they are aim to be an equal to CoX.

Originally posted by RaddMonz

Originally posted by Ravenmane

I think they'll get above 100k subs just because think of it as CoH2.  Same development company made it and just about every CoX player I talk to online (even myself) are moving over when CO releases.

I would have to completely disagree with your conclusions...

CO is not CoH2...

...and just about everyone I talk to online (myself included) are not moving over to CO when it releases.

I probably would have agreed with Raven pre a few recent announcements.

But higher system specs, MTs, and a few other unusual announcements make me see a future for CoX. And for the first time ever, I'm actually interested in re-subbing just to see a single update. Issue 16's power colorisation is pure fluff - but this is a game where appearance really matters. And there were some powerset combinations that I always thought fitted well in terms of the powers' effects, but looked ridiculous together.

The market for superhero MMOs isn't big currently, it would be unrealistic to say they expect numbers like 500k subscribers. So they have already placed MTs to make up for the low subscription numbers (which makes some not even purchase the game - like me, but they must believe it will work).

DCUO will probably bring a good quantity of people into MMO gaming, if they start advertising their MMO for their already loyal customer base, but I don't see how Cryptic could do it, except for a few people that enjoy WAR trying CO.

Originally posted by EricDanie

The market for superhero MMOs isn't big currently, it would be unrealistic to say they expect numbers like 500k subscribers. So they have already placed MTs to make up for the low subscription numbers (which makes some not even purchase the game - like me, but they must believe it will work).

DCUO will probably bring a good quantity of people into MMO gaming, if they start advertising their MMO for their already loyal customer base, but I don't see how Cryptic could do it, except for a few people that enjoy WAR trying CO.

I don't think CoX is necessarily a good measure of how big the market for superhero MMOs is.

Randomly generated instanced missions aren't to everyone's tastes. The only mmo I can think of that used them as extensively as CoX is Matrix Online - and that was a huge flop. I never played MO - but the reviews I read when I was considering trying the free trial all mentioned this style of mission as a downside.

CO is deliberately more mainstream (i.e. EQ-esque) in this regard because of the long-standing criticism of CoX that it lacks 'world factor'. Minus the MTs, I think it would have given a more accurate measure of how big this market this.

Though DCUO also looks likely to have MTs of some description - so we may never know.

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Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

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Originally posted by green13

http://g4tv.com/games/pc/40993/champions-online/articles/67726/Interview-With-Jack-Emmert/

G4: Speaking of it being successful, when you’re launching an MMO, like how many subscribers do you need in order to survive or thrive?
JE: Well, I think that number is the number for success is over 100,000 for us. If it’s over 100,000, I’m skipping the light fantastic. The break-even point is somewhere below 100,000. And that’s obviously depending upon – every MMO is different – depending on how much money is spent on it. But, clearly, we mark 100,000 as success.

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THOSE BASTARDS. THEY KILLED OPTIMUS PRIME!!!

From memory, CoH's business model was built on getting 50k subscribers to break even. As such, it has had a very good ROI to its owners.

I don't see this as a case of setting the bar low, I see it as a case of being realistic. If you build your business plan on becoming the second most successful MMO in the US market by player size just to break even (looking at you, WAR) then you are setting yourself up for a failure. Being profitable at 100k players seems like a fantastic thing to plan around to me.

There is a difference between saying what your break even point/profit mark is and how many players you think your game will attract.  They are not the same question and it seems they are being blurred into that same topic.

That being said, the G4 question was loaded and there really is no good answer.  It is setting the bar low to say 100k players in the size of the mmo market right now, but it is also smart to be meek about a new game instead of talk how awesome you think it will do.  To many "steak and glass of wine" and "we are the led zepplin of mmo" claims that came back to bite developers in the ass.