G&H Hold and STO: A Talk with Perpetual Entertainment
Yesterday, Managing Editor Jon Wood had a chance to sit down for an interview with Chris McKibbin and Daron Stinnett from perpetual Entertainment to talk about the recent announcement that Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising would be put on "indefinite hold", as well as the future of the company and Star Trek Online.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to sit down for a short interview with some of the people over at Perpetual Entertainment. In case you’ve been living under a rock, up until a short time ago, Perpetual Entertainment was developing both Star Trek Online and a game called Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising. That changed, however, on October 9th when it was announced that the Gods & Heroes project would be put on indefinite hold. The sudden announcement surprised many in the community, which led to my conversation yesterday with: Chris Mckibbin, the co-founder of Peretual, Daron Stinnett, Chris Launius, Community Manager and Richard Zinser, the VP of Game Services.
When I asked the group why exactly they had chosen to put the game on indefinite hold, I was pointed back toward the official statement that the company issued back on the 9th. “The decision to put [the game] on hold was a result of looking at all of Perpetual's opportunities,” answered Mckibbon, “Gods & Heroes, Star Trek, and the Perpetual Platform Services business.”
“Why then,” I asked, “was Gods & Heroes in particular chosen of the three for the hold?”
“Getting G&H to the level of quality and polish we demand was going to take more time - which is not in any way unique in the MMO world - but it would have had an adverse impact on our other opportunities,” he said. He went on to explain why each of the other projects was kept: “The Platform Business is the base for anything [we] do and is what the company was founded on, so it is necessary. Weighing the market potential of G&H versus STO, we all believe that while G&H had good market potential, STO has phenomenal market potential.”
;)
Canceled, placed on hold, temporarily shelved, placed on hiatus, indefinite hold…. All of these are terms that can be used to describe a company’s decision to stop developing a game. When then Mythic Entertainment (now EA Mythic) announced that they would no longer be producing their sci-fi MMO Imperator, they described the move as a “production postponement” (nothing like a little alliteration to soften the blow). Why then, I asked those gathered for the interview, was Gods & Heroes placed on “indefinite hold”?
“Honestly,” answered McKibbin, “because that is the best description. We are really proud of G&H, and if we can we will look to continue it at a later date.” When I asked what the chances were that we would see G&H completed, he replied, “[I] really can't comment on that, but I can say that I would like to see it finished some day.”
Inevitably, when a game is put on hold (or whatever terms are used), there are going to be at least a few jobs lost. Before the indefinite hold was announced, Perpetual had 40-50 people working in their offices on Gods & Heroes. While no specific numbers were given, I was told that “a significant number of those [were] transferred to Star Trek”.
Speaking of Star Trek, an announcement like this is bound to have some impact on the company’s other franchise. Some people are even going so far as to predict that Star Trek Online will meet the same fate as its Roman predecessor.
;)
“One reason we made this decision is to insure our success with Star Trek,” Stinnett said when I asked him for a response to theories of STO’s demise (which seem to be greatly exaggerated). “It's a very important license that deserves a world class effort and we wanted to make sure that we could focus on delivering to player's expectations. I'll add that the world-wide market potential of an MMO based on Star Trek is colossal and it is hard to imagine ever [not] coming to the same decision.”
Even with the enthusiasm for a bright future with Star Trek Online, a cancellation at such a late stage in the game has the serious potential to hurt a company’s reputation and brand them within the MMO community. I asked if this was a concern.
“We are certainly concerned about our reputation in the community,” McKibbin answered. “In part that is why we made the decision. It is always hard, but we want to do everything possible - and necessary - to deliver the quality we think the community demands. We hope people will understand and appreciate that.”
With that, my interview time was up. It seems, from speaking with the team, that the feeling among the higher-ups at Perpetual Entertainment is one of optimism. While it’s sad to see a game like Gods & Heroes hit the cutting room floor, fans who have been eagerly awaiting more news on Star Trek should be prepared for more as production will be “ramping up” through 2008.
Another MMORPG Dead-Link
You're too quick for me. I was just putting that in! Done now!
*Laughs* Thought that might be it. :)
Nice write-up, by the way.
One could also speculate :
* They realized that RV had captured what little ancients market there was to be had.
* RV had 'poisoned' the ancients market
* They were not willing to invest THEIR money in the project (I think this most likely)
Good Hunting
I just think it's funny that I could go to my local Best Buy or gamestop and still pay money to pre-order the game. They haven't taken the box off the shelf yet and probably won't for a while. I feel sorry for people who do buy that pre order box now.
I beta tested GnH for a few months and I must say their handling of the cancellation of the game was quite poor.
While I can understand the reasoning of moving resources, developers and funds to STO since it has a better chance of being successful, I can't understand why they allowed pre-orders to be taken when they had to have *some* idea the game wasn't going to be released.
The dedicated beta testers of GnH were given no notice prior to the game being shut down. As soon as the announcement was made, all game servers and forums were taken off line. No one was given a last chance to maybe play the game for a week, knowing it was going to close or even to touch base with the many new friends we made on the forums. Not a good way to treat prospective customers.
While I had no intentions of playing STO, I certainly have no intentions of playing any PE games in the future based on the treatment of their beta testers.
Bad PR move, PE.
PE is going after the money, the "phenomenal" market for STO. The interview was just more corporate PR.
Remember, G&H was considered a "world-class" MMO by PE too.
Pepetual is doomed, they did not fire Daron Stinnett . Every time that guy opens his mouth, complete nonsense spews forth. He knows as much about how to make a MMO as my 3 year old niece, nothing.
Knowing the source it must have been a whing ding of an interview.
BTW if you think this will give Star Trek a boost, go spend some time on the STO forum. They are almost completely ignoring the lore. It is basically a space shootem up game with a Star Trek logo. I cannot believe Paramount is letting them do this.
I'm right with ya on this one. As a former core tester of the game, I had nothing but positive things to say about how PE handled things during development, but this has turned out badly. Not that I am really upset about the game being cancelled, I wasn't going to play it anyway (it was good, but Tabula Rasa is going to be better). I just hope they can be a little more considerate to their fans of STO.
I think it's misleading of McKibbon to say that most people were moved to STO. PE laid off the majority of GnH staff, with no notice and no severance. To my knowledge, there were only five people retained.
The entire debacle was poorly handled.
It shows PE will lie about anything for anyone. Over the course of the last year, PE fired nearly 100 employees who were working on G&H. About 30 were fired last Christmas, and about 40 this spring. During that time, PE released statements that the firings had nothing to with G&H problems but rather because the game was in polishing stage and needed less work.
PE is not a truthful organization. Now they are saying the staff was mostly moved to STO, impossible!
PE wants to get STO released and screw the Trek fanbase. It's sad because the last 10 years the Trekkies have been screwed royally, their undying interest in Trek expoited by cheap and derivative corporate products (Voyager, Enterprise, Nemesis, Star Trek: Legacy).
I learned nothing new from this interview.
Mr. Wood, I feel that PE should apologize to you for wasting your time.
I agree Daron Stinnett should have his mouth silenced. But what shocks me is what forums are you talking about ? I only seen a fan run sites that is all good and dandy if you like mostly one sided catering and pandering to the few PE people that actually read and post on them (bring on your own forums PE and then you will get a bigger picture).
Here Daron Stinnett have a cookie and everything will be right as rain
Still think TheOracle should put that in his sig.
Amazing interview. Amazing that it really doesn't say anything. No matter how McKibben or Stinnett spin it, this is a major debacle of galactic proportions. The Gods and Heroes situation reflects poorly on their management. It appears that these guys have no clue how to manage software development and are truly poor stewards of the Star Trek franchise license.
If I were an investor in PE I would be plenty worried right now. They have had the Star Trek License for over three years and NOW they are realizing it has potential and that it should be the game that has priority? What kind of judgment does that indicate? It appears that they have a problem with priority and with software development project management.
If I were CBS, the owners of the Star Trek license, i would be very concerned that my valuable intellectual property was being handled by people who have demonstrated that they have not taken said property seriously and have squandered three years of "pre-production" time. If they are just now starting true development on the STO game then it will be additional years before this title even enters a Beta state.
How are any of us who are Star Trek fans, and potential customers of STO, going to have confidence that the team that just screwed the pooch on Gods and Heroes is going to be able to successfully develop the STO game? The purpose of the interview should have been a confidence builder. Instead, I have more questions and less confidence. My sensors indicate that "She canna take any more! The warp engines are gonna blow!"
My prediction for PE and STO: Imminent warp core breach. To quote Commander Kor: "A pity, Captain. It would have been glorious!"
G&H was an all right idea I suppose, but nothing so earth shattering that I'd have paid to play it (a minion pet doesn't strike me as novel enough). If it had come out when DAOC came out, THEN I might have looked into it.But alas, that's what it reminded me of, 5 years later.
I've always regretted STO being in the hands of PE. How in the world did they get it anyways? Have they ever released anything? Who is their sugar daddy that they can afford to hire (then fire) so many people, waste 3 years+ on a game only to dump it, AND afford the STO license?
[quote]when I asked him for a response to theories of STO’s demise (which seem to be greatly exaggerated).[/quote]
This has yet to be seen.
Anyone who beleives the lies coming from PE is either already dead or should be locked up for their own safety. The only optimism at PE is how they're going to lay people off or piss off as many people as they can in one announcement. Yes I am ranting and I don't care. PE WILL PUT STO IN THE GRAVE! In the words of one of the most intelligent thinkrs of our time (sarcasm) Eric Cartman, "Screw you guys, I'm goin' home" Good night now!
I was a beta tester of this game, and it's sad to see it had to end like this, even though they might take it up again, i doubt though.
R.I.P GnH
I completely understand the decision they made and the only people i feel sorry for are the people who had actually pre-ordered the game and the people who lost their jobs.
They don't owe beta testers anything... testers aren't doing them a favour, they are doing it because they are enjoying it.
I expect it was one of those things that someone was trying to prevent from happening for a while, fought the battle right upto the deadline and lost at which point the server went down. No chance for notice and no funds to prolong the servers.
I actually respect the decision. Nothing worse than an unfinished release and to me it expresses just how much in the way of resourses they are going to put into STO. If they do a bad job, it will be an unforgivable tragedy and i think they realise that.
Good luck to them, and i can't wait for STO!
Listen, read it again.
They admit that it took them 5 years to figure out that a niche MMO on Roman Mythology would not be as popular as a Star Trek MMO.
But for 5 years they dumped money into a weak idea, and then did a pitiful job executing it.
This only proves that they are incompetent, lack sound business judgement or any creativity.
PE wreaks of arrogance, ignorance, mediocrity and stupidity!
What resources are being put towards STO?!? They laid off almost everyone from the GnH team! The way GnH turned out (GARBAGE!) how can you have any confidence in the people that actually kept their jobs and moved into the STO team??? No new onetary resources are being shifted from GnH to STO, the people funding them saw what junk GnH was and pulled out. I'm gld they canned the project instead of putting out an unfinished product but they had to know it was getting canned far before they let the community know. They say they want community feedback but they shut their forums down right after the game is canned, no feedback there. There is no respect in their decision because part of the process of making that decision was how they were going to handle it and that they did HORRIBLY. I don't respect comapnies that LIE TO THEIR PLAYERS AND COMMUNITY! They don't realise screwing up STO will do them in, obviously this is a poorly managed company. I would be willing to bet the people who made these decisions are still working at PE and this is bad news for STO.
If you want to back a company that lies and cannot produce a decent product go ahead. Have fun waiting but if you want something similar to PE's finished product of STO look up your local garbage dump.
Star Trek Online will NEVER see the light of day. At least not from this company. I am surprised they ever managed to get the IP to begin with. I would have expected it to go to a company with a sucessful track record.
Just my opinion.
I wasn't surprised by the cancellation--I've beta tested a dozen MMOs, and G&H's was a train wreck compared to almost every one. The game had a few great features, don't get me wrong, but they were found amidst a bevy of ones that looked good on paper and poor in execution. At the rate they were moving in beta, it would have never shipped in the condition to compete with the likes of WAR and AoC. Several months ago, I said to some friends of mine that were testing the game that I fully expected Perpetual to either scrap the project and shift focus to Star Trek or ship G&H in a half-finished state just to recoup some of the development losses, regardless of the impact it would have on their reputation. At this point, I'd be pretty worried if I were an investor OR an employee at Perpetual...STO is a last ditch effort to showcase their development platform, and if the creators of the dev tools can't even produce a good game from them, I wouldn't be surprised to see BioWare (now owned by EA) taking steps to annul their license in much the same way Silicon Knights is at war with Epic Games right now.
I wonder
I would have to agree that cancelling a game at such a late stage will have a negative impact with the communities of the other games in development, If I was following STO I would be seriously wondering "Will they cancel?".
I've been following Age of Conan for quite sometime now and each time the game has been pushed back for "Further Polish" I keep getting those dreaded feelings of "Vapourware", but G&H had no real signs that it was going to be shelved and this is what worries me with regards to their other titles, the axe could fall with no warning at all.
Oh and what a waste of a competition Beta place, my second one that I've won here and it had to turn into a turkey =(
i am very sad for this game, i don`t believe is "dead", mmo community needs a non medieval fantasy game...
There were warning signs of this in the making, but the PE critics were shouted down and dismissed as trolls when they pointed to the two, then three rounds of lay-offs or firings and SOE making a big point on getting as far away as possible from PE, making public statements that SOE had nothing to do with the game and this all PE's baby on their "ROOKIE" debut in the MMO industry.
So the smoking train wreck known as G&H was their debut to the MMO industry. Now on to STO!
LoL to the poll, The Talaban are winning! (Most Trusted).
As others have pointed out there were signs that people should havce noticed.
I can't seem to find any posts that describe Perpetual showing off their game at conventions or game shows. Did they ever do this? I would have thought that would have been a real red-flag if they were already putting out pre-orders.
I won my beta from MMORPG.COM too. Never got the thing to even load up properly.
Meanwhile the Devs in interviews were talking about how amazing the in-game re-creations of the Collesium looked. Perhaps their management should have devoted less money to art assets and more to coding and networking issues.
Its not hard to dazzle Paramount with a merchandising idea as long as they hear investment is low. Win goes to the lowest bidder. There are only a few instances where a top notch product came with a Star Trek tag. For every one good item, there are 4-5 crap ones.
I'm sorry but what orifice did you pull this BS out of? Testers are doing a service for companies that they would otherwise have to pay big bucks for. It doesn't matter whether the testers are enjoying themselves or not. If it wasn't for free Beta testers game companies would have to pay people to test their games or take one hell of a chance of releasing a bug ridden POS. Testers ARE doing a company one hell of a service.
As for G&H some of us have seen this coming for a while now(See Keogh's post above). This move didn't really surprise me even a little bit and just solidifies even more what I and many others have been saying for a while now. PE has no idea what they are doing and have lied repeatedly about it in a vein attempt to cover it up. I'm a huge Star Trek fan but have very little confidence in PE or Daron Stinnett to make anything that a Trekkie would want to play for any length of time. Just what little we know about STO points to a conclusion that it will be a run of the mill MMO with Star Trek skins painted on(Think WoW in space). I do so very hope that I'm wrong but I don't think I will be just like I and many others weren't wrong about G&H.
Bren
PE sucks, I feel sorry for you star trek nerds out there. Bad market feasiblity research (:
Well, on paper at least, PE probably looked like a good choice to develop STO. Both Chris McKibbin and Joe Keene were part of the management team from EA that oversaw the development of Earth & Beyond. They probably showed CBS/Paramount E&B and then said, 'imagine this with the star-trek IP...' It would not surprise me if, at the end of the day, STO is essentially E&B with better graphics.
Standard public relations is not let your customer base know about financial difficulties or management problems until absolutely necessary. That way, if you manage to solve the problem quietly, no one need be the wiser (and no bad press!). So it doesn't surprise me that they shut the whole thing down on what seems like a moments notice. What I can not figure out is why PE would cancel GnH outright rather then pushing it to market in whatever state they could manage and then trying to recoup some of their money.
The way I see it, PE has managed to generate about 20 million in funding since its initial start up in 2002. About 11 mil came from (mostly Asian) venture capitol firms (see here and here) and another 9 million came from the purchase by Korean game publisher Gravity Co Ltd of 16% of PE's stock.
I am guessing that most of this money is now gone. It is hard to tell how many employees PE has/had (it is not a publicly traded company) but from its layoff announcements, I suspect that at its peak it had maybe 120 people working on GnH alone. Supposing an average of 75K per person, that would easily translate to 9 million a year in salaries alone. This is sunk cost that they now have no hope of recovering.
The only thing that makes any sense to me is that CBS took a look Perpetual's balance sheet and demanded that they close down Gods and Heroes or else they would pull the IP. I couldn't find any hard sales figures for GnH preorders, but any product that Amazon ranked as #9,624 in Software could not have been burning up the charts. Given the choice between supporting a quickly sinking game or losing their one valuable asset (the Star Trek IP) they chose (or were forced to choose) the later.
~nox
not that g&h sounded/looked amazing or anything, but STO (from my perspective) appears to be the most boring game ever conceived of ( ooh i can be a medic AND an engineer!!). while i'm sure they did pay anally for the license (thats how star trek employees like to get paid) it would seem more "logical" to cancel a boring game with a dying fan base that cost tons of $ than one that was 90-95% complete even if it did just do "ok" @ the registers.
if the whole gladiatorial pony (or fad if you like) couldn't carry them what makes them think a nearly 50 year old pony can? they should just dissolve the company so some of the "talented" people can go work for companies that are developing ORIGINAL content rather than trying to cash in on fame (or hype) created by others.
Testers aren't doing them a favor? Then perhaps they should have just went with paid testers then, right? Or PE could find all the bugs themselves while developing the game, right?
They don't owe the testers anything?
Wrong. Many of those beta testers were future paying customers of GnH, as well as STO. Take a crap on the community of one game, don't expect them to be wagging their tails and lolling their tongues like enchanted lapdogs when you want them to buy the next one.
How about they make Gods & Heroes open source ?
I'm sure the private server comunity will welcome the source with open arms
Ah well. Another Sci-Fi MMORPG with a great license, lotsa potential, and a company we can't imagine will deliver. A Star Trek MMO was going to be tough to do from the start, because the IP is missing many of the things that almost all MMOs use (money, war, crafting, pets, etc.). It DID have the potential for a massive new quest system (exploration, away teams, solving a bigger problem than "kill 10 borg-rats and return to me" that had puzzle elements in it), but it's pretty clear from reading posts recently that nothing new is being done and, in fact, they're attempting to squeeze the ST IP into the tried and tired formula.
If, indeed, STO would be an EnB with better graphics, that wouldn't be half bad. EnB was my first MMO and still holds very fond memories. But it was WAY too small scale for the huge potential player base of an ST MMO. And we don't really NEED a huge, new EnB. We've already got the ultimate extension of EnB in EVE, and THAT company (CCP) seems to be one of the best I've ever seen. We'll even soon have the old EnB avatar-at-the-station graphics candy that EVE is currently missing. So STEVE (!) would be just a watered down version of EVE with a ST skin, and that won't fly for long.
I had bad feelings when the guy at PE started opening his mouth back aways. A little voice in my head reminded me that the initials D.S. and sci-fi gaming have been linked before, and with disasterous results. (Let's see who's old enough to remember...lol).
All in all, both G&H and STO seem to be in the hands of the same kind of mess that Horizons had from the start. I mean, if the company's Big Boys are snapping at their potential audience before anything even hits beta, if they're cancelling projects to shift emphasis to their one HUGE IP license, then you've gotta wonder just how sound they are. Maybe we see PE sold to somebody else in about a year? Oh man. SOE?
I am sooooo glad you dont make games :P what you smokin? or you just hate star trek is that it?
I am NOT a star trek fanatic but I know it is sure money. To say that its fan base had dwindled just makes me cringe becuase I would love to have its fanbase. Would also love to see where you get your stats. lol
I am sure the star trek community is not very active because there has been no shows but thats changing as we speak.
Star trek also has a chance to stop the trend of making mmo's for the mentally challenged. Being engineers and living in a virtual world once again would get even me to sign up for trekkie membership.
We have no clue what they will do with this game right now but if they go back to making virtual immersive worlds like MMo's promised us early on I'd love it. and this premise gives it the all the more logical feel just for that kind of intelligent design.
If you hate star trek, that I can understand, but to not see how this game could set the companies future if its a hit because star trek is a household name, well thats just foolishness. seriously.
I've been following STO. You won't like what is planned.
Star Trek is certainly a household name, but it popularity is waning. I'd venture a guess and say that for most people under 25 there is very little fondness for the franchise. I know none of my children (ages 14-23) care a whit about Star Trek, and think its the province of old geeks like their father.
Say what you will about younger players, they are part of the market too (a big part) and I don't see a Star Trek MMO ever being anything but a niche game for older players....
And if this game sees the light of day before Fall of 2010 I'll be really surprised.
Well, you never know. If they pair it with a really good movie or new series, it might take off. If somebody asked me four years ago what were the chances of a Battlestar Galactica remake appealing to a mass audience, I would have laughed in their face. Now there is some chatter about turning that IP into a MMORPG as well.
Personally, if I was a developer looking to make a quick buck from an IP, I would go for Heroes...
~nox
I had high hopes for this game. Two tries at the closed beta eventually paid off, but I was quickly disappointed once I got in.
Yeah I have to go with that, I'm kind of sad about this going on hold. I never even managed to make it into beta after a lot of trying. So by the looks of it I won't get a chance to even try it for quite a while.
I'm not trying to be mean, but you need to understand that you may "never" get to play G&H at all, ever.
That's not mean. Frankly, I would have told him that he was one of the lucky few who didn't get in.
If G&H still needed more polish before it launched (and it did - I was in the beta and they needed to get, at bare minimum, server stability up to scratch) despite being feature complete, then I have to think that any opportunity for G&H to rise again is going to be limited by that required polish. Add to that the focus on the Perpetual middleware apps and the focus on STO throughout 2008 (at least, maybe 2008 and 2009 for a 2010 launch is more realistic for STO) then the idea that PE can go back to G&H and pick up where they left off is a bit laughable.
Could you imagine G&H launching post 2010 if all they did was polish the game up? By 2010, Vista / DirectX 10 is going to probably the standard (if not something higher - DX11? DX12?), so G&H is going to need new graphics and animations if they want to be able to compete with the subscription MMO market. Basically PE would have to start from scratch if this is what they wanted to do.
Unless PE can resurrect G&H within six months, I doubt this game is ever going to see the light of day for anything other than a tech demo used to sell the PE middleware. And I don't believe they will be able to bring it back within six months because the focus will be on STO.
With that company in charge on Star Trek online i'm afraid it will turn into another SWG or even worse. I hope the peoples of ST will wake up and remove the franchise from that incompentent company.
Like SWG? You could only hope. It will be like Guide Wars. Only the towns will be spaceships.
Star Trek might be big again, they are doing moives with the first crew only recast with younger people.
The only way Star Trek can be A popular entity again is if the younger generation would stop being the "Instant Gratification spectrum". I'm not saying I am old or anything but I did grow up with classic Sci-Fi books and movies/shows. What I personally feel is if Perpetual is ever going to make or even produce a good ST game, is to actually get and listen to the older generation with a good core of the younger generation to add the fun and spice of current game mechanics . But then again you have the mentally blind (Daron Stinnett) leading this project and speaking for whom I will never understand.
Don't follow everyone else but forge yourself a name and a better tomorrow. There is plenty to be said for the current projection of the game and many months to come, if it ever blossoms to fruition under the current leadership. Followed this for a long time waiting in the back to see where it went. Is it too late to hope against hope and the voices whom stood back waiting idly now speak upon deaf ears? One could and does hope that it is not too late and the future will hold what most only dream of.
They can spin whatever they want and talk about what is to come but to me actions speak louder then mindless drivil and pandering to shills (wont mention whom they are but most of us here actually know whom I speak of).
Either do this right of drop it and the hate and pain of what once was shall be no more.To A worthy association and development company who will put heart and soul into a great franchise takes the ball and rolls with it.
I'm now totally convinced that this genre is dead.
The warning signs were in the air with Age of Mourning scamming as easily as they did. The rot spread with Dark and Light. The SWG NGE debacle showed that even popular games weren't immune. Seed, Horizons, Auto Assault, Vanguard, and now Gods and Heroes. All casualties of a market that's quickly realizing that MMOs are just a quagmire.
I don't know about you all, but I don't see many new titles listed "under development." Given the track record, who can blame anyone for getting out of this business? All of this is because developers and publishing houses have made it too easy to scam, too easy to drop out, and too easy to skimp on reliability.
Unless Blizzard develops it, the smart money ain't gonna go into MMOs. Who can blame it, when we can't even produce a game anymore?
I disagree. I feel that the easy money is gone from the MMO market (the novelty has worn off). This happens with any new genre that is introduced. It just means that that developers/publishers cannot rely on the fact it's an mmo in order to get guaranteed sales.
There are quite a few successful MMOs and room for more (people were doing the same doomsday about video games in the past). I do think you will see an MMO recession but once sanity gains a foothold in the business things will be fine.
Well after beta testing G&H and having an abrupt halt of the game, I'm done with PE. This isn't any way to handle community relationships and treat potential customers.
I can't imagine there being a large enough audience for STO for even it to be greatly successful. Sure there are Trekkie fans but in this day and age is Star Trek a popular name with the younger generation?
Ok I admit I did not read every post in the thread. I did however read the interview and the original release saying G&H was cancelled in favor of Star Trek Online. I was hoping to play G&H, but now I am back to considering PoTBS and a few others.
Does anyone else think it is more than a coincidence that the new Star Trek movie is finishing casting and will begin shooting later this year? It sounds to me like the Star Trek stake holders want to make sure STO is ready by the time the next movie hits theaters.
* five * mmos are launching soon in Q1 2008
Warhammer
http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/home/index.php
Age of Conan
http://www.ageofconan.com
Chronicles of Spellborn
http://www.thechroniclesofspellborn.com
Pirates of the Burning Seas
http://www.burningsea.com/page/home
Heros Journey (est 2007 but i bet it launches Q1 2008)
http://www.play.net/hj/
Yes, there are 15 games "in development" on the sidebar here. Reduce that to thirteen now, as STO and G&H are now on the shelf.
Some of those titles have been on that sidebar for years now, with hardly any announcements for launch anytime soon (Huxley and Darkfall come to mind). If we are lucky, maybe 3/4 of them will launch. Maybe 1/2, or less.
Of those, how many are going to be so riddled with bugs, unfinished content, and unstable service ala Vanguard? Given the recent trends, a lot. Maybe all of them.
And how many new titles have been announced this year, as opposed to say...2003? Not many. Yes, there's still some forays, but not as many as before.
This is now a mature market. Not too much new and easy growth potential here that hasn't already been tapped. Now of course, anything is possible I guess, but expanding the potential customer base isn't that easy, given that pretty much everyone who is into this sort of entertainment is already here worldwide.
Plus, you have a lot of other options today in online entertainment than strictly MMORPGs. You have more sophisticated and user-friendly peer-to-peer offerings from the consoles. You have non-MMO social spaces like MySpace and Facebook. All of those things are a lot less expensive for the user, and better facilitate a lot of the things people used to go to MMORPGs to find (multiplayer competition, social interaction, etc.).
So when I say the genre's dead, I'm not saying that MMOs are dead. I'm saying that this format is proving itself to be a fad. Evidence of this comes in the form of a plethora of bad games, bad launches, and now with Perpetual's announcement, no launches at all.
Maybe I am before my time, but I don't think MMO's are a fad and a game genre that is anywhere near it's potential yet. Are MMO's dying? Not likely. Rather, todays MMO's are just the beginning. I believe that in my lifetime (I am 32 now) MMO's will merge with Virtual Reality enterprises. VR has been talked about and experimented with for a long time, but mostly what has been done so far is very limited such as flying or military training simulators and remote medical/surgical environments. The MMO games of today are really providing important research and development that will help push future technologies and open up new business opportunities. We will be amazed at what is out there in 20 years. I think there is a very good chance that some enterprising genius will take a chance and create a realistic, persistent electronic world in which huge numbers of people can experience things with all their senses that they would never otherwise be able to experience. People tend to think movies like the Matrix are just cool sci-fi flics... think again. Sooner or later, someone will realize the money that massively multi-user virtual worlds can bring and will make them a reality. You might not get plugged in the same way Neo does in the Matrix, but sight, sound, touch, even smell will be able to be duplicated for the user to experience what will seem completely real. One day MMOs/VR probably will evolve to such a point where families actually plan vacations for a week in such-and-such "game". Companies will sell "game time" by the night, like hotels charge for stays. Instead of going to Disney World, imagine taking your family back in time to ancient Rome or driving rovers on Mars or reliving a world series baseball game from Babe Ruth's time.
MMO's are one of first baby steps to making all that happen.
Hmm well having beta'd it a bit myself I also am not really surprised.
As for the MMO market.. it should be about time the mmo gold rush ends. Bunch of companies saw a new cash source, jumped on it, failed. Good. Let them go back to making traditional games. Meanwhile some of the classics are still going doing pretty good, even with their aged graphics and engines... What is wrong with the developer world today that they can't see what made those classics stay alive for so long?
As for Star Trek.. that has a lot of potential customers, thats for sure. Trek was a phenomenon in it's time, and a lot of those people are still around, still playing games. Trek would have had the potential for a great sandbox style mmo like that game genre occasionally hints at, too bad Perpetual got it instead of say, bioware or some other big name, that could afford to not try to be another craptastic customer churnmill like WoW is.
"I'll add that the world-wide market potential of an MMO based on Star Trek is colossal and it is hard to imagine ever [not] coming to the same decision.”
Translation: It's easier to sell crap in a box labled "Star Trek" than "Gods and Heroes".
Yes, I am that cynical.
My cynicism is fueled by years of gaming experience with mass media IPs and games.